Category: History

May 4, 1970: Four students murdered, nine wounded by National Guardsmen, on the campus of Kent State in Kent, Ohio.

Allison Krause, William Schroeder, Jefferey Miller and Sandra Scheuer were killed in the 13 second fusillade of 67 shots fired by the Guardsmen, after an order to fire was given.

(Originally posted May 4, 2010)
I was sitting on my porch this afternoon pondering the meaning of Kent State. I had more tears last year when I wrote a post about it. Yet – here it is – the 40th anniversary. Kent State, hmmm, OB, hmmmm. Something was there.

And then I figured it out! I figured out how Ocean Beach is connected to the Kent State massacre of May 4th, 1970. Or vice versa.

I was in college when it happened. I was attending UCSD and in my senior-year when it all came down. I had been involved in the campus anti-Vietnam movement and was deeply affected by Kent State,

Jim Miller is a professor who practices what he teaches.

Each semester, Miller guides dozens of students through his English and Labor Studies classes at San Diego City College. He has played key roles in literary projects such as the school’s International Book Fair as well as the San Diego Writers Collective. He serves as a political action vice president and does community outreach for the American Federation of Teachers Local #1931.

And as if he wasn’t busy enough already, Miller also finds the time to crank out the occasional book.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl—and now Fukushima.

This latest and hopefully last nuclear disaster ironically has struck the very land first devastated by two US atomic bombs.

Unlike those first two horrors, however, those of late in Japan were never supposed to happen.

The six nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, like all others around the planet, were deemed safe and robust.

This week marks the one-year anniversary of the end of the March for California’s Future, a 48 day, 352-mile march through the Central Valley to the State Capitol. There, on a rainy day in Sacramento, I was one of many union folks, students, and religious and community leaders who spoke to a crowd of thousands gathered to protest the ever-more draconian cuts to education and social services.

All the way from Los Angeles to Sacramento we carried the message that California needs a government and economy that works for everyone, not just the rich.

The Ocean Beach Historical Society Presents:

Author Linda Pequegnat’s “This Day in San Diego History”

At the PL United Methodist Church – 1984 Sunset Cliffs Blvd. (O.B.)

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt/ExcuseMeImWriting.com

An annual remembrance of the 19 April 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City

Ladies and gentlemen and children: See before you the crumbled concrete and teddy bears, the wreaths and forlorn love notes, …

“Suddenly, a season of peace seems to be warming the world,” the New York Times exulted on the last day of July 1988. Protracted and bloody wars were ending in Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia and Nicaragua, and between Iran and Iraq. But the most dramatic development was still to come.

In December 1988, the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, declared the cold war over. “The use or threat of force no longer can or must be an instrument of foreign policy,” he said. “This applies above all to nuclear arms.”

By E.A. Barrera / April 13, 2011

“You don’t have to be in the military to serve and defend your country. That s the duty of all of us.” – Lewis Meyer – January 8, 2010

Lewis Meyer was a fireman who became a prisoner of war in Vietnam from February 1, 1968 to March 27, 1973. He was taken prisoner during the Tet Offensive and kept for five years under the most brutal conditions a man could suffer through.

When he returned home, he found a world eager to forget his trauma as it was a nation’s trauma.

Originally posted May 9, 2009

It’s readily apparent that at least in one little corner of Ocean Beach, the recession hasn’t really hit – the corner of Newport Ave and Bacon Street, you see the lines end of people waiting to get into Hodad’s – OB’s famous hamburger joint.

It’s 12:30 lunch time, and the crowd waits patiently to sit down and chomp into the delicious drippy, beef and bun wonder named by CNN as one of the top five burgers in the nation. …

Over forty people were in Collier Park Sunday, joining the potluck picnic commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Collier Park Riot of 1971. We have written about this, go here for our earlier post.

With Dave Rice’s mastery of the grill, with Patty’s awesome potato salad, Frank’s popular chicken, Doug’s savory deviled eggs, and everybody’s elses food and drink, the picnic god shined the sun on the gathering that lasted happily into the late afternoon.

What an extraordinary weekend! It ended Sunday with a picnic in Collier Park where some of us personally remembered and…