OB Rag

by Emily Alpert / Voice of San Diego
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Parents are weighing the idea of splitting Correia Middle and other Point Loma schools from San Diego Unified as independent charter schools, which would free them to handle their own budgets, staffing and curriculum. The idea was tossed around at a parent foundation meeting in Point Loma, where parents and principals said they were weary of the nonstop turnover at the school district.

All but one speaker at the La Mesa Spring Valley School Board meeting last night criticized the Board for its 3-2 vote to ban the live broadcast of President Obama’s speech to school kids.

These were ordinary parents of kids in the district – ordinary people –

Editor: When the La Mesa Spring Valley School Board voted to ban President Obama’s speech to school kids, two board members opposed the motion. One of them was Bill Baber, who as a Republican, voted his conscience. This helps demonstrate that extremist views are not held by all or even most Republicans.
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by Bill Baber / September 16, 2009
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As a La Mesa Spring Valley School Board Member, I voted to show the President’s live address Tuesday. I believe the Office of the President of the United States deserves respect, regardless of the person or party occupying that office. If the President’s speech inspired one student to greatness it was worth all this angst.

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.