OB Rag

A local eccentric elderly man, known for hoarding things in his car, died last night from injuries sustained during a midnight accident in front of Sea World.

The 70-something gentleman – known to some other locals as “the Hoarder” – was hit by a youthful driver when the younger guy missed a turn and started backing up and hit the other, older, white car head-long which was driven by the Hoarder.

By Frank Rich / The New Yorker – rsn / Originally published July 3, 2011

After 9/11, Rudy Giuliani went on Saturday Night Live to give New Yorkers permission to laugh again. But Mayor Bloomberg never did tell us when we could resume conspicuous consumption after the crash of 2008. And so, as we stumble through the second year of the official “recovery,” it’s been an improvisational return to high-end carousing in Manhattan.

By Lori Montgomery / The Washington Post / Wednesday, July 6, 6:38 PM EDT

President Obama is pressing congressional leaders to consider a far-reaching debt-reduction plan that would force Democrats to accept major changes to Social Security and Medicare in exchange for Republican support for fresh tax revenue.

At a meeting with top House and Senate leaders set for Thursday morning, Obama plans to argue that a rare consensus has emerged about the size and scope of the nation’s budget problems and that policymakers should seize the moment to take dramatic action.

Okay class, let’s take our seats, get out our pens and notebooks. Hopefully, you didn’t forget too much from Lesson #1.

Today’s lesson about gentrification coming to OB is going to focus on the 5100 block of West Point Loma, for that is the front line in this gentrification crisis. Gentrification is all around us, but one way it has been slowed down over the decades is with the 30 foot height limit.

UPDATE: Exxon Mobil came under fire on Wednesday from Gov. Brian Schweitzer, who said the oil giant had assured Montana that any spill on the Yellowstone River could be shut off in a few minutes. (Go here for more details.)

Federal documents show it took Exxon Mobil nearly twice as long as it publicly disclosed to fully seal a pipeline that spilled roughly 1,000 barrels of crude oil into the Yellowstone River.

There was a story about the homeless and Ocean Beach that we missed last month. An article in the Peninsula Beacon by Bianca Koch in their June 16th edition described how a handful of local homeless people, aided by an OB homeowner named “Eric”, gave a new coat of paint to the OB Lifeguard Station.

In the year and a half since the Citizens United decision, Americans from all walks of life have become concerned about corporate dominance of our government and our society as a whole. In Citizens United v. FEC, the U.S. Supreme Court (in an act of outrageous “judicial activism) gutted existing campaign finance laws by ruling that corporations, wealthy individuals, and other entities can spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns.

Here’s the agenda for the Ocean Beach Planning Board general meeting, July 6th, 2011. The Board meets promptly at 6pm at the OB Rec Center on Santa Monica Avenue.

Every year it seems that the infamous Ocean Beach Marshmallow Fight expands itself to even more and more areas along the beach front. This year, it went down (or up) Newport Avenue further than some had ever seen it during previous years.

Plus marshmallows were thrown at cars and other vehicles cruising onto Abbott from Newport. Is this a new development?

The Ocean Beach Hotel has a mascot that’s American as surfing and apple pie: a 1949 Desoto woodie wagon. Owner Rich Grosch, 66, bought the seaside hotel at the corner of Newport Avenue and Abbott Street in 2003 and three years later he found the woodie.

“You gotta have a woodie with the beach hotel,” he said. He found the car online, listed at Hemmings.com by the owner in Santa Barbara.

With national unemployment rates at 9.1 percent, it might be hard to imagine that there are companies struggling to find workers. It is especially hard to imagine that these companies would be in the manufacturing industry, an area hit hard by the recent recession and on the decline in the United States for more than 30 years.

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt / Excuse Me, I’m Writing

You know that thing we used to have to do at the end of summer, the thing that whopped you upside the head with the brutal inevitability that vacation was over, that tar-bubble popping adventures and rhubarb-sucking loll-abouts were done, done and gone with the finality of a bee between your naked foot and the clover that enticed the insect to its death and you, to your hopping pain?