Thinking of Bukowski at Del Mar – Summer Chronicles 2018 #6

Every year, opening day at Del Mar brings out the beautiful people. Handsome, well-heeled (or at least trying to look that way) young men and women get dressed to the nines and parade around the track, seeing and being seen. It is a classic San Diego moment: shiny happy people in an elegant place on a perfect summer day.
Not a trouble in the world.
Until they start betting and losing and betting and losing.
It’s All ‘Gloom and Doom’ From the Airbnb Crowd Ever Since San Diego Coastal Neighborhoods Were Saved

Wouldn’t you know it. Ever since the San Diego City Council decided last Monday to regulate short term vacation rentals, it’s all “gloom and doom” from the Airbnb crowd and their sycophants.
The Council vote on July 16 was a solid 6 to 3 in favor of Councilwoman Barbara Bry’s proposal to limit short term rentals to the primary residence and an accessory unit on the same property.
The vote was very historic – as it came after a huge defeat for Mayor Faulconer’s plan which would have opened up San Diego’s coastal and beach neighborhoods to investors world-wide. Faulconer’s plan would have destroyed the community fabric of Ocean Beach, PB and what’s left of community in Mission Beach.
But for the Airbnb crowd, it’s all a disaster, the sky is literally falling
The Burden of Charter Schools in San Diego County
By Thomas Ultican / San Diego Free Press
The California charter school law is doing serious harm to public schools. Few counties in the state have been more impacted by charter schools than San Diego County. This past school year 75,473 of the 508,169 publicly financed students enrolled in charter schools. In other words, 14.9 percent of San Diego’s students attended privatized schools and in the San Diego Unified School District, that percentage was greater than 17 percent.
Who Does He Think He’s Fooling?
“No collusion,”
the man, with way more talk
than walk says.
And he flies across
waters to Helsinki
to meet and greet
a Russian of ill repute
who is seen
as our number one enemy,
a man who slapped our country
upside the head
like a Mafia Godfather
putting an underling
in his place,
Remember When There Was Plenty of Abalone Along the San Diego Coast? Why Did They Disappear? Here’s One Project That’s Trying to Bring Them Back
Editordude: Many who grew up at the coast in Southern California in the late fifties and early sixties remember how plentiful abalones were.Then they disappeared ostensibly from over-fishing. Yet, here’s some hope for their return.
By Laylan Connelly / Southern California News Group / July 19, 2018
John Warren thinks back to the days when getting his hands on abalone was as easy as jumping on a surfboard and plucking the plentiful shellfish off a reef. Warren, who grew up at the beach, always cooked them with white wine in a big wok for the “ab feed,”
Vegetarian BBQ at the OB Green Center – Sat., July 21
If you’re looking for something to do Saturday afternoon – look no further. The OB Green Center is hosting a veggie BBQ from 2 to 6pm. Everyone’s welcome – come support our community’s environment, peace and social justice resource center.
An OBcean’s 2018 Summer Notebook of Teachers, Labor and Travels Across America
As I’m a San Diego teacher and active in my union, in the summer of 2016 I attended a National Education Association (NEA) conference in D.C.
Now two years later, on our heels from a crushing blow to unions by the Supreme Court, I returned to the NEA convention, but this time in the Minneapolis Convention Center.
Teachers are a strange sort in high numbers. Most in attendance are rule-obsessed, earnest, scrupulous, and many enjoy the melodious tones of their own voices.
The Taboo on Talking Climate Change
By Sarah “Steve” Mosko / Boogie Green

How often do we talk about climate change to family, friends or coworkers? Probably next to never if we’re like most people.
Yale’s national polling reveals that the majority of Americans accept that global warming is happening (73 percent) and are worried about it (63 percent). Even more want carbon dioxide, or CO2, regulated as a pollutant (81 percent).
Given these stats and the warning of scientists that the time window to prevent the worst impacts of climate change is closing fast, what keeps us from openly discussing it?
The answer is complex.
Bees Were Removed from Our Point Loma House and They Weren’t Given a Death Sentence
What comes to mind when you think of bees?
That they are dying out? The lack of bees pollinating will negatively affect our planet?
Then how did I get stung by that lone bee at Montano de Oro State Park last fall, sending me into a tailspin looking for antihistamines before my leg swelled. And why over a three week span were my husband and I finding one to three bees dead – or half way there – every other night in the upstairs bedroom of our Point Loma home?













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