June 2009

The Battle Over the Ocean Beach Precise Plan- how urban planning became a democratic process and how OB was saved

June 17, 2009 by Frank Gormlie
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by Frank Gormlie

The wonderful and warm community of Ocean Beach thrives on, even while it harbors scars of tagging, and while its business folk plan for the annual festival, the residents go about their days and lives with a harmony uncommon in this day and age of high-tech, high-rise and low markets.

The contentedness – yea, even bliss – of the seaside village’s people, can be traced to …

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Rites of Passage

June 17, 2009 by Frank Gormlie
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by Frank Gormlie

SUNSET CLIFFS, CA. Ah, the rites of Spring, the rites of passage. Jim Grant, local photographer best known for his amazing sunsets, sent us this pic of local kids doing the jump. Ah, to be young again.

In my youth, just a few moons ago, I did this jump a number of times. I even swam through the yucky seaweed to the cave, walked in a few yards and found the hidden stairs to the old locked door that leads to the secret passageway. It was used during Prohibition for booze runners. They hadn’t heard yet of the ‘no alcohol’ ban in San Diego parks.

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Phallic Logic? Local Wingnuts Aim At Street Fair – June 27th

June 17, 2009 by Doug Porter
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by Douglas Porter

The local blogosphere is chock full of rumors that Union Tribune editorial writer Chris Reed is readying a post exposing the Ocean Beach Street Fair & Chili Cookoff’s connections to organized labor groups. Reed, who spent his formative years undergoing ideological training at The Orange County Register, joined the UT in 2005 and pens the paper’s online sop to wingnuts entitled “America’s Finest Blog”.

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Iranian Opposition Leader Calls For More Rallies

June 17, 2009 by Source
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TEHRAN, Iran – Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi issued a direct challenge Wednesday to the country’s supreme leader and cleric-led system, calling for a mass rally to protest disputed election results and violence against his followers.

A crackdown on dissent continued, with more arrests of opposition figures reported, and the country’s most powerful military force _ the Revolutionary Guard _ saying that Iranian Web sites and bloggers must remove any materials that “create tension” or face legal action

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Food, Inc.: the silence of the yams

June 16, 2009 by Source
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Robbie Kenner didn’t mean to make a horror film when he started working on Food, Inc.. But you can’t shine a light on our food chain without exposing some ugly truths. As Michael Pollan says in the opening of the film:

The way we eat has changed more in the last 50 years than in the previous 10,000, but the image that’s used to sell the food…you go into the supermarket and you see pictures of farmers. The picket fence and the silo and the 1930s farmhouse and the green grass. The reality is, it’s not a farm, it’s a factory.

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All Eyes On Iran – even from OB

June 16, 2009 by Frank Gormlie
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I cannot stop watching history unfolding rapidly in Iran these last couple of days. I have skimmed and searched through several reports and websites and offer below a compilation:

Today, Tuesday, June 16th, supporters of the reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, staged another massive rally in Tehran, the capital.

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As Services Improve, Combat Veterans Need Our Attention Now More than Ever

June 15, 2009 by Lane Tobias
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I remember the morning of September 11, 2001 well. I was sitting in a study hall at my high school in Teaneck, New Jersey, listening to a radio host announce that two planes had crashed into the World Trade Center. Three friends and I hopped in a car and sped down the Jersey Turnpike. We pulled over in the Vince Lombardi rest area just in time to watch the towers fall from across the Hudson River.

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The Second Iranian Revolution? Masses turn out for banned rally – gov’t militia shoots into crowd

June 15, 2009 by Frank Gormlie
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Could this be the beginning of the Second Iranian Revolution? Today, Monday, June 15th – 100,000, 200,000 or perhaps 1 million people mobilized in the streets of Tehran, the capital, in a show of support for the reformist candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, who allegedly lost the recent election for president.

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Summarizing the great graffiti debate …

June 15, 2009 by Dave Rice
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Okay, this has been a heckuva interesting ride the last week or so and handful of articles – and very timely too, as I’ve been making similar observations of late. It seems like there’s a lively debate on where political and art-inspired graffiti fits into the general urban landscape.

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I’ve been gone…

June 14, 2009 by Patty Jones
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It’s been a tough week but things are so much better and I’m finally catching up on my sleep. This is why… Her mom and dad named her long before she was born, telling me that we would call her “Sunny” or “Maddy” depending on her disposition. So far she’s a Sunny! I know that […]

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The Leaflet That Moved Ocean Beach

June 14, 2009 by Frank Gormlie
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In the early Seventies, the battle for the future of Ocean Beach grew very intense, as the different warring sides squared off around the original OB Precise Plan – the urban design for the community sponsored by the elite and powerful. The OB Community Planning Group published an 8-page leaflet that was so effective, that it convinced the community to join and support the organization.

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Flash to the Past: Original OB Rag Covers

June 13, 2009 by Frank Gormlie
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As you probably know, this blog is named after the original OB People’s Rag, an underground or alternative community newspaper that flourished in Ocean Beach during the first half of the Seventies.

See the evolution of the newspaper’s covers, as they reflected what was going on in OB at the time and what was on the minds of its all-volunteer citizen journalist staff.

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Will You Be Served? Our County Government Screws Up Again!

June 13, 2009 by Anna Daniels
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by Anna Daniels

What’s with our county government? A gay couple, married since 2008, was not permitted by a county caseworker to sit together while one of them applied for public assistance,while heterosexual married couples are routinely allowed to stay together while county social workers interview them.

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Just like riding a bike

June 13, 2009 by Dave Gilbert
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by Dave Gilbert

Recently I read that last quarter bicycles outsold automobiles & trucks in our country. Sure, as that Missing Persons song goes, “Nobody walks in L.A.” heck, that’s part of why I could only stand living there for a year. But O.B. on the other hand has every thing that you need within walking or at the very least biking or skateboarding distance.

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A Black Man Says: ‘Viva la Raza!’

June 12, 2009 by Ernie McCray
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by Ernie McCray

My old Latino friends from John Spring Junior High, back in Tucson, must be bursting with pride as Sonia Sotomayor closes in on a seat on the Supreme Court – just as I’ve been riding high knowing there’s a brother in the White House.

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The Ugly Side of OB

June 12, 2009 by Frank Gormlie

More scenes of Ocean Beach than we care to view or think about. But the taggers have found their canvas and its our cliffs. Here is another sampling of what some people think is the worst spate of graffiti on Sunset Cliffs then they can remember. These were taken recently by local photographer Jeff Stone.

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Pete Seeger Passes – A Review of His Project

June 12, 2009 by Source
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Editor: We just heard that 94-year-old Pete Seeger has just passed away. When Pete hit 90, we shared the following review of his project by Richard Flacks, a retired UC Santa Barbara professor who has long written about US culture.

BY Dick Flacks

[When] Pete Seeger turned 90 on May 3, 2009, it provided the occasion for a huge Madison Square Garden celebratory concert, featuring a wide array of popular musicians singing his songs and honoring his influence. In the years prior to this event, Pete has gotten more mainstream attention than he’d received in the previous 70 years of performing. Springsteen’s recorded several CD’s called ‘The Seeger Sessions’ and simultaneously went on an international tour featuring material drawn from Seeger’s folksong repertory. There was a documentary film bio, released on public tv and theatrically, called Pete Seeger :The power of song. There’s an ongoing campaign to get him nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

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Taggers In OB – Local Smoke Shop May Be Source of Supplies

June 11, 2009 by Doug Porter
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by Doug Porter

A few weeks ago I posted an article here about some corporate sponsored spray painting that occurred on the sidewalks of Ocean Beach. It seems as though a company called Nutrisoda (or somebody in their employ) decided that a little guerrilla marketing in OB would be a good way to launch their San Diego marketing blitz. Their cutesy sidewalk slogans angered many small business owners who ended up having to scrub the stuff off their sidewalks.

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City Council replaces Mission Bay Park Committee with ‘professionals’

June 10, 2009 by Source

by Sebastian Ruiz / SDNews.com / June 10, 2009

City Council voted on June 9 to term out the current Mission Bay Park Committee by July 1 and replace the board with members that have expertise in city finance and management. It is unclear who the new members will be – and if any of the current board members will return to their seats.

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A response to today’s shooting at the Holocaust Museum

June 10, 2009 by Lane Tobias

by Lane Tobias

Today’s shooting at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. is a stark reminder to those of us dedicated to equality and social justice that there are people out there willing to disrupt progress with violent acts – even if it puts their own life in jeopardy.

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Texas Cop tasers 72-year old great-grandmother

June 10, 2009 by Frank Gormlie
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It happened in Texas, back in May. A 72-year old woman was stopped for a traffic violation by a state deputy. She at first refuses to get out of her car. … The deputy threatens to taser her. She dares him. And then he tasers her and she falls to the ground screaming.

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New scenes from OB’s past

June 9, 2009 by Frank Gormlie
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Here are some real treasures from OB’s past – these are from the original pages of the OB Peoples Rag – most from 1972.

And it was that merged surfer-hippie-politico subculture that was so unique in Ocean Beach that saved the community from over development.

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Banks Repay Federal TARP Funds: A Sign of Stability or Greed?

June 9, 2009 by Dave Rice
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Ten of America’s largest financial institutions today were cleared to return $68 billion in bailout funds received from the federal Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), after successfully completing a government-administered stress test and raising capital from private sources if it was deemed more was necessary (more on that later).

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The Kids – the Young and Homeless of OB

June 8, 2009 by Mary E. Mann
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by Mary E Mann

For weeks, starting in he beginning of May, I was getting up early and taking walks around Ocean Beach. I was looking for the groups of kids (teens and twenty-something’s mostly), who I have heard described as “Pier Kids”, “Anarchist Kids”, “Street Kids”, “Kids with backpacks”, and “Those kids who wear a lot of brown and have dogs, and sometimes cats on leashes”. I will refer to them here as The Kids. The Kids are, in fact, the young and the homeless.

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The Healthcare Maze

June 8, 2009 by Staff
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By OB Rag Staffer

Our US employer-based corporate healthcare insurance system is a nightmarish maze of rules and expenses and deadlines. It keeps many patients from receiving the medical care they need. It provides easy access to medical care to those who need it the least, and denies it to those who need it the most.

It provides a lavish, luxurious lifestyle for the corporate executives who reap its financial benefits (and who fight to keep it that way).

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The Power of Pole Dancing

June 7, 2009 by Anna Daniels
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by Anna Daniels

“Actress Heather Graham wants women to empower themselves by pole dancing.” I read these words in a filler article in the U-T last Saturday morning (5/31/09). Whatever life lacks in plot, it more than makes up for in irony. Consider the past week’s news.

“LORD KNOWS WHAT WE WOULD GET THEN” The news has delivered up some fascinating responses to President Obama’s proposed appointment of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. …

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Food Stamp Use and Unemployment Rate Rise

June 5, 2009 by Source
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One in nine Americans are using federal food stamps to help buy groceries as the country’s deep recession forced another 591,000 people onto the federal anti-hunger program at latest count.

The unemployment rate raced to 9.4 percent, the highest since a matching rate in July 1983, from 8.9 percent in April. This reading beat the peak in the jobless rate during the 1973-1975 recession that lasted 16 months.

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Tiananmen Square Massacre – 20 Years Ago Today

June 4, 2009 by Source
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Some call it the “Tiananmen Square Massacre,” others say the “Tiananmen Square Crackdown,” and in China it is known merely as an “incident,” the “June 4th Incident,” or as the Chinese say, “liù-sì shìjiàn”.

No matter how you refer to the 1989 democracy protests in Beijing and the brutal response by China’s military, on Thursday, June 4th, the world marks the event’s 20th anniversary.

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Health Insurance Lobby Group Protested by Doctors, Nurses, and Patients

June 4, 2009 by Doug Porter

by Doug Porter

AHIP (America’s Health Insurance Plans) is a national lobbying organization representing over 1300 health insurance providers in the US. For the past few days they’ve been having their annual gathering at the San Diego Convention Center.

So, why was the street in front of the San Diego Convention Center lined with noisy protesters?

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Scenes from OB’s once Voltaire Park

June 4, 2009 by Frank Gormlie
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Once upon a time, a citizen-created park existed at the busy corner of Voltaire Street and Sunset Cliffs Boulevard. It had been created and then was maintained by folks from the Ocean Beach Grassroots Organization and supporters.

After the departure of the last business at the location – on property owned by World Oil – the lot had become an eye-sore with weeds and trash strewed about. Without authorization from the City or World Oil, OBGO took it over, uprooting the weeds, dealing with the junk, picking up the old asphalt, and planting flowers, trees and bushes. And watering it.

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