OB Rag

Robbie Kenner didn’t mean to make a horror film when he started working on Food, Inc.. But you can’t shine a light on our food chain without exposing some ugly truths. As Michael Pollan says in the opening of the film:

The way we eat has changed more in the last 50 years than in the previous 10,000, but the image that’s used to sell the food…you go into the supermarket and you see pictures of farmers. The picket fence and the silo and the 1930s farmhouse and the green grass. The reality is, it’s not a farm, it’s a factory.

I cannot stop watching history unfolding rapidly in Iran these last couple of days. I have skimmed and searched through several reports and websites and offer below a compilation:

Today, Tuesday, June 16th, supporters of the reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, staged another massive rally in Tehran, the capital.

I remember the morning of September 11, 2001 well. I was sitting in a study hall at my high school in Teaneck, New Jersey, listening to a radio host announce that two planes had crashed into the World Trade Center. Three friends and I hopped in a car and sped down the Jersey Turnpike. We pulled over in the Vince Lombardi rest area just in time to watch the towers fall from across the Hudson River.

Could this be the beginning of the Second Iranian Revolution? Today, Monday, June 15th – 100,000, 200,000 or perhaps 1 million people mobilized in the streets of Tehran, the capital, in a show of support for the reformist candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, who allegedly lost the recent election for president.

Okay, this has been a heckuva interesting ride the last week or so and handful of articles – and very timely too, as I’ve been making similar observations of late. It seems like there’s a lively debate on where political and art-inspired graffiti fits into the general urban landscape.

It’s been a tough week but things are so much better and I’m finally catching up on my sleep. This…

In the early Seventies, the battle for the future of Ocean Beach grew very intense, as the different warring sides squared off around the original OB Precise Plan – the urban design for the community sponsored by the elite and powerful. The OB Community Planning Group published an 8-page leaflet that was so effective, that it convinced the community to join and support the organization.

As you probably know, this blog is named after the original OB People’s Rag, an underground or alternative community newspaper that flourished in Ocean Beach during the first half of the Seventies.

See the evolution of the newspaper’s covers, as they reflected what was going on in OB at the time and what was on the minds of its all-volunteer citizen journalist staff.

by Anna Daniels

What’s with our county government? A gay couple, married since 2008, was not permitted by a county caseworker to sit together while one of them applied for public assistance,while heterosexual married couples are routinely allowed to stay together while county social workers interview them.

by Ernie McCray

My old Latino friends from John Spring Junior High, back in Tucson, must be bursting with pride as Sonia Sotomayor closes in on a seat on the Supreme Court – just as I’ve been riding high knowing there’s a brother in the White House.

More scenes of Ocean Beach than we care to view or think about. But the taggers have found their canvas and its our cliffs. Here is another sampling of what some people think is the worst spate of graffiti on Sunset Cliffs then they can remember. These were taken recently by local photographer Jeff Stone.

Editor: We just heard that 94-year-old Pete Seeger has just passed away. When Pete hit 90, we shared the following review of his project by Richard Flacks, a retired UC Santa Barbara professor who has long written about US culture.

BY Dick Flacks

[When] Pete Seeger turned 90 on May 3, 2009, it provided the occasion for a huge Madison Square Garden celebratory concert, featuring a wide array of popular musicians singing his songs and honoring his influence. In the years prior to this event, Pete has gotten more mainstream attention than he’d received in the previous 70 years of performing. Springsteen’s recorded several CD’s called ‘The Seeger Sessions’ and simultaneously went on an international tour featuring material drawn from Seeger’s folksong repertory. There was a documentary film bio, released on public tv and theatrically, called Pete Seeger :The power of song. There’s an ongoing campaign to get him nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.