OB Rag

By Colleen O’Connor

The leaked draft of the U.S. Supreme Court’s tentative decision to overturn Roe v. Wade may have just doomed the GOP and uplifted the Democrats.

At its base, the Justice Alito decision is not just an assault on the “rule of law,” the sanctity of legal precedence, and the appearance (if never the reality) of an unbiased Court bench, but it has now eclipsed the news coverage of the brutal Ukraine war; the omnipresence of Donald Trump-isms; and to what end?

The legal, cultural, economic, race and gender-biased ghosts—still lingering from the 1860s U.S. Civil War—are rising from their graves—to fight again.

By Joni Halpern

Very few Americans know the history of the Roe v. Wade decision, either legally, socially, or medically.

But the short history is that throughout the evolution of the human species, women have never been the sole determinants of whether they become pregnant. Instead, they have most commonly been treated as the wrongdoers, the flawed, the negligent, the sinful perpetrators of unwanted births. Yet, from ancient times, the real determinants of pregnancy have been religion, culture, and law,

by Ernie McCray

I don’t know if there is anything like the joy of being on stage.

Such were my thoughts after the last time I was on one, doing “Still, We Rise,” a Poetry and Jazz Show, at the Conrad Prebys Music Center at UC San Diego, with some amazingly talented people the world should know.

Cecil Lytle, a concert jazz pianist of renown and professor emeritus at UCSD, produced and performed in the show. The Rob Thorsen Quartet and jazz vocalist, Steph Johnson, did most of the music for the show.

Most Americans say the Supreme Court should uphold Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that established a constitutional right to abortion, a Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted last week finds.

With the Supreme Court poised to overturn the right to abortion, the survey finds that 54 percent of Americans think the 1973 Roe decision should be upheld while 28 percent believe it should be overturned — a roughly 2-to-1 margin.

By Michael Steinberg
The names and faces and political parties in power may change, but the shill game remains the same: waste incredible fortunes on dangerous discredited boondoggles.

Nuclear power came into being as a reaction to the public’s horror after the US’s use of nuclear bombs to devastate Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In reaction to this the government instituted the “Atoms for Peace program, most notably encouraging electric companies to build large nuclear power plants with huge subsidies that would produce electricity promised to be “too cheap to meter.”

By Geoff Page

There was nothing earth-shaking or controversial during the Peninsula Community Planning Board’s monthly meeting April 21 but the agenda was not uninteresting. The agenda, in fact, represented the things planning boards were created for.

Before moving on, a point on how PCPB chair Fred Kosmo starts each Zoom meeting. During the Zoom meeting era, Kosmo has always reminded the audience that the meeting is being recorded as a sort of warning, which is unnecessary. This is a public meeting and anyone at a public meeting should already know they may be filmed or photographed without permission.

Today Tuesday, America is waking up to a country whose Supreme Court appears ready to soon ban women’s right to an abortion and overturn nearly half a century of precedence granting the right to choose.

This all came out yesterday when Politico released what it calls a draft of a majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito that would strike down Roe v. Wade.

Last night, we learned right-wing justices on the Supreme Court intend to overturn Roe v. Wade. This decision would allow states to ban abortion across the country, leading to even further assaults on reproductive health.

Today, we show up—to say abortion care is health care and #BansOffOurBodies!

Can you show up in your community at 5 p.m. local time tonight, Tuesday, May 3, at your local federal building, courthouse, or town square, for a rapid-response protest against the right-wing attacks on abortion rights and demand our elected officials act now before any more services are cut off?

By Mat Wahlstrom

It’s the mantra of pro-developer pundits who self-describe as “YIMBY,” or ‘Yes in My Back Yard,’ that anyone who opposes their agenda of total deregulation on land use as a prerequisite for creating affordable housing, simply doesn’t understand ‘supply and demand’ — or as they put it, “Economics 101.”

If the problem is people need affordable housing, then we just need to allow a ‘free market,’ unconstrained by regulation, to supply whatever housing it wants in order to meet that demand.

This Wednesday, May 4, the Ocean Beach Planning Board returns to in-person meetings and will begin meeting once again in the Ocean Beach Rec Center at 4726 Santa Monica Ave. The Board has also issued a caveat. ” Our meeting room capacity is restricted to 25 persons, so depending on turnout we may ask applicants and speakers to wait in the lobby until their item is called.”

Besides electing a secretary for the Board, dealing with two possible appointments, and having a presentation on the OB Estuary Enhancement Project, the volunteer panel has two projects to review.

Local television station KUSI has interviewed at least two local pilots, both of whom say the historic palm trees in Point Loma are no danger to aviation safety.

The station interviewed attorney and pilot, Michael Curran, who said that there is no danger to aviation safety resulting from the 100-year-old palm trees. They also spoke to former Naval Aviator, Brian ‘Sunshine’ Sinclair’, who agreed with Curran. KUSI reported that Sinclair also stated that the FAA gave the City of San Diego several other options they could have used but decided to go with cutting down the five trees instead.