OB Rag

By Jeremy W. Peters / The New York Times/ June 10, 2010

A pilot wanted to take a photographer from The Times-Picayune of New Orleans to snap photographs of the oil slicks blackening the water. The response from a BP contractor who answered the phone late last month at the command center was swift and absolute: Permission denied.

UPDATE: 9 PM : Apparently there was a stabbing in and around the restrooms at the west end of Dusty Rhodes Park late this afternoon. (Please see the comments inside for more updates.)

Our roving reporter has discovered the source of the ‘don’t feed the bums’ stickers that have mysteriously appeared on municipal signs and a couple local store windows lately around OB: The Black headshop on Newport Ave.

Someone is spending more money on their underground campaign to rid Ocean Beach of its homeless. They are placing slick yellow and black stickers on city signs around Ocean Beach with the message “Please don’t feed our bums.”

Well, Primary 2010 is finally over, and as usual, it had mixed results for progressives. Extremely low turn-out for out San Diego County – 25% Geez!

Here are some victories: * The biggest news is that Prop 16 – bankrolled by PG&E – LOST! …

Tonight, as the election returns from voting in the California Primary come dribbling in, OB Ragsters Doug Porter and Frank Gormlie will be joining CityBeat in blogging live results. (San Diego City Beat is a liberal weekly magazine with an online presence.)

The OB Rag bloggers will balance out the panel of political pundits as it includes conservatives, centrists, and others somewhere on the local political spectrum. (CityBeat considers itself “progressive” – yet they advocated “no” on Prop B [term limits for County sups] and “yes” on Prop D [strong mayor].)

For animal lovers, one of the most heartbreaking aspects of the Gulf spill is the oil-drenched wildlife washing up on shore. If you’re too horrified to look at any photos, you’re in luck — BP doesn’t want you to see them.

The folks who run the OB Street Fair have a new heartache. Someone broke into one of their volunteers’ cars and besides taking personal items, also escounced with a box of Street Fair T-shirts.

The T-shirts stolen were in a huge box of mostly men’s tanks in black and a number of small and medium size men’s T-shirts. Volunteers were taking boxes home to fold the T-shirts over the weekend and bam! . . . some bad guy a steals one of the boxes. The t-shirts were all printed by the James Gang and are sold to raise money for the Street Fair, Fireworks and lots of OB projects. All the shirts have the street fair logo (two sandals, stars and the words “Ocean Beach Street Fair & Chili Cook-Off Festival”) on them.

Today at 6pm, there will be a local protest against BP (British Petroleum) – the giant oil company responsible for the current catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. The protest will be at the ARCO station just in front of the Sports Arena, at 3580 Sports Arena Blvd. ARCO is owned by BP.

June 8th is World Ocean Day, so the event organizers wanted to hold an action in conjunction with like-minded activists the world over. Apparently the local event is being organized by HuffPost Green readers, who are being asked to brainstorm and take action for helping with the oil spill.

Editor: Water, water, everywhere. If your water went out this morning, give us a shoutout and let us know where in general you live.

By Karen Kucher / Union-Tribune / June 7, 2010 at 11:43am

SAN DIEGO — A private contractor working in Ocean Beach hit a 10-inch water main Monday morning, sending water streaming into a residential neighborhood and knocking out water to area homes.

The break in the cast iron pipe was reported to the city water department around 10 a.m. and crews have been sent to work on repairs, said city Public Utilities spokesman Arian Collins.

For the first time in years – or at least in any of our memories – there’s controversy surrounding the election of Superior Court judges in tomorrow’s primary. Normally, the usual (yawn) campaign of judges takes on the quiet excitement associated with lawn bowling. But not this year, this year of the rise of the tea party.

This year there is a tea party-like group called “Better Courts Now” that is upsetting the apple cart by pushing their own slate of holier-than-thou conservative candidates. As if judges weren’t conservative enough! Most judges were former prosecutors – an already conservative role within the court system – and so by time most don their black robes and step up to the seats – there’s definitely a conservative bias that dominates the courtroom.

Sitting around trying to clear my mind of all that’s going on in a troubled world I found a picture of me almost as gray of hair and beard as one can be. Green leaves of spring adorned the trees that stood behind me and in my glasses I could see the indiscernible reflections of the children who sat listening so appreciatively to my poetry.

These were students at Einstein Academy, a school literally vibrating with positive energy and I view this picture and the gathering as an expression of how the world should be, older generations, the gray, sharing the wisdom of their age with children, the green, who in their innocence, represent what hope there really is on the planet.