OB Rag

by Frank Gormlie
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LA MESA, CA. I felt exhilarated tonight. I had just witnessed dozens and dozens of parents of the La Mesa Spring Valley School District chant “Resign! Resign! Resign!” to Trustee Rick Winet – the right-wing instigator who had caused the Board to vote to prohibit the showing of President Obama’s speech to school kids. At a special Labor Day meeting, the East County board had voted 3-2 to ban the live showing of the speech. Then, in emails and publicly, Winet had declared that the speech was an assault on the Constitution.

Tonight, Winet’s partisan extremism indeed felt the backlash. It was the backlash of ordinary parents, of ordinary people, of ordinary Americans.

by Miriam Raftery / East County Magazine
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San Diego) – “Long-range acoustic devices [LRADs] for crowd control can be extremely dangerous. These are used in Iraq to control insurgents. They can cause serious and lasting harm to humans…We want to know WHY our Sheriff Dept has this weapon,” Sal Magallanez of San Diego-based Liberty One Radio said in an e-mail sent to East County Magazine, prompting a joint investigation.

Have you noticed our new “look”? If you scroll down far enough, it appears that we have four columns, two of which are side-bars. So, two side-bars. This is new – this is big. This will allow us to take on ads. We need ads to sustain this community webpage.

After many hours of testing and prep, Saturday night, September 12th, Patty Jones clicked the icon with her mouse – and “poof” the new changes were established – our blog transcended its former self, with upgraded software and a more robust platform. We have not ironed out all the bugs yet – so if you see something that appears out of whack, let us know in a comment to this post.

(Click on the headline to see the rest of this post.)

OCEAN BEACH, CA.  Despite its cancellation due to high surf, the 2009 Clean Water Paddle sponsored by the Surfrider Foundation…

by anonymous surfer dude

Believe it or not- Surfrider – that world wide surfer organization- actually canceled Sunday’s Clean Water Paddle because they said the waves were too big! Unbelievable!

The police raids on numerous San Diego County medical marijuana dispensaries that took place throughout the afternoon are the culmination of a five-month investigation, CityBeat has learned. A law enforcement source close to the operation and familiar with the details told CityBeat the investigation revealed that many of the marijuana collectives and co-ops were functioning as for-profit businesses, and thus lost the protection granted to them by voters under Proposition 215 in 1996.

Hey folks, this Friday 9/11/09 Surfrider Foundation SD is sponsoring a special beach clean up starting at Veterans Park in Ocean Beach!

As an added bonus, Dave Matthews Band’s bass player, Stefan Lessard will be joining the effort, chatting with the volunteers and holding a special contest …

This years Paddle For Clean Water event is happening Sunday- September 13th at 10:00am at the OB pier. This marks the 18th year the San Diego chapter of Surfider Foundation has hosted the event in Ocean Beach and this should prove to be one of the biggest and best years to date.

This latest politicization of President Obama’s speech that he gave to school children this morning was way over-the-top. It is the latest round of extreme partisanship being carried out by elements within the Republican Party, led by right-wing radio pundits and and being promoted and propagated by the mass corporate media.

They mobilized people to call schools and administrators to cancel the address – or organized a boycott of schools or kept their children out of school for the day. This was ridiculous. The flap they caused was outrageous and clearly unacceptable.

OCEAN BEACH, CA. The results of our last week’s poll on the beach alcohol ban show a clear over-all dissatisfaction with the booze prohibition.

59% of our 105 respondents voiced discontent with the ban. People voted that the ban trampled their freedoms or that they had less fun at the beach, objecting to not being able to bring a cup of wine or beer to the sand.

OCEAN BEACH, CA. This is OB Flashes – the OB Rag’s weekly Community Bulletin and Discussion Board. Discuss anything that is bugging you, or exciting you, or of interest. Do it in the comments section. Not only that, if you or your buds are having a meeting or event you would like to inform the rest of us about, do so here. If you want to get rid of something, like an old working TV, do it here.

by Lane Tobias

Anyone who works in human services knows that these are lean times. Budgets have been cut, while the services we provide are in higher demand.

This goes across the board, from government agencies to non-profits, and while the services provided to the community may not be lessened in terms of effectiveness, there is certainly an emotional effect on both those seeking services and the providers themselves.

There are more people seeking help, and just as many people to help them as before…