OB Rag

Recently, we have raised the issue of gentrification here in Ocean Beach, the controversial process of urban renewal. Acknowledging that it has been on-going here in OB since at least the early 1970s, it is important to understand it and to appreciate it when it rears its head.

Many neighborhoods in major cities across the country have experienced gentrification, where older housing is torn down to make way for newer, spiffier, and more expensive homes, condos, and apartments. The process often displaces the poorer – and in many cases – ethnic minorities – from neighborhoods that have historically been theirs.

OCEAN BEACH, CA. Two recent polls – one by this blog – and one that is still on-going by the Peninsula Beacon, show that most – or at least the respondents – want to keep the annual July 4th Marshmallow War around. The Ocean Beach public event has been the subject of debate recently after the mess that was left behind.

Our blog ran a poll for a week and received 80 respondents. Clearly most – 56 respondents, 71%, wanted the event to continue, although …

Christopher Bowd, the OBcean knocked unconscious around 11pm on July 4th and who has been unconscious or in an induced coma ever since, has awoken. This is great news!

We received emails from close friends who spent time with him Tuesday. The first email (dated July 22nd, 8:30 am) reported:

Hi, I visited Chris last night at around 8:30 with his mother and he seems to be making progress. …

by Mary E Mann

Two weeks ago the OB Rag published an article I wrote about burners (people who spin fire at Burning Man), and hoopers (people who dance with flaming hula-hoops). A group of hoopers had been ticketed on June 4th, with fines totaling $2,500. They got these tickets practicing in a small, controlled group at the beach in OB.

The article received a great response, but I started thinking about the voices that hadn’t been heard.

By Ernie McCray

(An Old Man Just Sharing Good Memories Sparked by a Picture)

The house I live in was built in 1911 of some pretty sturdy wood; it had to be with twin girls traveling up and down its stairs in various teenage moods and posing like Tyra Banks in a photo shoot on its roof; it had to be with a boy, like a descendant of the Eveready Energizer Bunny, bouncing off its walls and floors and ceilings like a racquetball until we shipped him off to Long Beach State with a great big “Whew!”; it had to be with a mom and dad pacing back and forth on its carpets wondering aloud: “Whose Idea was it to have kids?”

Aleida Guevara was four and a half when her father left Cuba. Ernesto “Che” Guevara, iconic Argentine guerrilla leader, Marxist theorist and second-in-command of the Cuban revolution, departed the island for Africa in 1965 after falling out of political favor with Fidel Castro.

She saw him only once again, before his execution by the CIA-backed Bolivian government two years later.

by SDNN / July 23, 2009

A judge Thursday delayed the removal of harbor seals from the Children’s Pool beach in La Jolla.

San Diego Superior Court Judge Yuri Hofmann ruled that the new law, SB 428, signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday shifting control of the Children’s Pool back to the city warrants a hearing on the issue Oct. 6.

One of our bloggers, Jon Carr, has just written a new song for OBceans about his experiences picking up trash and painting out tagging the past couple week.

Here it is – sung to the tune of “The Twelfth Day of Christmas”:

On the 22nd of July the homeless left for me
A twelve pack of cheap beer …

by Jill Richardson / Daily Kos / July 21, 2009

Trying to fix our rising health care costs without fixing our food system is like trying to fix our defense budget without ending our two wars in the Middle East. In fact, it would be like trying to get a grip on defense spending while invading Pakistan. Or something like that.

Editor: World Oil’s Sunset Plaza is coming back to the OB Planning Board on August 5, 2009. We thought it would be worthwhile to re-post this article, originally posted December 3, 2008.

ORIGINALLY POSTED DEC 3, 2008
Will Ocean Beach be left with an ugly and empty office building at Voltaire and Sunset Cliffs? On Dec. 3rd, in a 9 to 4 vote, the Ocean Beach Planning Board approved the “concept” of World Oil’s Sunset Plaza, a two-story 6600 square foot building, designed to provide medical and dental offices at the controversial corner.

For a week, we ran a poll asking the reader whether Ocean Beach is becoming gentrified. 63% of the respondents said ‘yes.’ Most of those – 2/3rds – believed it was a very slow process. 33% of the respondents asked us back – in answer number 4 – “What does gentrified mean?”

So, here it is: GENTRIFICATION:

– the process of renewal and rebuilding accompanying the influx of middle-class or affluent people into deteriorating areas that often displaces poorer residents. …

by Mary E Mann

“All this shit – the benches, the trail, the signs – none of it matters if we don’t stop the erosion of the cliffs.”

This is Richard Aguirre’s main message, filtered through a long discussion of erosion, geology, politics, surf culture, and safety hazards.