OB Rag

UPDATE: “For Sale” sign was placed on the wrong building.

We noticed that there’s a For Sale sign on the former Strand Theater building – where Wings presently sits.

The New York Times Could Only Take ‘One Outrage a Week From San Diego’

Editors’ Notes: The OB Rag staff launched the San Diego Free Press five years old this week. This is one in a series of posts reflecting on the paths we’ve traveled.

By Bob Dorn / San Diego Free Press

Many of us Freeps were born at the simultaneously best and worst of times. We came into the world during or just after World War II, which itself is probably the best war these so-called United States ever fought.

Our parents had been rescued from the Great Depression by Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal thinkers, a class not afraid to be called intellectuals because they combined brains with a conscience, a combination that produced programs like Social Security and a set of banking laws that are still in operation

By Frank Gormlie

Two giants of the surfing world just passed away a week from each other. True icons.

John Severson, founder of Surfer Magazine, died peacefully in his sleep on Friday, May 26th at the age of 83.

And Jack O’Neill, inventor of the modern wetsuit, passed way a week later on Friday, June 2th, also of natural causes. He was 94.

Students like me who went to local schools like Dana Jr High and Point Loma High in the sixties definitely remember Surfer Magazine. It seemed revolutionary …

Restaurant Review

Umi Sushi
2806 Shelter Island Drive
San Diego, CA 92106
619-226-1135
Umisushisandiego.com

By Judi Curry

With all of the Sushi restaurants opening up – and some closing – I thought it might be interesting to take my two visiting students from Korea to one sushi restaurant that has been opened for quite some time. (Yes! I know that sushi is Japanese, but they told me they really liked sushi!)

We had just been at Humphrey’s listening to Scott Stephens and part of his “Liquid Blue” group, and we would be driving right by Umi Sushi so decided to have dinner there.

March for Truth

The following is from my speech at one of the rallies during the San Diego March for Truth held Saturday, June 3rd in east Mission Bay Park.

By Frank Gormlie

I’m a citizen journalist with the OB Rag and the San Diego Free Press. I’ve been involved with publishing the truth, and have been active in grassroots San Diego politics since I was in college.

We’re here today to march and rally for the truth, to stand up for the truth. Somebody has to! Somebody has to stand up for the truth.

And there’s six hundred of us today – how do I know? I stood and counted you as you marched.

Yup, the story about the abandoned hedgehogs found in an Ocean Beach trash can has gone viral.

Today – Monday, June 5th – is the very last day to submit new logo designs for the Ocean Beach Town Council logo contest. Here is what the OBTC states on their website:

The OB Town Council is seeking a new logo, and asking for design submissions from members of our local community! Please send your designs to info@obtowncouncil.org to enter our logo contest.

By Geoff Page

The OB Rag asked for my opinion as to what I would do with the sorry project at Ebers and Greene Streets if I could call all the shots.

Background on the Project

The property is on the southeast corner of Ebers and Greene. There is an unfinished, partially framed building there now and it has not been worked on for some time.

Editor’s Note: The San Diego Free Press is five years old this week. This is one in a series of posts reflecting on the paths we’ve traveled.

By Jim Miller

This week marks the fifth anniversary of the San Diego Free Press and that’s something to celebrate. I first started writing for the OB Rag and then subsequently became part of the birth of the SD Free Press because I loved the way that those outlets both paid homage to the legacy of San Diego’s countercultural press and continued its legacy into the digital age.

As part a key part of the local New Left and counterculture in the sixties and early seventies, Doug Porter, Frank Gormlie, and others offered a space for radical voices and cultural threads that were not acceptable in the mainstream, commercial media of the time.

There is a petition that has just been started for a new lifeguard station for Ocean Beach. Councilmember Lorie Zapf began the petition on change.org very recently, and asks for people to sign the petition in support of her motion for $200K that would pay for a design process for a new facility.

She states:

“The final step for approval will occur on Monday, June 5th at 2 PM, when the City Council will be asked to approve this allocation as part of this year’s Budget Revision Process.”

The big news coming out of Ocean Beach today is that 9 hedgehogs were rescued from an Ocean Beach trash can on the 4600 block of Voltaire Street.

County Animal Services were called out – by someone who thought they might be possums – and the CAS officer made the discovery about 10:15 a.m. on Thursday, June 1. Nine of the 15 hedgehogs survived. They are now in the care of County Animal officials.

Upon arriving at the trash can, the responding officer found several of the mammals loose inside the trash can, then noticed a sealed plastic garbage bag that was moving. When the officer tore open the bag, more of the animals were inside, but 5 were dead.

By Dave Patterson

Summer is around the corner in San Diego and many of us look forward to the annual traditions, like the Miramar Air Show.

This wildly popular event with perhaps 500,000 attendees brings people from all over the world to see the pilots demonstrate their precision flying and perhaps line up purchases of weapons.

Corporate chalets are available where the weapons vendors can “use their company logo and message to reach 500,000 Air Show Attendees, while the military people risk their lives to entertain the crowd.

More sinister is the promotion of war to our youth …