OB Rag

By Mike Copass

September 1, San Diego – Joining similar actions across 21 states, San Diego nurses stood with community residents in urban San Diego to bring their message of jobs, living wages, health care, education and housing, in what the California Nurses Association calls a “Main Street Contract,” an economic recovery program for America with a new funding mechanism: a simple financial transactions tax on Wall Street.

Last weekend, we noticed that the San Diego U-T had a new poll up – as they do every Saturday in their print edition. This one asked readers whether they would cross a striking grocery workers’ picket line.

The U-T poll asked:

“With a grocers strike stirring at Albertsons, Ralphs, and Vons, we wondered whether you’d choose to cross the picket lines.”

The choices offered were “Yes, I’m a loyal customer.” or “No, I’ll shop elsewhere.”

An Ocean Beach woman has survived a shark attack … while she was vacationing in Puerto Rico. Lydia Strunk, an OBcian, was visiting the island when a shark attacked her, giving her a 10-inch wound on her right leg between her ankle and knee, severing 4 tendons and a nerve.

By Robert Reich / Robert Reich’s Blog / Sept 3, 2011

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports today no jobs were created in August. Zero. Nada.

Well, not quite. The strike at Verizon reduced the labor force by 45,000. Minnesota government employees returned to work, adding 22,000. So in reality, America added 23,000 jobs. Almost zero.

Too much yelling, not enough listening.

Facing organized, often raucous confrontations at political events, some members of Congress this summer abandoned the long-time tradition of open meetings with the folks back home.

It was goodbye to one of the few remaining opportunities for voters and lawmakers to talk face to face.

Some cited security in the aftermath of the shooting that severely wounded Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords at a meet-and-greet event in January. Others blamed grass-roots groups for commandeering the town halls. Still others opted for smaller, sometimes private or paid events.

In potentially gamechanging news, the New York Times broke the story Thursday night [Sept 1] that the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the federal overseer for mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is filing a pretty big lawsuit against more than a dozen big banks, alleging that they “misrepresented” the quality of the mortgage-backed securities they sold during the height of the housing bubble–the same securities that were made up of predatory subprime loans rolled in with regular mortgages and sold to investors as AAA bonds.

Banks named in the suits include Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Deustche Bank, and our old friends Bank of America.

UPDATE: Medical Examiner’s Office has declared that Steve’s death was an accident caused by drowning. Also that he died around 1:41pm on August 31.

A local OBcian by the name of Steve Marquez- an OB regular at Lucy’s and the Tilted Stick – was found floating in Mission Bay near the Ingraham Street bridge yesterday, August 31st by police. His body was in a state of decomposition.

According to someone who knew him as a regular at these bars told us today that Steve had been missing for the last couple of days.

Jill Green was the founding principal of Explorer Elementary Charter School – a K-5 school located in the same building complex as High Tech High School in Point Loma. That was until she resigned at the end of April this year.

Until she resigned, Green earned $110,277 annually. But allegations made by the charter school’s governing board that Green abused her expense account were raised, and these concerns ostensibly led to her departure. The board alleged that she spent thousands of dollars on business meals, wine, gifts, and even dog treats over the last two years on her credit card, expenses that were covered by taxpayers.

San Diego County on Wednesday released two proposals to establish a supervisorial district where the majority of the population is made up of ethnic minorities, a month after abandoning its original plans amid legal threats from civil rights attorneys.

The county’s two alternative maps, scheduled for consideration by the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, [Sept 6th] would create a South Bay district where Latinos and African Americans constitute a majority of the voting-age population.

There have been numerous shark sightings along San Diego’s coast lately – including Sunset Cliffs – to give ocean-goers second thoughts. Or I should say, some ocean-goers.

Today, Thursday, September 1, around 9 a.m. a visiting Kentuckian reported spotting a dorsal fin slicing through the ocean off Sunset Cliffs, along the 1200 block of Sunset Cliffs Boulevard. A guy near her checked it out with binoculars and followed the fin as it moved around offshore.

This possible sighting has not been confirmed, and lifeguards stated it was not “credible.”

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department filed suit Wednesday to block AT&T’s $39 billion deal to buy T-Mobile USA on grounds that it would raise prices for consumers. The government contends that the acquisition of the No. 4 wireless carrier in the country by No. 2 AT&T would reduce competition.

By Steven Greenhouse / New York Times / Originally published August 26, 2011

At Woodstock, Joan Baez sang a famous folk ballad celebrating Joe Hill, the itinerant miner, songwriter and union activist who was executed by a Utah firing squad in 1915. “I never died, said he” is the song’s refrain.

Hill’s status as a labor icon and the debate about his conviction certainly never died. And now a new biography makes the strongest case yet that Hill was wrongfully convicted of murdering a local grocer, the charge that led to his execution at age 36.