Month: October 2019

By Judi Curry

When my husband Bob was alive, he was a member of the local Veterans for Peace Organization (as well as a docent for the Star of India). He has been gone a little over ten years and as a memorial to him I made a donation to the VFP to purchase sleeping bags for those that are less fortunate than I am in that I have a warm bed, heat, and three meals a day.

Whatever the reason may be that there are so many homeless in San Diego, the fact is that the numbers are mind-boggling.

By Brett Warnke

“Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins,” is playing up in Hillcrest. If you’ve got 93 minutes to spare this week, I’d spend every one of them at this fine movie. It’s a funny biopic about a writer who walked with Civil Rights marchers, warned us about both George Bushes, and could drink the notoriously pickled Texas legislature right out of the bar.

You’ve probably heard of Molly Ivins (1944-2007). Occasionally, you’ll find her books Who Let The Dogs In or Bushwhacked or Shrub flung out on the Bargain Bin shelves. Grab them. Buy them all. Open them when the empty suits on the left say “we can’t because it’s costly” or when the idiots on the right say “we won’t because they’re brown.”

Molly was raised in a Texas house with a pool, born to a right-wing oil man who was shocked she allowed black friends to the house (and the pool). Her mother was wonderfully lazy and would watch TV, talk on the phone, and personified the suburban wife Molly never wanted to be.

Labor and the Environment Panel – Wednesday, October 16th

By Jim Miller

In Naomi Klein’s new book, On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal, she outlines precisely how challenging it will be to respond to the climate crisis in the urgent fashion called for in the last UN IPCC report:

Pulling off this high-speed pollution phaseout, the report establishes, is not possible with singular technocratic approaches like carbon taxes, though those tools must be a part. Rather it requires deliberately and immediately changing how our societies produce energy, how we grow our food, how we move ourselves around, and how our buildings are constructed.

What is needed, the report’s summary states in its first sentence, is “rapid, far reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society”.

In the face of this daunting task, the answer to the question “What can I do as an individual?” is, Klein tells us, “nothing.”

Liberty Station’s Golf Course Future Could Be in the Hole

Liberty Station’s Loma Club is considered a great golf course in its own unique way. …More than a century of history sits in the club’s soil. At one time, a young Phil Mickelson played tournament at what was then called Sail Ho. Which is why players and locals were shocked to learn the Loma Club put out a notice that it will close in late December.

Point Loma Home Target of Passing Cars – Hit Twice Within a Year

San Diego Music Hall of Fame in OB at Newbreak Church – Oct. 18

Two Roots Brewing Wins Gold Medal for Non-Alcohol Beer

Point Loma Office Building Is Awarded “Orchid” in Annual Judging

Santa Barbara Coastline Study Has Lessons for Us: More Hot Days, Longer Dry Spells and Higher Sea Levels

A key San Diego City Council committee has given the go-ahead to allow property owners to have movable “tiny houses” on wheels which they hope will help alleviate the city’s affordable housing crisis and steep homelessness. The small units can be moved into backyards and have their wheels removed.

The council’s Land Use and Housing committee voted voted unanimously Wednesday, October 9, to have the City Attorney’s Office come up with language for an amendment to San Diego’s municipal code which would permit the movable tiny houses.

Councilwoman Dr. Jennifer Campbell, a member of the committee said: “I think it’s a good idea. Let’s do it.”

Here’s some of the proposed restrictions and requirements property owners would need to comply with:

By Bob Edwards

A resident of Ocean Beach since 2017, mystery writer G.M. Ford seems to have settled in to the OB lifestyle. With over twenty books published, the author’s latest novel Heavy On The Dead (reviewed in the OB Rag this past July) in set mostly in OB.

Ford participates in a local writers group that regularly meets at Te Mana on Voltaire. He reads the OB Rag and social media webpages such as the Social OB Facebook page. Perhaps most importantly, he has thrown himself into one of the most pressing controversies our community faces in the 21st Century: Where does one go to get the best fish taco in Ocean Beach?

I joined Gerry Ford at one of his favorite watering holes and taco purveyors, South Beach Bar and Grill on Newport Avenue, where we talked about various topics including his move to OB, his writing process, and the American publishing industry in the digital age.

UPDATE: We have 2 winning bids – the auction is over.

It’s true! The very last two Classic OB Rag T’s are up for auction.

For years, we offered OB Rag T-shirts as part of our fund-raising efforts – all printed at James Gang in OB, all 100% cotton and all with our logos. But over time, the swag gig was time-consuming and didn’t generate all that much at any one time. We did sell dozens and dozens of our shirts, including various styles and logos.

Now here we are today. We have the very last two OB Rag T’s in the classic variety. And they are up for auction.

Locals Encouraged to Oppose Edison’s Application

The folks in the anti-nuke watchdog group just to our north, the San Clemente Greens, are urging San Diegans to attend the upcoming California Coastal Commission hearing being held in Chula Vista later this month about what’s going down at San Onofre nuke plant.

The utility and majority-owner of San Onofre, Southern California Edison has applied for a permit to destroy its spent fuel pool as part of the onshore portion of decommissioning of Units 2 and 3.

By Joni Halpern

Dear Ohio,

There is a little town about 772 miles from the southern border of Ohio. The people there have been poisoned, and I am writing to warn that the poison has spread. You must take precautions. It can be fatal.

In Clinton, Arkansas, a rural community of about 2,500, in which almost one-fourth of the residents live below the poverty line, the majority of voters have become blind to the economic, social, civic, or spiritual sense of spending taxpayer money on endeavors that help their fellow human beings.

The people of Clinton don’t want a public library. It’s a waste of money. They don’t want government services even for the very poor.

The public is being asked for help in identifying the arson suspect who is alleged to have started up to six fires in the Ocean Beach and Point Loma neighborhoods back in late September.

San Diego Crime Stoppers have now released new photos and video of the suspect, who appears to be a white, young and thin male.

Investigators with the Metro Arson Strike Team report that during the early hours of Sept. 28, between 12:30 a.m. and 5:03 a.m., six separate fires were started in the backyards of homes, at the following locations:

Here’s some good news. Ocean Beach has a brand new recycling center.

Prince’s Recycling Center just opened earlier this week next to well-known Pat’s Liquor at 5096 Voltaire at the intersection with Abbott Street. James Prince and Allison and Laura are making the bold venture.

Their center will be open Mondays through Saturdays, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and closed on Sundays.

Editordude: Local Roger Showley, Point Loma High School Class of 1966, gives an illuminating tour of what’s on deck in terms of San Diego’s mega development projects. Love development or hate it, it’s important to know what’s coming.

By Roger Showley / The Architect’s Newspaper

As it celebrates the 250th anniversary of its founding this year, San Diego is rethinking past projects, planning billions of dollars’ worth of new projects, and coping with a housing shortage that is making it one of the nation’s least affordable markets.

The most significant project on the boards is the redevelopment planned for Horton Plaza shopping center, a 1985 postmodernist downtown mall designed by Jon Jerde. But there are many other megaprojects under construction or in the offing throughout this county of 3.3 million residents.