OB Rag

“Why do you people hide in the park?” one person asked me.

“Do you think that you are going to change a damn thing?” another asked. “Obama promised to end the wars if we elected him and he lied, just like Bush” she continued.

Try though I may, there are times when I can’t stop complaining:

“Gas is too high.”
“Food prices have gone up.”
“Why is this phone bill so high?”
“It’s too hot to go walking.”
“It’s too cold to go walking.”
“There’s nothing good to watch on T.V. anymore.”
“The service is awful in this restaurant.”
“My feet, head or back hurt.”

Oh, there is so much to complain about­­– some days more than others. There are lots of people like me; you probably know a few, or you may be one yourself.

Hey, Jihmye, I send these words directly to you because I know based on your Baha’i faith that although you’re no longer here carrying on with us physically your journey has not come to an end.

But, oh, what an existence your earth bound life has been, my friend. From the beginning to the end. Dropping out of school early, fleeing Dixie in Uncle Sam’s army, blessing all within your reach with your art and your poetry and your very presence. To me you were like a breath of fresh air in a world that can, without reason or rhyme, be so suffocating and crushing at times.

While most residents of Southern California tried to figure out if the day was going to bring rain, three hundred San Diegans spent a few hours in Balboa Park rallying against two wars our government is waging – Iraq and Afghanistan.

Starting at noon, the protest included speakers, singers, poets, and the Puppet Insurgency, and at a little after 2 pm, the crowd formed up onto the sidewalk and marched south towards the freeway.

At Elm Street, the crowd broke up, with a group moving to each of the six overpasses on I-5 – 1st Avenue through 6th Avenue -, lining the bridges holding banners, flags, while attaching larger banners to the wires on the overpasses. Many supportive honks could be heard from the passing traffic below.

We love those little icons, called avatars, next to everyone’s comments. It lets us know who is talking with just a glance. They attached to your email address and show up on avatar enabled sites when you comment.

The difference between an AVATAR and a GRAVATAR is pretty simple, an avatar is generally local, or web site specific and the Gravatar (short for Globally Recognized avatar) will follow you out into the world wide web.

As the first Fukushima radioactive plumes hit the West Coast of North America, “leaders” and “experts” try to reassure us there’s no danger. But it’s become painfully obvious that it’s up to us to determine the real truth, and to take action to stop this nuclear madness.

“We do not expect harmful levels of radiation to reach the United States, whether it’s the West Coast, Hawaii, Alaska, or US territories in the Pacific,” he said.

(All details and links inside:)

After Thousands March in Michigan, Recall of Governor Floated

Michigan Governor’s Anti-Union Power Grab Is Unconstitutional

MADISON, Wis. — A Wisconsin judge issued a temporary restraining order Friday blocking the state’s new and contentious collective bargaining law from taking effect, raising the possibility that the Legislature may have to vote again to pass the bill.

Lawmakers had passed Gov. Scott Walker’s measure last week, breaking a three-week stalemate caused by 14 Senate Democrats fleeing to Illinois. Demonstrations against the measure, which would strip most public workers of nearly all their collective bargaining rights, grew as large as 85,000 people.

END THE WARS!

6th Ave. & Grape St, Balboa Park, San Diego

Every time I hear someone who is anti-gay use the tired and sorry modern day cliche: “God meant Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve,” I think back to how it was instilled in me as a child that “God is love.” So I cannot even imagine a God who would be complicit which such un-Godly ways of thinking.

Last night, Wednesday March 16th, the Ocean Beach Planning Board voted against the current proposed ordinance on Medical Marijuana dispensaries. By a vote of 6 to 1, the Board in a Special Meeting voted against the measure because of its overly stringent restrictions. They in essence agreed with critics of the ordinance, some of whom assert that the measure would effectively ban all dispensaries in OB and throughout most of San Diego. The ordinance is expected to go before the full San Diego City Council on March 28th.

By E.A. Barrera / Originally Published on March 17, 2011

“We may now imbibe freely of the contents of bottles and forthright books”

Morris L. Ernst, Co-Founder of the American Civil Liberties Union. December 11, 1933.

The same week this country ended Prohibition, America opened the doors to let people legally read James Joyce’s Ulysses. With St. Patrick’s Day once more at hand, the greatest of 20th Century novels and the author whose genius gave us at look into our own daily souls, deserves a brief remembrance.

Ulysses is the story of a working man named Leopold Bloom during a single day of his life. Making his way through the streets of Dublin on June 16, 1904, Bloom’s day is an adaptation of the story of Odysseus trying to get home, from Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey.