Four of us from my support group had tickets to see “Man of La Mancha” Sunday, August 19, 2012 at the Cygnet Theatre. (Thanks to Ro who ushers at the theater and is paid in “vouchers” for performances.) We decided to go early to find a parking place and then have lunch before the play. We arrived at 12:30pm and had no trouble parking in the little lot attached to the Cygnet. Everyday in Old Town is a parking/eating nightmare, but Sunday has to be the worst. [Read more…]
Archives for August 2012
Pondering the Definition of a Green Leaf
(Thoughts About Jerry Brown and Proposition 30)
I treasure such images as the one I saw earlier on this hot San Diego Monday morning: the vision of a nice number of San Diego City College students walking down hill in front of the B Building on their campus, heading for some trees for shade to listen to their governor, Jerry Brown, speak at a Press Conference regarding Propositon 30 – an initiative designed to raise as much money as possible to arrest the slow death of our schools. Their schools.
Nothing inspires more hope in me regarding the future of our species than seeing young people rising to remodel their world for the better. I hope that’s their intent, getting out there and talking to as many friends and family and others in their community as they can about how Proposition 30 is one of the most important proposals of our time, about how the learning needs of our children and young people or any active learner, for that matter, should be among our highest priorities as a state. [Read more…]
The Starting Line – The Huge Impact of the Republican Medicare Plan in the San Diego Area; It Ain’t Pretty
Sorry, gang, I’m taking a day off today. I had a little medical “procedure” yesterday, and need to take a day off from typing. I’ll be back tomorrow. In the meantime, I hope you’ve got a rather large cuppa joe at your side, because I’m sharing a report issued by the Democratic Staff of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce that details just what the “Republican Budget” has in mind for seniors and people with disabilities who happen to live in the San Diego area.
The budget passed by House Republicans in April 2011 makes radical changes to Medicare. The Republican plan raises costs for seniors and individuals with disabilities enrolled in Medicare, reduces their benefits, and puts private insurance companies in charge of the program. For current beneficiaries, important benefits – such as closing the hole in Medicare’s drug coverage – would be immediately eliminated. For individuals age 54 and under, Medicare’s guarantee of comprehensive coverage would be replaced with a “voucher” or “premium support” to buy private health insurance. By design, this federal contribution does not keep pace with medical costs, shifting thousands of dollars in costs onto the individual.
This analysis shows the immediate and long-term impacts of these changes in the San Diego metro area. The Republican proposal would have adverse impacts on seniors and disabled individuals in the region who are currently enrolled in Medicare. [Read more…]
Please Stop with the War Memorials!
By Dave Patterson
Recently I have been reading about the need to better the existing, or build more war memorials. I disagree that we need more or better memorials. In fact I believe that we already have too many Veterans memorials and I will argue that we need to remove some of the ones we already have. And yes, we can do so while still honoring our Veterans.
There are a lot of war monuments in Washington D.C. where Mr. Scruggs points our thoughts. There are war memorials specific to the military branches. There are statues of tired soldiers, flaming swords and waves and dolphins and fountains and granite obelisks and walls with tens of thousands of names of U.S. killed. There are salutes to those that served, and those that were injured and those that died, and those that loaded the bombs or dropped them, and those that slogged through the snow or jungle being killed and maimed while killing people that were defending their homeland against us. [Read more…]
Interview : Author Selden Edwards Talks About Time Travel and Time Dislocation
By Kit-Bacon Gressitt / Excuse Me, I’m Writing
Native Californian Selden Edwards is a born teacher, a convenient fact for a lifelong educator, Edwards’ career until his 2003 retirement. Except he didn’t stop teaching, not after the novel manuscript he had nurtured for 30 years became, in his supposed retirement, a 2008 best-selling novel — “The Little Book,” a story of time travel that carries protagonist Wheeler Burden from 1988 California to 1897 Vienna. Neither did Edwards stop teaching with his second novel, a sequel set in 1918, called “The Lost Prince,” from which he will be reading Friday at Warwick’s in La Jolla.
Even a recent phone interview — and a lively, fast-paced interview it was — turned into an enthusiastic introduction to the United States’ Progressive Era, a brief overview of existential individualism, and a synopsis of the Gilded Age. It seemed a natural and perfectly entertaining teaching opportunity, as are his novels. [Read more…]
Feminists Deliver a Big Can of Whoop Ass to Todd Akin
For those of you who missed it over the weekend, Rep. Akin, who is running for Senate against the incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill, was asked whether or not he believed abortion should be legal in the case of rape or incest. He said:
Well you know, people always want to try to make that as one of those things, well how do you, how do you slice this particularly tough sort of ethical question. First of all, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.
But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.
So here’s a roundup of comments about Republican Voodoo Vaginomics from around the blogosphere. [Read more…]
“We’re Winning”: The Ryan Pick, Obama, and the Future of American Democracy
Mitt Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan as his VP makes clear what vision he has for the American future: One Market Under God
Mitt Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan as his VP makes clear what vision he has for the American future: One Market Under God. This grand dream is put in stark contrast to the Republicans’ absurd fantasy of Obama’s big government tyranny. If only we could return the country to the days of unfettered markets and bigger tax cuts for the affluent, all will be well. As absurd as their economic delusions are, it’s worth reminding ourselves where the last several decades of moving precisely in this direction have landed us.
In The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future, Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz outlines what by now is a sadly familiar story about the American economy: it’s a rigged game. Specifically Stiglitz thoroughly documents how recent income growth has occurred almost entirely in the top 1 percent. He notes how this has led to growing inequality and how those at the bottom and middle are worse off today than middle class and working class folks were at the beginning of the century.
To make things worse, Stiglitz illustrates how the inequalities in wealth are even greater than those of income. These inequalities show up not just in people’s pocket books but also in their general standard of living and health. During the last few years, those at the bottom have been most hurt by the recession but the middle class has been hollowed out too.
[Read more…]
Man, Oh Man! A Review of ‘Man of La Mancha’
MAN OF LA MANCHA”
Cygnet Theater Review
Old Town, San Diego
619-337-1525
Dear Reader,
I am so sorry that I did not see this play earlier than today. It was absolutely wonderful. The acting was superb, the singing extraordinary, the adaptation to a small theater was marvelous.
The audience was on their feet before the final strains of the last song. [Read more…]
Power to the People or Power to the Corporations?
In the quest for renewable sources of energy a battle is looming that most people are not even aware of. We need to replace electric power generated by coal and gas fired plants with power generated by solar and wind to be sure, but who owns the means of such production is a vital and crucial issue. Let’s take solar, for instance. There are two models basically to choose from. The first is the large solar installation in the desert owned and operated by the large power generating corporations like SEMPRA Energy.
That’s logical, you might say. There are acres and acres, square miles and square miles of desert real estate that is not much good for anything else. Why not build solar arrays there and truck the electrons so created via transmission lines to the urban areas where electricity is needed? The problem with this model is that transmission lines are inherently wasteful. Energy is lost for each mile the electricity has to flow to its destination just as water whose source is far away is evaporated and hence lost by canals as it traverses the route from source to destination. [Read more…]
The Starting Line – The San Diego Public Market is on Its Way; Overwhelming Public Support Makes It Happen
San Diego Public Market is on its way to becoming a reality, having surpassed its kickstarter.com crowd-sourced goal of raising $92,000 in half the time (seven days) allotted. As of this morning 1130 backers had pledged $116, 643 towards rehab costs for the two acre plus space, located in Barrio Logan, not far from Petco Park. The additional funds over the original target will be used towards the launch of the Food Hall and the Market Kitchen at the market.
Plans for the market include two days a week with farmers’ stalls, booths with local crafters and artists, music festivals, movie nights and quinceañeras, chef’s tasting events and art exhibits, along with the occasional Chaldean Festival, Chinese New Year’s parade, Filipino fiesta or charity fundraiser. The weekly farmers markets in the space will begin within a few weeks. The idea is to create a City Public Market along the lines of Seattle’s Pike’s Place, San Francisco’s Ferry Building or Barcelona’s La Boqueria. [Read more…]
Why Statewide Regulations Are Needed for the Ban on Plastic Bags
*Editor’s note: While written from the point of view of the city of Santa Cruz, this article presents a good argument for a ban on plastic bags at a state level — something we are moving closer toward with AB 298.
Originally appeared in the Santa Cruz Sentinel on July 12, 2012
OK — banning plastic bags has reached the “copy me, copy you” stage.
It probably just seems that everywhere a shopper turns these days, it’s “Do you have your own bag?” — or “that will be a dime for a paper bag.”
The city of Santa Cruz, usually at the forefront of environmental causes, became the latest, but probably not the last, local government to ban single-use plastic bags, with the 6-0 vote by the City Council Tuesday night. The ban will take effect in nine months. [Read more…]
Democrats Fight Back; Republicans and Their Media Friends Get the Vapors
Forgive me, but I’m not prepared to join this walk down Great Umbrage Street just yet. Yes, it’s ugly out there. But is this worse than four years ago, when Obama was accused by the GOP vice presidential nominee of “palling around with terrorists”? Or eight years ago, when Democratic nominee John Kerry was accused of falsifying his Vietnam War record?What’s different this time is that the Democrats are employing the same harsh tactics that have been used against them for so long, with so much success. They have ceased their traditional response of assuming the fetal position when attacked, and Obama’s campaign is giving as good as it gets — and then some.
Bullies don’t like it when their targets punch back, which is why the GOP is apoplectic right now. I mean, their reaction to Biden’s “chains” thing is comically hysterical. And Mitt Romney is genuinely unhinged.
I’m not sure why Republicans think that crying and whining about the big bad meanie Democrats is such a political winner. It never worked when Democrats tried it (just ask John Kerry). [Read more…]
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