Bob Filner Easily Wins OB Rag Mayor Poll

 Frank Gormlie  August 30, 2011  5 Comments on Bob Filner Easily Wins OB Rag Mayor Poll

For most of last week, the OB Rag ran our latest San Diego mayoral election poll, and Bob Filner won it easily hands down. He garnered 46.7% of the vote which included 169 respondents.

“None of the above” was also a choice, and it came in second with 17.2%.

Among the Republicans running, Carl DeMaio topped the field with a meager 13.6%, followed by Nathan Fletcher with a single-digit of 8.3%, and then Bonnie Dumanis bringing up the rear with 7.1%. Combined, the GOP candidates won 29% of the vote.

Continue Reading Bob Filner Easily Wins OB Rag Mayor Poll

It’s official: Ocean Beach remains in newly drawn City Council District 2

 Frank Gormlie  August 29, 2011  5 Comments on It’s official: Ocean Beach remains in newly drawn City Council District 2

See this blast from the past! Originally published Aug. 29, 2011. A decade ago and redistricting was the thing.

Well, it’s now official. The neighborhood of Ocean Beach will remain in District 2. This is significant, as it means that OB will remain in a district with other beach neighborhoods that have similar interests and needs.

Continue Reading It’s official: Ocean Beach remains in newly drawn City Council District 2

TOP SECRET: Corporations cut 2.9 million U.S. jobs and added 2.4 million jobs overseas over last ten years

 Source  August 29, 2011  3 Comments on TOP SECRET: Corporations cut 2.9 million U.S. jobs and added 2.4 million jobs overseas over last ten years

Some of the country’s best-known multi­national corporations closely guard a number they don’t want anyone to know: the breakdown between their jobs here and abroad.

So secretive are these companies that they hand the figure over to government statisticians on the condition that officials will release only an aggregate number. The latest data show that multinationals cut 2.9 million jobs in the United States and added 2.4 million overseas between 2000 and 2009.

Continue Reading TOP SECRET: Corporations cut 2.9 million U.S. jobs and added 2.4 million jobs overseas over last ten years

Nurses to Converge on 60 Congressional Offices in 21 States Sept. 1 to Call for Tax on Wall Street to Heal America

 Staff  August 29, 2011  1 Comment on Nurses to Converge on 60 Congressional Offices in 21 States Sept. 1 to Call for Tax on Wall Street to Heal America

Vista rally time has been corrected! See inside.

RNs to sponsor soup kitchens, food pantries, speak outs on the need for jobs, healthcare, education, housing – and outline the RN plan on how to pay for it.

Local actions planned for San Diego include a freeway overpass flash mob and soup line.

From Maine to California, nurses, joined by others fed up with the ongoing economic crisis, will call on Congress members in their local district offices Sept. 1 to support a tax on Wall Street financial speculation, a revenue source fast becoming an international norm, to pay for healing the nation.

Continue Reading Nurses to Converge on 60 Congressional Offices in 21 States Sept. 1 to Call for Tax on Wall Street to Heal America

Sarah Palin’s wink, Michele Bachmann’s blink

 Source  August 29, 2011  12 Comments on Sarah Palin’s wink, Michele Bachmann’s blink

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt / Excuse Me, I’m Writing / August 28, 2011

Friday, August 26, was Women’s Equality Day. Sadly, it’s a bit of a misnomer. Besides, how many people actually know what it is that the day celebrates? It surely is not equality. Women don’t have equality. Even I don’t have equality, and I am no pantywaist — but the same rights, responsibilities and opportunities as men? Oh my goodness, no. Women, as a class, have not yet achieved any of that.

Continue Reading Sarah Palin’s wink, Michele Bachmann’s blink

What’s the Big Idea?

 Jim Miller  August 29, 2011  14 Comments on What’s the Big Idea?

Information Overload and the “Post Idea Age”

In a recent New York Times opinion piece, “The Elusive Big Idea,” Neal Gabler makes the case that we are living in a “post-idea” age where mundane observations have taken the place of big ideas. We have left behind the Einsteins for entrepreneurs. As he puts it:

If our ideas seem smaller nowadays, it’s not because we are dumber than our forebears but because we just don’t care as much about ideas as they did. In effect, we are living in an increasingly post-idea world — a world in which big, thought-provoking ideas that can’t instantly be monetized are of so little intrinsic value that fewer people are generating them and fewer outlets are disseminating them, the Internet notwithstanding. Bold ideas are almost passé.

Continue Reading What’s the Big Idea?

20th Annual Paddle for Clean Water at O.B. Pier on September 18th

 Staff  August 29, 2011  0 Comments on 20th Annual Paddle for Clean Water at O.B. Pier on September 18th

It’s that time of year again, time to honor a San Diego community tradition going to back to the age of grunge, bungy jumping and line-dancing: it’s time for the annual Paddle for Clean Water at the Ocean Beach Pier, celebrating its 20th anniversary on Sunday, September 18th from 9:00 am to 12 noon!

Continue Reading 20th Annual Paddle for Clean Water at O.B. Pier on September 18th

Restaurant Review of ‘Bergie’s’ in Old Town – Competition for ‘Hodad’s’? I don’t think so

 Judi Curry  August 29, 2011  1 Comment on Restaurant Review of ‘Bergie’s’ in Old Town – Competition for ‘Hodad’s’? I don’t think so

Since I try not to drive at night and since I am on a very “fixed income”, I like to try new restaurants – at least new to me – that are relatively close to my home in Ocean Beach and not terribly expensive. Last week I read an article in the newspaper that is thrown in my driveway on Thursdays, re: a restaurant in Old Town called “BERGIE’S”. It sounded interesting, and since I don’t always have the time to stand in line AND eat at Hodad’s, a friend and I decided to try it out.

Continue Reading Restaurant Review of ‘Bergie’s’ in Old Town – Competition for ‘Hodad’s’? I don’t think so

Community and Labor Activists Begin Movement to Change San Diego

 Frank Gormlie  August 28, 2011  10 Comments on Community and Labor Activists Begin Movement to Change San Diego

Over three hundred community and labor activists met yesterday, Saturday, August 27th, for an all-day economic summit and began the process of building a movement to change San Diego.

Under the title of “A Better San Diego”, yesterday’s event at Horace Mann Middle School was the culmination of months of meetings and discussions initiated by San Diego’s Labor Council. Back in the late Spring the Labor Council, headed up by Lorena Gonzalez, had called for allies from the community to join with them to build a community-labor coalition.

By time the Summit rolled around yesterday, you could see the hard work achieved by these activists. The diversity of the crowd rivaled any political grouping of San Diegans in recent history.

Continue Reading Community and Labor Activists Begin Movement to Change San Diego

Eight Signs of Republican Extremism: “See something, say something”

 Frank Gormlie  August 25, 2011  8 Comments on Eight Signs of Republican Extremism: “See something, say something”

The County of San Diego has just released a video to warn all of us of the “Eight Signs of Terrorism”, in preparation for the tenth anniversary of the Sept 11 attacks, as part of their “See something, say something” campaign. We would like to add to this watch our additional Eight Signs of Republican Extremism.

To report suspicious activity, email the OB Rag at obragblog@gmail.com.

People who do the following might be plotting Republican extremist acts:

* Under the guise and rhetoric of “small government”, order all welfare and other poor people who receive public assistance to submit to monthly drug tests, as clearly the poor use illegal drugs much more than the rest of us….

Continue Reading Eight Signs of Republican Extremism: “See something, say something”

San Diego launches new era of food waste composting

 Source  August 25, 2011  8 Comments on San Diego launches new era of food waste composting

By Mike Lee/SignOnSanDiego.com

A garbage truck on Tuesday morning picked up food scraps from seven grocery stores around San Diego and chugged to Miramar Landfill in what normally would have been an unremarkable moment.

But instead of turning into the zone for dumping trash, it delivered the mash of fruit, pastries and similar items to the composting yard and launched what many around the region hope is a new era of waste-reduction.

Continue Reading San Diego launches new era of food waste composting

California’s mis-management of state properties costs “tens of millions” while teachers and aid to poor are cut.

 Source  August 25, 2011  0 Comments on California’s mis-management of state properties costs “tens of millions” while teachers and aid to poor are cut.

Editor: Here’s a timely article from the LA Times about how the State Lands Commission has grossly mismanaged millions of acres of public land, costing Californians tens of millions of dollars and benefiting large corporations, all the while the State is cutting teachers and aid to the poor. Oh, by the way, you fledgling investigative reporters, what public lands in San Diego County are being mismanaged by the State?

By Patrick McGreevy / Los Angeles Times / August 24, 2011

Businesses and dozens of other large corporations have benefited from officials’ mismanagement of more than 4 million acres of public land, according to a state audit released Tuesday. The cost to taxpayers could easily be in the tens of millions of dollars, the auditors say, at a time when the state has been forcing teacher layoffs and cutting aid to the poor.

Continue Reading California’s mis-management of state properties costs “tens of millions” while teachers and aid to poor are cut.