Month: November 2015

By Daniel

Though not widely discussed, the presence of a new security force in Ocean Beach has some OBceans alarmed. National Public Safety has been retained by the Ocean Beach MainStreet Association to “keep Ocean Beach family-friendly by enhancing public safety in specific geographical locations” … this after the OBMA dumped Elite Services USA (the red shirts) for general ineffectiveness.

As a security force, neither outfit has much leeway to effect actual change in terms of cleaning up the streets.

By Lois Lane

Eileen Jackson, the long-time Society columnist for the San Diego Union Tribune, would have loved this party.

The crème de la crème of Ocean Beach was there – members of the OB Mainstreet Association, the Sunset Cliffs Natural Park Committee, the sponsoring OB Historical Society, the OB Planning Board, the OB Community Development Corporation, the band members of Liquid Blue, and the many neighbors and friends –nearly 200 in all – gathered at St. Peter’s by the Sea Lutheran Church to celebrate the event – the Centennial of the Sunset Cliffs Park.

By Jim Miller

Recently I noted how movements like the Fight for $15 and the insurgent Bernie Sanders campaign have revealed a widespread thirst for an overtly left politics that makes the battle against the billionaire class a central rallying cry.

Indeed, Sanders has continued to force Hillary Clinton to tack to the left on multiple issues, and he has had a genuinely transformative impact on the national political discourse by unashamedly bringing democratic socialism to the stage.

This is why Harold Meyerson argues that the Sanders’s campaign represents “the largest specifically left mobilization—and by ‘specifically left’ I mean it demands major changes in the distribution of income and wealth and major reforms to U.S. capitalism—that the nation has seen in at least half a century.”

Homeless women and children undercounted and underserved.

By Jeeni Criscenzo / San Diego Free Press

It looks like the issue of homelessness will be getting some airtime during the 2016 election season in San Diego. That should be good news for anyone who is deeply concerned about homelessness in the region. Problem is that some candidates might use the issue to put forth solutions, without taking the time to understand the problem.

By feeding the electorate with misinformation that plays into their eagerness for a quick and easy fix to the city’s growing homeless situation, they will not only fail to solve the problem, they will exacerbate it.

When moving to a new webhost it can take a little time to propagate the nameservers. Basically, our forwarding address needs to spread through the interwebs so people can find us.

Because web browsers using caching to speed things up you may see a representation of a slightly older version of the site and not know it.

This post is to let you (and us) know that this page is being served from the new host.

Please comment to let us know you are here.

Are the police cameras proposed for OB’s waterfront “a done deal”? That’s a big question facing the community of Ocean Beach these days.

Lorie Zapf’s office wants you to think so. The councilwoman wants those ten surveillance cameras planned to be set up between the OB Pier and Dog Beach. For Lorie and her staff, it is “a done deal”. From all appearances, it looks like Zapf’s office is putting itself on the line on this issue, and strikes a very uncompromising stance on the cameras. “It’s a done deal.”

For the cops, it’s “a done deal”.

By Dave Maass / Electronic Frontier Foundation

Confirmed cases of misuse of California’s sprawling unified law enforcement information network have doubled over the last five years, according to records obtained by Electronic Frontier Foundation under the California Public Records Act.

That adds up to a total 389 cases in which an investigation concluded that a user—often a peace officer—broke the rules for accessing the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (CLETS), such as searching criminal records to vet potential dates or spy on former spouses. More than 20 incidents since 2010 have resulted in criminal charges.

Our local CBS station, Channel 8, just did a survey of neighborhoods of the County of San Diego with the highest overall crime numbers within the last six months. The news station did this by zip code.

We took their numbers, and after adjusting them to allow just City of San Diego neighborhoods, we found that the neighborhood of Ocean Beach – zip code 92107 – was the neighborhood with the 13th highest crime numbers. During the last 6 months, according to the survey, OB had 856 over-all.

But OB was bested by twelve other neighborhoods with higher numbers of crimes.

By Eric Nielsen / blogsandiego

The Convergence show at Cabrillo National Monument was a huge success. It was fabulously put on by Ship in the Woods. It was spiritual and mystical. It was full of great people and objects. It breathed with the ocean and the cliffs. It melted into the serene and transformative power of the location.

It was site specific art at its best and if you missed it, you missed the night of the year. I couldn’t even see all of it and I couldn’t stay for the music. I really wanted to see Perry Vazquez and Pall Jenkins play in front of glass walls that looked out onto the ocean, the bay, downtown and Tijuana. But, I didn’t even need to see all the art or hear all the music to feel the presence of the ocean, the stars and night time sky serving as the backdrop to the creationist visions of local artists.

By John Lawrence

In early October, torrential rain flooded almost the entire state of South Carolina. At least 17 people died. The cost of the flooding could top $1 billion, Senator Lindsey Graham said. Interstate 95 was closed for 70 miles. At least 11 dams failed. Another 35 dams were at risk.

The rain event set records all over the state, flooding entire towns. For some locations, this historic rainfall qualifies as a 1,000-year rain event, meaning in a given year there is a 1 in 1,000 chance of observing rainfall totals of this magnitude.

Join the OB Historical Society in a celebration of the “Centennial of Historic Sunset Cliffs” with presenter Ann Swanson, chair of the Sunset Cliffs Natural Park – all at St. Peter’s by the Sea at 1371 Sunset Cliffs Blvd., on Thursday, November 19th, at 7pm.

These cliffs have a lot of history – from the Kumeyaay who considered them sacred – to the Theosophists and Albert Spalding, who developed sections of the cliffs. COME INSIDE FOR MORE INFO …

UPDATE: Since this posting yesterday, Wed., we have received an additional $70 – which puts up close to $600!

The OB Rag wants to thank the many folks who donated to our cause to replace our server – as our funding goal of $400 has been surpassed.

In the 5 days since we started our fundraising on Friday the 13th, we have raised over $500 – and are calling it off. Many of the donations were via PayPal – and were from $10 to $50. And several old friends and supporters also stepped up.