OB Rag

Using synthetic drugs such as spice will do more than just risk your military career — it could lead to serious and potentially long-term mental disorders.

That’s the initial observation by a Navy psychiatry resident who worked with sailors and Marines treated this past year at Naval Medical Center San Diego for using the popular-yet-banned drugs.

In a recent opinion piece in the New York Times, author Jonathan Franzen bemoans the pervasive tendency of more and more of us to get lost on Facebook or to drift away on a video game or some other enticing gadget. We are, he argues, substituting “liking” for love, screen surfing for life:

Let me toss out the idea that, as our markets discover and respond to what consumers most want, our technology has become extremely adept at creating products that correspond to our fantasy ideal of an erotic relationship, in which the beloved object asks for nothing and gives everything, instantly, and makes us feel all powerful, and doesn’t throw terrible scenes when it’s replaced by an even sexier object and is consigned to a drawer.

by Lucas O’Connor / Two Cathedrals/ June 3, 2011

Rapid transit received an angry NIMBY attack today over at the Reader, essentially complaining that transit is tied to density and that adding infrastructure actually takes space. It’s a lamentably familiar complaint that for things to change, things must actually change, and obscures the actual issues being faced as San Diego tries to improve transit, connect neighborhoods, and reclaim the budget from life-support.

Obama seems to be counting on the fact that the economy will recover on its own after the initial stimulus package. It’s starting to look like this was a bad bet. The Republicans of course have their job creation plan in place: lower taxes especially on the rich, less government spending and more deregulation or, in other words, the continuation of the transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the rich. However, this is precisely what has ruined the economy.

A San Diego judge said Friday [June 3, 2011] that a rope separating thousands of visitors from a colony of harbor seals on a La Jolla beach must come down for now. Superior Court Judge Lisa Foster said in a preliminary decision that she did not find evidence to support keeping up the rope at Children’s Pool beach beyond the seals’ pupping season, which goes from December to mid-May.

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt / Excuse Me, I’m Writing / June 6, 2011

My mother tried to make a sandwich with the TV remote control.

It might seem sadly funny, but there was some context for her pursuit: She was watching a cooking show from her hospital bed. Watching and processing in her own inimitable style, and she just didn’t like the way the celebrity chef was doing it. She didn’t know where she was, but she knew she could do better.

By Christopher Cadelago / SignOnSanDiego / June 3, 2011 – last update at 8:23 pm

The judge who sparked national interest in a debate that pits ecological protection against patriotic festivities temporarily suspended her ruling Friday that requires Fourth of July fireworks in La Jolla and other citywide events to undergo environmental review.

Ban on US Ground Troops Continues Under Boehner’s Resolution; Kucnich’s Resolution Fails

The Obama Administration’s war in Libya has been illegal under US law since May 20, but the House of Representatives decided to give him a 14 day extension anyhow, as a vote largely along party lines saw Rep. John Boehner’s (R – OH) tepid resolution on the conflict pass by a vote of 268-145.

I am so excited to learn that our fair city, albeit our “drunken city”, has been certified as “tsunami prepared.” I knew those signs going up on Newport Avenue meant something. I just wasn’t sure what it meant.

Editor: Here are a series of reports by the Center on Policy Initiatives – a labor-and-progressive-aligned think tank here in San Diego – about our San Diego County government, its employees, its revenues and services.

County Employees: Overworked and Undermined
County employees report chaotic system fails low-income residents

San Diego County Revenues and Reserves
While trailing in services, San Diego County amassed $2.2 billion in reserves

County Fiscal Policies Squeeze San Diego’s Core Public Services

Despite a budget surplus, the County of San Diego proposes to cut pay between 7 and 17 percent, for thousands of the lowest paid workers. This would harm not only their families, but the reduced buying power would ripple through the whole community. Our elected officials are NOT supposed to be in the business of REDUCING our community’s standard of living!

Today’s graduates face miserable job prospects, and experts say the student loan crisis could be worse than the credit card or housing bubbles.

It’s the beginning of summer: warmer weather, longer days, the end of the school year. And that means graduation for thousands of young people across the U.S.; graduation with more student debt than ever before, and into a job market that is anything but promising.

Young people between the ages of 16 and 24 face an unemployment rate nearly twice that of the rest of the population,…