OB Rag

By Mat Wahlstrom

You may have heard that today, Monday June 27, the City Council is being called into a special meeting to formally approve a ‘settlement’ agreement possibly illegally negotiated in just a week ago.

The original deal being ‘settled’ is the disposition of the 19-story building at 101 Ash St. Approved in 2016, it called for taxpayers to lease to own a building for $128 million that insiders knew was really only valued for $67 million — and that was before anyone outside their circle realized it’s a toxic vertical landfill.

There’s currently a lawsuit, likely to prevail, claiming this deal was illegal and so not only is it void, but all the millions paid to date in rent would have to be refunded. Not only isn’t this lawsuit costing the city a penny but, even if it were to fail, there are other lawsuits and remedies.

After a 2 year hiatus the Ocean Beach Street Fair and Chili Cook-Off was held Saturday the 25th of 2022. Tens of thousands attended what turned out to be a flawless event with the OB Mainstreet Association and Town Council.

Video by Cape May Productions by Charles Landon and Carson Davis, music by Phil Rockhold.

By K-B Gressitt / Blog / June 25, 2022

“Fuck” has a multitude of applications. It can be rude, endearing, outraged, kinky, mean, funny, clever, crude, and the list does go on. (For guidance on its many applications, refer to English as a Second F*cking Language, by Sterling Johnson.)

Nonetheless, for many moons I spurned the word in my own writing, and the newspaper for which I opined would never in a million f*cking years have published it (tee and hee). Indeed, my request to include the lesser “shit,” in a direct quote by a woman describing her beastly encounter with breast cancer, was bumped up to the publisher’s office where I had to explain to the white, affluent man that having a breast excised in a patriarchal culture that values women’s breasts more than the people who bear them was really f*cking horrible.

By Colleen O’Connor

In the 1970s, a history professor of mine remarked to the class, “You could put a police officer on every corner of the country, and still not stop crime.” Meaning, enforcement of laws, requires a large segment of the community to respect and protect them.

Look at the failures in enforcement:

History lesson #1 Prohibition. A Failure.

“The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution–which banned the manufacture, transportation and sale of intoxicating liquors–ushered in a period in American history known as Prohibition. Prohibition was ratified by the states on January 16, 1919 and officially went into effect on January 17, 1920, with the passage of the Volstead Act. Despite the new legislation, Prohibition was difficult to enforce.

This is a map of “We Won’t Go Back” protests from around the country in response to the right-wing Supreme Court decision – many happened on Friday, June 24, but many others are being planned for the following days and weeks.

For more, go to the site.

According to today’s San Diego Union-Tribune:

Thousands gathered at two separate rallies Friday night in downtown San Diego to protest the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and strip away constitutional protections for abortions.

People and advocacy groups across the nation rushed to voice outrage and organize rapid-response demonstrations Friday after the U.S. Supreme Court’s right-wing supermajority voided half a century of reproductive rights by reversing the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling.

Protesters immediately descended upon the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. in the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a 6-3 decision declaring that “the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion… and the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives.”

Demonstrators chanted slogans including “We won’t go back!” and “My body, my choice!” as they rallied against the court’s right-wing majority.

By Judi Curry

A few days ago my editor-dude wrote to me and asked if I was okay because I hadn’t written anything for some time. I answered back that I was physically all right, but there is so much going on in the world that is pissing me off I was unable to articulate the feelings. Today’s decision, although we knew it was coming, just set everything else off.

Who are these people that think they can control the lives of all of the women in America? What gives them the right to make a medical decision that doesn’t pertain to them in any way? Who are they to make a decision that will affect lives for years and years and years? Do they think that by passing this stupidity that abortions will not take place?

They have effectively removed SAFE abortions from every woman living in a state that prohibits them. I thought that there was supposed to be a separation between church and state? What happened to that? Do they realize that they have reduced women to second-class status?

“With this decision, the Supreme Court’s extreme right-wing supermajority has struck a tremendous blow to our fundamental freedoms.”

The right-wing majority of the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade on Friday, ending the constitutional right to abortion and imperiling access to reproductive healthcare nationwide.

“A right-wing Supreme Court has stripped women and people seeking abortions of their long-held rights to control their bodies.” The 6-3 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was issued along ideological lines, with all three liberal justices in opposition.

“With sorrow—for this court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection—we dissent,” wrote Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Stephen Breyer in their dissent.

Here’s the latest newsletter, dated June 21, from the OB Friends of the Library.

By Kathy Blavatt

All photos by Kathy

“We didn’t mean to make it a bare garden!” Similar words I had heard before. A nice new couple who recently moved to Ocean Beach, removed almost every tree and many of the plants from their new front yard and the walkway. Gone were the bright red native berries I used on my Christmas wreath decoration. Gone were the low-water plants and edibles and most of the trees.

So now I am doing what I frequently do, offering the new neighbors starter plants to fill in the plot of naked earth in front of their house.

The previous owners put a couple of decades of work and love into their garden. Some of the plants pulled from the yard were starter plants that I had given them.

Similar stories are happening all around O.B.

By Mat Wahlstrom

June is Pride Month, commemorating the Stonewall riots in June 1969, when lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other sexual and gender nonconforming (LGBTQ+) persons fought back against police violence and state oppression.

Considered the formal beginning of the ‘gay rights’ movement, Pride is first and foremost about visibility — which is why the main event of every Pride celebration is a parade.

But since everything gets co-opted under capitalism, June is also the month when corporations post rainbow versions of their logos, in the hopes that this gesture will get them noticed, and hopefully translate into more sales or favorable brand awareness.

By Paul Krueger

I responded to last week’s Union-Tribune story about the state’s approval of a 60-foot tall apartment building [at 2662 Garnet] in San Diego’s coastal area in a letter-to-the-editor which was published in today’s SDU-T (and posted below).

My response outlines what I assume are shared concerns about the precedent that would be set by this new construction of a 4 to 5 story building.

Should the state succeed in overriding coastal area protections enshrined into municipal law 50 years ago by San Diego voters, local coastal area protections throughout the state could be similarly jeopardized.