Category: History

Hey, guys, I guess you’ll have to “Bear Down” without me. I was looking forward to ambling – or whatever you call the way we 70 plus year old dudes walk now – out to mid court with you at the halftime of the U of A/Washington game while thousands of Wildcat fans look at us, going “You guys played basketball?”

Well, I intended to be there but I lost my wife a few months ago and I find that my energy ebbs and flows. …But, wow, has it really been fifty years since we were tearing it up back in old Bear Down Gym….

It’s been nearly half a century since the Peninsula Community Plan was officially launched by Peninsulans, Inc., its creator, in December of 1965. For the first time the organization of Point Loman business and property elites opened their vision of Point Loma and its sub-communities to the public.

The first urban plan for Ocean Beach was to grow out of this endeavor, as OB then was simply viewed as one of those sub-communities of the greater peninsula.

Peninsulans, Inc., or just “Pen Inc” – itself the child of the Peninsula Chamber of Commerce – had been officially endorsed by the San Diego City Council as “the citizen’s committee” for area planning on Point Loma. In 1968, three years after its launch, the Peninsula Community Plan was adopted by the City Council as the official plan for the Point Loma communities.

By Dwight Garner / The New York Times / December 29, 2009

Joel and Ethan Coen’s 1998 movie, “The Big Lebowski,” which stars Jeff Bridges as a beatific, pot-smoking, bowling-obsessed slacker known as the Dude, snuck up on the English-speaking world during the ’00s: it became, stealthily, the decade’s most venerated cult film. It’s got that elusive and addictive quality that a great midnight movie has to have: it blissfully widens and expands in your mind upon repeat viewings.

“The Big Lebowski” has spawned its own shaggy, fervid world: drinking games, Halloween costumes, bumper stickers (“This aggression will not stand, man”) and a drunken annual festival that took root in Louisville, Ky., and has spread to other cities.

The other day, as I pondered the words, “Two aging hippies live here,” the greeting on the welcome mat at the front door of my home, I thought about how lucky I am to have had Nancy in my life for so long.

I wondered how we ever got together. I mean Nancy was raised in Pacific Palisades, in L.A., overlooking the mighty Pacific, across a canyon from Grace Kelly, Walter Matthau and Betty Davis, just to name a few.

Today a good friend sent us a tidbit that he found tucked away in his morgue file, and that got me sidetracked in a real fun way….

Frank has written a lot of historical pieces on Ocean Beach (click on HISTORY up there in the navigation bar, you won’t be sorry) and in my opinion this article needs to be part of the story of the Collier Park Riot. Originally published in the door (another San Diego underground paper) in May of 1972, it tells a bit of the story of our very own EditorDude on that infamous day in March 1971.

The Afghanistan War cannot be Barack Obama’s war anymore than it is historically correct to call it George W Bush’s war – because there is a history revealed that says different. They inherited a stage in a conquest that has been playing out in modern times from as far back as 1839. It is all part of something called the “Great Game,” a competition to control Central Asia of which Afghanistan is the geographical bridge.

[Editor’s Note: I have published this list – followed by a progressive critique – as a counter-pole to the anguish progressives and leftists feel right now, on the eve of President Obama’s announcement of additional US troops being sent to Afghanistan. Some progressives are ready to throw Obama out of office because of his Afghanistan “surge.” This is basically a list of positives and there are many items on this list that progressives will disagree with, will consider to be cosmetic, or will fault for a lack of follow-through — and there are without doubt a lot of negatives not included. But we think this is an impressive list just the same.]

By Robert P. Watson

I am always being asked to grade Obama’s presidency. In place of offering him a grade, I put together a list of his accomplishments thus far. I think you would agree that it is very impressive. His first six months have been even more active than FDR’s or LBJ’s — the two standards for such assessments.

by Frank Gormlie

Some Musings ….

[Reposted 06/29/08. Originally posted 11/08/07]

What is the role of the artist – the intellectual artist – in modern society? If the role of the artist is obviously and intrinsically tied to the role of art, then what is the role of art? In modern society? Or in any society?

Art reflects reality at the very least. Art is humanity’s attempts to recreate reality, to create reflections of reality – and imagination & creativity are part of reality – thus also reflections of imagination; but then what is ‘good’ art? How is it separate & distinct from ordinary or ‘bad’ art?

The role of the artist then is connected to the role of art, in whatever medium – oil on canvas, watercolor, charcoal, pencil, colored pens, other canvas work, photography, computer art, sculpture, performance art, theater, movies, TV, poetry, novels, literature, music, dance, …………… cave paintings, ………

by Frank Gormlie

The dilemma of the disenchanted progressive has come full circle. If the progressive is disenchanted and deeply puzzled, what about the progressive community – what about a place like Ocean Beach?

This then is the third and final part of the series. In Part 1, I presented what I see as this dilemma for disenchanted progressives: as people on the political left we are disenchanted about the tempo and types of changes that President Obama has ushered in to date. And yet, as I discuss in Part 2, this country is facing a mass movement that represents an American brand of fascism, and it’s gunning for President Obama.

Jim Carroll’s death on September 11 brought back a lot of memories. His burst into popular consciousness in the early 1980s with The Jim Carroll Band happened when I was living in San Francisco.

Ronald Reagan was just coming to power, and would soon axe my job as a tenant organizer. This job been funded by the federal government though a program created by the Carter administration.

by Ernie McCray

Once upon a time, at the outset of World War II, Japanese American students at CaIifornia State Universities were rounded up and shipped off to internment camps.

Now those Institutions of Higher Learning would like to grant honorary degrees to the students who suffered such indignities.

And I guess that although an honorary degree might not be as profitable as getting a home to replace the one you might have lost or as powerfully emotional as being reconnected with an old pal you were separated from and have never seen again – it’s never the less a nice gesture, a needed touch, perhaps, in making the world a better place.

OB ELEMENTARY CELEBRATES ITS 100TH ANNIVERSARY
(see inside…)

Seagull shot with arrow found in OB
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Newport News and Rumors
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December 5, 2009, OB Holiday Parade
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TV Series “Terriers” Rumored to be Coming Back to OB in January
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School Board member John DeBeck Joins OB Historical Society in celebrating OB Elementary’s 100th year anniversary – Nov. 19th
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Chinese Commies Invade OB
AND MORE ……