OB Rag

One of the great stories from Ocean Beach in the Seventies was the creation and development of what we used to call “people’s institutions” – or “alternatives” to mainstream institutions. OB activists started, for example, the OB Rag as an alternative to the mainstream press. Other alternatives included People’s Food Co-op as an alternative to Safeway and the lack of organic food. The OB People’s Free School was begun as an alternative to the at-times dullifying public schools. And then there was the Ocean Beach Childcare Project.

The OB Childcare Project was begun by activists and local parents and teachers who saw the great need then for day care or child care for working parents or single moms. At the time, there wasn’t any inexpensive day care around. Finally, locals negotiated with the School District which allowed them to take over the building on the same block as the OB Elementary School, clean it up, and initiate a child care center.

Editor: David Helvarg, a former OBcean and original OB Rag staffer, now lives in San Francisco and runs the Blue Frontier Campaign to save our seas, which he founded in 2003. David is also the author “Blue Frontier – Dispatches from America’s Ocean Wilderness,” as well as a couple of books. Go check out his site.

by David Helvarg/ Blue Frontier Notes / Originally posted August 11, 2010

They’ve finally cemented up BP’s runaway well (from above with a second relief well plug still to seal it from below). Unfortunately this comes after 220 million gallons of oil slimed the Gulf of Mexico. So what’s the effect of a spill 20 times the size of the Exxon Valdez? Apparently not much if you believe the government’s estimates.

ALL LINKS AND DETAILS INSIDE:

Jolly Roger Pirate Captured by Lifeguards
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OB Town Council Candidates Needed – Apply by August 16th
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Community and Alley Clean-Up on August 21st
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Second Community Forum on Homelessness – August 24th
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Candidate Forum for Town Council – August 25th
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Point Loma – Midway Community Meeting on Transforming the Post Office
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Peninsula Planners to Review Bylaws on August 19th

by Judith Curry / August 11, 2010

I am writing this, not as a “Letter to the Editor”, but as an article with the purpose of aiding other Californians.

I was born and raised in Los Angeles. I remember the talk of earthquakes for as long as my memory was formed. I remember seeing pictures of the devastation of the San Francisco earthquake in 1906. I remember feeling the 1987 Whittier earthquake primarily because I lived only a few miles from the epicenter. I remember the Landers earthquake of 1992; the Northridge earthquake of 1994, etc.

As a teacher, I frequently was required to have “drop drills” for my students on a monthly basis.

by George J. Janczyn / Groksurf ‘s San Diego / August 11, 2010

As noted in yesterday’s water rates story, (08/10/10) the main supplier for most of San Diego County’s water is the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) and it holds great power when it comes to the cost and reliability of our water supply. So when MWD announced a stakeholder forum to examine the 2010 Integrated Resources Plan (IRP) Update there were naturally going to be many local water professionals in attendance. The IRP makes major changes to MWD’s strategy for water reliability through the year 2035, including a bold plan to create a large storage “buffer” to serve as a backup supply against virtually any scenario.

by George Janczyn / Groksurf’s San Diego / August 9, 2010

Many large reservoirs in California need to store and release water in a way that balances flood control needs against water supply needs (San Diego’s reservoirs have limited flood control capability but were mainly designed for storage). Those state reservoir levels need to be lowered in late summer and fall in order to have enough capacity to capture and hold floodwaters that will come during the wet season, but they also need to retain enough to supply needed water in the dry months.

A massive ice island has formed in northern Greenland – it had been part of the Petermann Glacier, but last week it broke free. 92 square miles of ice – four times the size of Manhattan – now floating in the Arctic Sea. It could threaten shipping lanes, oil rigs, and float into the area where the Titanic hit an iceberg in 1912 and sank.

Already, the giant has assumed biblical proportions, becoming part of the slate of environmental evidence of global warming – as the planet heats up, with oil spills, raging fires, devastating heat, and deadly flooding scoring the season as a record-breaker. July 2010, for example, is the hottest July on record. Nothing else that has happened this summer symbolizes climate change as much as the creation of this new Arctic Sea island – the largest ice island in over half a century.

Editor: In our quest to find and highlight other local San Diego County blogs with progressive bents, we came upon this South Bay located blog, Blue San Diego, uncovering more than sand castles – a new, budding dynasty of the Bilbray family? First, there were the Hunters, now the Bilbrays? Apparently, South Bay Democrats are running away from going up against someone with such a well-known family name and history as “Bilbray.”
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by Pepe / Blue San Diego / August 8, 2010

An interesting tidbit caught my eye last week. Brian Patrick Bilbray, son of current congressman Brian Bilbray has taken out papers to run for City Council in Imperial Beach. It isn’t clear yet if he has qualified to be on the ballot but he is apparently aiming for the special election ….

Community meeting Aug. 10, 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM Point Loma campus of the San Diego Community College – West…

by Ernie McCray

It’s been a little over a year since my Nancy passed away yet moving on is still the order of the day for our children, Carlos, Tawny, Nyla and me.

The kind of grieving we’ve experienced, in our various stages of moving on, has revealed just how fragile we are and how dependent we are on each other, how glad we are to just have each other around.

And just when it seemed that the pain in our lives was toning down, one of the twins, Nyla, announced, since her boyfriend who had been unemployed for about a year found a job in Vegas, that she was packing up and leaving town. Oh, the feeling of loss raises its ugly head again. Not with fangs this time but it’s come with a bite.

Spurred on by recent revelations that companies such as Target are dumping money into retrogressive political campaigns in California and other states, the progressive organization MoveOn.org is moving Tuesday, August 10th, against corporate corruption by pressuring San Diego’s two liberal Congressional representatives to sign an anti-corruption pledge.

by Elaine

After losing my job of more than 25 years, being unemployed for 8 months and finally being offered a job at half the money I used to make, I found myself close to foreclosure. Really close. I have been consistently 2 months behind on my mortgage for over 2 years and cannot catch up. If it wasn’t for the 2 roommates that live with me I would have given up and let the bank have the damn house, along with the negative equity.

The story behind how I ended up in this situation is one you’ve heard before. Simply stated, I got divorced at the height of the real estate market (my house was appraised for almost 3 times what I paid for it) and at the time the best thing I could do was to stay put. Buying another house would have cost me just as much, increased my property taxes and with the additional expense of moving, well it just seemed like the best option for me and my kids.