Month: June 2017

Editors’ Note: The staff of the OB Rag launched the online San Diego Free Press five years old this week. This is one in a series of posts reflecting on the paths we’ve traveled.

By Ernie McCray

My journey in life has been down many a highway, leading me this way and that way. Mostly wonderful, though, I must say.

I could go on and on for days about the stops I’ve made in this voyage, about the human connections that have sat well in my soul: like my relationship with the San Diego Free Press, SDFP, which, by the way, is celebrating it’s fifth year of treating us San Diegans to an array of progressive news and views.

Propositions we can use.

I remember how the San Diego Free Press came to be, how we, at meetings of the OB Rag, with its major focus on Ocean Beach, thought about reaching out to all of San Diego.

By Lori Saldaña

I’ve been reviewing various reports about the proposed ballot measure and special election that seeks to increase the Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT). Proponents tell us this is needed to fund a Convention Center expansion, pave our streets, and provide shelter for homeless people — wow!

Impressive — if true.

I’ve shared these thoughts and research points with others, including a member of the Convention Center board, and wanted to include others in the conversation.

First: for 20+ years I’ve taught Business IT skills as part of the Community College’s Workforce Development program. Throughout that time I’ve been looking at what actual jobs result from different types of taxpayer “investment” and what that means for my students.

By Anne Haule / San Diego Free Press

I’d like to go on a bit of a rant about how naïve I have been for so long and even though I am an educated person, my education was more akin to indoctrination. Now that I am finally waking up, I wish to share a few examples of what I was taught and what I now believe.

Christopher Columbus

I was taught he was a hero for proving the world was not flat and discovering and bringing Christianity to the new world. In fact, he was a really a “bad hombre” and he was not the first explorer to reach the Americas; he was preceded by its indigenous people who came from Asia and later, the Vikings.

By Murtaza Baxamusa / San Diego UrbDeZine / June 5, 2017

These are interesting times in the housing world. The unprecedented housing crisis statewide in California, and locally in San Diego, is forging unprecedented coalitions among affordable housing advocates, community-based organizations, labor unions and environmentalists.

These coalitions are galvanizing in response to the demand from their members to put all options on the table to tackle this crisis that is taking a significant toll on all of us.

UPDATE: “For Sale” sign was placed on the wrong building.

We noticed that there’s a For Sale sign on the former Strand Theater building – where Wings presently sits.

The New York Times Could Only Take ‘One Outrage a Week From San Diego’

Editors’ Notes: The OB Rag staff launched the San Diego Free Press five years old this week. This is one in a series of posts reflecting on the paths we’ve traveled.

By Bob Dorn / San Diego Free Press

Many of us Freeps were born at the simultaneously best and worst of times. We came into the world during or just after World War II, which itself is probably the best war these so-called United States ever fought.

Our parents had been rescued from the Great Depression by Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal thinkers, a class not afraid to be called intellectuals because they combined brains with a conscience, a combination that produced programs like Social Security and a set of banking laws that are still in operation

By Frank Gormlie

Two giants of the surfing world just passed away a week from each other. True icons.

John Severson, founder of Surfer Magazine, died peacefully in his sleep on Friday, May 26th at the age of 83.

And Jack O’Neill, inventor of the modern wetsuit, passed way a week later on Friday, June 2th, also of natural causes. He was 94.

Students like me who went to local schools like Dana Jr High and Point Loma High in the sixties definitely remember Surfer Magazine. It seemed revolutionary …

Restaurant Review

Umi Sushi
2806 Shelter Island Drive
San Diego, CA 92106
619-226-1135
Umisushisandiego.com

By Judi Curry

With all of the Sushi restaurants opening up – and some closing – I thought it might be interesting to take my two visiting students from Korea to one sushi restaurant that has been opened for quite some time. (Yes! I know that sushi is Japanese, but they told me they really liked sushi!)

We had just been at Humphrey’s listening to Scott Stephens and part of his “Liquid Blue” group, and we would be driving right by Umi Sushi so decided to have dinner there.

March for Truth

The following is from my speech at one of the rallies during the San Diego March for Truth held Saturday, June 3rd in east Mission Bay Park.

By Frank Gormlie

I’m a citizen journalist with the OB Rag and the San Diego Free Press. I’ve been involved with publishing the truth, and have been active in grassroots San Diego politics since I was in college.

We’re here today to march and rally for the truth, to stand up for the truth. Somebody has to! Somebody has to stand up for the truth.

And there’s six hundred of us today – how do I know? I stood and counted you as you marched.

Yup, the story about the abandoned hedgehogs found in an Ocean Beach trash can has gone viral.

Today – Monday, June 5th – is the very last day to submit new logo designs for the Ocean Beach Town Council logo contest. Here is what the OBTC states on their website:

The OB Town Council is seeking a new logo, and asking for design submissions from members of our local community! Please send your designs to info@obtowncouncil.org to enter our logo contest.

By Geoff Page

The OB Rag asked for my opinion as to what I would do with the sorry project at Ebers and Greene Streets if I could call all the shots.

Background on the Project

The property is on the southeast corner of Ebers and Greene. There is an unfinished, partially framed building there now and it has not been worked on for some time.