OB Rag

by President Barack Obama – to be delivered Tuesday, September 8, 2009
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Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today.

I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous…..

by Peace Rocker
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I was discouraged almost two years ago when the Peace Sign was stolen in the middle of the night. Perhaps, I thought, the thief chose (wrongly!) to see the sign as a political statement, rather than as a simple and eternal prayer for “peace on earth, good will towards all.”

Labor Day, to most people, is little more than the end of summer. Labor Day commemorates the labor union movement, the demand for an eight hour work day, better working conditions, fair wages and an end to child labor.

SAN DIEGO – A San Diego County Superior Court today denied medical marijuana patient Donna Lambert’s request for dismissal. Ms. Lambert’s supporters urged District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis not to pursue the case, to uphold the state’s medical marijuana laws and to turn law enforcement’s attention to matters of public safety not politics.

“I’m disappointed at today’s ruling, but I am resolved to fight this egregious case against me,” said Ms. Lambert, who faces seven felony counts for providing medical marijuana to another qualified patient.

OCEAN BEACH, CA. Something’s fishy in Ocean Beach. Or at least the recent stench that has seemingly permeated the community has a fishy source (not literally). Where is it coming from?

SDG&E reports that they received 500 calls about a gaseous odor. 25 technicians were sent out to investigate.

by Anthony Gentile / Peninsula Beacon

The nagging issue of traffic calming on Sunset Cliffs, spearheaded by the Slow Down Sunset Cliffs effort started a year ago, became a key topic of the Aug. 26 meeting of the Ocean Beach Town Council (OBTC).

A representative from the city’s Traffic Engineering Division was on hand …

Editor: OB’s former City Councilmember Michael Zucchet just had his acquittal on corruption charges upheld. Zucchet, now executive director of the San Diego Municipal Employees Association, had to resign from the Council in 2005 due to the charges against him. A jury convicted him originally in 2005, but the convictions were thrown out.

The original corruption charges against Zucchet – and the three other Council members – were the result of a decision to prosecute by then-US Attorney Carol Lam (herself later fired by Karl Rove from the White House), …

A breakfast forum last Thursday on the subject of homelessness included Rob Hutsel, executive director of the San Diego River Park Foundation.

Hutsel, who’s headed the nonprofit for eight years, has become an unlikely expert on the people who call the river banks home: The organization’s twice-monthly trash pick-ups and bi-annual “river blitz” clean-ups have somewhat become field studies of the living conditions of river-bank dwellers.

by Frank Gormlie

By 6:00 pm, there was a long line that stretched from the gym’s doors almost all the way to the main road, lining the school’s parking lot as it crept up the small hill. Doug and I were at Rancho Buena Vista High School for Congressman Darrell Issa’s Town Hall meeting on health care. We had driven to southern Vista – a land of new suburbs, condos and malls – from the southern reaches of the county. Everything in sight seemed to have been built in the last ten to twenty years or so.

It had been a long drive from San Diego, and so we had a while to muse about was in store for us … in conservativeland.

SUNSET CLIFFS, CA. Local photog Jim Grant captured this sunset and new addition to “Peace Rock” .

Senior students from Point Loma High School placed their year on top of the rock. Jim spoke to the guys and girls who put it up Sunday night( Aug 30) at high tide.

They hope it stays up until graduation next year !!

They paddled it out on a long board and attached it with long steel spikes.

by Ernie McCray

On July 31st, in an effort to get on with my life after the death of my precious soul mate, I wrote in my journal: “I’m on my way down a long highway, trying to make my way to something faraway called normalcy where I used to live before the tragedy. But I’ll get there. Just you wait and see.”

By E.J. Dionne Jr. / The Washington Post / September 3, 2009

Health-care reform is said to be in trouble partly because of those raucous August town-hall meetings in which Democratic members of Congress were besieged by shouters opposed to change.

But what if our media-created impression of the meetings is wrong?