OB Rag

Streams of Consciousness the Day Before Turning 79

By Ernie McCray

Tomorrow. April 18th. If I make it I’ll be 79. 79.

Can’t wait to jam as a 79-year-old man. No, indeed. Time flashes at some kind of supersonic speed. Glad I’ve got me a beautiful woman and some mellow weed…

And there’s so much greed with people in need… And they choose to shoot at each other and drop bombs on each other in all kinds of weather, no thoughts of whether a timeout should be called at some point in human history…

Mignon Scherer of Point Loma passed on March 25th earlier this year at the age of 92.

She and her family had lived in their residence near the high school for 50 years. Born Mignon Harwith on June 27, 1924, in Detroit, MI, she was the youngest of three girls.

During World War II, Mignon was a “Rosie the Riveter” and worked on B-29 “Superfortress” Bombers at the Chrysler Plant in Detroit.

Mignon was best known locally as one of the main organizers in the effort to place the thirty-foot limit on coastal construction in San Diego.

SeaWorld has announced its Mission Bay theme park will not shoot off fireworks this summer. Fireworks will still go off during 3-day holiday weekends and a few other special events. Plus, SeaWorld will not disclose whether nightly fireworks are gone for good, only that they are on “hiatus for the foreseeable future.”

The “official story” is that SeaWorld is preparing for its new “Electric Ocean” a nighttime lighting display. In typical fashion, SeaWorld could not admit that maybe – in its effort to be more environmentally-sensitive – that the summertime tradition is halting due to public pressure. (For more of the official line, see SDU-T)

For years, San Diegans have signed petitions calling on SeaWorld to stop their summer explosions over the Bay.

From our July 2015 post,
Hit the link and sign the Petition that calls on the San Diego City Council to ban the nightly fireworks at SeaWorld.

On the agenda of the Project Review Committee – a subcommittee of the OB Planning Board – is an application for a permit to construct a 700 square foot companion unit over a carport and to demolish the existing car garage and storage shed.

The site is located at 4526 Cape May Avenue.

COME INSIDE FOR OFFICIAL AGENDA

Restaurant Review

“Swami’s”
Midway Towne Center
3924 W. Point Loma Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92110
619-222-6600
Swamicafe.com

“Widow” get-together time again for Irene, Candy and myself. I have tried to eat at all of the restaurants in Ocean Beach proper, and find that I have reviewed most of them during the six years I have been writing for the OB Rag. There are still two that I want to visit, but found that neither of them are open at lunch time.

I have been to Swami’s in La Mesa and Encinitas. This time I decided it was time to try the one in my “own back yard.”

I have fond memories of Embers, and not so fond memories of its replacement, so went into this restaurant with a little excitement and trepidation. Some people told me it was good; others were not so nice.

By Jim Miller

In the age of Trump I have heard many a progressive ponder: “What went so wrong?” How in 2017 can we be fighting and, in many cases, refighting battles over basic economic rights and civil liberties? Whatever happened to women’s rights? How can we still be arguing about whether or not climate change exists? How did things get this bad?

In the political realm, as I have written here many times, a big part of the problem is that the Democrats have no bench of talented, young candidates. Indeed, rather than appealing to young voters and activists, it sometimes seems like the party is bent on alienating them. We saw this with the disdain heaped upon the idealism of millennial Sanders supporters in some quarters, and we can still see it in the national party’s frustrating inability to reinvent itself by bringing in new energy.

Frank is taking a much needed break and won’t be posting much for the rest of the week. Keep posting…

Welcome to the OB Rag Readers Choice Nominations for the “Best” and “Worst” Public Infrastructure!

Inspired by the recent Peninsula Beacon Readers Choice Awards for 2016, we decided to run our own nomination / award game – not to emphasis retail services – but to showcase our readers’ views on the public infrastructure that makes up the landscape of Ocean Beach and the 92107 area in general.

By Jeeni Criscenzo /San Diego Free Press

On April 5th, while I was in City Hall with other advocates for homeless people voicing our objections to the Mayor’s proposed ballot measure to increase the Transit Occupancy Tax to pay for an expansion of the convention center, with a few crumbs tossed in for “Reducing Homelessness”, only a few blocks away, some of our City’s most destitute citizens were being cruelly victimized.

Their tormentors not only took away everything they had left in the world, including what little makeshift shelter they had, but in one case documented in photos and a video by Michael McConnell, they even took a man’s pet dog!

By Tom Roebuck

“Revenge Girls of the West” returns to the Masonic Lodge this weekend, a dinner-theater production that brings the action from the stage to the audience.

The show was locally written and produced with a cast and crew consisting mostly of OB residents, and is an immersive experience where the story unfolds throughout the room. There will be a Saturday-night show that has already sold out, but tickets for Sunday’s 6:01 PM show are still available at www.shetrick.com.

Over the years the OB Rag and the Peninsula Beacon have shared a friendly rivalry over coverage of the Ocean Beach and Point Loma areas. Even though we may make fun, we certainly appreciate their consistent and widespread reporting of these neighborhoods.

So, when we point out something that the Beacon got wrong, they know not to take it personally and take it in stride as part of the journalist’s world.

Such is the case, then, when recently Beacon editor Thomas Melville got it wrong about the early Ocean Beach pioneer developers Billy Carlson and Albert Higgins.

Earlier this week my “editor-dude” published my story asking you what you would have done in a situation that I found myself in a few days earlier. I was curious to see if there was a difference in the “male” way of looking at the situation vs the “female” way of looking at it. I was a little surprised by the outcome.

There were 92 respondents – several on the OB Rag; more on “Next Door” and a few more on Facebook. I also had eight telephone calls regarding the problem. Of the 92, 78 were women and 14 were men. I was very surprised by total answers given to me. Let me share with you: