OB Rag

By Jim Miller

San Diego City Works Press is soon approaching its 10-year anniversary. SDCWP is run by a 100% non-profit collective and is the only small literary press in San Diego that focuses primarily on the publication of local writers with an emphasis on our region that moves beyond the postcard version of our reality.

In an era where commercial forces and hegemonic instrumentality are drowning out what remains of literary culture, we have persisted against the odds. We invite all interested parties to be a part of our beautifully useless endeavor.

To celebrate our anniversary, we are putting together a second edition of our first anthology, Sunshine/Noir II. All local writers are encouraged to submit work for consideration.

See the relevant details inside:

Someone altered this freeway sign on Sunday, May 25, 2014. It has been verified that it is a real alteration, not simply a photo shop product.

Watch this video. … COME INSIDE

By Clancy Sigal / Alternet

Except for mourning family members and Boy Scouts loyally placing tiny flags on veterans’ gravestones, hardly anyone knows anything about Memorial Day except that it’s a day off. It’s the saddest of the military holidays, invented after the Civil War, supposed to help us honor, or at least pause to remember, all the American dead from all our wars. That’s a lot of men and some women to remember going back, well, how far?

Big and small, we’ve “done” about 70 wars starting with the mid-18th century so-called French and Indian wars where George Washington was bloodied and when we got our first taste of industrially massacring Native Americans, mainly Ojibwas and Algonquins who sided with the French against our British masters.

March Against Monsanto

The whole world is marching against Monsanto this weekend. Including San Diego.

Local activists have three days of protests planned for the coming weekend, starting

• Rally – a rally outside Monsanto’s La Jolla offices (11099 Torrey Pines Road) on May 23, Friday starting at 4:30,
• Rally and March May 24: a rally and march starting at the fountain outside of Reuben H. Fleet Science Center in Balboa Park starting at 11am Saturday and

By Ernie McCray

I hear all kinds of arguments about what’s wrong with schools and the sentiments tend to avoid the keys to what’s essential in the creation of a learning environment: an understanding of “who” the person is who’s being educated. And nothing gets at “who” a child, a student, is more than an educator who respects and appreciates that person’s culture and gives him or her an education that’s rich in the arts.

With that being said, on May 2, 2014, a hero of mine, a teacher extraordinaire, Jose Luis Solis Lopez (Galeano), was assassinated at the Zapatista’s “Little School” (La Escuelita), in Chiapas, Mexico. The school was built to celebrate “who” children are and “who” they can become.

Yes, it’s finally happened. CVS Pharmacy has begun the work of rehabbing the former Apple Tree Market in OB.

On a visit at the site on Thursday, May 22nd, I witnessed plenty of activity that displays the development. An on-site contractor also confirmed that CVS is really beginning the process of moving in.

Workers inside were finalizing the dusty and dirty job of gutting the interior of the Fifties-style cavernous building – once the site of a Safeway. The wood will be saved I was told – and I could see wonderful reddened wood covering the ceiling.

The plans are to a complete remodel of the interior. It would be easy speculation to say that the remodel will look very similar to other CVS Pharmacies.

Do organics make good neighbors? Or more specifically, do businesses selling organic products make good neighbors here in OB?

When Blue Dot Refills opened earlier this year right next door to People’s Food, the common wisdom was ‘wow, they must really get along’ – referring to the gigantic OB-centric vegetarian and organic market – OB’s largest employer – and the small two-person refill storefront. Both stores were pushing organic things in order to help the environment.

But there have been complaints from People’s managers about a couple of things that have to do with the new neighbor. First, someone from Blue Dot came into People’s and went up to customers telling them that Blue Dot had cheaper and better products. Oops! That’s a definite abuse of neighborly love.

Second, Blue Dot customers are parking in People’s parking lot, the allegation goes, while People’s own customers circle the block looking for spaces. We all know that parking is an issue in that part of OB.

Update Goes to City’s Historical Resource Board May 22nd

As the Update of the OB Community Plan winds its way through the official approval process, it achieved a significant boost of late with the OB Town Council passing a resolution in support of the Community Plan.

On Thursday, May 22, the Update is scheduled to be in front of the City of San Diego’s Historical Resource Board. It then has to pass muster before the Planning Commission on May 29th, and then is set for the full City Council on July 1. On April 30th, the Smart Growth and Land Use Committee waved a green flag for the Plan Update to proceed, after a dozen OBceans had testified.

By Ernie McCray

She’s really something, my Maria. Maria Nieto-Senour. College professor by way of the Mexican barrios of San Antonio and Austin and the inner-cities of Detroit. Mo-Town.

At any moment she’ll be retired which means she gets to hang out with me more. I can’t wait because she’s fun to be around and she’s about as loving a human being as one could be.  

By John Lawrence / San Diego Free Press

To be labeled as “USDA organic,” 95% of the ingredients must be organically grown and the remaining 5% may be non-organic agricultural ingredients or synthetic substances that have been approved for use in organics by the USDA.

The 5% of non-organic products are usually derived from GMO corn which is highly sprayed with Monsanto’s Roundup.

It’s a little known fact that some organic packaged foods contain GMOs and pesticides thanks to the lobbying efforts of Big Organic corporations.

For example, consider a container of Organic Tomato Basil soup, a product of Canada, purchased at Sprout’s.

It’s about time we had new ideas, new imaginations, and an encompassing and inclusive governance.

By Luis J. Rodriguez

I am not a career politician. I won’t accept corporate donations. I am not a Democrat or Republican. And I’ve been blocked from print or airtime in the major media. Still, I’m running a serious independent campaign to be governor of the largest state in the union, one of the 10 largest economies in the world, with the third largest agricultural business anywhere.

I say it’s about time.

California has been governed by politicians, business people, accountants, actors, and,..