Month: August 2013

Our good friend Jon Christensen passed away on Wednesday, August 28th, due to a heart attack. Jon would have been 64 on September 9th.

Jon wrote for the OB Rag and for the San Diego Free Press on occasion, and wrote under his initials “JEC”. His last piece – just posted on August 20th – called for the establishment of bicycle expressways throughout San Diego.

Much could be said about this former OBcean, who came to San Diego 40 years ago. He was a “survivor” at the County where he was employed for 30 years as staff and managers for elected officials. He was an avid sailor – twenty years ago, he designed and built his own trimaran and took it on its maiden sail in the Sea of Cortez.

Finally – some answers about Ft. Rosecrans – Sorta – from Doug Ledbetter

By Judi Curry

It has been three weeks since the new Director of Ft. Rosecrans Cemetery – has moved into his “lodge”. (When I asked him where I should meet him he told me “at the lodge.” Took me a minute to realize he meant the “private quarters.”)

He is in a wonderful position, because he had the courage to not answer all of my questions with a “I don’t know because I wasn’t here” but said he’d find out. Here is my interview with him from Thursday, August 29th, 2013 at 9:00am.

Let me tell you something about Doug Ledbetter first. He enlisted in the Air Force upon high school graduation and hails from Dayton, Ohio. He never attended college and is where he is because of passion and hard work.

Obama administration will not block state marijuana laws, if distribution is regulated

By Brady Dennis / Washington Post / August 29, 2013

The Obama administration on Thursday said it will not stand in the way of Colorado, Washington and other states where voters have supported legalizing marijuana either for medical or recreational use, as long as those states maintain strict rules involving distribution of the drug.

In a memo sent Thursday to U.S. attorneys in all 50 states, Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole detailed the administration’s new stance, even as he reiterated that marijuana remains illegal under federal law.

by Marjorie Cohn and Jeanne Mirer / Common Dreams

The drums of war are beating again. The Obama administration will reportedly launch a military strike to punish Syria’s Assad government for its alleged use of chemical weapons. A military attack would invariably kill civilians for the ostensible purpose of showing the Syrian government that killing civilians is wrong.

“What we are talking about here is a potential response . . . to this specific violation of international norms,” declared White House press secretary Jay Carney. But a military intervention by the United States in Syria to punish the government would violate international law.

By Jay Powell

Hold on to your wallets, you are about to get walloped. International energy giant Sempra Energy, owners of SDG&E, have set up a front group called “Fix My Energy Bill” to promote a whopping $120 per year fixed charge on every electric customers bill in the State of California. It is pending in the State Senate in the waning days of this legislative session.

What started out as a bill sponsored by Assemblyman Perea from Fresno to ostensibly help poor elderly folks sweltering in the Central Valley heat be able to afford air conditioning, AB 327 has morphed into a full blown attack on working families ability to control their energy bills and to make homeowner investments in energy efficiency devices and improvements including roof top solar much more difficult.

The Sierra Club and local and state solar industry representatives are trying to blunt this latest proposal by the three huge investor owned utilities Pacific Gas and Electric, SoCal Edison and SDG&E to perpetuate their antiquated business plans that depends on them building more and more power plants and huge transmission lines.

By Dr. Kelly Flanagan / UnTangled

We stand together on the marriage altar, and we begin the most important relationship of our lives with a terrible lie. We say, “For better or worse.” But we don’t really mean it.

If we were to be honest with ourselves, if we were to begin the marriage authentically, most of us would say, “I have a bunch of needs which have never been satisfied in my relationships.Today, in front of our friends and family, I’m publicly gambling that you will be the person to finally meet those needs. If you do, I will be happy, and I will try to make you happy. If you don’t, well, God help us…”

Editor: The OB Rag wishes to welcome Kelsey Lynore who will be providing OBceans and everyone else – beginning today – with a weekly forecast – or “heads up” as she calls it – based on her Tarot readings for all the zodiac signs.

Kelsey lives in Ocean Beach and is a professional tarot reader who can enable individuals, as she describes on her own website, “to identify and reorganize repeating themes within their own histories, bringing to light those narratives which bear upon their self identity directly.” Her site is The Tarot Nook, worthy of a look. Shes holds a BA with High Honors in French from U.C. Berkeley and was a Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Literary Studies at Northwestern University. She has also studied at New York University and Paris.

Word to the Wise: Week of August 29, 2013

By Kelsey Lynore

Each week, Kelsey throws a “What to do?” spread for each of the zodiac signs. The first card is shown and the other two… well, you’ll just have to infer them from the written forecasts. Mind the heads up and have a lovely week!

by Ernie McCray

I love getting out into the world and I’m particularly fond of spending time in Zihuatanejo, Guerrero, Mexico with Maria, mi querida.

That little seaport town and its surroundings compose a world of beaches and bays and mountains and lush jungles and mahogany colored peoples – and kick-ass mosquitos who seem to savor the taste of tall old black men.

This part of the world, as I learn more about it, gives rise to my spiritual nature, granting me a sense of what it must have been like for the Tarascan, Aztec, Toltec, Olmec and Maya peoples who walked this world many yesterdays ago.

In La Chole, just a few miles away from Casa Contenta, our place in Zihua, I looked upon two ancient structures, a pyramid made of bricks and an arena wherein games were played where the victors were killed and the losers enslaved – making winning for these people a welcoming entry to the next sphere one might say.

The “mystery” woman of yesterday’s Channel 10 news at 6:00pm – Tuesday, Aug. 27 – has been identified. The woman who posted a picture of herself with Bob Filner’s arm around her shoulder. The woman that did not edit out the glass of beer in the Mayor’s hand. The woman that smiled into the lens of the camera as the snap took place. Who, you might ask, was the “mystery” woman? Do I know her? Have I ever met her before? Is she famous? Should I make an effort to get her signature? Might she run for Mayor of San Diego? Is it true that there were over 15 people trying to identify her for Channel 10? Would I have known how to find her if they had contacted me?

How could one picture of a disgraced mayor with a smile on his face and a glass of beer in his hand generate so much interest?

Was this “mystery” woman his new squeeze? Here he resigned only two days before and he is seen in what was described as a “compromising” situation. Who compromised whom?

Editor: Ever since our Widder Curry posted an article with a photo taken showing her next to Bob Filner at a Point Loma Democratic Club party two days after his resignation, abc’s Channel 10 News has been searching for Judi, calling her “the mystery woman”. And they finally found her and conducted an interview with her featured under their headline:

Woman talks to 10News about photo taken with Bob Filner two days after resignation speech

Filner attended Democrats event in Point Loma

By Vanessa Van Hyfte / Channel 10 News / August 28

SAN DIEGO – A woman who posed for a picture with a smiling, beer-holding Bob Filner just 48 hours after his resignation speech spoke to 10News about what led to the photo opportunity.

Staunch Democrat Judi Curry told 10News Filner was not in a celebratory mood and far from the outgoing, gregarious man she has supported for years.

Curry has an older photo of her standing with Filner posted next to her front door.

“They say, ‘Isn’t that Filner? Aren’t you going to take that down?’ I say eventually,” said Curry, a retired business owner and former San Diego school administrator.

By Matthew Wood

The Torrey Pine on the 4300 block of Orchard Street estimated to be more than a century old is still standing, but neighbors wonder for how long.

A tree maintenance service team, scheduled to cut the tree down last week, was persuaded by Doug Harvey and Mary Cairns, neighbors across the alley, to postpone the job. They had reached out to Chris Caplaneris, the owner of the house where the tree sits, to trim branches that reached out over the alley. That somehow turned out into Caplaneris deciding to take out the entire tree, the neighbors say.

“This all came about because we wanted some branches to be pruned,” said Harvey, a real estate agent who says he is in the process of obtaining a degree in landscape architecture. “We’ll live with some sap.”

Six swimmers swam ashore at a beach along Point Loma on Monday, August 26th – with quite a story to tell. They were finishing up a relay swim from Santa Barbara to San Diego.

And in the process, broke a world record for open water relay swim.

They began up north on Friday, the 23rd, at 6 in the morning. A friend raced along the land with them – and he ended up running a full 265 miles to the end. And it was all for charity – for the Monarch Schools for homeless children and the Navy SEAL Foundation.

One of them, Zach Jirkovsky, told local media: “This is going to sound crazy, but it was fun.”