OB Rag

By Jean Guerrero / Los Angeles Times / July 22, 2021

The pro-Trump cable propaganda network One America News is headquartered in a sandy-colored building in the San Diego sun.

It doesn’t look like the epicenter of a collective delusion in which Trump remains president, the COVID-19 vaccine is deadly and “illegal aliens” are destroying the country.

But OAN, launched in 2013 by Louisiana-born technology magnate Robert Herring, is the latest chapter in San Diego’s history as a hotbed of white paranoid extremism. The network has become Trump’s favorite Big Lie megaphone about the “stolen” presidential election. In March, Pearson Sharp, one of its star correspondents, said in a report, “There’s still serious doubts about who’s actually president.” In another, he suggested COVID-19 vaccines are causing mass deaths..”

By Colleen O’Connor

Finally, some clarity from unlikely quarters. No more bumbles, stumbles, and contradictory sound-bytes.

Start with the best truth teller on the planet; Alabama Republican Governor Kay Ivey. Her candor on COVID caught everyone by surprise. She blasted a reporter who asked, “What is it going to take to get people to get shots in arms?”

“I don’t know — you tell me. Folks are supposed to have common sense. But it’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks. It’s the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down.”

From KPBS – City News Service / July 23, 2021

San Diego County’s Health and Human Services Agency is seeing a significant spike in new COVID-19 cases, with 1,264 new cases reported Friday, the highest number since Feb. 5.

The increase in cases is not a single-day phenomenon, but part of a larger trend in recent weeks. In the 30 days between June 21 and July 20, 6,572 San Diegans tested positive for COVID-19. Of that group, 11% were fully vaccinated, while 89% were not. “We are facing a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” said San Diego County Board of Supervisors Chair Nathan Fletcher.

Voting Laws Roundup: July 2021: Eighteen states have already enacted 30 laws this year that will make it harder for Americans to vote.

From Brennan Center for Justice/ July 22, 2021

As many state legislatures conclude their regular sessions, the full impact of efforts to suppress the vote in 2021 is coming into view.

Between January 1 and July 14, 2021, at least 18 states enacted 30 laws that restrict access to the vote. These laws make mail voting and early voting more difficult, impose harsher voter ID requirements, and make faulty voter purges more likely, among other things. More than 400 bills with provisions that restrict voting access have been introduced in 49 states in the 2021 legislative sessions.

Diane Bell, the U-T columnist, showcased local Michael Pallamary as a “serial good Samaritan” in today’s column. Apparently, Michael had to be hospitalized recently for injuries he suffered trying to put out a stranger’s vehicle fire on Rosecrans Street.

By Diane Bell / San Diego Union-Tribune / July 22, 2021

Michael Pallamary is a serial good Samaritan.

The San Diego businessman’s most recent rescue was about noon on July 10 when he spotted smoke coming from a van on Rosecrans Street near its intersection with Interstate 5 East. Pallamary didn’t hesitate to pull over his car to help — and his heroics landed him in the hospital.

School begins August 26. Will the “new” Point Loma High School be ready?

The principal is optimistic.

The Ocean Beach Library has a new branch manager: Helene Idels.

Here is what the Friends of the OB Library reported in their April 2021 newsletter:

People looking to use ride-hailing services such as Lyft and Uber may have had some difficulty on Wednesday, July 21, as many drivers conducted a one-day strike for better pay and status under the law.

Rideshare Drivers United — an independent association of U.S. rideshare drivers founded in Los Angeles — organized the strikes in a number of cities across the United States, including San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Austin, Boston, Cleveland, Las Vegas, Pittsburgh, Denver, and Baltimore.

The group had a rally at San Diego’s Lyft driver center at 1 p.m. Wednesday.

They say the companies have:

Reporter Geoff Page will be giving a talk on the “OB Pier – Past, Present and Future” this Sunday, July 25 at the Point Loma – Ocean Beach Democrats zoom meeting.

Here is what the Club announced:
Regular contributor to the OB Rag, Geoff Page, will bring us up to speed on the saga of the OB Pier.

Geoff Page has contributed several articles on the state of the pier to the OB Rag, who broke the story that engineering reports commissioned by the city in 2004, 2016 and 2019 highlighted the state of the pier and recommended keeping

By David Helvarg / The Progressive / July 20, 2021

In June, record heat waves hit Russia, Northern Europe, Canada, and the United States. When these increasingly common weather phenomena began killing hundreds of people, the U.S. media focused its coverage on a single record breaking 116-degree day in Portland, Oregon.

When unprecedented flooding in Germany and Western Europe had killed more than 100 people by July 16, I watched as three U.S. network news shows rolled that report into coverage of the West’s wildfires and California’s worst drought in 1,200 years. Yet, none of the three main TV news outlets—NBC, CBS, or ABC—mentioned climate change,

by Ernie McCray

Since the age of three every book I’ve read has influenced me in some way as I’m very much an empathizer.

But no book has resonated with me more than Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

As I absorbed his words I felt as though he was writing directly to me. I mean his declaration that education systems were designed to produce passive non-critical thinking learners, especially those relegated to the lower classes in our society, validated my very thoughts as an educator, making me feel not so alone in a school district that was standardized to its very core.

My man, Paulo, let me know that I was on to something as I indulged my students with notions of justice, wanting them to know how their country operates so they could transform it.

By Colleen O’Connor

Most recognize those shorthand text and radio signals.

“BOLO” is the police code for “Be On the Lookout” for villains escaping on roads, in the air, and everywhere.

“YOLO” the younger set’s call to quit work as in “You Only Live Once” so ditch that dead end job and go places.

I don’t know if this shorthand code already exists, or not, but it is time for the Democrats to embrace it ASAP: “You’re On Your Own.” The Texas Democrats who left their state, arrived in D.C.,