Category: History

OCEAN BEACH, CA. I met Sheldon Dorf back in the mid-seventies here in Ocean Beach. The OB resident passed away on Tuesday, November 3rd, to diabetes complications. He was 76. Sheldon was perhaps one of the most culturally influential OBceans as he was a co-founder of San Diego’s now infamous Comic-Con.

Comic-Con – now the convention that draws tens of thousands every year to San Diego. The City jumps hoops just to keep the event local.

Stop and think a moment. Tuesday November 4, 2008. Election night. I bet you can remember where you were, what you were doing.

We had invited friends over, to celebrate together, or commiserate together- who knew? We weren’t sure what the outcome of the election would be. Would Obama carry Pennsylvania and Ohio and Virginia and North Carolina?

We had the computer set up with MSNBC, and the champagne was flowing. Earlier that day at the Central library information desk where I worked I answered many many questions about where people could vote.

Editor: Marjorie Cohn teaches law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law – my old alma mater – plus she is the national president of the National Lawyers Guild. This interview with her on voiceofsandiego just appeared and we had to share.
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by Randy Dotinga / Voice of San Diego
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On the legal front, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have few bigger enemies than Marjorie Cohn, a professor at San Diego’s Thomas Jefferson School of Law.

The Etiwanda House

The initial circle of the OB Rag newspaper consisted of Frank Gormlie, a local who had grown up in Point Loma, who had surfed in OB in his youth, and a recent graduate of UCSD – the Rag had been Gormlie’s brainchild as he saw it as a handy way to do community organizing in OB; the circle also included Bo Blakey, fresh from the campus battles at UC Berkeley and another graduate with Gormlie of Pt. Loma High; …

OCEAN BEACH, CA. The original OB Rag – that iconic Ocean Beach underground newspaper – and our blog’s namesake-, received an honorable mention in a plaque fastened to the side of the old Bank of Italy building recently. That building, on the northeast corner of Newport and Bacon, has been many things over the years.

Today a corporate coffee shop, an ATM, and a hairstyler is in the building; but yesteryear it was the Bank of Italy.

Labor Day, to most people, is little more than the end of summer. Labor Day commemorates the labor union movement, the demand for an eight hour work day, better working conditions, fair wages and an end to child labor.

Originally posted August 24, 2009
By OB Rag Staffer

“From out of a cave at the foot of Sunset Cliffs, the thundering hoof beats pound, with a hearty ‘Hi Yo Sylvia, away!’ The OB Ranger rides again.”

The OB Ranger was a radio series that aired on “HIS Radio, FM stereo ninety” in 1971 and 72. It was a spoof of the old “Lone Ranger” radio show, but a lot more fun. Ranger fans tuned in every week to find out what new trouble the OB Ranger would stumble his way into.

He introduced himself with “Far out, groovy and outta sight, I am the OB Ranger!”

by Chalmers Johnson

However ambitious President Barack Obama’s domestic plans, one unacknowledged issue has the potential to destroy any reform efforts he might launch.

Think of it as the 800-pound gorilla in the American living room: our longstanding reliance on imperialism and militarism in our relations with other countries and the vast, potentially ruinous global empire of bases that goes with it.

The failure to begin to deal with our bloated military establishment and …

By Sara Robinson

All through the dark years of the Bush Administration, progressives watched in horror as Constitutional protections vanished, nativist rhetoric ratcheted up, hate speech turned into intimidation and violence, and the president of the United States seized for himself powers only demanded by history’s worst dictators.

With each new outrage, the small handful of us who’d made ourselves experts on right-wing culture and politics would hear once again from worried readers: Is this it? Have we finally become a fascist state? Are we there yet?

Aleida Guevara was four and a half when her father left Cuba. Ernesto “Che” Guevara, iconic Argentine guerrilla leader, Marxist theorist and second-in-command of the Cuban revolution, departed the island for Africa in 1965 after falling out of political favor with Fidel Castro.

She saw him only once again, before his execution by the CIA-backed Bolivian government two years later.

There’s a growing interest in our neighborhood in historic photographs of our little corner of the world. Check out these aerial shots of Mission Bay and surrounding areas – taken before it was dredged, while it was being dredged, and then later.

Viewing these images gives you knowledge and a historical background to this area. Knowledge is power.

If you’d like to see more, let us know.

Fireworks at the end of the OB Pier are always good for a huge crowd. The beach, the pier, the surrounding blocks, the overlooking hilltops, and the cliffs are packed. It seems like the whole world comes to OB for the fireworks every 4th. And why not? They’re great!