OB Rag

by Paul Armentano / Times of San Diego / Jan. 9, 2022

The majority of Californians in 2016 cast votes to displace the illicit cannabis market with a taxed and regulated marketplace — one that would be controlled by licensed businesses, not by criminal entrepreneurs.

Five years later, voters’ desire has yet to become a reality. And while many folks are quick to point fingers at Sacramento and the state’s high tax rates, in many cases, local elected officials are largely to blame. That’s because more than half of the state’s cities and counties prohibit the operation of licensed cannabis businesses.

What’s Up with the Mayor’s App? Problems: “Around Every Corner”

By Colleen O’Connor

Every day, in every way, San Diegans are witnessing the crumbling of their once stable neighborhoods; in their once enviable designation, “Camelot by the Bay.”

Omnipresent homeless camps; vacant store fronts; trash overflowing onto unsafe, often filthy streets; decaying parks, pools, libraries and public spaces; spikes in inflation; a buckling health care system amid a pandemic all exacerbated by new tax 17% tax hikes for water/sewer, and new bond initiatives in the pipeline.

The City of San Diego is seriously considering closing coastal parks and parking areas in OB and Point Loma – as well as in other beach communities. They say it’s all about the crime, gang activity, late-night parties, illegal bonfires and unauthorized camping.

David Garrick at the U-T reports:

The parks and parking lots, which span from La Jolla to Ocean Beach, would either be physically closed by installing new security gates or posted with signs announcing the overnight closures. They would be added to several coastal parks and lots that already have overnight restrictions in place, some for as long as 20 years.

The list of new areas proposed for overnight closure is

The City of San Diego and Mayor Gloria were recently showcased in the parody/ satirical website, the Onion, which has a readership of 11.7 million readers on Twitter – many more than our own San Diego Union-Tribune (which many San Diegans called “The Onion” over the decades, ironically).

Here it is:

New Initiative Decreases Stigma Against Homeless By Making Majority Of People Homeless

SAN DIEGO—In an effort to decrease the widespread social shaming often associated with being unhoused, a new city initiative unveiled Thursday reportedly aims to decrease stigma against the homeless by making the majority of people homeless.

By Norma Damashek / NumbersRunner / Jan. 5, 2022

Warning: this commentary is standing on its head and starting with its conclusion:

The aftermath of San Diego’s 2020-21 Redistricting process may prove to be more destructive to good government in San Diego than any monetary loss from past Ponzi schemes and political heists.

The parties of interest in this latest con game colluded to divide and conquer the San Diego public. They were willing to shred and tear at San Diego’s civic and moral fabric for their own economic and political gain.

He’s back in the news again. OB’s own “Whistler” Matt Baker who gained national attention and derision when videos of him at the County Board of Supervisor whistling and ranting went viral.

This time, Baker has made an art piece commemorating the OB woman who was killed trying to storm the Capitol on January 6. The woman, whose name the OB Rag will not repeat, was a QAnon supporter and harbored fascist views of Biden and trump. She lived in OB a very brief time and was mainly from the East County neighborhood of Spring Valley.

By Geoff Page

January 6, 2021, was the final act of everything that had occurred in the previous four years. It was an orgy more than anything else. It was a day when all internal restraint of any kind was ignored. It was a day when a large number of idiots believed they could have an orgy devoid of moral or legal obligations because the White House Idiot had told them, and shown them, this was OK.

We had a person in the White House who showed the world just how unaccountable a President could be when he never suffered any consequences for any of his many outrageous actions. Those of us who care were horrified. But, after four years of this, a huge number of Americans saw it as permission to do whatever they wanted to, regardless of the law or morality.

January 6 Vigils for Democracy – 338 vigils planned across nation

There are two Vigils for Democracy planned for today, January 6, in San Diego. The first is at 1pm in the park next to the San Diego County Administration Building. The second vigil is at 7 pm at Union Street and West F Street. Across the nation, 338 vigils are planned as of this writing.

By Judi Curry

In beginning this blog I want to point out that this is MY opinion. There is too much going on to have to defend myself to those of you that will disagree with me. You already know that I am an “anti-trumpster” and January 6th, 2001 did nothing to change that; rather it only reinforced my beliefs about the evilness of this man. With that in mind……

I am not a television fanatic. With the exception of MSNBC, local news daily, and an occasional “Jeopardy” I seldom have the television on. After the Chargers left San Diego my interest in football stopped; I have never been a Padres fan, and I do not like to watch movies or sitcoms on the tube.

So when I began watching the news on January 6th, 2001, I wondered why a movie about the Civil War was being shown?

by Ernie McCray

I look back at January of last year and I can’t help but think: “Damn, I hope I don’t experience anything like that ever again.”

Referring, of course to the scene, in the US Capitol Building on January 6, 2021: a vision of huffing and puffing and blowing your house down mentality dialed up a billion degrees, treason in the form of pushing and shoving and smashing and pummeling, a tearing of the fabric of our democracy.

Led by the president of the country where this melee takes place.

In our face.

And this man is still dancing in the street, talking smack about this and smack about that, doing as he pleases, held to no rules, in fact.

Thoughts on the Capitol Riots One Year On

By Mat Wahlstrom

Most people respect authority because they believe it to be justified by objective criteria, such as scientific evidence, transparent electoral processes, or the rule of law. For them, reason is the basis of power. Only when authority is exercised in the absence of these principles do they question it.

The crisis we are in is due to a minority who demand obedience to authority in itself, even or especially when it lacks any objective justification, and for which they are willing to say or do anything to claim. For them, force and fraud are the basis of power, and they deny any appeal to something greater that would deny it to them.