OB Rag

Diving into an Ocean Climate Action Plan

By David Helvarg

Fifteen years ago I was in Fiji on assignment for the book Feeling the Heat, a collection of dispatches from 10 journalists who traveled the world to report on the already visible effects of climate change. In the Somosomo Strait south of Vanua Levu, I saw my first bleached coral. Millions of heat-stressed coral polyps had expelled their symbiotic algae, turning about a third of the reef wedding-cake white.

“Did you see the bleached coral?” I asked one of the other divers after climbing back onto our boat. “Really? I thought they were supposed to be white like that,” she replied before excitedly pointing to a fruit bat flying overhead. I’ve more recently witnessed bleached and dead coral in the overly warm waters of Australia, Hawaii, Florida and Cuba, including during the massive global bleaching event of 2014-2017 documented in the film Chasing Coral.

Joshua Emerson Smith, at the San Diego Union-Tribune, earlier this month asked the question, “how green are e-scooters?” He proceeded, of course, to attempt to answer his own query. Here below is a summary of sorts of his findings.

In general, he says – as reflected in the sub-head – studies do find that dockless e-scooters are more eco-friendly than driving – but buses, biking and walking remain the greenest travel modes.

“According to studies, many people are currently cruising around on e-scooters as an alternative to cleaner forms of transportation, such as biking, walking and taking the bus.”

• The scooter craze may not be as green as advertised;

By Nicole Ueno / November 11, 2019

As state lawmakers rush to increase housing density in California, demographers estimate that our population will continue to increase by 300,000 to 400,000 people annually.

Essential infrastructure like roads, bridges, water pipelines and dams are already in disrepair, and increased strains from additional projected use are causing concern over the long-term sustainability of resident population growth.

A recent report from the League of California Cities states that “Numerous studies suggest that not only is the state unprepared for future growth, its current condition does not adequately support today’s population. Quite simply, California’s infrastructure is crumbling.”

Apparently someone is trying to send a message to the owner of a brand new tattoo shop that opened in Ocean Beach a week ago.

The Southbay Blackwater Tattoo – which opened in the former site of the Black Bead at 5003 Newport Avenue – had an explosive taped to its front window early Saturday, which blew a hole in the front glass window. Then early Monday morning, somebody threw something through that same window.

Mike Kellerman is the owner of the new shop and he reports that right after he opened up he had a confrontation with another tattoo shop owner last week, who threatened him about opening the shop in the community.

By Geoff Page

It was an unusually long Ocean Beach Planning Board meeting Wednesday, November 6, at three hours, but there was a lot to talk about. The political attack on the planning boards was one of two major issues that involved some lengthy discussion.

Community Planning Group “Reform”?

There is a document posted on the OBPB website, attached to the November Agenda, titled “Taskforce on Community Planning Group Reform Draft Findings & Recommendations.”

In a nut shell, this document contains a list of 31 reforms the Task Force believes are necessary for the planning board system. The Task Force is a group of people representing planning groups, small businesses, a Planning Commission member, a Development Services Department employee, someone from Mass Transit, a member of an Environment/ Climate Change advocacy organization, and an infill developer. The document states:

By Jim Miller

As America’s endless wars grind on, largely out of view, we have become good at bombastic displays of patriotism at ballgames and other public venues, but underneath our ritualized nods to the service of our veterans the unseen psychic toll suffered by those who fight our wars remains mostly invisible.

In fact, in the age of the all-volunteer military, most of us don’t really need to think that much about it.

Still the suffering is deep and pervasive, like it or not. Many of us don’t know that one out of ten homeless people on the street is a veteran (with some estimates putting it much higher). Thus, despite our official love of veterans, as a society we are clearly quite comfortable treating them like disposable people. Think about that the next time you see somebody sleeping in a storefront doorway: perhaps that person risked their life for your country.

On election night, Tuesday, the Virginia state legislature flipped – and now the state is blue. Virginia Democrats have been out of power in the legislature for a quarter of a century but the voters have spoken.

This turn-over now creates a road for the ERA, the Equal Rights Amendment, to become law. Virginia is now – with the first woman to serve as speaker in the body’s 400-year history, Democrat Eileen Filler-Corn – poised to pass the ERA. And when it does, Virginia becomes the crucial 38th state to ratify the measure. This would be the three-fourths of the all 50 states threshold needed to add it to the Constitution.

But there are two main hurdles.

For one, Congress set a deadline of 1982 – but by that date, only 35 states had ratified the ERA.

And two, some states have withdrawn their approval.

The issue of the City’s million dollar ramp to nowhere at Dog Beach in Ocean Beach is heading to a full City Council vote later this month. Because of that, local mainstream media have picked up on the issue with headlines that emphasis “controversy in Ocean Beach” – always a head-turner for the television audiences.

It is true that the Ocean Beach Planning Board “is going toe-to-toe with the City of San Diego over the city’s plans to spend $1.1 million upgrading an accessibility ramp onto Dog Beach in Ocean Beach.” The OB Rag has been covering the issue since it appeared before OB planners in early August (see our report here) and was shot down with a 12-1-1 to vote, and our writer, Geoff Page, examined the issues involved and came up with this conclusion:

How cannabis, coffee, and exercise can put your brain in its most productive place

By Chris Taylor / Mashable / Nov. 7, 2019

I’m at the bar in what appears to be an Old West saloon, shooting the breeze with a guy from Nevada who sits on a stool in a dark corner, hiding from his fans, casually crumbling marijuana into his roll-up tobacco. As he does this, Nevada guy explains why weed, alongside the other drug we had that morning at camp, the psychoactive bean juice commonly known as coffee, provides a way into a brain state prized by athletes, monks, and every creative person ever.

The saloon and campground are actually on a business property — sorry, Institute — in the middle of Mendocino, California, ground zero for old-school outdoor pot production. The pot company is Flow Kana, which pitches itself as an organic farm-to-table service — a weed middleman, basically, and a rising star in the cannabis world.

Come hang with Councilwoman Jen Campbell in OB on Saturday, November 9th. It’s happening at Hugo’s Cocina at 1830 Sunset Cliffs Blvd, from 10am to Noon.

Now’s your opportunity to offer our rep on the San Diego City Council some ideas, or complaints, or just to say ‘hello’. It’s a ‘first-come-first-serve’ arrangement but hey, if you have ideas about gentrification, short-term vacation rentals, those scooters, the OB Library, the OB lifeguard station, the poisons being sprayed in our parks, beaches and playgrounds, ….

by Ernie McCray

I came across a letter the other day. A letter I had written to a boy who had his life taken away. A two-year old. Anthony was his name.

It was a letter which my heart insisted I write to maintain my sanity after sitting, as a juror, in a courtroom, where an attorney, a lawyer who was but a wielder of smoke screens on a clear windy day, trying to sway our opinions with what amounted to bullshit by any definition.

I mean I had sat for days being blown away, looking at pictures with arrows pointing