Category: Culture

By Ray McGovern

President Barack Obama’s aides say his speech this evening marking the end of “combat operations” in Iraq will avoid the vainglorious aspects of President George W. Bush’s infamous “Mission Accomplished” speech in 2003. We’ll see.

On the chance Obama might be open to pivoting away from the reduction of U.S. troops in Iraq and addressing honestly the worsening quagmire in Afghanistan. I have offered him the following text:

My Fellow Americans,

Come meet the OB Town Council of yesteryear … of 1972. OB community activists were engaged in a stand-off with the then president Bob Miller. Here is a portion of the front page of the original OB Rag in March 1972.

ALL DETAILS AND LINKS INSIDE:
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OB Restaurants, bars and coffee houses promote themselves in new association
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Obecians get new pipes, more torn-up streets, and eventually, a better flow
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“Terriers” Spent $20 Million in San Diego – Set to Air Sept 8th
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COSTCO-Lowe’s also wants Midway Postal Center
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Point Loma Planners approve revised bylaws
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Ocean Beach Planning Board general meeting – Wednesday, September 1
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OB Historical Society to dig up old bones
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Animal Activist to speak September 1 at World Wide ESL
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$30 will get ya in the Jazz 88 OB Music & Art Festival! $200 will get ya special seating and special food

Editor: While Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin debate with the news organizations how many people showed up at their tea party rally in Washington, DC on Saturday (was it 87,000 estimated by CBS, or 100,000 (Palin) or 500,000?), we need to note some recent interesting articles about the very, very rich people who are out to get President Obama, and the people that work for them.
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The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party
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The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama.
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It’s Witch-Hunt Season with Limbaugh and the GOP
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How Obama Got Rolled by Wall Street

Amazing.

After all that’s been said and done around my candidacy and membership failures with the Ocean Beach Town Council, they still sent me a ballot so I could vote on the remaining candidates (no, my name was not on it).

I was specifically told that I could not vote either. I could not be a candidate and I could not vote. If my business was not a good enough reason for me to vote as a business owner in OB, then it’s not good enough for me to vote in the board election.

But what happened?

By Christopher Cadelago / UNION-TRIBUNE /August 26, 2010

OCEAN BEACH — It’s official. Frank Gormlie, the activist, lawyer and co-founder of the OB Rag, will not be on the ballot as a candidate for the Ocean Beach Town Council’s board of directors. Gormlie, who hoped to be one of eight candidates – including six incumbents – vying for seven seats on the dais, had been told that because the business was based out of his Lemon Grove home, he was not eligible to run.

At town council meeting Wednesday night, Gormlie said he had secured a lease in Ocean Beach to house his business, but was told he was still not eligible to run because he did not submit the business address by the Aug. 16 deadline.

by Dylan Mann / Voice of San Diego / Originally posted August 25, 2010

You see them in the medians at intersections and at the bottom of freeway off-ramps. Suntanned and weary in camouflage pants, they hold magic-markered signs announcing: “HOMELESS VET — ANYTHING HELPS — GOD BLESS.” And you feel empathy for them, don’t you? No matter what you think of our nation’s military campaigns, it’s undeniable that here before you is a person that once served our country, but now he sleeps outside and isn’t sure when he’ll eat next.

OCEAN BEACH — The main advisory group for land use and development in Ocean Beach has rebuffed a proposal that could weaken building restrictions in the coastal community. The Ocean Beach Planning Board this month unanimously rejected plans to change what many architects and bureaucrats refer to as the “floor area ratio” and bring it in line with standards in place across the city. Board members argued that increasing the current ratio or relaxing parking requirements could spur too much development and lead to the eradication of an estimated 300 to 400 historic cottages.

by Anonymous OB Lawyer

Since this would appear to be an interpretation of an organization’s bylaws…I would want to know more about what the definition of “work” in OB means. Is there a further definition of what “work” means. Does it indicate that a person must work for a business that has a property and license in OB? If the bylaws are silent on this, then it really isn’t a stretch to say that Frank might qualify as “working” in OB.

In a civil court of law…making an argument that a PO Box doesn’t count would be a very very weak argument….

A Southern California mother is outraged she was asked to stop breastfeeding her baby in public.

Rose Homme, a mother of two from Orange County, said the incident happened Friday at the Cost Plus World Market located at the Village at Orange. She was there shopping with her mother and two children, a 3-year-old daughter and a 10-month-old son.

April 2014 – Editor’s Note: In light of the recent OB Town Council meeting that ended up focusing on the homeless, we wanted to repost a report of a Town Meeting on Homelessness – on August 24, 2010!

The second in a series of Community Forums on the homeless and homelessness in Ocean Beach was held last night, Tuesday, August 24th. The First Baptist Church on the corner of Sunset Cliffs Blvd and Santa Monica had opened their doors to the neighborhood, offering pastries, juices, coffee, etc. The event was organized by the OB Inter-Faith Community – a grouping of about a half dozen local churches.

About sixty people crowded into the assembly hall. After some brief intros by Jack Hamlin, we were directed to choose one of four areas to meet over – public facilities, community, government, and activities.

Ahhh, what a time we had, my childhood friend from Tucson and I. Jim Hopkin.

Our visit was like a fantasy, as there was a time in our lives when neither he or I could have imagined a scenario wherein someday I would cruise up to a sidewalk in a nice “chine,” as we used to say, in front of Southwest Airlines and he jumps in and I whisk him to a Comfort Inn and we end the day in one of the hippest Mexican Cafe’s in town – with nary a soul in any of these places wearing a “P.U.” frown.

Back then we knew no one who had flown any where – the concept of a “colored” person staying in a hotel had not yet been implanted in our young minds – and we couldn’t eat in a cafe unless the sign above it read Jack’s Barbeque or Duke’s Drive-In.