OB Rag

There will be a small vigil tonight at 6 pm at the site where exactly 6 years ago, a well-known homeless man in Ocean Beach was gunned down and killed by San Diego police officers. Danny “the Walker” Woodyard was filled with bullets on West Point Loma Avenue near the intersection with Voltaire Street, a few yards from the entrance to north beach parking lot.

Danny was a well-known homeless man, who was always seen walking around the community, hence his nickname. The morning of Feb 4, 2003, he had been dumpster diving with his only tool, an old knife.

Explosive anger is spilling out onto the streets of Europe. The meltdown of the global economy is igniting massive social unrest in a region that has long been a symbol of political stability and social cohesion. It’s not a new trend: A wave of upheaval is spreading from the poorer countries on the periphery of the global economy to the prosperous core.

Over the past few years, a series of riots spread across what is patronizingly known as the Third World. Furious mobs have raged against skyrocketing food and energy prices, stagnating wages and unemployment in India, Senegal, Yemen, Indonesia, Morocco, Cameroon, Brazil, Panama, the Philippines, Egypt, Mexico and elsewhere.

Think of San Diego, and your mind probably conjures images of lounging on long sandy beaches and swimming, surfing, or boating in the warm ocean water. You probably don’t think of the 180 million gallons of minimally-treated sewage that are being pumped into the Pacific Ocean, 4 1/2 miles off the coast of Point Loma, every day. That’s more than 65 billion gallons a year. You might also think, isn’t that illegal?

More than 30 years ago, Congress mandated that publicly-owned wastewater treatment plants, like the one in Point Loma, treat its wastewater to a higher standard-“secondary” standards-before discharging their treated wastewater.

On Tuesday, February, 10th, San Diego students need you support. Please come to the School Board meeting, where youth of conscience throughout the school district will be demanding that shooting ranges be eliminated from our school campuses. Several new Board members have been elected and they might listen to reason…or at least, to their students and supporters. The gathering at the Education Center, 4100 Normal Street, San Diego, will begin at 4 p.m.

The internal division within the Services Employees International Union (SEIU) has taken a serious turn for the worst, breaking out in open warfare between the factions. This new trench to trench in-fighting has resulted in a new national healthcare workers’ union, but has also disrupted local labor negotiations at Tri-City Hospital, already beset with its own internal battles.

San Diego’s libraries are back on the local issues burner, as the City of San Diego begins a new round of meetings that seek community input on the City’s budget. And this means the libraries and other social services. The community input meetings begin this Wednesday evening, Feb 4, in Council District 4.

Crews started cutting down more than a dozen trees surrounding the Jolly Roger restaurant at the Oceanside Harbor this week, displacing some birds that had nearly taken over the property and prompting a debate over whether the action was an outrage or a relief.

Twelve eucalyptus and two Torrey pine trees are being removed this week due to what restaurant officials said was a health and safety issue involving excessive amounts of bird feces accumulating in the area.

Are you an OBcean with services or products you’d like to offer your fellow residents – and you don’t represent a big corporation or business?

Is there a community event coming up that you know about? Or you might want to share the success of one that has already happened.

Is there a local group or individual that deserve some props? Perhaps an issue that you just want to bring to light? Let us know, if it interests you it will interest others.

To post your OB Flash all you have to do is leave a comment.

We’re starting up a new feature here on the OB Rag, OB Flashes. Back in the day when the Rag was printed on paper, OB Flashes was a place for news and happenings around Ocean Beach, but we want to expand its original intent. We hope to start some dialog, a place for our readers to post their own OB Flashes and alert us and our growing community to things of interest that are happening in and around Ocean Beach.

Are you an OBcean with services or products you’d like to offer your fellow residents – and you don’t represent a big corporation or business? Is there a community event coming up that you know about? Or you might want to share the success of one that has already happened.

Late last night (Feb. 10th) around 9pm, in a 3-2 vote, the School Board of the San Diego Unified School District voted to removed JROTC shooting ranges from district high school campuses.

Congratulations are due the Education Not Arms Coalition which has been fighting this for a year and to the 150 students from Lincoln, Mission Bay and other high schools who were at the school district offices and board meeting today for over 6 hours.

by Frank Gormlie and Patty Jones

When we heard what the Encinitas tree-sitter was doing, Patty and I wanted to meet him. So we drove up the coast on a beautiful day to do just that. We found Orpheus Park – about halfway between the freeway and the coast – denuded of most of its trees.

And there was Andrew Watkins hanging upside down from a large branch, along with a few other friends who had climbed up to the platform that Watkins had assembled.

Authorities at Super Bowl XLIII will be looking for more than just drunken fans. They’ll be watching spectators’ body language, facial expressions and demeanor to find suspicious people.

For the first time Sunday, federal behavior-detection officers will team with local police to use a controversial technique on people heading to a major event, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) says. The officers usually work in airports.