OB Rag

The following is an article from the October 15, 2010 issue of Rolling Stone.

We arrived at the southwest gate of the white house a little after one o’clock on the afternoon of September 17th. It was a warm fall day, but the capital felt quiet and half-empty, as it does on Fridays at the end of summer, with Congress still in recess.

The Socialist Salon hosted a community forum on “left parties” and the possibility of working with the Democratic Party to create social change in our country that matches the ideals of the current “third parity’s” ideals. The event was held at the Joyce Beers Community Center on 9/19 with panelists from the Peace and Freedom Party, Green Party and PDA/Progressive Democrats of America.

SANTA CLARITA, Calif. — A private company in Maryland has taken over public libraries in ailing cities in California, Oregon, Tennessee and Texas, growing into the country’s fifth-largest library system.

Now the company, Library Systems & Services, has been hired for the first time to run a system in a relatively healthy city, setting off an intense and often acrimonious debate about the role of outsourcing in a ravaged economy.

By Center on Policy Initiatives / September 28, 2010

More than 100,000 San Diego County residents fell from the middle class into poverty or severe economic hardship over the past two years, while the wealthiest fifth of earners continued to receive almost half of all income generated in the County.

US Census data released today reinforce the desperate need for good jobs that pay living wages, a CPI analysis shows. Almost half the adults living in extreme poverty in 2009 were working full- or part-time, and families with children were particularly hard hit.

What makes someone in San Diego a local is sometimes debatable, but it’s hard to dispute the status of the folks who got together at the Bay View Restaurant at the Marine Corp Recruit Depot on Friday, Sept. 24. This was the 60th reunion of Point Loma High School’s class of 1950, a festive and feel-good gathering of folks who can out-local just about anybody on the Peninsula.

By Rocky Neptun

The sweeping assaults across the nation on peaceful anti-war activists Sept. 24th represent an ominous divergence for an administration which was elected to change the heavy-handed policies of the Bush regime. Like something straight out of the Ashcroft playbook, FBI agents, in cooperation with local authorities, raided homes and offices in Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota. Government thugs also showed up at the doors of progressives and human rights activists in North Carolina and San Jose, California.

By Warren Patch

Ocean Beach has always been a colorful place. The Hippies seem to perpetually reinvent themselves there; long hair, short hair, dread hair, dirty hair, blue hair, no hair, it’s all cool. And tie-dye is still vogue. I buy mine at Sunshine Daydreams on Newport Avenue.

One of the all-time great characters of OB was Clint Carey, alias OB SPACEMAN. He used to sell plots of land on the moon. And he was the only OB’cean who had personally met the “Outer Space People” when they came visiting, and he alone was authorized to sell tickets for spaceship rides when they returned.

As Mexicans celebrated the 200th anniversary of their independence from Spain last week, evoking a history of resistance against colonialism, a disturbing development unfolds on the country’s northern border: a fleet of US Predator B drones has been deployed on constant patrol.

Man, did I have a good time
in OB,
much like the time a whale
I saw in a watercolor
on a table
in the middle of the street
seemed to be having
to me –

Editor: Despite the following being nine months old, we thought we’d share it.

By Frank Schaeffer

Before he’d served even one year President Obama lost the support of the easily distracted left and engendered the white hot rage of the hate-filled right. But some of us, from all walks of life and ideological backgrounds — including this white, straight, 57-year-old, former religious right wing agitator, now progressive writer and (given my background as the son of a famous evangelical leader) this unlikely Obama supporter — are sticking with our President.

Why?– because he is succeeding.

By Jim Grant

This car was speeding down interstate 8 yesterday at 4pm, he tried to make the green light at 8 and Sunset Cliffs he ran the red light, skidded around the corner, slid between a concrete barrier (set up to keep cars from crashing into the skate park) and a trio of 40 foot palm trees. If he had hit either of these two things no doubt the car would have split in two, he was doing at least 70 mph at this time. He continued down the sidewalk and landscaping leaving skid marks and a path of debris behind him. He plowed into the 8′ high fencing surrounding the Ocean Beach skate park which was FULL of kids. The fencing crumpled like an aluminum can….

fem·i·nism ( Merriam Webster Dictionary)

1: the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes

2: organized activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests
_________________
Feminism is a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.” Pat Robertson