Month: June 2009

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It’s been a tough week but things are so much better and I’m finally catching up on my sleep. This…

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.

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.

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.

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.