Category: History

Announcements of US nuclear power plant permanent shutdowns in 2013 came seemingly in a flurry.

Crystal River in Florida on February 13. Kewaunee in Wisconsin on May 4. San Onofre in Southern California on June 13. And Vermont Yankee in the Green Mountain State on August 27.

Together this comprises five nuclear reactors with an electrical generating capacity of nearly 4300 Megawatts.

Yet the lights haven’t gone out, or even dimmed, in any of the communities these plants served.

The causes of these nuclear plant closures are multiple. Ultimately, however, they all add up to an industry in decline, desperate to squeeze as much profit as it can out of aging, increasingly

By Dawson Barrett / Portside

In recognition of the anniversary of the death of Nirvana leader Kurt Cobain, a host of retrospectives will recognize both the raw potency of Cobain’s songwriting and the tragedy of his heroin use and suicide. They will hide that Nirvana was a band of rebels.

This April marks twenty years since the death of Nirvana leader Kurt Cobain, one of the most iconic cultural figures of the late 20th century. In recognition of that anniversary, a host of retrospectives will recognize both the raw potency of Cobain’s songwriting and the tragedy of his heroin use and suicide. Echoing the tired, sexist tropes of “John and Yoko” and “Sid and Nancy,” many will also associate Cobain’s downfall with his wife, Courtney Love. These tabloid narratives will overshadow Nirvana’s political and cultural significance. They will hide that Nirvana was a band of rebels.

40 Years Ago OB Rag Cover Had First Ocean Beach “Munopoly” Board

On New Year’s Eve, we gathered at a good friend’s house and played the latest OB board game, “Ocean Beach-opoly” an OB version of the famed grandparent of all board games.

We had fun – I was fortunate to own the Gilmore Family store – not even noticing our late it had become. (I was one of the winners, by the way – sorry Doug.)

Later, I realized, hey, the OB Rag once ran a cover graphic way back in the Seventies with the first actual “OB Monopoly game board”. Nearly exactly 40 years ago, our version was on display.

We now know as much about cannabis as we know about alcohol, tobacco and many prescription drugs.

By Paul Armentano / AlterNet

Speaking recently with the Los Angeles Times, UCLA professor and former Washington state “pot czar” Mark Kleiman implied that we as a society are largely ignorant when it comes to the subject of weed. Speaking with Times columnist Patt Morrison, Kleiman stated, “I keep saying we don’t know nearly as much about cannabis as Pillsbury knows about brownie mix.”

There’s confusion in the ranks of both San Diego City planners and OB historians. No one can figure out or remember when the current main lifeguard station in Ocean Beach was built.

In the new OB Community Plan Update, a date of “1983” was given to the lifeguard station (which, by the way, needs to be replaced). But OB history buffs knew that was an incorrect date.

By Jim Miller

…the emergence of the local plutocracy’s strategy of rule by ballot initiative is a genuine threat to our local democracy

Last year, I rang out the New Year with a list of the best in San Diego culturally and politically in 2012. This year begs for a grimmer assessment. Better yet, politically, 2013 deserves to be tossed from the house with the caveat that it not let the door hit it in the ass on the way out.

It would be tempting to do a bottom ten list as there are so many deserving candidates in all quarters, but let me just reiterate what I wrote last summer, that much of what we saw transpiring in our fair city brought to mind Mark Twain’s pithy assessment of “the damned human race”:

I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the lower animals (so-called), and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the result humiliating to me. For it obliges me to renounce my allegiance to the Darwinian theory of the Ascent of Man from the Lower Animals; since it now seems plain to me that the theory ought to be vacated in favor of a new and truer one, this new and truer one to be named the Descent of Man from the Higher Animals.

By Eva Posner / San Diego Free Press

Blackfish has been on my DVR since it aired on CNN for the first time in October. I knew I should watch it but I didn’t want to. I’ve never been to SeaWorld, and I wanted to go. I wanted to see the whales. I wanted to watch them jump in the air and wave at me. It’s really selfish, and maybe not the best thing to admit, but I didn’t want to see Blackfish because I didn’t want to feel guilty about thinking the whale show was super cute.

Editor: A dramatic LA car chase on Friday the 13th of December ended up with the LA Police Department killing an unarmed Oceanside man. Brian Newt Beaird, who reportedly had schizophrenia, was shot to death in a police fusillade of 15 to 20 rounds – all on TV. As many as 20 police officers pursued Beaird for suspected drunk driving and reckless driving – as he did injure passengers in another car during the chase. After his car crashed, Beaird emerged from it with his hand raised and empty. He was immediately gunned down by the cops.

By Nicole Flatow

This article was originally published by the Center for American Progress Action.

Last Friday [Dec. 13th], Los Angeles Police Department officers shot dead a mentally ill man who had already gotten out of his car after a police chase with his hands up.

By Geoff Page / Special Rant for OB Rag

There was a time, believe it or not, when it wasn’t considered desirable to live at the ocean.

The cultural attitude about being near the ocean, and how one spent time at the ocean, was very different from today’s attitude. Places evolve, sometimes unexpectedly.

Las Vegas is a perfect example, it used to be undesirable desert landscape and look at it now.

To get an idea of what folks used to think about the ocean, look at some of the older homes along Sunset Cliffs. Many of these homes have no, or very little, deck or balcony space and take no advantage of the open ocean air. Contrast that with the newer places that have as much balcony or deck space as possible. Times have changed and attitudes about living at the ocean have changed.

One of the drawbacks to living at the ocean for some people in the past was the small homes on the small lots. Many of the smaller beach homes were never intended for year round residency, they were more like vacation cottages.

Inland you could have a much bigger home on a much bigger lot. As the culture changed and living near the ocean developed into something very much desired, people began to come here bringing the bigger house attitudes.

Here is the OB Rag’s “Best of 2007” – :

After watching the television coverage of San Diego County’s fires for the first couple of days, here are a few brief observations & comments about local TV channels’ coverage:

Channel 9: Best coverage, hands down, by team of Paul Bloom, Kimberly Hunt, Michael Turko and …

Channel 10: Very bland; veteran anchor desk reporters had no … c’mon to the original for all the rest … Go here.

During these last few days of 2013, the OB Rag will be running a series called “The Best of …” and include the years we have published, from late 2007 through this year.

Years ago, San Diego Magazine was a stellar journalistic and investigative resource for San Diegans. Then for the last few decades, it succumbed to being a repository of house and garden type and variety of writings and photos and direction.

Yet the current issue has perhaps broken through that restraint and has issued a call for changes in San Diego for 2014 with its “10 Big Ideas for San Diego” by Erin Chambers Smith and Dave Good. Smith and Good say “Let’s start 2014 with some vision, shall we?”

We’re excited by Number 10 of their “big ideas” entitled “Let’s canoe down the San Diego River from the Cuyamacas to Mission Bay.”