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Thumbnail image for Desde la Logan: The Ice Cream Man Cometh to Barrio Logan

Desde la Logan: The Ice Cream Man Cometh to Barrio Logan

by Brent E. Beltrán 05.17.2013 Columns

Family Owned Tocumbo Ice Cream Opens at Mercado del Barrio

By Brent E. Beltrán

Monday, May 13 was a beautiful, hot day in San Diego. Temperatures broke records throughout the county. But in my community of Barrio Logan things were a lot nicer because Tocumbo Ice Cream opened shop. And neighborhood residents flocked to get their cool ice cream fix.

On May 4, as I was walking to a few community events here in Barrio Logan, I was handed a flyer announcing the opening on May 13. Not only did the flyer announce their opening it also offered a free scoop! Happy happy! Joy joy! The opening was around the corner and I was gonna get a free scoop too!

Tocumbo Ice Cream was founded in 2004 by the Ramirez family which includes patriarch Gerardo Ramirez — who works between 80-100 hours a week doing what he loves, his wife Martha and children Omar, Kelly and Crystal. Grandson Junior also helps out as well as do other family members.

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Thumbnail image for The Starting Line – Republicans Ask: Can We Find Obama Guilty First and Have the Trial Later?

The Starting Line – Republicans Ask: Can We Find Obama Guilty First and Have the Trial Later?

by Doug Porter 05.17.2013 Columns

The Scandal Trifecta That Isn’t 

By Doug Porter

After five years of waiting and hoping, Republicans of the Tea Party persuasion have finally reached a hysterical critical mass. Here, they’re saying, is the proof of what we’ve been trying to tell the public all along—that the President of the United States is unfit for office.

Yesterday, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann hijacked a press conference with Senator Mitch McConnell that was supposed to be a pity party for some tea partiers who were allegedly targeted by the IRS, by announcing that her constituents were demanding impeachment.

As Brian Beutler at TPM noted, “You could hear the crunch of McConnell’s intestines turning to ice from across the capital.”

The mother of all these ‘scandals’, Benghazi ran into trouble yesterday as Republicans were fingered in the national news media for mischaracterizing leaking two isolated tidbits from classified emails.  The unnamed ‘Congressional GOP sources’ belief they could get away with such a deception was undone by the Obama administration’s decision to release more than 100 pages of previous classified emails.

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Thumbnail image for It’s a Sad Day in America When the Navy Launches a San Diego-Built Drone off a Carrier

It’s a Sad Day in America When the Navy Launches a San Diego-Built Drone off a Carrier

by Frank Gormlie 05.16.2013 Culture

It’s a sad day in America. The US Navy launched the first carrier-based drone off its deck the other day, off the coast of Virginia. It’s an even sadder day for us in San Diego, as the drone was manufactured – in part, at least – by plants and engineers right here in our own city.

The launching of the drone off that deck demonstrates clearly that as drones become more and more integrated into becoming the armament of the nation’s military, they are becoming more and more accepted – here domestically, back in the good ol’ US of A.

And as drones become more and more prevalently utilized, not just by our armed forces overseas, but by law enforcement, border patrol, and local police departments here within our very own borders, American citizens are more and more subjected to a high-tech surveillance that is quite unlike anything we’ve known in the past – a surveillance that is becoming so pervasive, that it challenges our basic civil rights, freedoms and privacies.

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Thumbnail image for The Starting Line – Grand Jury Report Casts a Light on the Sorry State of San Diego’s Bikeways

The Starting Line – Grand Jury Report Casts a Light on the Sorry State of San Diego’s Bikeways

by Doug Porter 05.16.2013 Activism

Be Safe on Bike to Work Day, Friday, May 17th

By Doug Porter

The San Diego County Grand Jury report on the state of our city’s bikeways does its best to be positive.  After all, decades of car-centric public planning and policies are slowly giving way to an increasing awareness of the benefits and possibilities of traveling on two wheels in a city with near-perfect weather conditions.

‘Everybody’ agrees, or at least pays lips service to, the need for safe and increased access for bicyclists on the roads around San Diego. The Grand Jury even called its report: San Diego – A Bicycle Friendly City.

The reality of riding isn’t so nice for today’s bicyclists, however. Years of deferred maintenance of roadways in San Diego have made many of the gestures towards riders empty ones. Despite the prevailing narrative that this infrastructural neglect is somehow due to incompetent or inefficient government burdened with an overpaid class of civil servants, the truth of matter is that public attitudes towards government in general are at the heart of the matter.

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Thumbnail image for SD For Free: Golden Hill Recreation Center

SD For Free: Golden Hill Recreation Center

by John P. Anderson 05.16.2013 Culture

By John Patrick Anderson

A weekly column dedicated to sharing the best sights and activities in San Diego at the best price – free! We have a great city and you don’t need to break the bank to experience it.

Golden Hill Recreation Center

Address: 2600 Golf Course Dr, San Diego, CA 92102

Date and Time: Monday – Friday 2 PM – 9 PM, Saturday – Sunday 10 AM – 3 PM

Best For: Exercise, relaxation, walking, getting outdoors

Increasingly, when you mention the neighborhood of Golden Hill you will get a reaction that indicates the person you are talking to either knows where it is or has a pretty good idea (e.g. “Somewhere south of Balboa Park, right?”) instead of a blank stare. However, even those who know where the neighborhood is likely don’t know where, or what, the Golden Hill Recreation Center (GHRC) is.

Located on the south-east portion of Balboa Park (just east of Golden Hill Park), the GHRC is nestled between 26th Street and the Balboa Park Golf Course, just north of Russ Boulevard.

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Thumbnail image for Sex in San Diego: Marriage Is For Losers

Sex in San Diego: Marriage Is For Losers

by Source 05.15.2013 Sex in San Diego

By Dr. Kelly Flanagan / UnTangled

You can be right, or you can be married; take your pick. I can’t remember who told me that, but I do remember that they were only half-joking. The other half, the serious half, is exceedingly important. This is why.

Many therapists aren’t crazy about doing marital therapy. It’s complicated and messy, and it often feels out of control. In the worst case scenario, the therapist has front row seats to a regularly-scheduled prize fight. But I love to do marital therapy. Why? Maybe I enjoy the work because I keep one simple principle in mind: if marriage is going to work, it needs to become a contest to see which spouse is going to lose the most, and it needs to be a race that goes down to the wire.

When it comes to winning and losing, I think there are three kinds of marriages.

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Thumbnail image for The Starting Line – A Real Scandal! Activists Around the World to Protest Monsanto May 25th

The Starting Line – A Real Scandal! Activists Around the World to Protest Monsanto May 25th

by Doug Porter 05.15.2013 Activism

Balboa Park March & Rally, Mission Bay Overpass Light Brigade Events Expected to Draw Thousands

By Doug Porter 

While the oldstream media is obsessing on the current crop of Washington’s politi-dramas, an international protest movement is gathering steam. Activists in on six continents, in 36 countries, and in 47 U.S. states — totaling events in over 250 cities — are coordinating demonstrations to occur simultaneously at 11am Pacific time on Saturday May 25th under the general theme “March Against Monsanto”.

The St Louis-based biotech behemoth Monsanto has come under increasing attack from environmentalists, agriculturalists and average consumers in response to the company’s conduct in the realm of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) and genetically-engineered foods.

Efforts aimed at forcing the company to engage in transparent business practices, like providing consumer information about products incorporating GMOs, have exposed a corporate culture willing to use raw power and virtually unlimited amounts of cash to protect their interests.

San Diego protest info here and here.  More details later on in story

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Thumbnail image for Do We Have the Will to Invest in Our Children? City Heights Youth Take the Lead for Free Mid-City Student Bus Passes

Do We Have the Will to Invest in Our Children? City Heights Youth Take the Lead for Free Mid-City Student Bus Passes

by Anna Daniels 05.15.2013 Activism

By Anna Daniels

Adults have historically established the parameters and content of public policies as they relate to children. The results in recent years have been ghastly as local and state governments have been starved of revenues by virtue of the economy. Conservatives are using the spending cuts necessitated by a weak economy to advance their ideology of small government, hoping to impose a permanent state of austerity on governmental entities.

One in five kids in this country lives in poverty. The ticket out of poverty has been access to quality education and the availability of jobs that provide economic security. Neither of these conditions are currently being met. The kids living in poverty now may very well spend their whole lives in poverty.

There has been an astounding sea change in City Heights as youth themselves have taken an informed and powerful lead in shaping public policy that affects their lives and their families. Mid-City CAN has been pivotal in mentoring and providing a platform for that leadership.

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Thumbnail image for The Starting Line – UT-San Diego Publisher ‘Papa’ Doug Manchester’s Overly Generous Campaign Contributions

The Starting Line – UT-San Diego Publisher ‘Papa’ Doug Manchester’s Overly Generous Campaign Contributions

by Doug Porter 05.14.2013 Columns

By Doug Porter

Some people are more equal than others. And when it comes to fat cats like developer and newspaper publisher Doug Manchester, that ‘more equal’ status would seem to mean above the law.

Today’s revelation about Manchester’s misdeeds comes from the Sunlight Foundation, which has scoured campaign finance records nationwide and identified hard money donors who have donated to federal candidates, political parties and political committees in the last election cycle,

“Papa” Doug Manchester made the list of hard money donors of those who appear to have exceeded the legal limit of $70,800 to parties and committees in the 2012 cycle. His donations of $83,426 to committees and $10,000 to candidates all went to Republicans, of course.

I doubt he’s lost any sleep over breaking this ‘little people’s’ law. That’s why he’s got lawyers.

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Thumbnail image for Desde la Logan: All They Will Call You Will Be Deportees…No Longer

Desde la Logan: All They Will Call You Will Be Deportees…No Longer

by Brent E. Beltrán 05.14.2013 Columns

An Interview with Author Tim Z. Hernandez

By Brent E. Beltrán

On occasion I feel the need to write about issues outside of the comfy confines of Barrio Logan and San Diego. This is one of those times.

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,

Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria;

You won’t have your names when you ride the big airplane,

All they will call you will be “deportees”

     – Woody Guthrie, Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)

 The first time I heard those lines was in 1998. It was in Spanish on the CD Siempre He Estado Aquí by Teatro Campesino co-founder and Fresno residents Agustín Lira and his partner of many years Patricia Wells Solórzano. At the time I didn’t know that it was originally written by famed folk singer/activist Woody Guthrie. Later on that year I heard it in English by the Latin super group Los Super 7.

Since then I’ve heard Woody sing it and fellow folk traveller and activist icon Pete Seeger as well as other performers such as Bruce Springsteen, Concrete Blonde and recent Grammy award winners Quetzal. Many more have recorded and performed this classic piece of American music.

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Thumbnail image for The Starting Line – The Meanies at the IRS and Other Republicanesque Themes du Jour

The Starting Line – The Meanies at the IRS and Other Republicanesque Themes du Jour

by Doug Porter 05.13.2013 Columns

By Doug Porter 

It’s the new Benghazi.

It’s ‘Plan B’, in case Congressman Darrell Issa’s crew can’t make the case for impeachment. They’re even willing to tie Presidents Obama and Nixon together.

I’m talking about the emerging ‘scandal’ that the Internal Revenue Service made life difficult for Tea Party type groups seeking to obtain tax exempt status. The story gets top billing in today’s UT-San Diego, slightly overshadowing coverage of Senator John McCain’s call for a special panel to investigate last year’s attack on the US diplomatic compound/CIA station in Libya.

Documents obtained by various media outlets over the past few days, including the Washington Post, the Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal, tell a story about the behind the scene processes at the IRS in how it defined “social welfare groups” following the US Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizen’s United ruling.

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Thumbnail image for The Golden Hill Vibe: Over Forty Years of Grit, Grace, and Gentrification

The Golden Hill Vibe: Over Forty Years of Grit, Grace, and Gentrification

by Jim Miller 05.13.2013 Columns

By Jim Miller

This week I move from interviewing a recent arrival to Golden Hill to a longtime resident.

Peter Zschiesche and his wife Pam Clark have lived in the Greater Golden Hill community since 1971 and have seen the neighborhood change quite a bit over the years. Peter was involved in anti-war movement politics in the early seventies and later became a leader in the Machinists Union and played a key part in the strikes at NASSCO in the 1980s. He is the Founding Director of the Employee Rights Center, which began in 1999, and he currently serves as Vice President of the Board of Trustees for the San Diego Community College District. Thus most of Peter’s adult life has been spent fighting for social justice in the service of workers, students, immigrants, and others in Golden Hill and San Diego at large.

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Thumbnail image for Field of View: Golden Hill

Field of View: Golden Hill

by Annie Lane 05.12.2013 Field of View

By Annie Lane

Among other amenities, the historic Golden Hill neighborhood boasts a community garden on Russ Boulevard, which was started in 2004 and now has 26 plots tended to by individual gardeners. There’s also the 25th Street Musical Bridge, a piece of public art hidden in plain sight that can be found where 25th Street crosses over the Martin Luther King Jr. Freeway, or SR-94.

Designed by artist Roman de Salvo and funded by a $39,000 grant from the City of San Diego Arts and Culture program, the Musical Bridge is a series of chromatic bells that plays Crab Carillon when struck with a pipe or stick while walking the length of the bridge.

But various works of art can be found in nearly every direction of Golden Hill, from the brightly painted flower shops to the rich and extravagant architecture — much of which predates the 1900s. Even with its steep inclines, wandering around Golden Hill is worth every minute.

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Thumbnail image for Community and Customers Rally for Ian Rey, Disabled Former Employee of Sprouts Point Loma

Community and Customers Rally for Ian Rey, Disabled Former Employee of Sprouts Point Loma

by Annie Lane 05.11.2013 Activism

By Annie Lane

Dozens protested Friday evening to show continued support for Ian Rey, a longtime Sprouts Farmers Market employee who said he was fired after 14 years for mistakenly taking a coworker’s jacket.

Rey was terminated from Sprouts on Monday, and has experienced an outpouring of support from the community and customers alike – many of whom say they won’t shop at the local grocery store anymore.

For some, Rey was simply a friendly face they’d come to expect to see over the years. For others, he was someone they would stand in a longer line just to say high to while he bagged their items.

“I’ve never met Ian on a bad day … I’ve never seen him not happy,” said Crystal Trignano, a special education teacher at Dewey Elementary who organized the evening rally. “It was always ‘What can I help you find?’ or ‘Is there anything you need today?’ It’s just not normal for people to care that much.”

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Thumbnail image for On a Slow Ride from Golden Hill to South Park

On a Slow Ride from Golden Hill to South Park

by Ernie McCray 05.11.2013 Culture

By Ernie McCray

Often when I tell someone I live in Golden Hill they say “Oh, yeah? Where?” 30th and Cedar is my reply and then they say “That’s South Park.”

“No, Golden Hill,” I say and they, like we’re in a debate competition, and they’ve got me on this one, start quoting passages from a map to prove that I’m not a Golden Hillian. And then I have to explain to them, in a nice friendly “home is where the heart is,” kind of way, that no matter what some chart has to say, I live in Golden Hill.

And I don’t say that out of any animosity towards them or South Park. Not at all. It will be a slow ride if it happens but I might claim to live there some day since I do “officially.” It’s just that I’m a Golden Hill O.G.

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Thumbnail image for The Continuing Long Hard Slog for Streetlights in City Heights

The Continuing Long Hard Slog for Streetlights in City Heights

by Anna Daniels 05.10.2013 Activism

By Anna Daniels

There isn’t any mystery as to why residents expect to have streetlights in their respective communities. It’s important to be able to see where you are walking at night; streetlights are an essential element of crime deterrence; and they contribute to our perceptions of personal safety.

City Heights is a transit dependent community and residents don’t tend to work bankers hours. Many of my neighbors go to work while it is still dark or return home when it is dark. Many of these commuting workers are women working in the hospitality and food service industries or providing in home personal care.

This is also a community that sustains elevated incidents of assault, robbery and break-ins. City Heights should be one of the best lit neighborhoods in the City of San Diego simply on the basis of need and yet it is unfunded $26 million for streetlights.

The City of San Diego does not get a free pass on this issue because of the economy. City Heights was starved of streetlights twenty five years ago when I moved here and it is still starved of that critical infrastructure investment. That real story here has little to do with the economy.

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Thumbnail image for The Starting Line – All is Not Clear on the Low Wage Front: San Diego Fundraiser for a Walmart Strike Fund Planned

The Starting Line – All is Not Clear on the Low Wage Front: San Diego Fundraiser for a Walmart Strike Fund Planned

by Doug Porter 05.10.2013 Activism

By Doug Porter

Years of growing inequality have taken their toll on low-wage workers over several decades even as workplace productivity has increased. A minimum-wage income in 1968 was higher than the poverty line for a family of two adults and one child. Even into the 1980s the minimum wage was high enough to lift a single parent over the federal poverty line. Today’s minimum wage, however, is not enough for single parents to reach even the most basic threshold of adequate living standards.

The latest census figures show 46.2 million people living in poverty in the US. Companies that pay low wages leave their employees no choice but to rely on public assistance programs like food stamps, Medicare or the earned income tax credit.  So, in effect, these companies are being subsidized by government.

Today CEOs in the country’s S&P 500 companies make, on average, 319 times more than the average American worker. Back in the 1970s, that ratio was 30 to 1.  Walmart CEO Mike Duke makes better than a thousand times more than the median worker pay at the one of his stores.

So it’s little wonder than 47% of Walmart employees are less than thrilled about their jobs. And despite a workplace environment where many employees are pitted against each other in a desperate struggle for survival, here are signs of unrest that are increasing around the country.

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Thumbnail image for The Starting Line – Special Ed Student Used as “Bait” in School Drug Bust After Parents Refused Permission

The Starting Line – Special Ed Student Used as “Bait” in School Drug Bust After Parents Refused Permission

by Doug Porter 05.09.2013 Columns

By Doug Porter

We’ve seen an up tick in stories recently about drug busts in schools in the region.  While no parent wants to see their kid on the wrong side of the law, it turns out that at least one of these ‘stings’ wasn’t quite the law enforcement coup touted to the news media.

The San Diego Sheriff’s Department’s ‘Operation A Team’ spent a year posing as students at four county high schools, scoring drugs at Poway, Mission Hills, and Ramona High Schools. The busts were announced with much fanfare recently, and the UT-San Diego even garnered an undercover interview with one of the agents.

Last fall undercover officers enrolled at Temecula high schools rounded up 22 ruffians in a similar investigation.

Yesterday the Press-Enterprise ran a story regarding a special education student recruited by a Temecula school official over the objections of his parents to pose as ‘bait’ in an on-campus sting. And it turns out this isn’t the only case involving a special education student and drug stings in the Temecula Valley Unified School District.

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Thumbnail image for Desde la Logan: Our Focus on Barrio Logan for-the-Month “Wrap Up”

Desde la Logan: Our Focus on Barrio Logan for-the-Month “Wrap Up”

by Brent E. Beltrán 05.09.2013 Columns

By Brent E. Beltrán

In April many of us here at San Diego Free Press focused our journalistic efforts on my community of Barrio Logan. Twenty three articles were written about this vibrant, working class neighborhood.

They were stories that broke the old stereotype of Barrio Logan being a violent, gang infested place where people are scared to go to. I’m proud that our little website that could helped advance the image that Barrio Logan is a beautiful place to not only live but visit and enjoy.

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Thumbnail image for Sex in San Diego: Pentagon Study Finds 26,000 Military Sexual Assaults Last Year, Over 70 Sex Crimes Per Day

Sex in San Diego: Pentagon Study Finds 26,000 Military Sexual Assaults Last Year, Over 70 Sex Crimes Per Day

by Source 05.08.2013 Activism

Editor: The following is a transcript of Amy Goodman’s program on Democracy Now from yesterday, May 8, that aired highlights from Tuesday’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on military sexual assaults . We also include the video – see below.

Democracy Now!

Anu Bhagwati, executive director and co-founder of Service Women’s Action Network, says this about the Pentagon report:

“The numbers are outrageous, and I think we’ve reached a tipping point. The American public is furious.”

NERMEEN SHAIKH: A shocking new report by the Pentagon has found that 70 sexual assaults may be taking place within the U.S. military every day. The report estimated there were 26,000 sex crimes committed in 2012, a jump of 37 percent since 2010. Most of the incidents were never reported.

The Pentagon study was published just two days after the head of the Air Force Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office was arrested for sexual assault for allegedly groping a woman in a Virginia parking lot on Sunday. The Air Force has removed Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Krusinski from his post.

At a Senate hearing on Tuesday, Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York questioned Air Force Secretary Michael Donley about sexual assault in the military.

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