Month: November 2015

On November 19th Second District Councilwoman Lorie Zapf presented a City Council proclamation celebrating the 100th anniversary of Sunset Cliffs .

It is a shame that on this anniversary many San Diegans and visitors are not able to access Sunset Cliffs Natural Park. There are two City parking lots for those who wish to visit the south end of the park, one near the water on Ladera St. and one up top on Lomaland Dr. adjacent to Point Loma Nazarene University.

By Jim Miller

There has been much to be dismayed about in the wake of the horrible Paris (and Beirut) attacks, from the carnage itself to the ugly xenophobia it aroused in American politics to the sheer stupidity of the eternal return of the same that is the bipartisan hegemony on foreign policy.

The answer for everything is always an eye for an eye until the whole world is blind with little to no intelligent reflection on the blunders that got us here—that might mean a fundamental rethinking of our role in the world rather than yet another knee-jerk response.

By Walter Einenkel / Daily Kos

Earlier this year it came to our attention that since 1990, almost 1 billion monarch butterflies have vanished. That number was 90 percent of previous peaks in monarch populations. In reaction to this staggering number, conservationists in North America began working in their regions to create something called the “butterfly highway”.

Ocean Beach is definitely split over the issue of police surveillance cameras being installed along OB’s waterfront in the next few weeks.

The OB Rag ran a poll on the issue – actually two polls – one for OBceans and another for visitors – for a week. In the unscientific survey of our readers, a large majority in each poll favored the cameras.

But sizable minorities oppose the cameras.

In the first poll among OBceans, two-thirds favored the cameras while a third was opposed. With a total of 183 participants, 67.76% or 124 votes said they support them, while 32.24% or 59 votes opposed them.

It was closer in the second poll for visitors to OB. With 86 readers taking part, 59.3% ( 51 votes ) favored the cameras and 40.7% ( 35 votes ) did not.

By Geoff Page

Before I get into my review of OB’s newest breakfast joint, I have to admit two things. I am a breakfast guy, breakfast is my favorite meal to eat out, and I know the young people who have created Jake & Eggs and I like them. So, biases confessed, let me tell you about the new place.

Jake & Eggs is located on the west side of Sunset Cliffs bordering the alley a half block south of Narragansett. The Olive Tree market anchors the little commercial cluster at the north end. For those of you who have discovered Sundara and its excellent Indian cuisine, Jake & Eggs is in the same spot on Saturday and Sunday from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. There is a Sundara connection because Jake is one of the chefs at Sundara, which, for me, was a great recommendation for this new place.

Here is the Petition in Opposition to Police Surveillance Cameras in Ocean Beach, sponsored by the OB Citizens Against Privacy Abuse.

The following are the prepared remarks for a speech given by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) at Georgetown University on Thursday, November 19th, 2015.

In his inaugural remarks in January 1937, in the midst of the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt looked out at the nation and this is what he saw.

He saw tens of millions of its citizens denied the basic necessities of life.

He saw millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster hung over them day by day.

He saw millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children.

He saw millions lacking the means to buy the products they needed and by their poverty and lack of disposable income denying employment to many other millions.

One Hundred Volunteers Are Needed for OB Holiday Parade – Saturday, December 5th

Submit Application by November 30th

The Ocean Beach Town Council is seeking the help of 100 responsible persons who would like to volunteer and help ensure that the 36th Annual Ocean Beach Holiday Parade is a successful and wonderful event for our community.

The Holiday Parade occurs on Saturday, December 5, 2015, and it cannot occur without the dedicated support of our volunteers.

The Parade starts at 5:05 pm (OB Time). All participating volunteers will need to report in to the Ocean Beach Recreation Center, 4726 Santa Monica Ave, Ocean Beach, at 2:00pm sharp on Saturday, December 5th and check in with the OBTC Volunteer Coordinators.

CEOs Got a Pay Increase Last Year But No COLA for Social Security Recipients

By John Lawrence

The Social Security Administration announced that senior citizens would get no increase in their monthly checks because there wasn’t any inflation last year as measured by the increase in paychecks for urban and clerical workers.

Yes, those workers didn’t make any more money, but CEOs certainly did.

By Ernie McCray

My mother used to say “Sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying,” and when I think back on our days of second-class citizenship she sure wasn’t lying.

The other day Maria and I gave in to that old adage as we laughed about this and that, whiling the time away during her stay in a little two-bed hospital room at Scripps Mercy, worrying about what the doctor might say.

We started laughing ourselves silly listening to a woman’s (Maria’s roommate) emotional and animated conversation in Cantonese, with all the rhythmic inflections and rapidly changing nuances intertwined.

By Frank Gormlie

Coming off its trouncing over the last 2 years because of the Orca circuses, SeaWorld has announced that it now plans on building a hotel and resort at its location on the southern rim of Mission Bay. Yet, there is trouble afoot for these plans. SeaWorld needs to re-appraise the project, for the last time a major hotel was planned for that area of Mission Bay – it ended in disaster.

By Jim Miller

In Mike Davis’s seminal discussion of noir in City of Quartz he defines the genre as “a fantastic convergence of American ‘tough-guy’ realism, Weimar expressionism, and existentialized Marxism—all focused on unmasking a ‘bright, guilty place.’”

Born in the minds of the “Depression-crazed middle classes” of southern California, the “nightmare anti-myth of noir” trafficked in alienation and a distrust of the morality of capitalism. More specifically, Davis notes how “noir everywhere insinuated contempt for a depraved business culture while it ….”