OB Rag

There’s a missing 12-year-old girl from Chula Vista whom police are asking for help to find. Autumn Fink has been missing since Monday afternoon, Dec. 29th.

And police were able to ping her cellphone around 8:30 p.m. to determine she was near Robb Field in Ocean Beach. (FoxNews described it as “Rob Roy Park”.) Fink did not give any information about who she was with.

She was last seen Monday at 4:00 p.m. on Monday when she told her family she was going to meet friends at a park in Chula Vista. Police said Fink was in touch with her family until about 8:30 p.m., but that’s when her cellphone either died or was shut off.

Autumn is described as 5-feet, 3-inches, weighing 120 pounds with brown hair, brown eyes, and braces, and has no history of running away. …

Hit and Run Victim Talks Katie Conner, the OBcean who was the victim of a hit-and-run driver in OB spoke to a local TV station on the crash that …

OB Surfers Part of Study of Health Problems from Post-Storm Polluted Ocean OB surfers are taking part in a study to evaluate medical and health problems that arise after they surf …
Stolen Christmas Presents Pose Possible Problem for OB Post Office Branch An OB couple are claiming that presents sent to family in Texas were tampered with by possibly by a postal clerk or someone “inside” the OB P.O. …

2nd Fatal Accident in Midway District Near I-8 Freeway Shows Dangers of Stretch

Pt Loma Nazarene Anthropology Prof Part of Study of Gangs and Sex-Trafficking

Police Renew Call for Info on Missing Pt Loma Mom San Diego police have renewed their call for information that could help find a 31-year-old mother of two who vanished from her Point Loma home more than two months ago.

“Backdoor Bandit” Who Robbed 13 Businesses Including Roberto’s in Ocean Beach Sentenced …
AND MORE INSIDE

By Jim Miller

We live in troubled times but are increasingly ill equipped to deal with them. The average American is awash in a sea of ghastly, contextless headlines punctuated by inane trivia and pointless titillation. Somewhere between the latest massacre and Kim Kardashian’s most recent booty shot we got lost.

Indeed, some studies have even shown that the more news we consume the less we actually know. That’s because so much of what we have come to think of as “news” is really a form of corporate propaganda, a depthless mass of factoids designed to not interfere with the bottom line. Thus we know less as we amuse ourselves to death.

Fig Tree Café
Liberty Station
2400 Historic Decatur Road
Suite 103
San Diego, California 92106
619-821-2044

Every Christmas season I go out to breakfast with two friends – Nancy and Stewart – and this year was no exception. We were deciding between the “Little Lion” and the “Fig Tree Café” this year and because Nancy and Stewart had been to the Fig Tree for their $5 breakfast special we decided to go there. Alas, the special was not available for the “holiday” – even though it was now Friday following Christmas. We ordered from the regular menu.

By Roy Little

Peregrine Falcons are well known for their acrobatic ability in the air and high speed dives to stun other flying birds, usually as prey. Not quite as well-known by the public is their long-range migration habit. “Peregrinus” means “wanderer” in Latin. In the Americas they tend to migrate north/south annually along the Pacific or Atlantic flyways.

On November 5, I photographed a Peregrine Falcon at the edge of the Kendall-Frost/Northern Wildlife Preserve in Pacific Beach at the northern side of Mission Bay.

Not sure of what to call this new movement, this movement that sprang off of the failure to indict the white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri in the shooting death of Michael Brown, and which is now a nation-wide daily outpouring of militant demonstrations against the murders of Black men and police brutality and violence.

Despite the unprovoked shooting deaths last Saturday of two police officers in New York City by a Black man with mental problems unconnected with the protests, the movement must go on and it must go on daily. The movement cannot allow this shooting or the backlash against the protests to stall its journey.

Now that there’s only a week left in 2014, I’d like to take a moment and let you know some of what’s going on behind the scenes, either with us or with Ocean Beach.

The OB Planning Board needs you. First up, however, is a plea to get people to run for the OB Planning Board. Their election isn’t until March, but in order to be eligible to run as a candidate for one of the open seats, you must have been to at least one general meeting over the last year, and you need to have done this by February. There are 7 or 8 seats open this election, depending how you count. Their meetings are the first Wednesday of every month.

So, first, if you are even vaguely interested, check to see which OB planning district you live in.

By Jim Miller

As Christmas approaches along with the end of the year, it’s time to assess some of the best and the worst of 2014.

For those of you out there who just can’t jump on the “Buy Nothing Christmas” train, 2014 is a particularly good year to think about buying your friends and loved ones a book to stuff in their stocking.

This year saw the release of an unusual number of truly groundbreaking books that should inform serious intellectual discourse on the great issues of our day for years to come. So give the gift of knowledge rather than a shiny commodity fetish.

Here are my top five picks: …

Today – December 21st – is the Winter Solstice and there’s a celebration happening in Ocean Beach.

The Puppet Insurgency is organizing it, and it all begins at Coastal Sage Gardening at 6pm, located at 3685 Voltaire Street – up across from the Pt Loma library.

At some point there will be a a procession and caroling down Newport all the way to the ocean!
COME INSIDE FOR MORE DETAILS

Continuing the Debate: Is the San Salvador Replica a “Symbol of Genocide” or a “Marketing Tool for San Diego”? or can it be used to tell the true story?

In the interests of continuing the debate of the controversy that has arisen over the current construction of the San Salvador , the replica of Juan Rodriquez Cabrillo’s flagship, which is being built at Spanish Landing in San Diego Bay by the Maritime Museum, we offer the following comments.

We’re certain that the building of the replica of the San Salvador, is widely known around town by now, and many even know that most of the construction is being accomplished by volunteers using the “original” tools and methods of the 16th century. There are tours, displays and some PR by the San Diego Maritime Museum.

In fact, the Museum is planning to stage the official launch of the vessel in late February 2015.

by Michael Steinberg

Nuclear Shutdown News chronicles the continuing decline of the US nuclear power industry. As nuclear power reactors approach or surpass their planned operating life of 40 years, they have become less and less reliable and more and more threatening. What to do about this? A complete and immediate shut down of them all! NO NUKES!

Here’s our December report.

On December 3 the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that central Missouri’s 30 year old Callaway nuclear reactor had experienced a sudden unplanned shutdown. As the Dispatch-Post stated,“Power in the [nuclear] core went from 100% to 0” right away.

The 1200 megawatt Calloway nuke plant supplies 20% of the electricity produced by its owner and operator, Amergen—when it’s at full power.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission commented, “No safety relief valves opened that would have exposed the [nuclear] core to the outside.” This means the nuclear fuel in the reactor supposedly didn’t release any of its radiation into the environment because of the accident.

By Matthew Wood

Take a beach stroll through time in our fine neighborhood with a new book from the Ocean Beach Historical Society.

The publication, part of the “Images of America” series, shows rare photos from the beginnings of OB, following through its growth into a destination spot as it finally settles in as the sleepy beach community we know and love.

Knowing that it is part of a number of publications highlighting neighborhoods throughout the country gives the book a bit of a cookie-cutter feel. But you can’t argue with the content, which is mostly photographs with sparse but descriptive captions that give bits of history along with explaining what you’re seeing.

Most of the focus is on the first half of the 20th century, but it manages to give a glimpse into the future that will be with a smattering of updated pictures to show a contrast between past and present.