OB Rag

Editor: the following is based on a speech delivered by the author, Niall Twohig on last Friday, May 9th, in front of a group of fifty gathered in Revelle Plaza at UC San Diego to unveil The May 1970 Peace Memorial. The Memorial is dedicated to George Winne, who immolated himself and died as a protest against the Vietnam War in May of 1970, plus it’s dedicated to those students who carried on the May 1970 Student Strike.

By Niall Twohig

Why a memorial for May 1970? Why a memorial for peace? Why now?

To suggest some answers, I want to ask you, the reader, to take an imaginative leap back in time to May 1970.

In order to make this leap, we have to remember that the U.S. was waging an unpopular proxy war in Southeast Asia, made all the more unpopular after the invasion of Cambodia at the end of April.

If we found ourselves transported to May 1970, this would be all too apparent. We would see the images?the aerial views of bombs upon bombs pulverizing the Vietnamese countryside, images of GIs burning huts, footage of badly burnt villagers running from the firestorm of napalm, photos of rows upon rows of mutilated bodies scattered in the fields and anonymous soldiers packed away in coffins draped in stars and stripes.

Editor: The other day the Widder Curry caught up with Sarah Boot, candidate for the District 2 City Council seat and explored two issues that mean a lot in southern OB and that area of Point Loma where the Widder lives. See our earlier interview with Boot last month here.

By Judi Curry

For those of us living along the Sunset Cliffs corridor, I have a question for you. When was the last time you were able to leave your home and go directly to the Highway 8 on-ramp without being detoured around Ocean Beach? Yesterday it took me over 10 minutes to get to the freeway because of the streets that were blocked off – again – and detour signs were everywhere.

When I came home from my excursion to El Cajon, the detour signs were gone but the roads from Newport to Santa Cruz were so bumpy I thought my car would end up with flat tires. That, plus the steel plates all over the road only tell me that today will be the same way, and probably for weeks to come.

What about the streets in OB?

I discussed this problem with Sarah Boot, the 32 year old that will make a difference in San Diego politics. So what does she suggest for the roads of District 2?

By Susan Taylor / San Diego Free Press

Artichokes are fun! They grow from a lovely, silver-green plant with fabulous long leaves. You can pick, steam and then eat them. Or you can let the choke stay on the plant till it erupts into a stunning purple flower that lasts a long time. My mother who wasn’t a native San Diegan took artichoke serving very seriously. She would prune off the sharp tips and outer leaves, cook them and serve them at dinner along with little Austrian bowls filled with warm melted butter.

San Diego joins 150-city strike as worker campaign spreads across the globe to three dozen countries and six continents

By Staff

The fast food industry is an issue that isn’t going away. Front line fast food workers in San Diego are living in poverty while working in a $200 billion industry. San Diego workers are calling for $15 an hour wages and the right to form a union without retaliation. Employees from McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Burger-King will be joined by the Interfaith Center for Worker Justice board members and community supporters on Thursday May 15.

Originally published May 14, 2014

The Saratoga and Abbott condos are definitely taking shape. The friendly on-site manager informed us that they hoped the condos will be ready by September – and p0tentially new residents to move in during November 2014.

The ten condos being built will go for around a million dollars a piece. We have heard that figure from two sources now. However, the condos may not be sold initially but instead rented out.

Whether rentals or for sale, the condo complex will certainly alter the waterfront of Ocean Beach.

The complex and the plans leading up to its construction certainly have a history that we at the OB Rag have been documenting.

Here is what we wrote in November 2012:

Tar Balls on Beaches Are From Natural Seepage

Beach walkers are seeing gooey black tar bars on the sand, and there is some concern that they’re from fracking or oil spills and are harming the ocean. …
Demo Against Gov. Brown on Fracking in San Diego

If you are concerned about fracking in California, Governor Brown is touring San Diego, today,Tuesday the 13th of May. ………. Come inside for details …

OB Kids Grand Prize Winners in Essay Contest Sponsored by City Library

Ocean Beach residents Clayton Halbert, 10th grade La Jolla High, and Chase Thomas, 4th grade Ocean Beach Elementary, were two of the 13 …

COME INSIDE FOR MUCH MORE ….

Editor: For some reason, we recently received emails from two guys who used to live in OB and are willing to share their reminiscences about the town. Both Greg Koerwitz and Steve Bright give us some of their memories which give the rest of us some appreciation for the depth of passion that’s out there about our little village by the sea.

Greg Koerwitz wrote:

I recently read an article in your publication on the web site by the Scripps scientist on the certain sea rise expected in years to come and had to look at some of the pics on the site.

I lived there in 1966 to 1968 in an apartment for $90.00 a month that was only a few years old at the time and this was only a half block from the beach.

(Eighth in a series)

By Cara Wilson-Granat

This is the eighth in a series of ten in which we meet one of the San Diego 10 orcas and hear from an advocate who continues to be one of the voices of these imprisoned voiceless, never stopping until the whole world listens.

After reading about Prisoner #8, Ikaika, please scroll down this article and “meet” one of the top San Diego 10 Prisoner Advocates! This week’s Advocate is Heather Heffernan.

Prisoner #8: Ikaika

Age:12

Ikaika (whose name is Hawaiian for “Strength”) was born at SeaWorld Orlando on August 25, 2002. His mother is Katina and his father is Tilikum (the featured orca in the movie, Blackfish).

The arguments against legalization simply don’t hold up.

By Owen Poindexter / AlterNet

For decades, cannabis opponents controlled the messaging around the popular plant and cultivated any number of lies about its effects. This built up a powerful stigma against marijuana, the effects of which have not worn off. The racist, expensive and failed U.S. war on drugs continues to rage on. The criminalization of cannabis users and distributors remains a top priority in that war. The government stubbornly classifies it as a dangerous Schedule I substance with no medical value, despite stacks of evidence to the contrary.

Imagine if the drone wars going on in Pakistan and Yemen had a human face all the time.

By Pratap Chatterjee / AlterNet – Tom Dispatch

Enemies, innocent victims, and soldiers have always made up the three faces of war. With war growing more distant, with drones capable of performing on the battlefield while their “pilots” remain thousands of miles away, two of those faces have, however, faded into the background in recent years. Today, we are left with just the reassuring “face” of the terrorist enemy, killed clinically by remote control while we go about our lives, apparently without any “collateral damage” or danger to our soldiers. Now, however, that may slowly be changing, bringing the true face of the drone campaigns Washington has pursued since 9/11 into far greater focus.

Last year an unprecedented number of sea lion pups were admitted to rehabilitation facilities, emaciated, dehydrated and very underweight for their age and NOAA failed to recognize that the sardine fishery had anything to do with the scarcity of sardines, which feed the pups.

From EcoWatch – Nation of Change / May 12, 2014

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) just announced a lack of Pacific sardines is a “likely contributor” to the “Unusual Mortality Event” (UME) that occurred last year where more than 1,600 California sea lions were found stranded and malnourished along the Southern California coastline. The big story, however, is the one NOAA is not telling us.

“Everyone who wants to preserve community control over the planning process should be afraid because your community will be next!” —Georgette Gomez, Associate Director of the Environmental Health Coalition

By Jim Miller

As we head toward the June 3rd election, the same corporate interests who spent big money to fund a petition drive based on lies to force a vote on the Barrio Logan Community Plan are now funding an equally dishonest campaign to defeat it.

As the San Diego Reader recently noted, the No on B and C Campaign’s sleazy tactics include teaming former mayor and current corporate front man Jerry Sanders up with a “crooked ex-admiral” to repeat the same bald-faced lies about how the Barrio Logan Community Plan will kill jobs and drive the Navy out of San Diego.