OB Rag

By Patty Ducey-Brooks / Presidio Sentinel  / July 4, 2026 Five years ago, many of us from throughout the city of San Diego and county, made a decision to not support the major development of the NAVWAR site, which is on Pacific Highway in Old Town. It literally backs up to the most western part off Old Town San Diego.

A former lawyer and current grassroots activist, I have been editing the Rag since Patty Jones and I launched it in Oct 2007. Way back during the Dinosaurs in 1970, I founded the original Ocean Beach People’s Rag - OB’s famous underground newspaper -, and then later during the early Eighties, published The Whole Damn Pie Shop, a progressive alternative to the Reader.

A View From the United Kingdom By Will Howard / Dangerous Minds – UK / July 4, 2026 July 4th is more than just a holiday in the United States of America. It’s a marker of the time the country threw off the shackles of oppression and told the (once) most powerful country in the world exactly where they could stick them. Precisely what they did with those shackles of oppression afterwards is a different and much, much more depressing story, but that’s for another time.

By Kate Callen The City of San Diego had a one-time-only opportunity to compensate Southeastern San Diego for decades of neglect and broken promises. It has thrown that away to hand an iconic community parcel over to a national developer with a checkered history. On July 7, by an 8-1 vote, the City Council denied an appeal to stop D.R. Horton, which is facing class action lawsuits across eight states, from building 123 homes on a 31-acre hilltop plateau in Emerald Hills.

El Pueblo Viejo de San Diego: Hiding in Plain Sight, Part 5 By Alexander D. Bevil, California State Parks Historian II (Retired) / SOHO / July-August 2026 The following California State Landmarks (CHLs) reflect the years 1821 to 1847 when San Diego evolved from a military outpost to a Mexican pueblo.

Hailed by legendary film critic Roger Ebert as best film of the year and the ninth-best overall film of the 2000s. By Kendra Syrdal / Parade / July 6, 2026 Based on writer and director Cameron Crowe’s real-life experiences as a teenage writer for Rolling Stone, the movie Almost Famous has become a cult classic sensation since its release in 2000. When Crowe was just 16 years old, he spent three weeks touring with The Allman Brothers Band and interviewing its members as well as the road crew.

Screen shot of explosions in Iran after latest US attack Just when you thought you could settle into the summer, with gas prices coming down and some things appearing to get normal — BOOM! Trump’s war with Iran is back on and he says the MoU is over. Ostensibly because Iranian forces attacked three tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, Trump’s military unleashed a barrage against 81 Iranian targets and in response, Iran attacked 85 targets considered U.S. “assets” within the region.

Rag judges have – finally – determined a winner of the July 4th 250th anniversary Rag writing contest. It is William Dorsett of San Diego. The Rag will be sending William a check for $100. There were 7 entries  in the contest and we published them all anonymously. Dorsett wrote number 7, entitled, “What the 250th Anniversary Means Today… Living Under Trump: ‘I love America But It Can Do Better — the Torch Has Been Passed to Us.'”  Dorsett wrote his winning essay on the morning of July 4th.

By Shannon Handy / CBS8/ July 6, 2026 (slighted edited for clarification) Visitors to Mission Bay now have to walk further to find a public restroom, as the city began closing nearly half of the facilities around the bay starting Monday, July 6. A total of 13 out of 28 public restrooms will be shut down by the end of this week due to budget restrictions, a move that many local visitors and business owners are criticizing.

Movement Against ‘Golden Pacific Powerlink’ PRESERVATION ACTION ALERT Help Protect Backcountry Historic Resources and Anza-Borrego Desert State Park SOHO / July-August 2026 Newsletter SOHO strongly urges our members and supporters to speak out against SDG&E’s proposed Golden Pacific Powerlink transmission project because of likely destructive impacts on Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and the immense surrounding historic and cultural landscapes.