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Archives for January 2013

The Dove and the Cockerel: Chapter 18

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“There, pull up next to that van and stop,” said the big man. The van, an older brown-colored Dodge Caravan, sat parked next to the rear door of the bar.

Josef did as he was told.

“Wait here. Don’t even think about leaving. If the thought does cross your mind, Habib, just remember, I’ve seen what your family looks like and I might be inclined to pay them a visit.” He smiled menacingly as he got out of the cab and dashed the few short yards to the rear door of the bar and disappeared inside.

Josef turned around and looked down at the small man in the back seat. He turned back, raising his eyes, and sighed. The big man paid him; he was probably going to let him go, he thought. Wait here, that’s the best thing to do. It will all be over in a few minutes. Just a few more minutes.   [Read more…]

Two Sets of Two Moms on My Mind

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After receiving an invite to a baby shower
for my rather new friends, Alanna and Jan,
I thought to myself: Man,
it’s so nice to have lived
to see a new day
when human beings who are lesbian or gay
can more and more
feel that they
don’t have to tuck themselves away
uncomfortably in shadows of dark places
where no one should ever have to reside,
let alone stay –
What I’m getting at is, hey, the “closet” back in my day
was as crowded as Yankee Stadium
on opening day.   [Read more…]

Restaurant Review: The Beach House in Cardiff

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The Beach House

2530 South Coast Hwy 101
Cardiff, CA 92007
(760-753-1321)

One of the benefits of “on-line dating” is that you do not want to invite your “date” to your home so you meet at a coffee shop, or a restaurant, or someplace that is out in the open. Today, I elected to meet Richard at the Beach House” restaurant in Cardiff for lunch because he lives in San Clemente and it seemed like a good “half-way” place to meet.

The restaurant is on the beach just foot-steps from the Cardiff State Beach. There is outside as well as inside seating, and we elected to eat inside at a window seat because it was windy and cool outside. Although not the first ones there at 11:30am, there were only 2 other tables occupied – one outside and one inside. As it got later, there were more diners but never more than 8 tables filled at one time.   [Read more…]

Marijuana Smoothie, Anyone?

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By Laura Gottesdiener / Alternet

One of the nation’s leading cannabis doctors has an idea for a New Year’s diet: a marijuana smoothie. Dr. William Courtney, who has spent years researching the potential health benefits of medical marijuana, argues that juicing whole hemp plants can provide a host of healing properties, ranging from pain relief to even helping prevent diseases like cancer.   [Read more…]

Showdown at San Onofre: Why the Nuclear Industry May Be Dealt a Big Blow

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By Harvey Wasserman / Alternet

Two stricken California reactors may soon redefine a global movement aimed at eradicating nuclear power.

They sit in a seismic zone vulnerable to tsunamis. Faulty steam generators have forced them shut for nearly a year.

A powerful “No Nukes” movement wants them to stay that way. If they win, the shutdown of America’s 104 licensed reactors will seriously accelerate.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – ‘Second Amendment’ Nuts on a Roll: Gunnuttia Sweeps the Nation

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As Vice-President Joe Biden’s task force has been meeting with pro-gun and gun safety groups over the past week, it’s dawned on the extremists in the mix that something more than rhetoric might actually happen in the wake of last months school shooting in Connecticut.

The report that some actions to regulate or oversee gun/ammo sales might come about through executive order has sent some advocates into a frothing frenzy. Today’s column will focus on their statements and attempt to place these firearm fanatics into a context that makes sense.

This week in gunnutia kicked off when Radio Host Alex Jones went on a scathing pro-gun tirade on Piers Morgan’s CNN show, saying: “1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms! Doesn’t matter how many lemmings you get out there on the street, begging for ’em to have their guns taken. We will not relinquish them. Do you understand?!”   [Read more…]

Desde la Logan: January Happenings in Barrio Logan and Beyond

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Sometimes I take for granted the things that are happening in my barrio and the surrounding areas. I consider myself lucky to live in a community that cherishes culture in all it’s varied forms. I have Chicano Park, The Roots Factory, The Spot Barrio Logan and The Voz Alta Project all within two blocks of my apartment. My community is a living creature, alive and vibrant, with culture oozing out of it’s streets and alleys like sweat from a worker’s brow. For the most part I know what is going on around here.

Because I usually know the haps in Logan I sometimes fail to realize that others may not know what’s going on. Therefore as a service to not only my community but also the greater San Diego community at large I will regularly compile a list of cultural and activism related events that will be taking place. This list will not only feature events taking place in Barrio Logan and the rest of the Historic Barrio District but events elsewhere in San Diego that I think readers of this column and San Diego Free Press should consider attending. Most will be hosted by the places I normally frequent (and places I should frequent normally) and many will be related to Chicanismo, Native issues, lefty causes and other stuff that I’m down for. Please support these grassroots cultural happenings, spaces and organizations by attending their events and, if so inclined, throw a few bucks their way.   [Read more…]

San Diego’s Hunger Coalition: Working to End Hunger

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By Brigitte Taylor

The San Diego Hunger Coalition (“SDHC”) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving access to and participation in federal food programs. They educate and advocate on the local, state and national levels with a vision of extinguishing hunger and malnutrition within the County.

In light of the flurry of charitable acts that traditionally emphasize holiday giving, I wanted to explore what we can do on an ongoing basis to assist local food and nourishment-related programs any time of the year.   [Read more…]

Film Review: Smiling Through the Apocalypse, and the Sixties (at the Palm Spring Films Festival, January 3-13)

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By Bob Dorn

Apparently, we made it through the Apocalypse. It wasn’t the most recent one, predicted to accompany the exhaustion of the Mayan and Olmec peoples’ Long Count calendar last December. Instead, it was the one so many of us lived through starting some 50 years ago, the one we like to say lasted a decade, the 60s.

Back then, half of us seemed to aspire to higher consciousness and the other half of us learned to run from people who told us to travel astrally, or to go to Vietnam to kill Vietnamese, or to get a PhD in business management or to go out of our minds simply to find out what that might be like.   [Read more…]

Extreme Weather Watch: 2012 Was Warmest Year Ever For US

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The average temperature for 2012 was 55.3 degrees Fahrenheit, 3.2 degrees above normal and a full degree higher than the previous warmest year recorded — 1998 — NOAA said in a recent report. All 48 states in the contiguous U.S. had above-average annual temperatures last year, including 19 that broke annual records, from Connecticut through Utah.

It was also a historic year for “extreme” weather, scientists with the federal agency said. With 11 disasters that surpassed $1 billion in losses, including Superstorm Sandy, Hurricane Isaac, and tornadoes across the Great Plains, Texas, and the Southeast and OhioValley, NOAA said 2012 was second only to 1998 in the agency’s “extreme” weather index. However, the dollar costs may well indeed pass the 1998 level because of the severity of the events.

The average temperature for the US was 55.3 degrees, one full degree hotter than the previous record in 1998 and 3.2 degrees hotter than the 20th century average. Nineteen states — including Texas, New York, Ohio and Oklahoma — had their highest annual average temperatures on record; 26 others had years that ranked in the top-10 hottest ever.   [Read more…]

Riding the Rails in the West – the State of Amtrak – Part 2

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One Zephyr too soon –

By JEC / Special to San Diego Free Press

News item, December 26th, China debuts the longest bullet train in the world. From Beijing to Guangzhou a distance of 1,428 miles, the ‘new’ train will serve 35 cities and cover the distance in under 10 hours, averaging speeds of 186 mph. The old train, the shame of Wuhan took almost 24 hours to cover the 1,428 miles. Hold the phone – the bad old train served the same 35 cities covering the 1,428 miles in less than 24 hours at an average speed of 60 mph. If we only had it so good.

Amtrak’s Premier West Coast train, the Coast Starlight is very similar; 1,377 miles from LA to Seattle with 30 stops in between. But it takes the Starlight over 34 hours, making an average speed of only 40.1 mph. If the Coast Starlight could match the old average speed of China’s Beijing to Guangzhou train of 60 mph, the trip would take less than 23 hours.   [Read more…]

Some ‘Why?’ Questions – Part 3 of a Cultural Comparison: Gun Violence in the US and Europe

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Continued from Part 2
By Frank Thomas and John Lawrence

WHY does America’s weakly regulated gun culture vs. that in Europe correlate to out-of-sight gun homicide rates in the U.S.? One WHY answer is that there are higher levels of U.S. criminality compared to England, Switzerland, Norway, and other EU countries … illustrated by the number of U.S. citizens in prison per 100,000 population of  750 ± vs. 100 ± in the EU! (see European Institute for Crime Prevention & Control, “International Statistics on Crime and Justice,” 2010).

Our sub-cultures of violent and less violent crime justify for many Americans the constitutional argument of self-defense, thus allowing high cartridge capacity, semi-automatic firearms of all sorts to roll off gun manufacturers’ production lines. We are at a crossroads … where it’s not only the high gun ownership level that contributes to high homicide rates but also the high level of crime and military-style killings by the emotionally unbalanced (as occurred in Newtown) that motivate more people to acquire guns for self-defense.   [Read more…]

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