OB Rag

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.

by Judi Curry

No one can accuse me of being a “bush” lover, but an incident happened yesterday as I was walking my Golden Retriever that brought back my feelings of fear whenever I heard the word “bush.”

Buddy and I were walking on a grassy street, closing in on Sunset Cliffs when I noticed a gardener standing on the sidewalk, bush trimmer in hand, watching us with a wild look in his eye. We were probably 2-3 houses from him, and 3-4 houses from the Cliffs. Wouldn’t you know that Buddy decided to leave his deposit right in front of the house where the wild man stood.

Where is the anti-graffiti task force when ya need them?

Friends have noticed a new swath of red graffiti on the sidewalk on Newport Avenue. Calling the graffiti removal squad! There’s a job for you – or anyone else with a little compassion and heart.

And we had thought that the series of community forums and all that attention on the “bums” and homeless in general had brought the community together, and that the harsh rhetoric and actions around the original “don’t feed” sticker had died down.

Guess not! Someone (maybe the Black?) wants to keep all this going, all the hatred, all the discourse, all the intolerance, all the conflict, all this crap – for that is what it is – going, and going.

We’ve been told by friends and foes alike – “Give it a rest!”

Well, we call on whoever is stirring the pot – “Hey you! You give it a rest!”

It’s late afternoon on Friday the 13th. I just got off the phone with David Cohn of the Cohn family restaurant group – and owner of Thee Bungalow – he confirmed the rumor that we had heard: that Thee Bungalow – the Peninsula’s five-star European cuisine, high-end restaurant – was closing. It appears that Sunday, August 15th, will be the last day of this favored place.

This is tough news for the loyalists. There’s two world-known restaurants in the Ocean Beach/ Point Loma area: Hodad’s and Thee Bungalow. Thee Bungalow has been around for nearly half a century. It has one of the oldest liquor licenses in the County of San Diego.

Yet that’s just the beginning of the story, ….

Haar haar haar! Shiver me timbers and a barrel of rum!

Note: we promised to post this gallery of Jim Grant’s photos of the recent capture of a pirate off the coast of Ocean Beach today, Friday the 13th – if readers would send in more pirate jokes.

Actually, it could be very appropriate to post these pics on Friday the 13th, because Friday the 13th comes to us from history – the day that the Pope in Rome ordered the arrests and slaughter of the Knights Templar all across Europe.

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