Search: random

Abuse of Amber Alert in San Diego?

July 29, 2015 by Frank Gormlie
Thumbnail image for Abuse of Amber Alert in San Diego?

Late Monday night I had turned on the Jon Stewart Daily Show to watch, but by midnight I was dozing and had leaned all the way over on the couch.

Suddenly, I could tell that the TV image changed – and a sharp and loud buzzer sound went off – 3 or 4 times. It was so loud, it rousted me -something awful was about to happen – it must be some kind of emergency – my mind raced. Are missiles coming? I wondered … but no, that image quickly faded – then I imagined hearing the roar of flood waters cascading down the mountains after some dam had broke, but no, maybe it was an eminent earthquake warning.

My heart start beating faster, my anxiety level shot way up. WTF? What on earth is going on?

By now I had bolted upright and was starring at the white image that blared from the screen, filling the darkened livingroom. I could read something about an alert – then “Amber Alert” by the County Sheriffs … and then more text as the image changed. There had been a child abduction out of Oceanside. Suspect was feared to be in San Diego County, armed, and a description of his vehicle was given.

Read the full article → 8 comments

Field Guide for Getting Lost in San Diego – Summer Chronicles #5

July 20, 2015 by Jim Miller
Thumbnail image for Field Guide for Getting Lost in San Diego – Summer Chronicles #5

By Jim Miller

Back in 2011, at the OB Rag, I did a column where I had some fun applying the idea of psychogeography to our fair city and played with the notion of the dérive observing that,

“The purpose of dérive is to detourn the calculated space of the city, to turn it around and reclaim its lost meanings.

The Situationists wanted to see how certain neighborhoods, streets, buildings, or other spaces ‘resonated’ with states of mind or desires.

Read the full article → 0 comments

Right-wing Media Exploits Unrest in Baltimore to Push ‘Race War’ Narrative

April 28, 2015 by Source

Protesters-take-to-the-street-in-Baltimore-calling-for-murder-charges-against-the-police-officers-who-arrested-Freddy-Gray.-WJZ-TV-800x430

By Adam Johnson / Alternet

When Breitbart’s Matt Boyle isn’t framing xenophobia as “pro-worker” or rambling on about a big gay hate machine (don’t ask), he’s attending baseball games with his family. A harmless enough act, and one I’m glad to see rightwing demagogues and communists alike can agree is a wonderful way to spend a spring evening.

While attending last night’s Orioles game, however, things quickly got out of hand for the Breitbart journo when unrest resulting from the apparent police killing of Freddie Gray boiled over into property damage and “clashes” between police and angry citizens outside of Camden Yards baseball stadium.

Read the full article → 2 comments

The Great California Genocide

March 31, 2015 by Staff
Thumbnail image for The Great California Genocide

Originally published on August 15, 2008

What do you think of when someone says “California”? Beaches? Sunshine? Hollywood?

How about the largest act of genocide in American history?

“The idea, strange as it may appear, never occurred to them (the Indians) that they were suffering for the great cause of civilization, which, in the natural course of things, must exterminate Indians.”
– Special Agent J. Ross Browne, Indian Affairs

California was one of the last areas of the New World to be colonized.

Read the full article → 63 comments

Golden Hill’s 25th Street Nightmare Gives the Lie to Faulconer’s Infrastructure Fantasy

March 2, 2015 by Jim Miller

IMG_0452By Jim Miller

A little over a week ago I was amused to see the Turko Files run a couple of segments “exposing” a disastrous Golden Hill renovation project on 25th Street that I had covered nearly six months earlier in late August of 2014. The KUSI angle was, appropriately, how bad the endless construction has been for local small businesses who have suffered through the scatter-shot planning and surreal whack-a-mole approach to getting the job done more“efficiently.”

Neighborhood residents might recall how Mayor Kevin Faulconer claimed his administration would change the game back in April of 2014 when he opined, “It’s a mindset that’s changing, and it says do it all at once. It’s taken awhile and it’s been frustrating for us, it takes more planning. So now, we do all of the projects at once – pipes, streets – so you don’t have to come back six months, two years later.”

Read the full article → 3 comments

OB’s PopUp Picnic from Saturday, Jan 17th – Photo Gallery

January 20, 2015 by Staff
Thumbnail image for OB’s PopUp Picnic from Saturday, Jan 17th – Photo Gallery

Folks with the OB Town Council organized a “PopUp Picnic” last weekend – and it was a total success. It all came down near the famous OB SeaWall around noon on Saturday, Jan. 17th.

Some saw it as a chance to “take back” the end of Newport Avenue, others saw it just as a chance to have fun with neighbors and others who care about OB.

Read the full article → 1 comment

End of the Year Notes from Editordude’s Desk

December 23, 2014 by Frank Gormlie
Thumbnail image for End of the Year Notes from Editordude’s Desk

Now that there’s only a week left in 2014, I’d like to take a moment and let you know some of what’s going on behind the scenes, either with us or with Ocean Beach.

The OB Planning Board needs you. First up, however, is a plea to get people to run for the OB Planning Board. Their election isn’t until March, but in order to be eligible to run as a candidate for one of the open seats, you must have been to at least one general meeting over the last year, and you need to have done this by February. There are 7 or 8 seats open this election, depending how you count. Their meetings are the first Wednesday of every month.

So, first, if you are even vaguely interested, check to see which OB planning district you live in.

Read the full article → 6 comments

Point Loma Robbery Suspect Arrested

November 26, 2014 by Staff

An armed robber who went after targets of opportunity mainly in Point Loma, was just arrested, police say.

Channel 10News reported:

A community relations officer for the San Diego Police department posted a note on social media Monday saying the serial armed robber had been arrested.

Here is what we reported in early October about the seemingly random targets: …

Read the full article → 1 comment

Wall Street Criminals Walk Free After Inflicting Enormous Damage on American Citizens

November 24, 2014 by John Lawrence

Wall Street Fraud on a Massive Basis

jail the bank robbersBy John Lawrence

In an article in Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi lays out the case involving massive fraud on the part of JP Morgan Chase, one of Wall Street’s biggest and un-finest banks, considered too big to fail and, evidently, too big to prosecute for the massive criminality it is guilty of. It has been well documented what they and other Wall Street banks did that caused the financial crisis of 2008.

First, their counterparts lured everyone with a beating heart into their offices and gave them a mortgage regardless of their credit score, regardless of whether or not they were working, regardless of whether they could even afford to make a mortgage payment. Countrywide is the prime example of the predatory recruitment of low income people in order to turn them into homeowners despite their inability to pay.

Read the full article → 1 comment

Culture Brewing Co. Set to Open Tasting Room in Ocean Beach

October 30, 2014 by Matthew Wood
Thumbnail image for Culture Brewing Co. Set to Open Tasting Room in Ocean Beach

Newport Ave Storefront to Be Similar to Solana Beach Brewery

By Matthew Wood

The Ocean Beach craft beer scene is about to get a bit sudsier, as Solana Beach’s Culture Brewing Co. builds a new tasting room on Newport Avenue.

Construction is already under way on the storefront, which is just west of OB Warehouse. Co-owner Steve Ragan said he hopes to have the place open by November 8, in time for San Diego Beer Week.

He said the place will be similar to the Solana Beach brewery, except all the beer will be brought in from there and none made at the OB location.

It will be a rather bare-bones operation: No food, no TVs, no other booze. Just 20 or so taps serving nothing but their beer.

Read the full article → 10 comments

Majority in OB Rag Poll Favor Pedestrian Controls at Newport and Abbott – But No Lights

October 2, 2014 by Frank Gormlie
Thumbnail image for Majority in OB Rag Poll Favor Pedestrian Controls at Newport and Abbott – But No Lights

The OB Rag posted a poll of our readers for a week inquiring into how they felt about some kind of “pedestrian controls” at the intersection of Newport Avenue and Abbott Street. 78 readers responded.

A clear majority – 58% – favor some kind of pedestrian controls – but a plurality of the overall total – 32% – feel controls are “okay” but do not support the installation of any stop lights.

Read the full article → 1 comment

Legalization Here We Come: California Campaign Underway for 2016 Pot Proposition

September 26, 2014 by Frank Gormlie
Thumbnail image for Legalization Here We Come: California Campaign Underway for 2016 Pot Proposition

By Doug Porter

More than four decades ago (1972) California’s Proposition 19, which would have decriminalized marijuana possession, was resoundingly defeated by a 2 to 1 margin.

In the years since then, hodgepodge of voter approved propositions, legislative initiatives and executive orders have sought to lessen or eliminate criminal penalties for use and possession of pot. They haven’t worked as intended. Overzealous prosecutors and law enforcers have continued to put the hammer down, even as juries have increasingly refused to play along.

The beginning of end for pot prohibition in California came Wednesday, Sept. 24, as the Marijuana Policy Project filed paperwork registering a a campaign committee to start accepting and spending contributions for a pot legalization initiative on the November 2016 state ballot.

Read the full article → 2 comments

Scientists Find ‘Direct Link’ Between Earthquakes and Process Used for Oil and Gas Drilling

September 18, 2014 by Source
Thumbnail image for Scientists Find ‘Direct Link’ Between Earthquakes and Process Used for Oil and Gas Drilling

By Emily Atkin / Climate Progress – News Investigation / Nation of Change / Sept. 17, 2014

The controversial technique of hydraulic fracturing is “directly linked” to the increase of earthquakes throughout the U.S. And the likelihood of these quakes getting stronger is in our future.

A team of scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey have found evidence “directly linking” the uptick in Colorado and New Mexico earthquakes since 2001 to wastewater injection, a process widely used in the controversial technique of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and conventional drilling.

Read the full article → 1 comment

Less Than Meets the Camera’s Eye – a Former San Diego Journalist’s Recollection of Meeting Reagan and Bush

August 21, 2014 by Source
Thumbnail image for Less Than Meets the Camera’s Eye – a Former San Diego Journalist’s Recollection of Meeting Reagan and Bush

What was surprising was Reagan’s ah-shucks, shambling kind of entry walk into the room.”

By Bob Dorn

I’ve met two Presidents of the United States (POTUS, the now fashionably artless acronym via the Secret Service) and they both happened to be Republicans: George HW Bush and Ronald Reagan. I can say with as much confidence as I can name the day I was born that they were far less extraordinary than a lot of other people I’ve met.

I was a nobody who happened to be making a living as a reporter, a more difficult practice these days than it used to be, which is another story, and more difficult to tell than this one. I don’t feel that I earned what I know about the two who appear in the paragraph above. I just happened to be in the right place when they exposed themselves.

Read the full article → 4 comments

A Saturday Well Spent at Comic-Con

July 29, 2014 by Source

ComicCon 2014 courtBy Court Allen

Saturdays have a special meaning for me. I’m not alone in this, to be sure. Saturdays are a universal holiday; a weekly respite.

My personal feelings about Saturdays are related to childhood. After a long week of school and the tribulations of growing up, Saturday was the prize – a day of freedom, adventure, parties, special events, or the ultimate possibility – a day spent exploring my imagination. Remember Saturday morning cartoons (better than the rest of the week’s cartoons), or Creature Feature in the afternoon (coolest. thing. ever.)?

Saturdays are the best day of the week, and how you choose to spend them is the real stuff of life. In fact, a few years back I attended a funeral service for a man whose primary tenet in life was to make the most of time away from work. He was famous among friends and family for his belief that there were only so many Saturdays in an average human life, so they must be spent well. A sentiment with which I agree.

I spent this past Saturday at Comic-Con. It was the ultimate Saturday, …

Read the full article → 1 comment

News and Happenings in the Land of OB

June 12, 2014 by Frank Gormlie
Thumbnail image for News and Happenings in the Land of OB

Catalina and Voltaire Project Progresses

One can begin to see the enormity ….

Former Water Store on Voltaire Turned Into School for Handi-capped Kids

In checking into what was going …

OB Man Finds Cash in Cash-Stash Stunts

Geoffrey Perkins of Ocean Beach found …

OB Library Gains Hours – as All San Diego Libraries Do – in New City Budget

Stephanie’s Has Closed

The organic bakery on Voltaire …

Local Landscape Architect Approved to Construct the Veterans’ Plaza Project
…
And more …. come inside …

Read the full article → 5 comments

Sarah Boot Takes on District 2

April 15, 2014 by Frank Gormlie
Thumbnail image for Sarah Boot Takes on District 2

By Frank Gormlie

Sarah Boot and I grabbed a table outside at Nati’s in OB the other day for our interview – but as the sun was playing hide and seek, we later had to move inside. Sun or no sun, Sarah is running for the District 2 City Council seat in the Primary which is coming up on June 3rd. The mail ballots go out in May.

Read the full article → 3 comments

Remembering the UCSD “Compton Cookout”, the Noose, and their Aftermath

March 5, 2014 by Source

An Open Letter : Four Years After the “Winter of our Discontent”
By:
Jorge Mariscal / UCSD Professor of Literature
Fnann Keflezighi / UCSD ‘11
Patrick Velásquez /San Diego Chicano/Latino Concilio
UCSD DemonstrationFour years ago, the fragile tranquility of the La Jolla campus was shattered by a series of events now known as the “Compton Cookout.” (Ed.: see OB Rag coverage here.)

As much as administrators would like to erase the “Cookout” and its aftermath, it is crucial that we remember the events of February 2010.

Read the full article → 0 comments

Reader’s Rant: Watch out – the “Knock Down Game” has come to OB as it got me.

February 17, 2014 by Source
Thumbnail image for Reader’s Rant: Watch out – the “Knock Down Game” has come to OB as it got me.

Editor: This story by a fellow OBcean was sent to us unsolicited. We decided to publish as a “reader’s rant” despite our inability to confirm its veracity.

In an Unprovoked Attack 2 People Wearing Masks Beat Me on Valentine’s Day as a 3rd Filmed it – Apparently Playing the “Knock Down Game”

By Anonymous Fourth Generation Resident of OB

I was brutally beaten by two individuals on Valentine’s Day 2014, returning home from a friend’s home near Newport Avenue in Ocean Beach.

I had walked down Cable Street to the seawall and made my way up the stairs at the foot of Pescadero Avenue. Walking up the street I was confronted by two individuals in blue jeans and white hoodies, in front of 4870 Pescadero Avenue. Then these two individuals, without saying a word, began to beat my face for no reason.

Read the full article → 14 comments

Happy New Year OB! A Little Story About an Anonymous Letter Attached to a Palm Tree

January 1, 2014 by Source
Thumbnail image for Happy New Year OB! A Little Story About an Anonymous Letter Attached to a Palm Tree

Thought this might be a good submission for the New Year.

I’m walking around yesterday morning in Ocean Beach, just checking things out, wandering by the construction site at corner of Saratoga and Abbott and stuck on a little palm tree trunk was this little envelope.

I kind of look at it and sort decide if it’s booby trapped or something…it is OB after all, but then I figure, its OB and this is exactly what the hippies down here do…so I gently remove it from its little place within the palm frond.

The envelope exterior is colored with crayons and on it is hand written, “I’ve been waiting for you all day!” “Open me up already!” “read, read, read me …”

So I open it and there is very fine card stock with flower decorations printed on recycled paper, I open the card and it too is colored with crayons and hand written…

Read the full article → 1 comment

What You Don’t Know About Me (As If You Cared)

November 25, 2013 by Frank Gormlie

By Ernie McCray

Shannon and Me in 1983

I like facebook. For me it’s been a nice way to get snippets, sometimes daily, of what’s going on in the lives of both new and old friends: students of mine from over time, some of my children and grandchildren, ex-colleagues, fellow actors and writers and activists – interesting people all.

Occasionally one of them will suggest a game for me to play and I usually don’t take part in such online activities because it’s too easy to spend too much time on social media without the temptation of getting involved in diversionary attractions of any kind.

But lately …

Read the full article → 0 comments

Ocean Beach-opoly Board Game Is Coming to Town!

November 13, 2013 by Source
Thumbnail image for Ocean Beach-opoly Board Game Is Coming to Town!

Ocean Beach-opoly Board Game Ocean Beach Will Be Here for the Holidays

From OB Mainstreet Association Website

The Ocean Beach MainStreet Association is excited to announce our Ocean Beach-opoly board game. An exclusive Monopoly-based game built around our very own beloved Ocean Beach! The game certainly reflects the quirky and colorful nature of Ocean Beach, California’s most authentic, eclectic beach town.

Read the full article → 1 comment

Interview With an Anarchist Tarot Card Reader

November 5, 2013 by Source

Editor: The following is an interview with OB’s own Kelsey Lynore, a progressive tarot card reader who describes herself politically as a “communitarian anarchist”. Kelsey runs her own tarot blog, The Tarot Nook and is the author of a series here at the OB Rag, entitled “Word to the Wise“.

By Kelsey Lynore

1. What is a Tarot reader?

A Tarot reader is a storyteller who uses a Tarot deck as a narrative constraint.

A Tarot deck is made up of 78 cards — 22 Major Arcana, 16 Court Cards, and the remaining 40 are called Pips or Minor Arcana – which function as a pictorial compendium of human consciousness and experience. The stories are structured according to Tarot spreads — fixed layouts which are chosen in accordance with the needs and concerns of the client. Tarot cards aren’t so cultured on their own, but the spreads socialize them; that’s their artificial structure. So there’s a nature/nurture aspect to this, where a card alone will speak a series of potential meanings, and its position and relation to other cards will dictate which is utilized.

I think Tarot is best understood as one part Rorschach and one part Cut-Up Technique.

Read the full article → 12 comments

The Widder Curry: Why I’m Not Voting for Nathan Fletcher.

October 25, 2013 by Judi Curry

no_showBy Judi Curry

Several weeks ago I had the opportunity to meet David Alvarez at a “meet and greet” party. Although I walked into the meeting as a Mike Aguirre supporter, I was very impressed with the way David talked to the crowd; answered all questions without hemming and hawing, and told us his plans when he becomes the Mayor of San Diego. …

Read the full article → 11 comments

Shutting Down the Ocean

October 15, 2013 by Source
Thumbnail image for Shutting Down the Ocean

By David Helvarg / Blue Notes

Work on ocean and coastal protection, management, law enforcement, federal science and safety ground to a near halt with the government shutdown when the Republican House majority refused to pass the nation’s budget because Obamacare became law.

This disaster comes on top of the ongoing budget “sequester” that randomly slashes funding for federal agencies dealing with our public seas including EPA, NOAA and the U.S. Coast Guard which has reduced its offshore patrolling roughly 15 percent and, with the shutdown, effectively ended fishing enforcement and marine mammal law enforcement.

Despite our Healthy Ocean Hill Day in May that saw seaweed activists lobbying Congress on behalf of an Anti-Pirate Fishing bill, right now is a good time to be a pirate. With over 90 percent of EPA shut down it’s an even better time to be a polluter dumping poison into our seas.

Read the full article → 1 comment

Sex in San Diego: What I Won’t Do For My Husband

June 20, 2013 by Source

flickr.com/photos/wilsonhui/

By Nadira Hira / The Good Men Project

Nadira Hira’s manifesto on marriage.

I won’t change my name. I’ve spent the last three decades making the one I have mean something. And I’d like to keep it up, thanks. Which is, I hope, a major part of why he’ll love me always.

I won’t accept a ring. I will gush over my friends’ rings, of course. I will keep my views on the fraught history and general scourginess of diamonds and engagement rings to myself, mostly. But till he too is sporting a symbol of ownership on his strong and manly hand, I won’t be wearing a bloody thing on my finger.

I won’t stop celebrating men — him, and all the others. This will be a service to our children, and given my taste — Brad, Idris, Sandma — a testament to his quality.

Read the full article → 4 comments

“U-T San Diego” Joins Over-The-Line in Fight Against “Free PB” Group

June 18, 2013 by Frank Gormlie
Thumbnail image for “U-T San Diego” Joins Over-The-Line in Fight Against “Free PB” Group

U-T Editorial Blasts Pacific Beach Group as “Spiteful” and Urges Filner and Goldsmith to Save OTL

With all the crises in the world and at home here, the editorial board at the U-T San Diego found it necessary today to wade into the brouhaha between “Over-The-Line” organizers and a social networking group out of Pacific Beach, called FreePB.org . The editorial called the PB group’s effort to hold an even with the exact same conditions that OTL is allowed by the City and police and threatening to go to court “a spiteful maneuver” and begged:

“This is not the kind of dispute that should ever end up in court. We urge Mayor Bob Filner and City Attorney Jan Goldsmith tdo work together to assure that the OTL is not derailed.”

Of course, this is the same Mayor Bob Filner who is vilified daily by the newspaper, its editorial board and political cartoonist. … More inside …

Here’s Doug Porter’s excellent take on the issue from yesterday’s column at the San Diego Free Press.

Lawsuit Seeks to Shut Down Over The Line’s Boozin Beach Tournament; Preferential Treatment Claimed

By Doug Porter

A non-profit group has filed suit against the City of San Diego, seeking to block approval of a special-event permit for the 60th Annual World Championship Over-The-Line Tournament (OTL), scheduled for two weekends in July.

Read the full article → 12 comments

Hawaii for Cheap: Camping in Paradise

May 7, 2013 by Source

Hawaii County Campgrounds
By John P. Anderson / San Diego Free Press

Hawaii – land of honeymoons, idle thoughts, and sitcom ultimate vacations since the mid-1970s. Also a land frequently visited by residents of Southern California due to the (relatively) close proximity and frequent flight deals. I have been fortunate to visit Hawaii twice – my first trip, to Oahu, followed my junior year of high school and included my first flight, first time seeing an ocean, and many other firsts. The second visit was a ‘babymoon’ in November of 2010, visiting Hawai’i, also known as ‘The Big Island’ since the state is commonly known by the same name as the largest island in the archipelago.

Read the full article → 0 comments

My Bloody Valentine

February 11, 2013 by Jim Miller

lupercalia-roseIt’s the Monday before Valentine’s Day and merchants across America are happily preparing for our annual romance-driven consumer frenzy. Indeed this schmaltzy commodification of love is worth around $14.7 billion dollars a year with much of it ending in the predictable disappointment that comes when we realize that our frantic, frequently anxious lives just don’t measure up to the prepackaged saccharine dreams we are sold.

Valentine’s Day is the sanctification of an empty, soul-killing romance narrative, a celebration of the notion that the most precious and intangible human emotion can be summoned by the magic of the sexless dollar. In sum, as currently constituted, Valentine’s Day is where real love goes to die.

Read the full article → 3 comments

Is Organic Food Really Organic?

January 3, 2013 by Source

2

Food labeled and sold as organic often isn’t

By John Lawrence / San Diego Free Press

In an article entitled “Canada’s Organic Nightmare” put out by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, authors Mischa Popoff and Patrick Moore contend that many foods labeled as USDA organic may not actually be up to that standard because there is a lack of field testing in Canada, and, furthermore, free trade agreements allow the importation of such foods into the US.

Read the full article → 2 comments

← Older Articles

Newer Articles →