OB Rag

Progress towards a new labor contract between unions and three Southern California supermarket chains is moving at a glacial pace, but the rhetoric is heating up over the main sticking point – health care.

A Vons grocery chain spokesman on Tuesday characterized the unions’ health care benefit proposal as “unrealistic,” while a San Diego union leader said the grocery stores’ claim that half of the union workers don’t contribute to their health benefit package is “a blatant lie.”

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By Mike Lee / San Diego U-T / June 29, 2011

San Diego once again is looking at selling some prime beachfront property — space on signs in Mission Beach Park — to raise money for city coffers. A similar idea surfaced last July, then fizzled despite interest by the City Council. It’s back in front of a council committee Wednesday morning, adding another chapter in a long-running debate about corporate America creeping into natural settings.

Dan Rottenberg
A few days before hundreds of people took to the streets for the event SlutWalk San Diego, Dan Rottenberg, editor of the Broad Street Review, posted a column titled “Male sex abuse and female naiveté“. In the lead-in to the column he advises us,

“Earth to liberated women: When you display legs, thighs or cleavage, some liberated men will see it as a sign that you feel good about yourself and your sexuality. But most men will see it as a sign that you want to get laid. Forewarned is forearmed.”

The OB Rag is proud to announce that we now have bumper stickers, decals, and a new batch of T-shirts available for our supporters and readers.

After sitting down recently with a couple of members of the Ocean Beach Planning Board, I now have a grasp of the coming gentrification crisis about to hit OB. I spoke with Board member Tom Gawronski, representative for District 1 – the northwest beach portion of OB, and with Landry Watson, the vice-chair of the Board. Both had bad things to say about this new trend that they see and what the village of Ocean Beach is experiencing along the 5100 block of West Point Loma. And what it all means.

Bill would essentially treat marijuana like alcohol on the federal level.

On June 23rd, Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) and spokespersons from three other advocacy organizations announced the introduction of the first-ever bill to end marijuana prohibition on the federal level.

This bill, the “Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2011,” is broader and bolder than the medical marijuana bills that Congressman Frank has introduced in every Congress since 1995. The bill introduced today would allow states to determine their own marijuana laws — not just medical marijuana laws — without federal interference.

Apparently, there was some kind of incident on Brighton Avenue in Ocean Beach last Sunday, the 26th of June, in the early afternoon. San Diego Police did investigate but up to now, nothing and nobody has been found to indicate to them that a crime has occurred.

Police have confirmed that a number of 9-1-1 calls and other complaints came in about a white minivan traveling east on Brighton Avenue right around 12:30 pm, with yelling or screaming.

From the National Alliance on Mental Illness

The tragic shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the killing of six innocent citizens in Arizona focused national attention on the state of the public mental health system in Arizona and other states. Many asked how a tragedy like this could happen again, with chilling references to Virginia Tech. How did Jared Loughner fall through the cracks when the signs of a serious psychiatric crisis seemed so clear?

We have an initial report of a strange, and potentially ugly incident that occurred on Brighton Avenue yesterday Sunday in…

A report by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism and Wisconsin Public Radio described an episode in which three unnamed sources said that Justice David T. Prosser had grabbed another justice, Ann Walsh Bradley, around the neck during an argument in her chambers this month. This alleged assault occurred just before the justices released their ruling on the anti-union resolution passed by the GOP-controlled Wisconsin legislature.

At last weekend’s Netroots Nation gathering in Minneapolis, liberal activists expressed frustration that they lacked the political power or media focus given to the conservative tea-party movement. Former White House environmental official Van Jones is hoping to change that with a new political effort dubbed “The American Dream Movement.”

As the Union-Tribune noted in its article on San Diego Noir: “When it comes to the literary genre known as noir—that dark terrain of desire and desperation, of passion and paranoia—certain cities come immediately to mind. Los Angeles. San Francisco. New York. Not San Diego.” Well, not exactly.

While San Diego does not have as rich a literary and/or filmic history as Los Angeles, it too has some noir in its past. In the 1890s, Thomas and Anna Fitch saw Coronado as a suitable location for testing a doomsday weapon in Better Days: Or, the Millionaire of To-morrow. Then famously, in 1932, Edmund Wilson labeled San Diego the “The Jumping-Off Place” as a result of its nation-leading suicide rate….