Month: September 2020

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.

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.

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

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,

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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