OB Rag

Two recent conversations that stayed with me for some reason.

One was with a man who told me that he knew what it was like to feel so empty that the fragile construct that was him, his identity, could fall apart at any moment. He knew this, of course, because that is what happened to him. He had a breakdown; he broke down and the pieces of him fell off, down on the ground all around him — inexplicable shards of what used to be that thing he called himself.

It is remarkable when someone tells you such a thing. I was struck by the courage of the confession and also by the rawness of the moment, the trembling intensity that accompanied the admission and the heightened anticipation of what I don’t know.

The OB Rag has access to two excellent progressive calendars for August, one from the OB Green Center and the other from Doug Porter at our online partner, the San Diego Free Press. And we’re republishing both of them below (there is some duplication):

August Events at the Ocean Beach Green Center

August 9th Wednesday Film 7:00 p.m. “Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things” How might your life be better with less?

By South OB Girl

In the spirit of OB that was so strong Wednesday night at the Ocean Beach Planning Board meeting — come on out to Celeste Byers’ Gallery Opening tonight, Friday, August 4th at Culture Brewing Co. at 4845 Newport Avenue. The event will be 5 – 10 pm.

Celeste was born and raised in OB. She has several murals in OB — the mural on the south-facing wall of Chris’ Liquor, the mural on the west-facing wall at Teter, the shop front of Often Wander at Noon, and she is finishing up her third local mural which she has been working on this week between Sunset Cliffs and Cable less than a block from Culture.

By Raymond Bender / San Diego Free Press

July gave us another court case rebuking FAA secrecy and arbitrary decisions. In Flyers Rights Education Fund, Inc. v. FAA, the D.C. United States Courts of Appeals told the FAA to again review whether skinnier, narrower, claustrophobic aircraft seats created passenger safety hazards.

Flyers Rights argued that shoehorning passengers into cramped seats risked passenger health before and after crashes. Restricted blood flow caused by cramped seats, they said, might lead to deep leg thrombosis — a condition caused when blood settles in the circulatory system, as often occurs in the lower limbs during long flights and especially among the elderly.

By Ernie McCray

Donya Williams, the four-times great-granddaughter of a man named Moses Williams, asked me if I would help draw attention to some research she and a cousin are doing titled: Stronger Together: The Moses Williams Genetic Genealogy Project.

So I started reading a bio she sent me of their work and can’t help but think they already know what they’re doing.

I was barely into reading other information when the names Strom Thurmond, 50 Cent, Al Sharpton, and L.L. Cool J jumped out at me – names I wouldn’t ever expect to appear in the same sentence.

By Frank Gormlie

One could tell it was going to be a large turn-out for the OB Planning Board meeting on Target Wednesday night, when more than a dozen people congregated at the locked doors of the Masonic Lodge a half hour before the town hall was to begin.

And a large turn-out it was. At least 200 people packed the Masons’ steamy meeting room, lining the walls, crowding at the doors – it was standing room only by time OBPB Chair John Ambert called the gig to order a little after 6pm.

By Bob Dorn

The Republicans seemed always to have maintained the fiction that all of them live in one big uprighteous tent. Donald Trump, alone above public figures, has proved that even the Republicans can’t restore credit to that myth.

It took someone as outrageous as Trump to bring down this shibboleth. Somehow, for some reason, they survived their own fetid combination of industrial-strength exploitation of working people with imagery of their own responsible, sober natures. All this survived until the mixture became impossibly hypocritical.

By Jeeni Criscenzo /San Diego Free Press

Let me start with an apology. At the San Diego Select Committee for Homelessness meeting on Monday, July 24, I made some comments in response to a report by the new CEO of the Regional Taskforce on the Homeless, Gordon Walker, which came out sounding critical and petty.

By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press

Nuclear Shutdown News chronicles the decline and fall of the nuclear industry, in the US and abroad, and highlights the efforts of those working to create a nuclear free world. Here is our July 2017 report:

Hackers Hit US Nuke Plants

On July 6 the New York Times published, “Hackers Are Targeting Nuclear Facilities, Homeland Security and FBI Say.”

“Since May hackers had been penetrating computer networks of companies that operated nuclear power stations of companies that operate nuclear power stations and other energy facilities, as well as manufacturing plants in the US and other countries,” the Times reported.

By Geoff Page

What will the Point Loma pocket park along Cañon street be called? Cañon Street Pocket Park? Or Portuguese Village Park? … or some other name?

That eventual decision was part of the discussion at a very interesting meeting on Wednesday, July 26 billed by the city as the “Cañon Street Pocket Park Workshop #1.” This was the name the city’s Public Works Department used on its postcard and the name on the Park and Recreation Department’s notice posted at the Cabrillo Recreation Center.

This has been a month of graduations. My grandson – one of twins – graduated with his Master’s in Social Work. (His twin graduated last year with the same degree.) Two of my grandsons graduated from high school, and one of them won a wrestling scholarship to Central University in Iowa. (If you have been reading my columns for awhile, you might remember the article I wrote about my grandson going from the dance floor to the wrestling mat.)

This article really isn’t about my grandson, per se, but his graduation is the catalyst for this article being written.

The Ocean Beach Planning Board is anticipating a large crowd at their meeting on Wednesday, August 2nd as the main item on their agenda is an “Open Discussion” about the future Target Express store coming into OB.

That’s why the Board has moved to a much larger venue for the discussion and will be holding their monthly meeting at the Masonic Center at 1711 Sunset Cliffs.

There will be a presentation from Target representatives, plus a discussion with San Diego police about the process for off-site alcohol permits, and then an open community discussion about the project.