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Bob Dorn: Rest in Power!

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Last week, on November 28, Bob Dorn’s wife Deborah sent a brief email to the SDFP editors:

Very sad news….Bob had severe heart attack… basically cardiac arrest after a wonderful evening at a jam where he played with friends…..he passed today in a place he loved .Didn’t suffer at all….so sorry to tell you guys this way.
Love
Deborah

The news blindsided the SDFP editors who have been winding down our beloved publication, with all the emotions that engenders in each one of us. Bob’s death feels like a particularly incomprehensible blow, yet another grievous loss. We had imagined that our community would remain vital and connected after we ceased publishing, and then Deborah’s email informed us that our community had been diminished. Just like that.

Updated Jan. 5, 2019: to include memorial service info   [Read more…]

The Urgency of Transgender Safety, Legal Protections

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Local ACLU joins suit against El Cajon Crunch Fitness Center

It is hard, if not impossible, to maintain awareness and then do something about the constant erosion of civil rights of minority populations in our country. The Trump administration never sleeps when it comes to undermining current laws or attempting to supplant them with cruel new ones, the Constitution be damned.

Recent news, both locally and national have underscored the degree to which transgender women and men sustain some of the worst weaponized bigotry and intolerance imaginable. They are paying with their lives, their employment opportunities and their ability to simply exist in society–you know, the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness guaranteed to each one of us.   [Read more…]

Chaos and Cruelty at the Border

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We have become the barbarians at the gate

As if ripping children from their parents’ arms, locking them up in cages or sending them to facilities on the other side of the country weren’t the absolute low point of the Trump administrations response to immigrants seeking asylum, we are now tear gassing children.

Let that sink in for a moment. We are tear gassing children, who were reported as running screaming and crying from the tear gas canisters shot into Mexico, a foreign country, by US Border Patrol. (Imagine this situation reversed, with Mexico lobbying canisters into the US.)

There is essentially no operative immigration policy in this country.
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My Big Hairy Kosher Cuban Turkey

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It is not an auspicious sign when the turkey is not only NOT in the oven on time, but a feverish online search has ensued with the frantic words “where find blowtorch thanksgiving san diego.”

I was really looking forward to roasting a turkey this year. My husband and I have a brand new stove that replaced the old one with the inoperable oven that has functioned as a storage unit for over a decade. The fragrance of roasting turkey is one of the best smells that life offers; my olfactory senses were primed. But the taste of turkey is often something quite different.

Despite the successful attempts to make turkey breasts gigantic, culinary engineering has been less successful in assuring breast meat that doesn’t taste like a Mojave Desert burger. Getting and cooking a flavorful turkey has always been hit and miss for me. I have tried every kind of turkey available. Or at least I thought I had.

Doug Porter, who is not only a SDFP editor but also a stellar cook, recommended that I try a kosher turkey instead of the usual commercial fare.   [Read more…]

Welcome the Stranger: Art of Illumination and Hope | Video Worth Watching

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What are the remedies to the cruel spectacle of a trumped up military presence on our southern border and the laws and policies which rip families apart and put children in cages? Unremitting political activism and moral rebukes are essential. And so is art.   [Read more…]

With Labored Breath: The Polluted Legacy of the Steel Mills

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For the children of steel

The Atlantic recently ran an article about the long term impacts of the now largely defunct steel industry in Braddock, Pennsylvania. Braddock resident Tony Buba has produced a short documentary about the environmental racism that has created an overlooked health crisis among residents in the area, particularly among African Americans who were segregated in neighborhoods closest to the mills. The incidences of cancer and lung disease are shocking.

For those of us who lived in any one of the mill towns dotting the Monongahela River (Mon Valley) in southwestern Pennsylvania and lost loved ones to those diseases, the statistics are heartbreaking. The Trump administration’s attempts to roll back EPA air pollution standards and bring back asbestos are enraging.   [Read more…]

Aretha Franklin: the ‘Voice that Shook the Heavens’, the Woman Who Shook our Souls

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This past week we learned that Aretha Franklin was approaching the end of her life surrounded by friends, family and luminaries. During the ensuing days, images of Aretha and strains of her songs have been shared in the public sphere. Many of us have gone through our own personal play list of the Queen of Soul who died today.   [Read more…]

The Second Civil War Will Be Tweeted

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In between shilling pills and elixirs like InfowarsLife Super Male Vitality tonic and fighting off lawsuits from his wife and Sandy Hook parents, MAGA groundhog Alex Jones saw his shadow and prognosticated a Second Civil War launched by Democrats on July 4. No, we aren’t linking to it— no clicks from us.

While we Dems prepare for the final assault on the Red Hats, the twitter hashtag #secondcivilwarletters , a send up of Ken Burn’s Civil War documentary, is today’s best fun read.

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No SCOTUS Appointment while Trump under Criminal Investigation

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Time for Democrats to go on the offense

Remember how Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Merrick Garlanded Obama’s Supreme Court pick? Let’s do McConnell one better:

Any Trump SCOTUS pick is void while he and his campaign are under a criminal investigation for obstruction and conspiracy against the United States.
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‘Immigrant Orphans’? No Plan to Return over 2,300 Children to their Parents

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State Sponsored Terrorism In Our Name

There are 11,000 children currently in detention in 100 shelters in 17 states. This figure includes unaccompanied minors. Over 2,300 children, including babies and toddlers have been separated from their parents seeking asylum at the border between May 5 and June 9 alone. These children who arrived at the border with their family are being sent all across the country, ending up in places as diverse as Grand Rapids, Michigan and New York City. We know that some of these children are in El Cajon and Lemon Grove.

These children have been snatched from their family, sent to undisclosed locations and there is no plan to reunite them with their parents.   [Read more…]

‘Tender Age Facilities’ the Most Grotesque Orwellian Doublespeak of All

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Is there no limit to bureaucratic sadism?

“Where are the girls? Where are the babies and toddlers?” are the questions many of us have been asking all week.

We have learned that the GOP is our domestic Boko Haram, silent on the location of the girls and their treatment. And now we have learned that the babies, the children who have been ripped from their mothers’ arms are being placed in “Tender Age Facilities.” These are not shelters. These are prisons—for babies and toddlers who sit unattended in cages.

Over 2,300 children have been separated from their families since May. The GOP is a terrorist organization.   [Read more…]

Where Were You in 1968? San Diego Free Press Invites Your Thoughts on the 50th Anniversary

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Who were you in 1968?

A few months ago at a San Diego Free Press contributor meeting a group of us shared stories about where we were, what we were thinking and what we were doing in 1968, a watershed year for many of us. It was fifty years ago that so many baby boomers came of age against the backdrop of first Martin Luther King’s assassination, then Bobby Kennedy’s. It was a year of civil rights protests, school walk outs, university sit-ins and broad civil unrest.

At the summer Olympics in Mexico City, American medalists Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists in protest of racial discrimination. That same year Cesar Chavez announced that he would begin a fast to promote nonviolence within the ranks of the United Farm Workers.

The Tet Offensive occurred in 1968. There were 549,500 American troops in Viet Nam at the time. (The draft would be imposed a year later in 1969). This would be the next to the last year of LBJ’s presidency. North Korea seized the USS Pueblo, heightening Cold War tensions.

These are just a few of the events that rocked our world in 1968. There was substantial interest among us at the contributor meeting to recognize the significance of that year.   [Read more…]

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