OB Rag

8.6% increase in County Homelessness and additional regional homeless trends discussed

San Diego, CA – The Regional Task Force on the Homeless (RTFH) released it’s annual Regional Homeless Profile on Tuesday, October 26. RTFH has compiled a report on regional homelessness since its inception in 1984. This year’s numbers highlighted a daunting 8.6% increase in County Homelessness since 2009. Specific demographics with a significant rise include young and female veterans, the elderly population, and families. This report and subsequent research initiatives allow the continuum to prioritize funds to match the region’s need.

Editor: There have been a couple of legal settlements in the news of recent over incidents where law enforcement over-reached. The first was the outrageous shooting death of a gay hired dancer – Steven Hirschfield – by Harbor Patrol cops in July 2008. He was shot in the back by officers when they tried pulling in out of the water after he had jumped into the Bay from the cruise ship he was on.

The second settlement stems from an incident that occurred at a Francine Busby fund-raiser in North County in June of 2009 when a deputy sheriff, supposedly responding to a noise complaint, ended up pepper-spraying a number of guests.

It’s an unfortunate fact that often the most creative, highest-quality shows on TV struggle to find enough viewers to survive. That’s what’s happening right now with FX’s new private-eye series, “Terriers.” It’s hands-down the best new series of the fall, yet no one’s watching. That has to change — come on people, don’t let this be one of those shows you discover on DVD a year from now and go “Huh, this is great, why didn’t I watch this back before it got canceled?”

Cancellation is where “Terriers” is headed unless it can show improvement in the ratings by season’s end. The season’s half over …

Editor: With President Barack Obama scheduled to appear on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show tonight – Wednesday, Oct. 27th (PDT: 11:00 pm Channel 48) and with Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s rally set for this Saturday, Oct. 30th in Washington, DC – where tens of thousands are expected to gather, many eyes are focusing on the Comedy Show Duo and their “Rally for Sanity / Fear”. Here is an update:

WASHINGTON — They’re reasonable, they’re lucid, and, damn it, they want their voices heard.

Gary Gilmore – Newport Avenue’s goldsmith par excellence – is proud of the fact that he arrived in Ocean Beach in 1973 with nothing else but the clothes on his back, his guitar, and his leather tools. He had journeyed across the country and had found heaven. And he’s been in OB ever since. His is a true classic rags to riches story. Yet it’s an OB hippie version of the classic. For Gary Gilmore certainly looked like a hippie when he arrived 37 years ago.

Gary’s love for OB is so evident that it’s almost difficult to get him to talk about anything else. This was all apparent as we took our seats for a lunch at the quintessential OB restaurant – the Old Townhouse – featured prominently in the current television series “Terriers” which was filmed in OB.

As a rule, I hate soap operas for several reasons. First, I’m not that big on TV in the first place, and when I do watch I tend toward news or other politically relevant programming. Since I don’t watch a lot of television, I can’t be counted on to plop my butt on the couch at precisely the same time week after week to vegetate for an hour or more, so I think I should be able to pick up and put down a show as I please. South Park works for this, but if I miss an episode or three of a soap, I’m lost and might as well go find a magazine article or Rag post to feed my decidedly inattentive attention span.

by JEC / Special to the OB Rag / October 26, 2010

The traveling troupe of City officials drew a small crowd to last night’s presentation at Point Loma High School of the City’s upcoming budget dilemma and promotion for Proposition D, the half cent sales tax increase on November’s ballot.

The audience of 27 mainly gray haired people listened solemnly as Chief Operations Officer (aka “City Manager”) Jay Goldstone opened the show. But before his second paragraph former City Attorney Mike Aquirre showed up walking among the audience distributing a faux invoice charging $2.1 billion for the City’s Pension expenses.

Who is this man who knows all about you but you know nothing about him?

Let me give you a hint: He is a native San Diegan. Born and raised in San Ysidro thirty-five years ago. (Need more clues?)

Received an AA degree from Southwestern College in Administrative Justice in 1999. Has an AS degree in the Science of Criminal Justice.

Why should we concerned about imperialism and militarism? It’s a suicide pact. That’s the way empires end… ~Chalmers Johnson.

Hat tip to Tanya Winter for the link to this video, Thanks!

Fire Station brown outs, closed parks and recreation centers, beach fire rings eliminated, the public quality of life in OB is under significant threat. City officials advocate for Proposition D, to raise sales taxes yet again but with no promise that any of these OB services will be saved. In fact, by all accounts, Prop. D is the opportunity for the city controllers to maintain the status quo. The rich and exclusive will still be served, while the remainder of the city supports their lifestyle.

This country is being run for the benefit of alien life forms. They’ve invaded; they’ve infiltrated; they’ve conquered; and a lot of the most powerful people on Earth do their bidding, including five out of our nine Supreme Court justices earlier this year and a whole lot of senators and other elected officials all the time. The monsters they serve demand that we ravage the planet and impoverish most human beings so that they might thrive. They’re like the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park, like the Terminators, like the pods in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, except that those were on the screen and these are in our actual world.

LONDON — Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, and Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, lashed out together on Saturday at the Obama administration’s aggressive pursuit of whistle-blowers, including those responsible for the release of secret documents on the Iraq war.

Mr. Assange also said that WikiLeaks, which released the trove of almost 400,000 Iraq war documents on Friday, would shortly be posting an additional 15,000 remaining secret documents on the Afghan war.