OB Rag

The primary is just a month away — on June 7 — and District 2 has the most interesting race going on, what with three Democratic challengers to the Democratic incumbent.

Most of them have been out fundraising. And the latest round of campaign contribution disclosures were submitted by candidates last week. Here’s what they’ve raised, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune:

After four years of complaints from residents and businesses, the city of San Diego is finally getting ready to crack down on electric scooters. Finally.

No, really this time.

A proposal with supposedly “sweeping changes to how the city regulates electric scooters” was approved unanimously last week by the City Council’s Active Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and now is scheduled for a vote by the full council in late May. It could take effect as soon as July.

Scooter use has dramatically increased recently after a two-year lull that everyone blames on pandemic-related restrictions.

Early voting for the June 7 primary starts 30 days before the election. And the San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board is hosting a series of live and in-person community forums for San Diego City Council candidates.

These events, which will occur both in person and via Facebook Live, will give community members the chance to hear the candidates answer a range of questions from members of the Editorial Board as well as ask questions of the candidates themselves.

Masks will be provided and are encouraged for in-person attendees.

State of California Pushes Navy to Act 30 Years After Pledge to Clean Burnoff Site

By J.W. August, freelance journalist

May 5, 2022 (San Diego) – It’s aptly described as “The Fiery Marsh,” covering 95 acres on the southwest side of Naval Air Station North Island. The “fiery” part of the name refers to six pits in the marshy areas of the island that were used to burn off chemicals used on the Navy base.

A letter sent in February by the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control board’s Executive Officer, David Gibson, to the Commanding Officer at North Island, Captain Dwight Clemons, asks the Navy“ to initiate a formal dispute process in response to the environmental and water quality concerns at the “Fiery Marsh.”

by Kent Rodricks/ Times of San Diego / May 1, 2022

Times of San Diego recently published a piece announcing the opening of the new Landis Bikeway without asking basic questions or challenging the bike utopian orthodoxy championed by Mayor Todd Gloria and his bike extremist minions.

How many bikers will actually utilize this bikeway? How will it impact residents? What about the decreased number of parking spaces? How will less parking affect the ability of disabled drivers to park close to their destinations? Will they be forced to ambulate longer distances?

The San Diego-based Save Our Heritage Organization (SOHO), along with thousands of San Diegans, has noted and discussed how housing affordability is an increasing crisis of major concern for our county’s present and future. The loss of naturally occurring affordable housing (another name for unsubsidized) is compounding the problem.

An obvious and potentially widespread solution would be to reinvest in, preserve, and adapt older buildings for housing, yet neither the City nor County of San Diego has embraced this nationally proven solution.

By Frank Gormlie

Monday, May 4 – Introduction

For at least an entire generation of Americans, the day May 4, 1970, will always be associated with the shootings of unarmed students by National Guardsmen on the campus of Kent State University in Ohio. Four students were killed – two had nothing to do with the protests, one was an ROTC cadet – and nine others were wounded, including one permanently paralyzed. The shootings will be eternally remembered as a grim stain upon US history.

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.