OB Rag

by Ariana Huffington / Huffington Post / August 21, 2010

As we head into the stretch run of the 2010 midterms, and get closer to the halfway point of President Obama’s first term, we’re hearing a lot of media chatter about the “enthusiasm gap” plaguing Democrats. There is also a lot of talk about whether progressives — aka “the professional left” — should or shouldn’t be disappointed in Obama. In a post about last month’s Netroots Nation gathering in Las Vegas, Matt Yglesias wrote that at this year’s event, “the dominant mood” was “depressed” and that he could feel a “considerable degree of ill will toward Barack Obama and his administration.”

Terriers is a show about two private investigators who are tenacious, just like the terrier dogs.

In the series Terriers, Michael Raymond-James plays Britt Pollack and Donal Logue plays Hank Dolworth, two men with questionable pasts who join together to form their own private investigation team. On August 3, 2010 the two gentlemen along with the producers discussed their new series with members of the Television Critics Association.

Originally posted on Aug. 20, 2010.

by Annie Lane / August 20, 2010

Meet Jacob Magness, a native San Diegan who’s spent the last 13 years saving lives in Ocean Beach.
As one of OB’s permanent lifeguards, Magness, 32, is no stranger to the ocean or making rescues. In fact, he’s been in or near the water for the last 24 years.

Editor: There’s a new ‘bad boy’ in town, and he’s not a bum or a homeless person. He … or she … is the person who grabs free electricity from the Newport Avenue light poles. The “new” U-T (Union-Tribune) felt this story still had legs and quotes our own Denny Knox, CEO of the OB Mainstreet Assoc., and Jim Musgrove, head of the OB Town Council. Go to it.
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City street crews are looking to curb the number of people in Ocean Beach who siphon electricity from outlets on street lamps to power everything from cell phones to recreational vehicles.

The San Diego Streets Division is awaiting another shipment of tamper-proof utility covers that restrict access to electrical sockets on a three-block stretch of Newport Avenue ….

By Rocky Neptun

“Mommie, I’m hungry,” the little girl cried as she stood shivering in the cold wind, waiting for food. The image has never left me…and now that I am semi-retired I want to be part of an effort making sure no more children starve on San Diego city streets.

I want to help buy a catering truck. A fellow member of the San Diego Renters Union, who was once homeless, has gotten a modest settlement and has agreed to match whatever the Renters Union can raise toward buying a food truck to feed the homeless. As someone who spent their teen years on the streets of New York City, I learned very early, as I camped under a hedge at New York University, that whatever didn’t fit in a back-pack was useless. I had no possessions, so possessions did not possess me. But I did know hunger and, often, what crimes against society – and oneself – it took to obtain money for food.

Don’t believe what you’ve never been told. The water has never, ever been this cold. (Future rant coming here soon…….

Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming – A book review

Having escaped high school by my junior year, passing the California High School Equivalency exam, continuing on to the community college system and gaining enough technical education to get a decent job, I never got much of an education in history or government.

I worked for a company that was owned by a fairly progressive thinking family, manufacturing goods used mainly by environmental agencies and educational institutions. It was gratifying work and allowed me to care for my family in a simple fashion, we didn’t want for much, but we didn’t want much either. I went about my daily life pretty isolated from the issues that affect so many, I had a job, we had health insurance and until that company closed I didn’t really understand how good we had it.

By Chalmers Johnson / Tom Dispatch / August 17, 2010

In 1962, the historian Barbara Tuchman published a book about the start of World War I and called it The Guns of August. It went on to win a Pulitzer Prize. She was, of course, looking back at events that had occurred almost 50 years earlier and had at her disposal documents and information not available to participants. They were acting, as Vietnam-era Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara put it, in the fog of war.

So where are we this August of 2010, with guns blazing in one war in Afghanistan even as we try to extricate ourselves from another in Iraq?

Before April 2010, if you had asked local music fans about the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, you would have heard a pretty consensual answer that reflected its well-earned reputation as one of the nation’s most satisfying rock fests. Since the festival’s 1999 founding by Goldenvoice Productions, the Coachella sensibility had been rooted in the original L.A. punk-rock scene, delivering good vibes and genuine excitement along with a wide range of alternative sounds chosen with a connoisseur’s touch, from this year’s headlining muscle of Jay-Z and Thom Yorke to the dreamier waves of emotion unfurled by the xx as the afternoon sun slowly slid behind the palm trees.

“The No. 1 thing was just too many bodies,” admits Goldenvoice President Paul Tollett.

SAN DIEGO San Diego Unified’s results on 2010 state tests show across the board gains for the fourth straight year, with more students than ever ranking “advanced” in their subject knowledge.

The results of the annual California Standards Test released today show the district has five straight years of overall gains in English language arts and science scores, while math continues a four-year climb. This good news is tempered by recognition that scores still show an “achievement gap” among ethnic groups. Data relating to the achievement gap – test scores among ethnic groups – is still being analyzed, but early results show the gap is narrowing in some areas, albeit slowly.

A special team of medical researchers, sociologists, psychologists and public health workers have just concluded a very telling study and have issued a confidential report to local media: Vitamin D deficiency caused from lack of sun is affecting many OBcieans and other coastal types.

The effect: it’s causing beach people to be grumpy.

With the rare lack of sunshine in OB during the summer months of July and August, the local population is suffering cognitive and behavior effects, associated with Vitamin D deficiency (VDD). Normally the coast and the beaches are bathed in strong sunlight these months. But not this year. The coolest and grayest summer on record since the Thirties – when FDR was President.

It was a slightly sunny Sunday when we captured these glimpses into Ocean Beach.