OB Rag

by Ernie McCray

You live long enough
you see a lot of things,
both good and bad
and in-between
in a lifetime
and I find myself
from time to time
remembering things I’ve seen
over my more than
three-quarters of a century
of being alive and breathing,

The Pickleball Association of San Diego has proposed a “Managed Pickleball Facility at Robb Field”. The group last week met with the Parks Director, his staff, the Mayor’s staff, and tennis representatives and proposed a compromise.  Here is the Association’s statement from Jan. 15:

We proposed a compromise: Temporarily repurpose half of the 12 tennis courts at Robb Field into dedicated pickleball courts, funded and managed by our nonprofit organization. This would be an interim solution for pickleball players until a pickleball facility at Robb Field is built from scratch at a future date.

By Bonnie Kutch / OpEd – San Diego Union-Tribune / Jan. 9, 2023

University City is one of those San Diego neighborhoods where everyone living here feels like they belong — regardless of age, ethnicity, religion or class. Residents know their neighbors and look out for them. It’s not uncommon for second and third generations of families to live within blocks of one another, because there’s really no better place to call home.

On any given day, you will see young people pushing their baby strollers down the sidewalks, often with their dogs in tow. On weekends, you’ll see entire families parading by.

The Ocean Beach Historical Society presents: Thursday, January 19, 2023, Mystery At The Blue Sea Cottage, at Water’s Edge Faith Community, 1984 Sunset Cliffs Blvd, at 7:00 pm.

Here is a screen grab from the live cam at Mt. Laguna Lodge, Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2023, at 8:45 a.m.

8pm Monday night Jan. 16, 2023

In U2’s Pride (In the Name of Love) Bono sings:

Early morning, April four
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky
Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride

These lines are about the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4th, 1968 – 50 years ago. King was in Memphis where he had gone to provide support and encouragement to 1300 African-American sanitation workers who had walked off their jobs in that city.

By Craig Rose / Op-Ed San Diego Union-Tribune / Jan. 12, 2023

It’s easy to get lost in the explanations for the soaring natural gas prices causing enormous hardships for so many people in our region. Even before this surge, nearly 25 percent of us couldn’t pay our utility bills on time.

Most explanations for high retail natural gas prices focus on the soaring wholesale cost of the commodity caused by “market factors,” but a key factor is often omitted.

By a vote of 3 to 1, the City Council’s Land Use and Housing Committee on Thursday, Jan. 12, approved the controversial proposal to allow high-rise housing and backyard apartments on many more properties in San Diego. The full City Council is expected to vote on the proposal in February.

Committee members Vivian Moreno, newly-elected Kent Lee, and Steven Whitburn voted for the proposal and Councilmember Joe LaCava cast the lone “no” vote.

The proposal would “soften” city rules that allow taller apartment buildings and more backyard units when a property is “near” mass transit

According to researchers at UCSD, 12,167 California elders — people over the of 65 — made trips to emergency rooms in 2019 for cannabis-related issues.

Reporter Eric Page at 7SanDiego cited the study conducted by the University of California San Diego School of Medicine that “just 366 Californians over the age of 65 visited ERs in 2005 for cannabis-related concerns. By 2019, that figure had skyrocketed nearly 3200%, when 12,167 seniors made trips to emergency rooms for that reason.”