Month: March 2015

“OB Time” Sees Common Appreciation of Homeless

By the Old OB Hippie

Yup, that’s right. San Diego cops and the OB Rag finally agree on something. And it has to do with the homeless and how things keep getting repeated.

At a recent Ocean Beach Town Council meeting, two high-ranking police officers were seen and overheard shaking hands and speaking with Frank Gormlie, editordude of the OB Rag, back at the rear of the large room at the Masonic Center before the meeting began.

It turns out, the officers were thanking the Rag for publishing an article about how “good citizens” complained about the hippies back in 1968 and their “aggressive panhandling” and “public urination” – which had then been updated and re-worded; everywhere “hippie” was written in the article, “homeless” was substituted in.

The Ocean Beach Friends of the Library are heralding Spring with a book sale and – importantly – the dedication of the bench the group sponsored and had installed in front of the OB Library. It’s all happening this Saturday, March 28th from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm. And of course, it’s all on the lawn in front of the library, at Santa Monica and Sunset Cliffs Boulevard.

The bench dedication itself will be at 11:00. The Friends will spend a few minutes recognizing the names of the people on the newly installed plaque–Byrna Bicknell, Bryan W. Collier, George Murphy, and the OB Town Council.

Volunteers and Donated Books Still Needed

Volunteers and donated used books are still needed. If you would like to help, volunteers are needed to help set up the canopy at 8:30, to bring books and materials out from the library at 9:00 am, throughout the Book Sale, and clean-up and tear down at 12:30 pm. Volunteers are also needed to sort books on Friday, March 27, from 1:00 pm until finished.

It’s coming up on the 44th anniversary of the most violent day in the history of Ocean Beach – the March 28, 1971 Collier Park Riot. After San Diego police charged a peaceful gathering of hundreds of OBceans, young people and students, street fighting between cops and civilians broke out – and for hours a riot raged in north OB, from what today is Collier Park, all the way to the beach, about a mile.

It was the day that Ocean Beach was – in a real sense – like Ferguson, Missouri.

Due to its interest, the OB Rag’s “OB Gothic” photo contest has been extended all the way to May, to the OB Historical Society’s annual photo shindig and contest, “OB EXPOSED! – Photographic Impressions of OB and PL” – held this year on May 22nd.

You may recall that inspired by the OB Historical Society’s presentation on OB’s cottages back in February, the OB Rag began a photo contest of the best “OB Gothic” image earlier this month.

The only rule is that the photo be taken in Ocean Beach.

At the March 25th public meeting of the OB Town Council, the San Diego-based Climate Action Campaign will be making a presentation on their building support campaign for the City’s Climate Action Plan .

The meeting is Wednesday at 7pm at the Masonic Center, 1711 Sunset Cliffs Bvld. Here is – direct from the OBTC website:

At this month’s meeting of the Ocean Beach Town Council, we’ll be joined by the founder and Executive Director of the Climate Action Campaign.

Based in San Diego, the Climate Action Campaign is building support for our City’s Climate Action Plan and seeks to ensure its successful passage and implementation.

The student collective that runs the Che Cafe up at UCSD fears that the university will actually attempt an eviction the morning of Tuesday, March 24th. So, they’re holding a rally before the eviction – all really early in the morning.

The Che Cafe Collective is asking friends, alumni and supporters to show up at 5 a.m. to show solidarity in front of the anticipated eviction action at 6 a.m.

Need a refresher on what’s going on? See this report by Andrea Carter and this from last November.

Here is the text from the Che Cafe Collective statement:

UCSD has vowed to carry out its eviction of the Ché Café Collective on Tuesday morning at 5 a.m.

By Dan Bacher

Governor Jerry Brown and lawmakers touted the introduction of drought legislation in the Legislature on March 19, while leaders of environmental and corporate watchdog groups urged Brown to put real limits on the “most egregious” water users – corporate agribusiness and big oil companies – to really address the drought.

Brown joined Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, Senate President pro Tempore Kevin de León, and Republican Leaders Senator Bob Huff and Assemblymember Kristin to unveil legislation that they claimed will “help local communities cope with the ongoing, devastating drought.”

What if it turned out that education reform, with its teacher-blaming assumptions, got it all wrong in the first place?

By Jim Miller

Recently, with “California’s Public Education Charade,” UT-San Diego shocked no one by publishing yet another anti-union, teacher-bashing editorial that attacks California’s “dominant Democratic Party” for believing that “what’s good for the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers is good for California. And what’s good for students, who cares?”

The recent fatal shooting of a “Burberry”, a dog in Pacific Beach by San Diego police officers on Sunday, March 15th has led to an outcry against current police practices in dealing with pet animals. Thousands of San Diegans and people elsewhere have signed the petition demanding changes for better animal training for law enforcement in San Diego and elsewhere after Anderson’s pit bull was killed.

Addressed to Mayor Faulconer, at this writing, nearly 18,000 people have “liked” the “Justice for Burberry” facebook page, and nearly 22,600 have signed the petition at Change.org .

Video of Incident Inside

A few years ago, a home-search website did a survey and came up with :

17 Best U.S. Cities for Hippies

But Ocean Beach – the original hippie town of San Diego – did not make the list. A lot of those places you’d expect, like Boulder, Portland and Berkeley are on the list.

Here’s what they said in their intro:

While some may think all the hippies have burned out or faded away, the truth is they’re still out there, still busily making love, but not war. We here at Estately set out to find communities where they’re heavily concentrated, as well as providing ideal habitat for the next generation of flower children.

The Ocean Beach Woman’s Club is holding their annual rummage sale on this Saturday, March 21 from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. They’re located at 2160 Bacon Street.

The Club is accepting items to sell today – Friday – from 4 to 7 p.m. at their Club house. They’d especially appreciate quality items to sell, like new and almost-new things like furniture, jewelry, housewares, books, small appliances, electronics, kitchenware, sporting goods, tools, kids items and gardening equipment. Larger items can be picked up by calling (619) 222-1008, leave a message and your call will be returned.

Proceeds from the yearly sale will go towards their OB community projects as well as for maintenance and improvement of their Bacon Street house.

The March meeting meeting of the Pt Loma Democratic Club is about climate action (or inaction) on the San Diego region generally and the beach areas in particular. The PL Dems will be hosting the Climate Action Campaign organizers.

The meeting is on Sunday, March 22nd from 4:00PM – 5:30PM and will be held at the Point Loma Assembly, 3035 Talbot St, San Diego, CA 92106.