Surf has been flat a couple weeks, and some of the boys are getting grumpy. The Cold Water came and went, and they barely squeaked out waves; including a session at Waddle. And the Whiteys are back in town– a 15-footer off the cement ship and a boy got hit in Marina. Today, the surf picked up from the north, but too steep for Disneylands. First Peak looked fun, waist to head high, and offshore; and the ASP tour looked like they were hooking into some solid overhead surf in Ocean Beach. But what about the high tide? Every time I look it seems to be high tide – in fact, I think it has something to do with climate change and increasing ocean levels – Global Warming!!!!! Anyway, the Indian summer has been all time. The picture I included shows a snapshot of the fall wildlife – just off the wharf. For the last couple of weeks, the baitfish have been close, bringing in Humpback whales, birds, dolphins, and all the other predators I can’t see helping the whales push the bait ball to the surface. I sat at Twin Lakes the other day and watched the feeding frenzy for about a half hour. It was incredible – at least five whales, dolphins pods, hundred-plus birds – working the bait ball the entire time I watched. Unfortunately, way too many spectators in boats, kayaks, and on SUPs tainted the view. What happens when a whale tail, fin, or other body part thrashes some idiot – do the authorities need to act? Get the offending whale? Why are people….?

Rich Good-Ole’-Boy Tea Party Obstructionist – private planes disrupt Olama visits: First, a 75-year-old Illinois woman flying her kit plane violated restricted airspace during a presidential visit to Chicago; she was intercepted by two F-16 fighter jets. The woman, Miss Rose, said she did not listen to her radio nor did she check her computer regarding restricted air space. Miss Rose is a Republican who said she did not vote for Obama. Her late husband owned Rose Packing Co., a meat packer that supplies Canadian bacon to McDonald’s restaurants. Rose said she filled out a report with the Federal Aviation Administration, including a note describing how she mistakenly believed the jets were circling to admire her plane. Next, Olama was visiting Mountain View when a bi-plane crossed into restricted airspace. I witnessed this event. This time a F-15 fighter jet roared over the point, circling a yellow bi-plane whose pilot appeared to be tooling around unaware of the high-tech contrast. I thought nothing of it, but I was in awe of the US air power. I heard another take – Rich Good-Ole’-Boy Tea Party Obstructionists getting in a dig at the president. Well, I thought, that’s a reasonable conclusion – I had a good laugh. But really, what has Olama done? He pushed a law that mandates windfall profits for the healthcare insurance industry and enshrines both for-profit health care and the healthcare insurance industry. He continued the Bush-era tax breaks at the cost of billions to services for the broader population. He stepped up warring, he stepped up assassinations via drones, and he assassinated US citizens without due process. He addressed the financial crisis by handing over the problem to the same people who ushered the problem in. He didn’t close Guantanamo, and is still holding all sorts of innocent people with no charges. Renditions continue and the government is even more secret and still spying on its citizens. The stimulus was grossly under funded, the government almost defaulted, and unemployment continues unabated – no matter what. To top it off, much of the black hole our country is in was due in large part to the former Republican machine that dominated the White House prior to Olama’s election. What could the Rich Good-Ole’-Boy Tea Party Obstructionists really be pissed about? Olama’s tan?

Surfed the south this weekend – barely pulling it together with my latest back injury. It never got big at the Hook or Sharks, but it was fun. Rode a short board for two go-outs and rode my LB plank during Sunday’s session. And Sunday’s session – during Sunday’s session, there was a point where there were three of us on the rotation, riding waist to chest high waves – pretty good shape. Light wind and sunny with perfect lighting; all of a sudden, this set from nowhere kicked-in. Each of us got a head-high to little overhead wave. For my part, I just slid the plank into the right direction, got into trim, and styled down the line. Each of us paddled back out to more waves of the same set. I was the last to get back out and I let one go by as I saw one out the back. Sure enough, a solid overhead perfect Sharks south came my way. I paddled the plank in and started a high-line trim. Next thing, the wave just threw – not a drop of water out of place. Bent my knees and found myself in one of the best Sharks’ barrels I have ever ridden – just staring up into the light bluish-green ceiling. Slid out – no worries. The set passed and the three of us made it back out to the line up. Each of us got two waves in the set, and there were waves that passed through unridden as we paddled back out between waves. You can imagine, we had big smiles and words of disbelief.

Tonight, October 11, 2011, the buoys show a west swell is ramping up – 7 feet from 280 at 20 seconds. Nice weather on slate for tomorrow – potential! And so it was. Fun surf during the week, and the film crew kept everyone guessing about how to get to the surf. For those not aware – the point was rented out for the production of a movie concerning Jay. An enclave of LA came and took over. The folks were nice enough – but it was still weird.

The economy: Not to be outdone, Michael Cembalest, the chief investment officer of JPMorgan Chase, wrote in July of this year (in a clients-only newsletter obtained by Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson) that “profit margins have reached levels not seen in decades,” and “reductions in wages and benefits explain the majority of the net improvement.” (Cembalest printed the latter quote in boldfaced lettering.) “US labor compensation,” he explained, “is now at a 50-year low relative to both company sales and US GDP.” Or as the media liars would say, it’s due to increased productivity!!! One question, why can’t the profit be better distributed among all those who produce it? And why does the profit need to reach obscene levels?

What is it about Corporate and the wealthy paying out fines for wrong doing without acknowledging any wrongdoing. Essentially, using money to obfuscate criminal behavior.

#OWS = expressing dissent to the system itself. It is not a Democratic Party organ. It is not about demanding that President Obama’s single bill pass or anything along those lines. It is saying that we believe the system itself is radically corrupted, and we no longer are willing to tolerate it. And that’s infinitely more important than specific legislative or political demands.

The Rise of the Regressive Right and the Reawakening of America

Posted: 10/16/11 05:44 PM ET Robert Reich

A fundamental war has been waged in this nation since its founding, between progressive forces pushing us forward and regressive forces pulling us backward.

We are going to battle once again.

Progressives believe in openness, equal opportunity, and tolerance. Progressives assume we’re all in it together: We all benefit from public investments in schools and health care and infrastructure. And we all do better with strong safety nets, reasonable constraints on Wall Street and big business, and a truly progressive tax system. Progressives worry when the rich and privileged become powerful enough to undermine democracy.

Regressives take the opposite positions.

Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and the other tribunes of today’s Republican right aren’t really conservatives. Their goal isn’t to conserve what we have. It’s to take us backwards.

They’d like to return to the 1920s — before Social Security, unemployment insurance, labor laws, the minimum wage, Medicare and Medicaid, worker safety laws, the Environmental Protection Act, the Glass-Steagall Act, the Securities and Exchange Act, and the Voting Rights Act.

In the 1920s Wall Street was unfettered, the rich grew far richer and everyone else went deep into debt, and the nation closed its doors to immigrants.

Rather than conserve the economy, these regressives want to resurrect the classical economics of the 1920s — the view that economic downturns are best addressed by doing nothing until the “rot” is purged out of the system (as Andrew Mellon, Herbert Hoover’s Treasury Secretary, so decorously put it).

In truth, if they had their way we’d be back in the late nineteenth century — before the federal income tax, antitrust laws, the Pure Food and Drug Act, and the Federal Reserve. A time when robber barons — railroad, financial, and oil titans — ran the country. A time of wrenching squalor for the many and mind-numbing wealth for the few.

Listen carefully to today’s Republican right and you hear the same Social Darwinism Americans were fed more than a century ago to justify the brazen inequality of the Gilded Age: Survival of the fittest. Don’t help the poor or unemployed or anyone who’s fallen on bad times, they say, because this only encourages laziness. America will be strong only if we reward the rich and punish the needy.

The regressive right has slowly consolidated power over the last three decades as income and wealth have concentrated at the top. In the late 1970s the richest 1 percent of Americans received 9 percent of total income and held 18 percent of the nation’s wealth; by 2007, they had more than 23 percent of total income and 35 percent of America’s wealth. CEOs of the 1970s were paid 40 times the average worker’s wage; now CEOs receive 300 times the typical workers’ wage.

This concentration of income and wealth has generated the political heft to deregulate Wall Street and halve top tax rates. It has bankrolled the so-called Tea Party movement, and captured the House of Representatives and many state governments. Through a sequence of presidential appointments it has also overtaken the Supreme Court.

Scalia, Alito, Thomas, and Roberts (and, all too often, Kennedy) claim they’re conservative jurists. But they’re judicial activists bent on overturning 75 years of jurisprudence by resurrecting states’ rights, treating the 2nd Amendment as if America still relied on local militias, narrowing the Commerce Clause, and calling money speech and corporations people.

Yet the great arc of American history reveals an unmistakable pattern. Whenever privilege and power conspire to pull us backward, the nation eventually rallies and moves forward. Sometimes it takes an economic shock like the bursting of a giant speculative bubble; sometimes we just reach a tipping point where the frustrations of average Americans turn into action.

Look at the Progressive reforms between 1900 and 1916; the New Deal of the 1930s; the Civil Rights struggle of the 1950s and 1960s; the widening opportunities for women, minorities, people with disabilities, and gays; and the environmental reforms of the 1970s.

In each of these eras, regressive forces reignited the progressive ideals on which America is built. The result was fundamental reform.

Perhaps this is what’s beginning to happen again across America.