Month: October 2014

By Lois Lane

The Point Loma Democrats met Sunday, October 26 at their usual venue, the Point Loma Assembly building.

Before the panel discussion of the propositions started, Ed Harris, still our councilmember, was there to fill us in on the Belmont Park proposed lease extension to 55 years. His take is that this will not come back to the City Council before he leaves office. He had an additional piece of information – the current lease requires the tenant to spend 2.5% of gross revenue on improvements. The proposed lease removes this requirement. This makes the proposed lease even worse than he originally projected.

Attended by about 50 people, the main meeting was devoted to the Propositions, and it was a spirited presentation,

Do We Want Neighbors Spying On Each Other?

Really, how many times did you flush the toilet today?

I remember reading Orwell’s “1984” many years ago, and laughing as I read page after page of things that I thought were impossible to occur during my lifetime. After all, who expected to have drones following your every move; computers able to pinpoint just where you were standing in the Universe. Well, another joke on me!

I have been accepting of most of the “1984” happenings, but I think the one thing happening now that really ticks me off is the offer of an “App” that you can use to report that your neighbor is using too much water.

Neighbors spying on each other?

Every Halloween in OB for the last several years Tyler Standley and his friends offer up to anyone who shows, a tour of their OB Haunted House that they construct.

The free haunt starts outdoors and spans the common area of an entire apartment building and then proceeds through the neighboring house’s full garage, backyard, side yard and front.

It takes Tyler and his friends roughly 2 months to build the complex, and it takes between 15 to 20 minutes to get through. …

Do Not Allow Your Kids to See These Photos!

OB gets into Halloween. Obviously, no longer just a kid’s thing – the front porches and yards of OB residences prove that all kinds of people – get into it.

We set out with camera in hand to capture just how much Ocean Beach is into this un-holiday holiday.

We saw many graveyards, ghosts, spiders, pumpkins of course, and webs. Even a shark!

CVS Pharmacy Signs Are Up

The CVS storefront was lit for the first time on the night of Friday, October 24. Gretchen Newsom told the OB Rag that she will be reaching out to them this week to request an update on their progress and fulfillment of the Community Benefits Agreement.

Hit & Run Victim Katie Conner Improves – Fundraiser at Pizza Port – Nov. 1 “She’s lucky to be alive,” Mike Conner said.

SeaWorld to Skip the Rose Parade This Year

Union-Tribune Makes Fun of OBceans – Again Once again, our very own daily, the Union-Tribune, is making fun of OBceans.

Loma Portal residents object to recycling operation

AND MORE – COME ON IN …

A three unit complex at 2121-2125 Wabaska Court was recently sold for $725,000 cash. The complex includes a three-bedroom, two-bathroom single-family front house plus a large 1 bedroom upstairs unit and a lower studio unit.

Also on the 6,799 square foot lot, is 2 full 1 car detached garages and 1/2 car garage. The complex has more amenities than these photos show, and zillow.com has them. The original structures were built in 1948. And the lot is very close to busy Nimitz Boulevard, as it rests in a cul-de-sac just yards away.

Old Venice
2910 Canon Street
San Diego, CA 92106
619-222-5888

A friend and neighbor – Jim – called me a few days ago and wanted to take me out to dinner as a thank you for taking care of his house while he was away. He suggested a new restaurant in Ocean Beach, but when I looked at the menu, even during “restaurant week” I felt it was too expensive for what was being offered. I said I would go with him, but not to the restaurant he chose. He didn’t care where we went so I looked thought those listed that were under $35. The “Old Venice” restaurant was listed at $25 per person, and had a nice selection of items. It seems to me that I reviewed this restaurant before but it was at lunch time, so I felt this time would still be a review of a what was being offered.

Newport Ave Storefront to Be Similar to Solana Beach Brewery

By Matthew Wood

The Ocean Beach craft beer scene is about to get a bit sudsier, as Solana Beach’s Culture Brewing Co. builds a new tasting room on Newport Avenue.

Construction is already under way on the storefront, which is just west of OB Warehouse. Co-owner Steve Ragan said he hopes to have the place open by November 8, in time for San Diego Beer Week.

He said the place will be similar to the Solana Beach brewery, except all the beer will be brought in from there and none made at the OB location.

It will be a rather bare-bones operation: No food, no TVs, no other booze. Just 20 or so taps serving nothing but their beer.

San Diego’s publicly funded transit system bites the hand that feeds it

By Anna Daniels / San Diego Free Press

MTS – you are a craven, pathetic mess. When Alliance San Diego launched a non-partisan effort to increase awareness about elections in communities with historically low voter turnout like my community of City Heights, they approached San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) with the intention of buying printed bus ads.

The ads would include the message Vote for San Diego, along with the date of the election. Images of native San Diegans were included with motivational messages such as “Vote for what’s best for your community.”

Did I say that Alliance San Diego’s intention was to buy bus ads? They weren’t asking for a public service freebee. MTS declined the request and herein lies the tale of how our publicly funded, public benefit agency proceeded to simply make sh*t up. …

Our set of photos taken during the last ‘great flood’ in OB – January 2010 – sparked the following response from local Mark Dodge. Mark sent us the following photos. He told us:

I was living at the end of Cape May at the time but parking in a garage on Narragansett. I parked, started home and just happened to have my camera. I had also almost gotten swamped on Bacon St between LB and Brighton. The water was up near the bottom of the doors of my Ford Ranger.

…

By Annie Lane

Feminism comes in many shapes and sizes, though if you ask author Karin Agness of the Time Magazine article Seriously? This Is What Passes for Feminism in America it appears that it should only ever manifest itself in the form of an 11-year-old girl who was shot in the head, as was the case for Malala Yousafzai.

Thankfully, Yousafzai survived the senseless and depraved attack on her life by the Taliban in 2012, and has gone on to be the voice for women’s rights in Pakistan. And the world is better because of her.

But according to Agness, American girls, such as the ones who appeared in the controversial FCKH8 video that went viral last week, don’t even graze the surface of what it means to be a Feminist. Instead, they are merely some part of a cheap marketing ploy to sell t-shirts: …

Editor: In the interests of continuing the public debate around the San Salvador, an historical replica of the original flagship of Juan Rodíguez de Cabrillo, we offer the following:

By Steven Newcomb / Indian Country / March 4, 2014

In A Legacy of Genocide: The San Salvador, published by the OB Rag and San Diego FreePress , February 14, 2014, Will Falk, an attorney and poet, precisely pinpoints what is wrong with the nearly completed reconstruction of the Spanish designed ship San Salvador (“Holy Savior”).

Once completed, the vessel is to be a replica of a ship built under brutal conditions with Indian slave labor under the command of the conquistador Juan Rodíguez de Cabrillo. In September of 1542, Cabrillo sailed the San Salvador into the vast bay of the Kumeyaay territory. …