OB Rag

Two San Diego-based coastal environmental organizations are about to sue SeaWorld for violating its permits which have resulted in polluting Mission Bay with heavy metals from its fireworks and with toxins from its wastewater.

The Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation (CERF) and San Diego Coastkeeper (Coastkeeper) have initiated a citizen suit enforcement action against SeaWorld and claim that SeaWorld’s unlawful discharges violate two of its Clean Water Act permits. (See below)

The groups charge SeaWorld’s 150 fireworks shows a year

“discharges plastic caps, wires, trash, and other chemical laden debris into Mission Bay in violation of multiple requirements of the regional Fireworks Permit, and fails to follow its own post-event cleanup protocols. Adding to the list of violations, SeaWorld allows embers, malfunctioning fireworks, wires and ignitors to fall into the bay while still burning.”

Early Thursday morning, December 5, a fire broke out in a two-story apartment on the 5000 block of Narragansett in OB and 2 people had to be hospitalized with at least one of them suffering burn-related injuries.

Responding firefighters helped numerous residents evacuate the fire that erupted just before 12:30 a.m, 10News reported, but two people were reportedly trapped inside and had to be rescued and rushed to the hospital.

A man out jogging in the Ocean Beach area was struck and killed by a driver in a speeding sedan early Thursday, December 5, and San Diego police have recovered an abandoned vehicle suspected of being involved.

A witness told police the sedan and two other cars were traveling at a high rate of speed when the pedestrian was struck around 5 a.m. on Nimitz Boulevard and West Point Loma Boulevard, police Officer David O’Brien said. The victim died before he could be taken to a hospital.

None of the drivers stopped after the man was struck, he said.

by Ernie McCray

I always thought
I was hip to what’s going on
but I sure
got this past election wrong.

I mean I spent a day
just a week before election day
sitting in a chair,
on a patio
at the Crystal Pier
breathing in
the Pacific Ocean’s
breezy air,
a strawberry margarita
and a bag of sour cream and onion potato chips in my reach,
as my eyes followed the activities
playing out on the beach,
frisbees flying
waves being ridden,
lovers strolling hand-in-hand
in the sand.

By Carlos Acuña / Calexico Chronicle / November 27 –November 29, 2024

Psst. Want to know something? I hate political writing, despite all the schadenfreude and subliminal and not so subliminal virtue-signaling that weighs down each ponderous sentence much like the angst-inducing coal in Tennessee Ernie Ford’s “16 Tons.”

But the coming holidays lead my mind to funny places, to ask less than funny questions.

We’re supposed to live in a Constitutional republic, a democracy. For the better part of my adult life it sure hasn’t felt like it. In a democracy, the People rule. Period.

Where does the Constitution give the 1 percent of the population the entitlement to the distribution of resources over the remaining 99 percent? Where in this sacrosanct document does one read that unless one complies and submits to the arbitrariness of silly, insecure managers and supervisors, one must find one’s way to the exit door and starve, go homeless, penniless, deprived of the minimal decent healthcare and even clean water?

By Carolyn Chase

Sure would be nice to follow the money on the “homelessness” spending. With hundreds of millions of dollars going out the door, and let’s just say 10,000 unhoused – how much of that is direct help and how much is building rent-controlled units and how much is – as one activist put – the homeless industrial complex? I’m sure some has gone for good, but really…there doesn’t seem to be any serious analysis of what is a problem in Every City in the USA.

And you see it in Italy and France and the UK. Not so much in Scandinavia since not only do they generally believe that housing is a right, but they find ways to provide it. Austria also has an effective public housing program. Copenhagen in particular finds ways to provide affordable housing that isn’t bland and prone to low qualities of life, i.e. they are designed with green spaces and worthwhile architecture. It’s not rocket science – it’s design consciousness.

What we have around here in too many cases is cheap design and construction (not designed to last though the costs are definitely hard to manage) to support the bottom lines of the project.

Frank Gormlie Book-Signing
and Talk on The May 1970 Rebellion
Saturday, Dec. 14, 1–3 pm

Frank Gormlie will be available for book-signing
and will give a short presentation on his book,
what led him to write it and
what it means for us today in the Trump Era.

by Chris Jennewein / Times of San Diego / Dec. 4, 2024

Mayor Todd Gloria announced Wednesday, Dec. 4th, that the city will freeze most hiring and review capital spending to address a $258 million budget deficit.

Speaking at a press conference at City Hall, Gloria said defeat of the Measure E sales tax increase in November left no option but an immediate effort to save money.

He said San Diego voters made it clear that “they want to continue to operate this city with our existing resources,” adding that he sees this as “an opportunity to reimagine how our city operates and the services it provides.”

The immediate cutbacks outlined Wednesday include:

By James Downie / MSNBC Opinion Editor / Dec. 4, 2024

Just before 11 p.m. local time Tuesday, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law in a televised address to the nation. Shortly after, Gen. Park Ahn-Soo, the martial law commander, announced that “all political activities” would be banned and that “all media and publications will be subject to the control of the Martial Law Command.”

[Go to original for links]

Within three hours, lawmakers and protesters gathered outside the National Assembly, as soldiers tried to bar the entrances. Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the opposition Democratic Party, livestreamed himself clambering over a wall to enter the building. Within five hours, 190 legislators unanimously overturned Yoon’s decree. And within six hours of the president announcing his power grab, Yoon made a second television address ending his declaration of martial law. By Wednesday afternoon, the opposition had introduced articles of impeachment against Yoon, with a vote possible as early as Thursday.

The heroics of South Korea’s Democratic-led opposition were a welcome and riveting sight for supporters of democracy around the world. And they provided a lesson for Democrats and other Trump opponents in America.

By Scott Rodd / KPBS / December 3, 2024

Earlier this year, Mayor Todd Gloria chose one of his biggest platforms to unveil his administration’s latest initiative to solve homelessness.

“Tonight, I’m announcing a philanthropic campaign to help the city carry out our ambitious plans to end our homelessness crisis,” Gloria said at his State of the City address in January, as the name of the new initiative appeared on a giant screen behind him. “Called San Diegans Together Tackling Homelessness, this campaign already has commitments for a quarter of a million dollars.”

From Neighbors for a Better San Diego

Now that the 2024 election is final, Neighbors For A Better San Diego would like to highlight several trends that may have been missed while attention was given to more high-profile races:

SANDAG’s transit plans aren’t credible. NFABSD has repeatedly emphasized the flawed assumptions of SANDAG’s transit plans,

By Colleen O’Connor

Beat the crowd. No need to be a celebrity. Just get to Balboa Park today. Wednesday.

Parking will be better. Trams are available. And you can admire the “Jewels of the Season” exhibition at the Timken Museum in enviable surroundings.

And it is free. Thanks to the generosity of two old San Diego families. The Putnam sisters who “were rich and reclusive and changed San Diego’s art world forever” and the Timken family.