OB Rag

By Jim Miller

In the lead up to Earth Day, Elizabeth Kolbert, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction, accurately observed that this year there wasn’t much to celebrate.

She’s right. An administration that can’t seem to stop stepping on its own feet in nearly every other area has been pretty darn good at gearing up to kill the planet. As Kolbert writes in the New Yorker:

After 24 Years Loan Ranger Pawn Shop to Close

The Loan Ranger Pawn Shop, which opened in 1993 at 1909 Cable Street, is closing. Signs up at the storefront indicate that the business is closing and ‘everything must go’. The space is also up for lease. Owned by Robert Johnston, the store was estimated to generate $130K in annual revenues and employed 3 people.

OB Man Convicted of Manslaughter

Lifeguard Disses Ocean Beach at La Jolla Shores Meeting

PETA Claims Heartbreak Killed SeaWorld Polar Bear

COME INSIDE FOR ALL THE STORIES

By Ron Bonn/ SanDiego350

You could say I was present at the creation.

Looking back in our lives, we rarely know exactly when something started. But regular television news coverage of man-made climate change, with all it implies, started on New Year’s Day, 1970.

The staff of “The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite”: producers, writers, technicians; a couple dozen of us in all, were sitting around the newsroom waiting for something to happen—because nothing happens on New Year’s Day—when the man himself stormed in. “Goddamn it,” he said to us, “we’ve got to do something about this environment story.”

By Anne Fege / San Diego Free Press

The City’s FY 2018 budget was released on April 13, with a proposed cut of $880,000 for shade tree pruning—a grave disappointment.

With the City’s commitment to the Climate Action Plan, existing and large trees provide the most canopy cover, and they need to be managed and protected to maximize their health and life span.

Here Are the Winners and Losers – the “Best” and the “Worst”

Two weeks ago, we asked our readers to join in on our OB Rag Readers Choice Nominations for “Best” and “Worst” of Public Infrastructure in Ocean Beach. It was a chance for OBceans to weigh in on their favorite or not-so-favorite element of our public landscape here in the Village of OB.

We asked readers to give opinions on everything from the best neighborhood park to the worst intersection – and they did. Some gave their view of the overall “best” and “worst” of OB, which we include at the end.

So, here they are, the “Best” and “Worst” of OB’s public infrastructure:

March for Science San Diego – Saturday, April 22, 10am

People’s Climate March San Diego – Saturday, April 29, 10am

Upcoming weeks offer several opportunities to join the fight against global warming. And in the age of a Donald Trump administration, the environment needs all the friends it can get.

It’s the end of the era of the mega-antique mall in Ocean Beach.

The 18,000 square foot Antique Center building – which takes up a large portion of the north side of the 4800 block along Newport Avenue – is up for sale or lease. The Antique Center business is also for sale.

Umpteen years ago, village merchants and leaders believed that what the then-failing main commercial street in OB needed for an uplift was to become the “antique row” of San Diego. Up to then, there was only one antique storefront in the area, one owned by local Gary Carlson (class of 1966 PLHS).

The draft community plan update for the Midway District has been released by the City of San Diego’s Planning Department.

The planning document – formerly called the April 2017 draft Midway – Pacific Highway Community Plan – is an update to the planning framework established in the previous November 2013 draft.

Here is the press release from Vickie White, Senior Planner: …

COME INSIDE FOR LINK TO DRAFT UPDATE

Ocean Beach Historical Society Presents

O.B. Thru The Eyes of a Photographer
By Fran Del Santo
Thursday, April 20, 7 pm
at P.L. United Methodist Church,
1984 Sunset Cliffs Blvd., O.B.

Fran Del Santo is an Ocean Beach Street Photographer who wears many hats that include: photographer, sign interpreter, motorcyclist, teacher, community supporter, and more. Fran is well known in Ocean Beach for her amazing street photography.

My Reflections on the Syrian Nerve Gas Bombing of April 4th, 2017, the April 7th U.S. Bombing of the Syrian Airbase, and Possibilities for the future!

by Peter Bohmer, April 15, 2017

The evidence has continued to mount that the Syrian air force dropped Sarin gas on Khan Shaykhun in Idlib province in Syria on April 4th, 2017 killing at least 80 people and seriously wounding hundreds. Evidence includes eyewitness accounts, statements by doctors and other medical personnel in Turkey who treated the wounded, statements by various scientific organizations that it was Sarin gas dropped from the air, the past use of Sarin by the Assad regime in 2013 gas and the implausibility and obvious falsehoods of the Russians and Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad about the attack.

By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press

US Navy warships based in San Diego are moving towards North Korean waters as tensions rise across the region.

Led by the USS aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, whose homeport is North Island Naval Air Station in San Diego harbor, this “strike group” had been heading towards Australia after taking part in “routine” military exercises off the Korean peninsula when it was suddenly ordered back following the US cruise missile attack in Syria recently.

The Ocean Beach Community Development Corporation is holding its second workshop for the design of Saratoga Park – tonight, Tuesday, April 18th.

The workshop will be held at the OB Recreation Center, starting at 7:30 pm in the Community Meeting Room. The Rec Center is located at 4726 Santa Monica Ave.

Members of the OB CDC and the landscape architects will be present to receive community input on the design concept that the CDC has so far.