Category: Culture

by Niko Padilla / The Daily Aztec /  January 29, 2026

Along Newport Avenue in Ocean Beach lies The Harp, where you can often hear live music before you even see the bar, as the sounds of funk, rock and reggae music fill the street with life.

As the OB Farmers’ Market takes place over the street on Wednesday nights, you can often see a crowd gathered at the window, listening to the music, as customers, friends, family and sports fans have a drink and play a game of pool inside. These nights offer special opportunities for connection. They are more than just people coming together for a drink, but a unity between the music and the listener.

The Harp is owned by Miles Doughty, lead singer of Slightly Stoopid, Jeremy Diem, CEO of Hodad’s and long-time friends Tyson Green and Steve Ashton, who are familiar faces behind the bars in Ocean Beach. The four friends have taken over the legacy of this longtime local spot for just over a year, as they continue to improve upon what it once was.

“What we’re cooking up over here is something to be enjoyed for years to come,” said co-owner Green. “A quality music venue that people can come, hang out with their homies, and enjoy some intimate music.”

Amid all the crap that we as Americans are having to deal with coming out of the Trump administration, there is good news.

Local communities across the country along with some state and local officials are resisting attempts by President Donald Trump to house thousands of detained immigrants in their areas in converted warehouses, privately run facilities and county jails. These are immigrant prisons.

In red states, red counties and red towns and  cities, people are pushing back so hard that ICE officials are having troubles finding locations for their detention centers. In Texas, in Oklahoma, in Utah, in New Mexico, in Virginia, proposed ICE facilities are running into brick walls by grassroots resistance.

Why is this happening? MSNOW reports:

Federal officials have been scouting cities and counties across the U.S. for places to hold immigrants as they roll out a massive $45 billion expansion of detention facilities financed by Trump’s recent tax-cutting law.

The fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti during immigration enforcement actions in Minnesota have amplified an already intense spotlight on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, increasing scrutiny of its plans for new detention sites.

For instance, officials in Social Circle, Georgia, El Paso, Texas, and Roxbury Township, New Jersey, all have raised concerns about their locales being used and they all cite a lack of water and sewer capacity to transform warehouses into detention sites.

The American citizenry have to withstand a daily barrage of stupid, crazy and frightening declarations that emanate out of the White House — but none are more scary than a recent statement by Trump on a conservative podcast Sunday, Feb. 1, when he said Republicans should “nationalize” American elections.

“We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many, 15 places.The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”

Trump was on the podcast of former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino.

In a MS NOW report of the broadcast from earlier today, writer Steve Benen wrote:

Partway through the interview, Bongino briefly referred to crime rates, to which Trump responded with a meandering rant across a variety of unrelated subjects, including his bizarre beliefs about election administration.

by Ernie McCray

What in the hell is wrong with you
Republican Congressmen and Congresswomen?
How have you
come to losing your way
so dishonorably,
like a ship without a rudder
in foggy weather,
wandering aimlessly,
trapped in a web,
like helpless insects,
at the mercy
of a demented madman of a president
who has you, for one thing,
for instance,

One of the most recognizable OB establishments, an icon of the counter-culture — The Black — is set to close after 57 years.

If you were a hippie or a hippie-wannabe in the late Sixties or the 1970s, The Black was the place to visit — as long as you asked for “water pipes” and not “bongs.” For a very long time, it was the only “head shop” in OB, as it sold pipes, rolling papers, records, jewelry, hippy and black light posters – and for a while it was the only hip book store in town.

There were at least three consecutive days of protests in San Diego County against ICE and in solidarity with Minneapolis over this past weekend.

On Friday, Jan. 30, nearly 1,000 people gathered at a large rally at Teralta Park in City Heights, followed by a march. Initially protesters met at the park between Orange and Polk avenues around 2 p.m. on Friday, calling for an end to the Trump administration’s federal immigration crackdown across the country.

The day before on Thursday, people of faith rallied at the Federal Building in downtown San Diego.

The nationwide rallies, called a “National Shutdown” by organizers, called for people to not go to school, work or businesses to demand Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents out of communities. It came after federal actions in Minnesota that led to the deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, both 37 years old.

by: Amber Coakley / Fox5 San Diego / Feb 1, 2026 

A surfer was rescued Saturday morning, January 31, after being swept off the rocks by powerful waves at Sunset Cliffs in Point Loma, according to San Diego Fire-Rescue officials.

At about 8:55 a.m., the surfer was attempting to enter the water from the cliffs when a wave struck her, knocking her into the ocean. Additional waves then pushed her back into the cliff and surrounding rocks, officials said.

Two surfers who were already in the water immediately came to help her. The Good Samaritans helped move the woman into a safer area and placed her on a surfboard while waving for help. Meanwhile, bystanders on shore called 911, prompting a response from San Diego Lifeguards.

The San Diego Community Coalition publishes this email bulletin to keep our members and the public informed about important Council and Planning Commission hearings and other city public meetings.

Monday, February 2: City Council, 2:00 p.m.

Agenda

Item CS-1: Ordinance Approving Contract with NEOGOV for Applicant Recruitment, Tracking, and Hiring

Why it matters: NEOGOV would be paid nearly $4.2 million over 10 years for HR software systems. That seems like a lot for a city that 1) has a personnel department responsible for recruitment, tracking, and hiring; 2) is supposed to be in the middle of a hiring freeze; and 3) is nearly insolvent.

Wednesday, February 4: Budget and Government Efficiency Committee, 9:00 a.m.

Agenda

By Jack Fitzpatrick / MS NOW /  Jan. 28, 2026

With less than 72 hours until most of the federal government runs out of funding, a partial shutdown now appears likely. The more pressing question is how much of the government will close — and for how long.

Senate Democrats told MS NOW that their support for a Department of Homeland Security funding bill hinges on new restrictions on President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies.

Republicans, who are also facing political pressure after officers killed two U.S. citizens in Minnesota, say they’re open to hearing the Democratic proposals. But time is short, and any agreement would need to clear both chambers of Congress — with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., signaling no plans to bring the House back from recess.

Instead, Johnson and other GOP leaders are urging Senate Democrats to join Republicans in passing the remaining six of the 12 annual appropriations bills without changes, even though Democrats are adamant they won’t do that.

As Friday night’s deadline looms, lawmakers need to move quickly to avert a funding lapse that could affect roughly four-fifths of federal agency budgets.

But there’s a massive barrier in the way. Republicans want a handshake agreement with Trump on changes at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, rather than codifying restrictions in the Homeland Security funding bill itself. Democrats say they don’t trust the administration to follow through.

By Judy Harrington

126 San Diego residents gathered recently at the Salvation Army Kroc Center on January 20 to hear vital advice from firefighters and other experts on surviving wildfires like the Los Angeles area experienced last winter.

Speakers included Alex Kane, Assistant Fire Marshal/ Wildfire Program Manager and his team members, Sierra Brown, Deputy Fire Marshal, and Helen Sylvia, Firefighter Paramedic III, as well as Carie Chouinard, San Diego’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Program Manager and Melissa Altman, Regional Preparedness Manager for the American Red Cross San Diego.

“If you’re not prepared, you become part of the problem, and the fire department has to focus on evacuations as opposed to fire suppression.” Assistant Fire Marshall Alex Kane said in urging folks to not become “part of the emergency.”

Kane explained that he is now heading up a new wildfire prevention and mitigation division of the San Diego Fire Rescue Department, focused on creating wildfire resilient communities.  Among his many tips: get involved with your local fire safe council –” …they are making a difference.”  San Diego county has 54 FSCs, the most of any county in the country.

by David Smollar / Times of San Diego / Jan. 26, 2026

The wielding of excessive force bringing chaos, injury and death across American cities by officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement makes for painful viewing when captured by social media.

American history is checkered with federal, state and local police actions carried out against advocates of labor unions, marchers for civil rights, and anti-war protesters, among many others — and it can’t be sanitized or erased by those who prefer their history viewed through rose-colored lenses.

San Diego’s past also includes major government-sanctioned violence.

In the heart of downtown, at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and E Street, the city’s worst street violence — the Free Speech Riots — emanated in 1912 from February through May when police and vigilantes violently assaulted members of the militant/anarchist labor union International Workers of the World, known as the IWW or “Wobblies.”

In January, the City Council had acted to curb public assemblies in the city of 45,000 residents at the behest of business and real estate owners. They feared an increase in the number of union members coming to San Diego to organize streetcar and construction workers — many of whom were  immigrants — and to back radical factions in the ongoing Mexican Revolution. An armed group of Wobblies supporting a radical Mexican faction had assisted in a brief capture of Tijuana, then a border town with less than 1,000 people, in spring 1911 during an initial phase of the revolution.

by Debbie L. Sklar / Times of San Diego / Jan. 16, 2026

High above San Diego Bay, Fort Rosecrans occupies one of the most commanding pieces of land in the city. Long before it became a national cemetery, the Point Loma military reservation played a central role in coastal defense, guarding the harbor entrance from the late 19th century through World War II. Today, Fort Rosecrans is best known as a place of remembrance — but it has also, briefly and intentionally, become part of San Diego’s film history.

Hollywood Backlot

What Fort Rosecrans is not is a forgotten Hollywood backlot. Unlike larger, active Southern California military installations, there is no documented evidence that Fort Rosecrans served as a regular filming site during Hollywood’s Golden Age. From the 1930s through the 1950s, studios making war films typically relied on expansive Army and Navy bases that could support large-scale productions, complete with troops, equipment, and training grounds. Fort Rosecrans, originally developed as a coastal artillery post and formally designated a fort in 1899, never functioned as that kind of production hub.

By the end of World War II, advances in military technology had reduced the importance of fixed coastal defenses, and the site’s military role diminished. Portions of the reservation had already been set aside as a cemetery decades earlier, beginning in the 1880s. Over time, Fort Rosecrans’ identity shifted decisively from active defense to commemoration.

That context makes its on-screen appearance far more meaningful.