OB Rag

By Janessa Goldbeck / Op-Ed San Diego U-T / March 13, 2025

I served nearly 7 years in the U.S. Marine Corps as a combat engineer officer, leading teams in challenging environments and ensuring operational success. My job required me to anticipate threats, protect our forces and secure critical infrastructure. Now, I see a different kind of threat — one that strikes at the heart of our national identity — a direct assault on our national parks, monuments and public lands.

The federal government is laying the groundwork to sell off America’s public lands — places that belong to all of us. This isn’t speculation; it’s happening in plain sight.

First, thousands of public land managers — including veterans — have been abruptly fired. These federal employees maintained national parks, monuments and public lands. They made reservations possible, kept trails open, cleaned restrooms and provided emergency services. They managed forests, fought wildfires, and ensured Americans could hunt and fish in these protected areas.

Neetika Walter / Interesting Engineering /  March 12, 2025

In what could be a fix to the world’s plastic problem, researchers have developed a simple new method of harnessing moisture from air to breaking down the waste.

The process begins with an inexpensive catalyst that breaks down the bonds in polyethylene terephthalate (PET), the most widely used plastic in the polyester family. Once broken, the material is simply exposed to ambient air to transfer PET into monomers—the essential building blocks of plastics.
Researchers believe these monomers could then be recycled or upcycled into more valuable materials.

The new technique, which is safer, cheaper, and more sustainable than current plastic recycling methods, offers a promising path toward creating a circular economy for plastics.

“What’s particularly exciting about our research is that we harnessed moisture from air to break down the plastics, achieving an exceptionally clean and selective process,” Yosi Kratish, who is also the co-corresponding author of the study, said in a press release.

By Kristina Davis and Caleb Lunetta / San Diego Union-Tribune/ March 13, 2025

A fire destroyed an abandoned building in Liberty Station Wednesday night, and investigators were working to determine the cause.

The blaze was reported around 8:35 p.m. on Cushing Road near Roosevelt Road in a 6,000-square-foot building that had previously been used as a recreation center, San Diego-Fire Rescue officials said.

When firefighters arrived, they saw flames as high as 40 feet coming from the structure, Battalion Chief Chris Babler told media at the scene. Firefighters made an initial push inside the building but were only able to search about 30% of it before the rain-heavy roof and extreme fire conditions prompted the building to show signs of collapse, Babler said.

By David Garrick / San Diego Union-Tribune / March 13, 2025

An Ocean Beach family is donating $3 million needed for a long-awaited expansion of the Ocean Beach library, one of the smallest and oldest branches in the city.

The donation from Duane and Phyllis Shinnick gives the city the $12.8 million needed to nearly double the library’s size and add community meeting space, reading rooms and dedicated areas for children and teens.

The expansion will retain the historic façade of the library, which was built in 1928 and expanded in 1962. Now 5,085 square feet, the library will grow by about 4,300 square feet.

The donation will allow the city to put the project out for bid and potentially break ground in summer 2026. On that timeline, the expanded library would open in summer 2028.

This is what the DOW looks like today, so far. Down nearly 600 points. Wall Street didn’t believe Trump when he promised to enact tariffs on the campaign trail.

This Thursday storm has indeed brought snow to our local mountains.

Axios San Diego reports that, “Nearly 17% of San Diego renters have lived in their homes for at least 10 years, up from about 11% a decade ago, according to a Redfin analysis of census data.”

They continue:

While most U.S. renters move homes within five years, roughly 34% lived in the same rental for longer than that in 2023. That’s up from around 28% in 2013.

By Colleen O’Connor

‘Tis the season for cherry blossoms. These photos were taken Monday, March 10. Sun, glorious colors. Hardly any crowds. No rain. Couldn’t have been a more perfect antidote to the glumness infecting the country.

The big Japanese Garden Cherry Blossom festival is this weekend (March 14-16) at Balboa Park. Treat yourself.

By Kate Callen

Todd Gloria wants you to know he spotted defects in the Bonus ADU program and he acted quickly to fix them.

And he insists he was appalled that the City’s Land Development Code had a footnote targeting Southeastern San Diego. He used his executive power to remove it at once.

He also invented Taco Tuesdays. He came up with the idea for Zoom meetings. And he personally recruited Manny Machado to sign with the Padres.

We expect politicians to fabricate. They desperately need public approval. That often means twisting the truth to make a loss look like a win.

But there comes a point where spin curdles into farce. Our mayor appears to have reached it.

Musk Calls Social Security ‘the Greatest Ponzi Scheme’ — Musk’s Call for $700 Billion in Cuts Is a ‘Prelude’ to Social Security Privatization

“Why do you lie so much about Social Security? To get people to lose faith in the system, and then you can give it over to Wall Street,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders.

By Jake Johnson / Common Dreams / Mar 11, 2025

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders warned late Monday that billionaire Elon Musk’s new call for up to $700 billion in cuts to mandatory federal spending is an alarming step in the direction of Social Security privatization, a longstanding—and deeply unpopular—goal of right-wing politicians and corporate-funded think tanks.

Musk, who is spearheading a large-scale assault on federal agencies and workers, told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow on Monday that “waste and fraud” in “entitlement spending”—a category that includes Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—is “the big one to eliminate,” estimating that up to $700 billion could be cut from such programs.

By JW August

A recent suggestion by a San Diego City Council Committee to rework the city’s Commission on Police Practices met with sharp resistance last week from the citizens panel.

Instead, the commission  created to oversee the San Diego Police Department rejected the recommendations of the council’s Public Safety Committee to, among other things, change the role of the executive director whose allegiance would no longer be to the commission but rather to the City Council. The result would be to give the council authority over the removal of the director.

The council does have the power to pick the director, but now it was being suggested it would also have the power to fire the director. These “suggestions” came four years into the effort to create an effective commission after a great deal of policy discussions and community feedback.

Public comment at the commission’s meeting last Wednesday evening set the tone.  Longtime civic activist and attorney Kate Yavenditti warned the commission, “Don’t let the City Council take your independence away. That’s exactly what this is all about.”

By David Garrick / San Diego Union-Tribune / March 10, 2025

San Diego is raising its city cannabis tax from 8% to 10% — a figure equal to the highest rate in California and significantly higher than the rates of all other local cities.

Critics said the increase, which the City Council approved Monday, will have the effect of boosting the illegal cannabis delivery market by pushing the total tax paid by legal dispensaries on each sale to more than 35% on July 1.

Council members said the tax hike makes them more willing to consider longtime requests from the local cannabis industry for longer hours, on-site consumption lounges and a crackdown on illegal delivery-based operations.