OB Rag

High mountains in San Diego County — such as Mt. Laguna, which sits at 6,000 feet — received their first snow dusting over the weekend. Here’s the view next to the Mt. Laguna Lodge at 6:45 this morning, Monday, Nov. 18.

Frank Gormlie, editor here at OB Rag, is having a book-signing event with his new book, The May 1970 Rebellion, at La Playa Books in Point Loma on Saturday, November 23rd.

The book-signing will be from 2 to 4 pm at La Playa, located at 1026 Rosecrans Street, San Diego, CA 92106-3019 — their phone is (619) 226-2601. As it’s a weekend, parking should be relatively easy.

The book covers the May 1970 student upheaval caused by President Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia and the subsequent repression. Currently, it’s in an ebook mode — and the paperback version Print on Demand (POD) is also available at Amazon and at Barnes & Noble. (The paperback is in two volumes.)

by Ernie McCray

Come on America.
You vote for, perhaps, the most loathsome
excuse of a human being
ever born in the Milky Way,
then have the nerves
to talk a lot of bullshit
about how Kamala Harris
gave the election way.

Stop it, I say.
You’re way the hell off base,
as this election
was, aside from being laced
with strong traces
of sexism,
mostly about race.

The 2024 Susan G. Komen San Diego 3-Day walk kicked off at the Del Mar Fairgrounds Friday morning, November 15th, with local residents and supporters across the country coming together for a 60-mile trek throughout the San Diego area.

Participants have spent the months prior raising money, a minimum of $2,300 each, that will go toward efforts to fight breast cancer. As of current, the event has an impressive track record and has already raised more than $160 million for the cause, officials with the fundraiser confirmed.

by Amber Coakley /Fox5News / Nov 14, 2024

King tides are expected to return to San Diego’s coastline this weekend, thanks to the gravitational forces of the moon and sun.

What causes this cosmic phenomenon?

Put simply, king tides are a result of how far away the sun, moon and Earth are positioned from each other.

As explained by officials with Sea Grant California, the moon’s pull is about twice as strong as the that of the sun, which is why Friday’s full moon comes into play. Also known as the Beaver Moon, it’s the fourth and final supermoon of year. It will look bigger and brighter than usual as it comes within about 225,000 miles of Earth.

Why Can’t Humans Be More Like a Tortoise?

By Colleen O’Connor

Avoid the rush. Escape the dreary news and get to the San Diego Zoo’s 140th birthday for “Grandma” Tortoise!

Seriously, “Grandma” Tortoise is celebrating her 140th birthday on November 15th.

She is an “endangered species” from the Galapagos Islands. Only 15,000 of the 200,000 of these magnificent creatures remain on the islands where Darwinian “evolutionary” history began.

Even today, those ten Galapagos islands shelter only 12 remaining species of Tortoise.

Hey, If You Can Kill 20 Million Native Americans, Enslave 12 Million Africans, and Let Biden Fund the Slaughter of 40,000 Women, Children and Elderly…
— Of Course You Can Install a Rapist/Felon/Fascist as your President! In the Meantime, Breathe, Take Care of Yourself, Read a Good Book.

By Michael Moore / Nov 14, 2024

If you stop and think about it, we’ve come up with a lot of doozies in our history. Like the genocide of 20 million Native Americans. Or the enslavement of 12 million kidnapped Africans. Or us invading Vietnam and killing 4 million Asian people for no reason at all. We are not a good people.

We have a non-stop cavalcade, a sordid laundry list of evil deeds that led us directly to last week, to the point where we the people, by popular vote, elected a 34-time convicted felon, a fascist, and a civilly-charged and convicted sexual abuser to be our 47th president of the United States. And we did so after he clearly and quite honestly warned us that he was going to do a mass round-up and deportation of nearly 15 million people. And that he would consider executing people he referred to as “the enemy within” (i.e. his political opponents and those who were disloyal to him).

from Le Temps — November 10, for French speakers of Switzerland

An important 5-year study just completed of the sources of human waste in the San Diego River has found that by far most — 90%– was caused by sewage spills, and not the homeless. As the following outlines,

“… people experiencing homelessness contribute the smallest relative quantities, less than 0.25%, of human fecal bacteria in the San Diego River.

This determination hopefully puts to rest long-standing assertions by local municipalities and water agencies that unhoused encampments in the San Diego River watershed are a potentially significant source of bacterial pollution in the river.”

By Spencer Higgs – San Diego Coastkeeper / November 13, 2024

A five-year study conducted by the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project (“SCCWRP”) to assess sources and volumes of human fecal bacteria in the San
Diego River reveals a disturbing reality – spills, leaks, and subterranean seepage from public sanitary sewer systems are, by far, the largest contributors to human fecal contamination throughout the entire urbanized portion of the San Diego River watershed.

Another influential politician has come out against the 22-story so-called “Pencil Tower” being proposed for Pacific Beach. This time, Senator Catherine Blakespear of the California 38th District — a Democrat — has written a letter coming out in “strong opposition” to the proposal, called “Project Vela”, for 970 Turquoise Street.

The 38th Senate District encompasses coastal North County south through PB.

Blakespear wrote the public letter to Gustavo Velasquez, Director of the California Department of Housing & Community Development and agreed with other electeds that “this project undermines state law by permitting a project that includes only 10 affordable homes alongside 139 visitor accommodation units and 74 other market rate residential units.”

By Paige Austin / Patch Staff / Wed, Nov 13, 2024

Republicans are one win away from taking control of the U.S. House of Representatives, giving the party control of all branches of government, and liberal California may very well be the state that delivers it to the GOP this week.

Though NBC News declared Republican victory in the U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday and Data provider Decision Desk HQ projected Republicans to win the house, the Associated Press and other major outlets have not called it yet. That’s because a handful of races, including three in California, remain too close to call.

The Republican chances of victory in the House depends on still uncalled races in Arizona’s District 6 in the Tuscon area, Iowa’s District 1, Alaska’s District 1, and California’s Districts 13, 45, and 47.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the Associated Press had not declared a victory in Orange County District 47, but on Tuesday night, Republican Scott Baugh conceded the race to Democrat Dave Min.

What is going on with the San Diego Sheriff’s Department these days?

First of all,  County Sheriff Kelly Martinez is being accused of slowing down and even ignoring data requests from the people who were hired to research why so many people die in local jails. This slow-down has cost San Diego taxpayers nearly $20 million in legal settlements this year alone. This allegation is but the latest dispute between the region’s largest law enforcement agency and the civilian office charged with monitoring its practices.

Second — and to a lesser degree –, questions are being raised about the millions of dollars generated by a prisoners’ welfare fund, specifically the Sheriff’s commissary that serves the 3,800 or so people locked up in San Diego County jails. The millions generated are supposed to pay for the benefit, education and welfare of people in custody, but millions from the welfare fund are used to pay sheriff’s employees’ salaries and benefits, to pay for office supplies, equipment, cleaning, food, postage and other services that might normally be considered routine jail operational expenses, according to the San Diego UT.