September 2020

A Small But Powerful Voice Turns 50

September 18, 2020 by Source

Editordude: The following post by Scott Stephens of Liquid Blue was written for another publication but we decided to publish it as well. He’s very kind. There is a brief bio of Scott at the end.

by Scott Stephens

A legendary local publication has turned 50 this week. The OB People’s Rag was first published on September 17, 1970. OB stands for Ocean Beach, the small, rugged beachfront community which is part of the city proper of San Diego. The “Rag” represented the rebel spirit that OB became known for and led the charge on several progressive social fronts.

OB is different. Many original ’60s hippies still reside here. There is no McDonald’s and very few large corporate retailers. It was in OB that a local food co-op was started (with many of the OB Rag staff involved), which would later evolve into California’s second health food store, Ocean Beach People’s Organic Food Market in 1972.

You won’t find any high-rise hotels or apartments here either. Newport Avenue, the town’s main street, is the very antithesis of Rodeo Drive.

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OB Rag Anniversary Party Is Here and Now!

September 17, 2020 by Frank Gormlie

This is the place – for the OB Rag online party for the 50th anniversary of the first OB Rag, published Sept. 17, 1970.

So join us! Come on in and make comments – post memories, observations, give greetings to friends and most of all send good vibes. We’re doing this for an hour … from 7 to 8 pm.

The party is also happening on OB Rag facebook. We’ll be monitoring both sites …

Meanwhile, peruse the articles about OB Rag and OB history that were posted this week.

Early History of the OB Rag and of Ocean Beach grassroots activism in the first half of the 1970s. The “Save Collier Park” battle, the emergence of the alternatives, the beginning of the anti-development movement …

The very first OB Rag – scanned and unedited – the language is hilarious – so be prepared.

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Ed Decker: How to Respond to Ugly Facebook Messages

September 17, 2020 by Source

Straight-up with a Twist

By Edwin Decker

Dear SWAT, One of the many complications COVID has brought into my life is that I am drinking at home and arguing on social media more than ever. This is a bad combination because the more I drink, the more aggressive and insulting I become. I tell myself to stop doing it, but once I catch a buzz it’s almost impossible not to engage. Any recommendations on how to quit doing this?

Devon,
San Diego

Dear Devon, indeed, I do have a recommendation. I don’t use Twitter much, but I have certainly done my fair share of FacedBooking. And it has gotten ugly: Angry messages flying back and forth; unfriendings piling up; and scoldings from onlookers who rightfully put me in my place.

“Damn dude, did you really have to tell that guy he was the offspring of a spiny lumpsucker and a retarded fungus beetle? That’s low, even for you.”

So yeah, I too vowed to quit FacedBooking— .

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Early History of OB Rag Reflected the New Wave of Grassroots Activism in Ocean Beach

September 17, 2020 by Frank Gormlie

As we continue to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first Rag, we bring forth some of the early history of the underground newspaper – whose pages reflected what was going on in Ocean Beach in the early 1970’s. From the Save Collier Park campaign to the birth of OB’s “alternatives” to the anti-development movement, the OB Rag reported on the changes OB was going through. A new wave of civic activism and hippie businesspeople.

The volunteer and dedicated staff succeeded in helping to fuel the community organizing in OB during the first half of the seventies, taking on the establishment and giving voice to the burgeoning counter-culture.

The Collier Park Battle

One of the first major issues the OB Rag jumped into wholeheartedly was to join up with a new OB environmental group, OB Ecology Action, and lead a fight to save Collier Park, an urban patch of land in northeastern OB. Ecology Action.

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The Very First OB Rag – Scanned and Unedited … So Brace Yourself … From Sept. 17, 1970

September 17, 2020 by Frank Gormlie

Here it is – the very first OB Rag – the OB People’s Rag – published on September 17th, 1970. Unedited … so brace yourself if you are of tender ears, as of course, the language in the articles was sooo-seventies, a mix of the raw rhetoric and bravado of the campus militant with the casual drawl of the counter-counter, as the staff was a bunch of young twenty-somethings, half still in college and the other half fresh off the campus.

It was four pages – front and back of 2 pages stapled together. We have scanned all four pages – see below – plus we have retyped all of the articles so you don’t have to squint and ruin your eyes. In addition, we have included all of the graphics and most of the hand-drawn headlines.

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Join OB Ragsters Tonight for an Online Celebration of 50th Anniversary of First OB Rag

September 17, 2020 by Frank Gormlie

Online Party Thursday Night, Sept. 17

Our readers and supporters are invited to join OB Ragsters from around the world in an online celebration tonight – Thursday, September 17, from 7 to 8 pm. We’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of the publication of the very first OB Rag on September 17, 1970!

The staff of the OB Rag is “hosting” a live, online party

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Ocean Beach Post Office’s Missed Mail Referenced in LA Times Article

September 17, 2020 by Staff

In our efforts to report on all things OB, we found a reference to the Post Office in Ocean Beach in today’s Los Angeles Times. In an article about how the takeover by the new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has resulted in empty mail trucks, falsified records and chaos at the Postal Service, an OB mail carrier discovered a snafu.

In the Ocean Beach neighborhood of San Diego, a mail carrier arrived at work the morning of Aug. 18 to find tubs of mail sitting outside an office. The mail had been collected the day before but never made it to the plant because it had missed the last truck.

The carrier, a 22-year veteran of the Postal Service who was not authorized to speak publicly, said that would not have happened in the past; a post office manager would have authorized overtime for an employee to make an extra trip to the distribution facility.

“Some way or another, we always got the mail out every day,” the carrier said.

August 18 was just 4 days before the protest / support rally at the OB Post Office attended by 50 OBceans.

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Requiem for the Real American Dream

September 16, 2020 by Staff

By Joni Halpern

There is a time in life when all things that once were new and filled with promise become old and worn out, their shiny surfaces dull and scratched, their presence a mere reminder of the past. These things that once fueled our imaginations, set us in pursuit of impossible goals, drove us to creativity, and embodied cherished values must all be bade farewell when their time has passed.

I noticed today that the American Dream is badly worn.

I do not mean the American Dream of Horatio Alger, that rags-to-riches-if-you-work-hard-and-never-give-up dream. No, that one still lives in our hearts and minds. But it is not the true American Dream, for rags to riches is a story that happens all over the world. Truthfully, it has always been more like winning the lottery, even in this country.

But that didn’t matter, because riches have never been the dream of the overwhelming majority of Americans.

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A History of Mexico for Gringos

September 16, 2020 by Frank Gormlie

By Frank Gormlie

Most gringos don’t know too much of the history of Mexico – our southern neighbor – even though Mexico is so much part of the culture of Southern California. U.S. public schools don’t really teach about its history. For instance, September 16 is Mexican Independence Day – the commemoration of the defeat of the Spanish colonialists – akin to our July 4th – when Americans defeated British colonialists and their German mercenaries.

This then is an attempt to bring Mexican history to our readers – it covers Mexico’s story through the Revolution.

Long before the European colonialists landed on the shores, native civilizations flourished in the Americas, building large cities, establishing trade and industry, exhibiting high levels of science, technology and art. By the time Cortes arrived in 1521 to seize land and riches for Spain, the Aztecs ruled over a highly complex society in Central Mexico. Employing the old method of ‘divide and rule’, the Spanish conquered the Aztecs and other peoples

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School Choice Is a Harmful Fraud

September 16, 2020 by Source

By Thomas Ultican / Tultican

Birthed in the bowels of the 1950’s segregationist south, school choice has never been about improving education. It is about white supremacy, profiting off taxpayers, cutting taxes, selling market based solutions and financing religion. School choice ideology has a long dark history of dealing significant harm to public education.

Market Based Ideology

Milton Friedman first recommended school vouchers in a 1955 essay. In 2006, he was asked by a conservative group of legislators what he envisioned back then. PRWatch reports that he said, “It had nothing whatsoever to do with helping ‘indigent’ children; no, he explained to thunderous applause, vouchers were all about ‘abolishing the public school system.”’ [Emphasis added]

Market based ideologues are convinced that business is the superior model for school management. Starting with the infamous Reagan era polemic,

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50 Summers Ago, the People of Ocean Beach Stopped the Jetty

September 15, 2020 by Frank Gormlie

The Jetty is Stopped

Fifty summers ago, the residents of Ocean Beach halted the construction of a jetty the City and the Army Corps of Engineers wanted to build- next to what is now known as Dog Beach.

Ostensibly, the project, according to city officials, was to protect OB from flooding from the San Diego River Channel, to prevent the loss of sand from the beach area, and to stop the spread of sand into the Mission Bay entrance.

But, the community didn’t buy it. Many locals viewed the jetty as a prelude to an attempt by the City and developer interests to create a marina and a high-rise resort district at Ocean Beach’s waterfront. Opposition to the jetty was wide-spread, from surfers to elderly retired grandmothers, from young professionals and local businesspeople to the long-hairs.

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Debate on Measure ‘E’ – Demolition of Midway 30 Foot Height Limit – at Peninsula Planners’ Meeting – Thurs., Sept.17

September 15, 2020 by Staff

There will be a debate on Measure “E” at the next Peninsula Community Planning Board meeting, Thursday, September 17, from 6:00 to 8:00 pm. Measure “E” is the controversial ballot initiative to demolish the 30 foot height limit in the Midway area, placed on November’s ballot by District 2 Councilmember Jen Campbell.

Cathy Kenton, chair of the Midway planning committee will present the “Yes” side, and Tom Mullaney, of Safe Our Access, will give the “No” side.

Proponents of the measure – who now include Mayor Kevin Faulconer – claim the Midway area should never have been included in the 1972 measure that established San Diego’s thirty footer limit of development west of I-5. There’s no ocean views, and the area is so run-down, it is desperate need of redevelopment. Besides, they say, it’s such a small area, only 1300 acres. Ocean Beach, by the way, is half that.

Opponents see this as a cynical move in the time of the pandemic

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Fundraiser for Two Homeless Men Who Clean Up OB Nets More than $28,000

September 15, 2020 by Staff

A fundraiser for two homeless men who pick up trash in Ocean Beach has now raised more than $28,000.

David Hendon and Marc Gervais are two friends who wake up at the crack of dawn every day to pick up trash for free around Newport Ave and the local parking lots. They drive up in a dilapidated, broken-down van every morning while it’s still dark, get out their buckets and brooms and start cleaning.

A local reporter for CBS caught wind of the two from a viewer who lives in New Jersey who watched the guys from the Ace Tattoo Surf Cam.

The story of Marc and David is so heart-warming and breaking at the same time, that the reporter, Jeff Zevely, got the word out on them and a Go Fund Me page was re-ignited. (As of this writing, it had raised $28,195 – the guys had originally set it up to raise $1,500.) Also a local car dealership has pledged to fix their van.

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Man Found in Ocean Beach Sand Dies of Gunshot Wounds

September 15, 2020 by Staff

An unidentified man in his 50s found in the sand in Ocean Beach has died of gunshot wounds early Tuesday morning.

Police received a call of an assault with a deadly weapon around 1 a.m. and responded to the area near Saratoga Park and the lifeguard station.

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Origins of the First OB Rag

September 14, 2020 by Staff

How and Where It All Started

Fresh off the campuses of the University of California, three young friends in their early twenties decided to publish an “underground” newspaper for Ocean Beach, the hippie area of San Diego.

John Lyons and Frank Gormlie – from UCSD – and Bob “Bo” Blakey – from UC Berkeley – had all just graduated and had moved in together in an old house on Etiwanda Street in northeast OB. Gormlie and Blakey had known each other at Point Loma High School and both had been involved in student government; Blakey had been Senior Class President and Gormlie had been President of the Student Body. Lyons and Gormlie had cut their activist teeth on the radicalism at UCSD.
All three had been deeply involved just months earlier in the anti-Vietnam war movement on their respective campuses.

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Celebrate With Us the 50th Anniversary of the Very First OB Rag this Week

September 14, 2020 by Frank Gormlie

Fifty years ago this week, the very first OB Rag was published and hit the mean streets of Ocean Beach. Called “The OB People’s Rag”, the first issue was four pages stapled together and distributed at OB’s main stores at the time, Safeway and Mayfair, on choice OB street corners and in front of Point Loma High School.

So, all this week, we’ll be publishing memories, background, the behind-the-scenes stories and actual articles of the gritty “underground” rag that became the main community newspaper for Ocean Beach for nearly five years. Art Kunkin, the editor and publisher of the grandparent of all underground newspapers, the LA Free Press or “LA Freep”, once called the OB Rag the best alternative, community newspaper in the country.

Online Party Thursday Night, Sept. 17

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Flies and Butter on the Rocks Or a Fly on the Tongue is Worth Two on the Screen

September 14, 2020 by Source

By manly pink scooter

Peter From South Oceanside reminded me of a heartwarming instance when he jokingly requested a cancellation to his OB Rag subscription on September 4, 2020 in a comment to my first post on this website.

One warm summer morning on the canyon’s edge I was on coyote watch while my coffee was abrewin’ and the bread was atoastin’. I can spend several hours on the couch in the morning drinking coffee and perusing life and gazing out the picture window . I’m so lazy sloths look down upon my habits. Turtles wonder if I ever will catch up.

On that wonderful morning I stepped into the kitchen for the toast & coffee, and I spotted a fly on the butter.

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Being Grateful for What I Can Be Grateful For

September 14, 2020 by Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

I remember when
my grandfather
would talk to me
during those times
when the world’s
troubles and woes,
the likes of
extreme poverty
the fear of A-bombs
and Jim Crow
were keeping everybody
on their toes,
he’d say,
“No matter
how life was going,
you need to know
we’d best
be grateful
for anything|
we can be grateful for” so

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Is This the Dawning of the ‘Age of Direct Democracy’?

September 14, 2020 by Source

By Colleen O’Connor

Historians, writers, journalists, astrologers and even amateurs sometimes coin a phrase that perfectly describes an entire epoch. Or a decade.

Many of these “Age of” descriptions come long after the fact. For example, the “Age of Exploration” or the “Age of Empires.”

The truly magnificent titles capture so much than just a decade. Some span centuries. Others end quickly. The “Enlightenment.” “The Age of Reason.” “The Dark Ages.”

And they are defined and remembered in multiple forms; all personal. Literature, sports, music, art, movies, economics and politics.

Take the “Gilded Age” known for the lopsided wealth and extravagance generated by railroads, industrialization, with cosseted nouveau riche existing alongside abject poverty.

Or Edith Wharton’s, “Age of Innocence.” The writing of which, she said allowed her to find “a momentary escape in going back to my childish memories of a long-vanished America… it was growing more and more evident that the world I had grown up in and been formed by had been destroyed in 1914.” And the first “world” war.

Then there are the obvious ones. The “Atomic Age.” The “Industrial Age.” “The Space Age.”

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The Great Dumpster Fire Of 2020: What Will Be Left Amidst the Ashes?

September 14, 2020 by Jim Miller

By Jim Miller

It’s that time again. The world is burning. The sky is hazy from smoke in the Southland, Bladerunner-orange over San Francisco, and a tenth of the state of Oregon is under evacuation.

I’ll try not to write the same column that I did last year during fire season.

Or the year before that.

Or the several years before that.

With the media screaming about these fires it finally seems that the “unprecedented” angle is having its last gasp. Gavin Newsom is sick of climate deniers, and the connection between the extreme heat and the fires seems to finally be unquestioned.

As I write this on a Friday afternoon, my friends and family in the Bay Area can’t leave their homes for fear of toxic air. Family in Portland are watching a megafire come their way.

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Ocean Beach and Point Loma News – September 2020

September 11, 2020 by Frank Gormlie

Lost Parking Spaces on Newport Ave

As OB restaurants and bars responded to the new COVID reality, they applied for and were granted the authority to set up outside – and in the process took over Newport Ave parking spaces. Out of a total of 204 parking places between Abbott and Sunset Cliffs, 45 have been occupied by tables and chairs of the eateries. It’s a trade-off, certainly.

New Management of OB Hostel Acknowledges Counter-Culture

Donations Starting to Flow For Prop E – Demolition of 30 Foot Height Limit in Midway

Coastal Tide Pools Being “Loved to Death”

Point Loma Sisters Start a COVID Safety Course for Small Businesses

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Trump Lied. 200,000 Americans Died.

September 11, 2020 by Frank Gormlie

It is true. It is not hyperbole. It is not partisan over-reach. President Trump lied about Covid-19 and now nearly 200,000 of our fellow Americans have died.

Sure, there were a handful of deaths and cases by early February when Trump told The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward, “This is deadly stuff,” and “You just breathe the air,” the president explained, “and that’s how it’s passed.”

This is not like the other 20,000 plus falsehoods that Trump has uttered since taking up residence in the White House. These lies about the virus were fatal.

  • On February 24, Trump tweeted to the world, “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA.”
  • On February 27, he said, “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”
  • On March 10, he said, “And we’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”

So, why did Trump say all this? Why did he lie? Why didn’t he fulfill his duty to protect American citizens?

On March 19, Trump told Woodward, ”I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.”

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A Bridge Too Far for San Diego?

September 11, 2020 by Source

By Joni Halpern

Residents of San Diego County have long had concerns about the quality of our physical environment.

The entire slow-growth movement that brought Pete Wilson to the mayoralty, for example, came about because San Diegans worried that unfettered development would overcrowd the landscape and turn the city into another Los Angeles. Never mind that in his tenure, from December 1971 to January 1983, Mayor Wilson presided over unprecedented growth.

As a coastal region, San Diego has always been in a love-hate relationship with developers.

On one hand, we need more housing to shelter our growing population. On the other hand, we fear the loss of livable communities, the feeling of neighborhoods, the relief of open space and proximity to green spaces, the safety of pedestrian walkways. These necessities of livable communities are already at risk and can be completely lost with on-street parking and hundreds of new residents seeking refuge from densely packed multi-family developments.

Politics in this region is a smoldering battle between community groups and forces advocating the reduction of constraints on development.

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Act Two of Tragicomedy – the 2020 Race for San Diego Mayor

September 11, 2020 by Source

ACT II: A Cautionary Tale About What a Council Member’s Negligence, Lack of Independence, Inept Management, and Behind-the-Scenes Manipulation Can Do to a City

Scene One: Setting the stage for the winners… and losers

By Norma Damashek / NumbersRunner / September 10, 2020

There’s no denying it– life feels out of control nowadays. Upended. Throw in the national political scene and it’s enough to push you over the edge.

But gird yourself for some good news. Here at home we’re blessed with the extraordinary opportunity to seize control of San Diego’s political destiny. It’s no exaggeration.

The person we choose as our next mayor (Barbara Bry? Todd Gloria?) will shape the quality of daily life for more than 1½ million San Diegans for years to come. Which one can we trust with the power to control who gets what in our city… who benefits from the policies, decisions, contracts, appointments, agreements, awards, favors, negotiations, and other goodies originating in City Hall… and who gets left with the crumbs?

Based on Todd Gloria’s history and campaign contributors, the answer is clear: Mr. Gloria is the wrong choice for the mayor’s job.

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Critter’s Salad Bar

September 11, 2020 by Source

By Kathy Blavatt

On a warm day in Spring day after a night of rain, I trudged through dense greenery in my back yard. I heard a bit of noise a couple of feet away and realized I was standing next to a skunk. The skunk was busy happily digging and could care less that I was beside him.

A week later, while examining my passionfruit plant, I found a baby opossum below the vines. The awkward youth looked at me, then slowly walked away.

Interestingly, my thick viny passion fruit plant that produces much green fruit slightly bigger than golf balls goes missing long before they change to burgundy-red sweet ripen fruit. I think that opossum may have made the large lush plant his home and snack bar. I suspect he has quite a belly on him these days!

Other years, I have had some very bold raccoons making their grocery runs through my yard.

It is these kinds of experiences that make me feel like I am living in the country.

To top things off, my husband told me he saw an amazing piece of aerodynamics as a parrot divebombed my apple tree plucking the fruit without slowing as he headed straight back up into the sky.

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Soon We Will Know Who We Are

September 9, 2020 by Source

By Joni Halpern

We are fast coming to a crossroads in our life as an American people. We shall either be brothers and sisters emerging from a frenzy of chaos into the light of our motto, “Out of many, one.” Or we shall hack apart the bonds of our American family, wrapping our hatred and hostility toward our fellow Americans in a flag of patriotism.

With the former choice, we will revitalize our democracy. With the latter, we will shred our stripes and scatter our stars until they are strewn across the barren fields of our future as the United States of America. We are only 50-some days from our destiny.

Ever since Donald Trump was elected President, I have tried to understand my fellow Americans who support him. At first, it was said they felt forgotten by mainstream politics. Their economic futures had been lost in the closures of manufacturing plants and the loss of thousands of other jobs to global forces. No one in Washington cared. People who supported Donald Trump said they wanted someone would take seriously their hunger for economic, social and political justice.

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The 2020 Race for San Diego Mayor: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts

September 9, 2020 by Source

ACT I : A Cautionary Tale About What a Mayor’s Negligence, Lack of Independence, Inept Management, and Behind-the-Scenes Manipulation Can Do to a City

By Norma Damashek / NumbersRunner / September 8, 2020

Scene One: Let’s talk politics

We can start by noticing that “politics” is simply the exercise of power that determines who gets what, when, and how.

It means that on election day, either Barbara Bry or Todd Gloria will be handed the power to determine which beneficiaries will prosper (for decades to come) from the policies, decisions, contracts, agreements, awards, favors, negotiations, and other goodies originating in City Hall.

So before we decide which candidate deserves the political power to determine who gets what, when, and how, we might want to know which one can be trusted to take the interests of the public seriously enough to place it ahead of all others.

And of course we need to be sure about which candidate has the ability and integrity to successfully oversee and manage our deteriorating, problem-plagued city.

These are not frivolous questions.

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Losers and Suckers at the Trump Boat Parade

September 9, 2020 by Source

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Nothing Is Being Done About the Night Time Firecrackers and Parties Along Sunset Cliffs

September 9, 2020 by Judi Curry

By Judi Curry

Nightly since before July 4th, my southern Ocean Beach neighborhood has gone to sleep and been awakened by the sound of firecrackers. I can count on one hand how many nights this has not been the case. They start early and go on until the wee hours of the night.

Frequently there are large parties with cars parked in the Sunset Cliffs parking lots, with cars parked on Sunset Cliffs itself, and with cars parked on all of the side streets leading to the ocean. Those cars that are parked in the lots almost always have lights with them to shine on the revelers dancing, smoking, and shooting off firecrackers. (Please notice that I purposely use the word “firecrackers” – not fireworks.) Yes, sometimes fireworks are used, but usually it is M80s that echo off the water’s edge and project all the way up to Santa Barbara Street. (Just ask people that live near the Thursday Club.)

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OB Rag Calls Out San Diego Media on Reports of ‘Thousands’ in Trump Boat Parade

September 8, 2020 by Source

Editordude: San Diego Bay suffered through the Trump Boat Parade #2 in on Sunday. Luckily, no boats were swamped here – but other Trump boat parades keep sinking other boats.

Locally, the biggest-Trump media supporter, KUSI, predicted there would be 2,000 boats and 50,000 spectators.

Our reporter on the scene Sunday at San Diego Bay filed this post:

By John Michael Williams

I arrived onsite, east-facing Ullman St., and parked under the lone palm tree on the south side of the block, at 12:19PM. It was 93 degrees F according to my car, but haze still veiled the mountain backdrop of the cityscape and bay and bit of white cloud drifted overhead as seven piston-engine planes, in groups of five and two, overflew the bay and left contrails as they passed.

At first glance, it was obvious that this Parade would not replicate the previous one.

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