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Archives for May 2014

Why Is CA Senator Ben Hueso Abstaining on Fracking Moratorium Bill?

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SB1132 still short of passage

By Anna Daniels

California is indisputably faced with extreme drought conditions throughout the state. It is a manifestation of the effects of climate change. If there is a time when our elected representatives are needed to be thoughtful stewards of our water, land and air, it is now. That stewardship is reflected in policies and legislation which will have impacts far beyond the short shelf life of any given politician.

California Senator Ben Hueso, who represents San Diegans in the 40th District, has decided to abstain on voting for Senate Bill 1132 which would impose a moratorium on extreme oil extraction methods in California. This includes hydrofracturing, or fracking, and acid well stimulation. That abstention puts him at odds with a recent poll that reveals that a majority of California voters oppose fracking.
  [Read more…]

How Many Votes Will Two Million Dollars Buy in California? GOP Gubernatorial Candidates to Find Out Tuesday

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By Doug Porter

Republican Neel Kashari is about to find out whether or not two million dollars of his personal fortune is enough to win a spot in the November 2014 California gubernatorial contest.

The latest set of polls, via Stanford University’s Hoover Institute and San Francisco’s Public Policy Institute, point to a June 3rd victory by Tea Party favorite Tim Donnelly. Despite endorsements from GOP luminaries like Condoleezza Rice, Mitt Romney and ex-Gov. Pete Wilson, TV ads and huge financial advantage, Kashkari’s only hope at this point seems to lie in winning over undecided voters in the primary.

Donnelly is counting on grass roots support, saying the election is about a “divide between the common man and political elite.”  His campaign claims the unanimous endorsement of California GOP county parties and points to their 4,100 donations compared Kashkari’s slightly more than two hundred donations as proof of this point.   [Read more…]

One-Day Art Show Highlights Fight Against Toxic Pollution in Barrio Logan

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“Until Our Last Breath” features more than 20 barrio artists at Chicano Art Gallery

By Mia Bolton

Artists, residents and friends of Barrio Logan, with the help of Chicano Art Gallery, join forces this Saturday for a one-night-only art exhibit to tell the story of how corporate greed and pollution affect the health of Barrio Logan community members.

The exhibit, Until Our Last Breath: Barrio Artistas Contra San Diego’s Toxic Maritime Industry, features original paintings, drawings and sculpture from local artists and many Chicano Park muralists, such as Victor Ochoa, Mario Torero, Berenice Badillo, Armando Nuñez, Stephanie Cecilia Cervantes, Hector Villagas, Patricia Aguayo, Mario Chacon and Isaias Crow.   [Read more…]

Beating Marlboro to the Joint: How Federal Prohibition Allows Micro Marijuana Companies to Thrive

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It’s the first time in economic history that a growing, multi-billion market has no big, multinational players. 

By David Downs / AlterNet

Friday afternoon in a cozy, hip bar in downtown Oakland, California called Cafe Van Kleef, and I’m sitting across the table from the frizzy-haired, denim-jacket-clad blogger for StuffStonersLike.com. He’s sliding a glimmering, dark, cigar-looking package across the table as a big smile breaks out across his face.

“Is this it? This is awesome!” he exclaims, holding up the Schedule 1 illegal drug.

None of the happy hour crowd or the bartenders seem to care. This is Oakland — among the most progressive cities in America, where marijuana is officially the “lowest enforcement priority” for the police.

StuffStonersLike’s founder has a medical cannabis doctor’s recommendation, there are pot clubs down the street, and even though pre-rolled joints are literally given away for free in the San Francisco Bay Area, he’s mesmerized. The office workers enjoying cocktails don’t bat nary an eyelash.

Call it ‘the Cohiba of chronic’.  Or, ‘the seventeen dollar doobie.’ This spring, celebrity pot professor Ed Rosenthal brings to market the Ed Rosenthal Select Sativa Medi-Cone — an elegantly packaged, $17 marijuana cigarette that’s destined to give weed heads a major buzz and legalization’s critics fits.   [Read more…]

Some Thoughts on the Isla Vista Killer

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By John Lawrence

Elliot Rodger left a 140 page document which is a truly revealing window into his soul. After reading this “manifesto,” which is really more of a life history, his twisted life which led up in painful stages to his “Day of Retribution” becomes, if not excusable, at least more understandable. And understanding why people feel impelled to do these horrific acts is important if we are to come to any conclusions which just might prevent more of these situations in the future.

Understanding is more important than condemning. It’s not about Rodger, at this point, or his victims. Nothing can be done to bring them back. But lessons can be learned about what went wrong in this young man’s life and what could have been done to deflect him from his ultimate course. After all, right up until the end he expressed some tiny bit of hope that his life would take a more positive turn, and he wouldn’t be driven to commit the crimes that he did.   [Read more…]

Many Thanks, Maya

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By Ernie McCray

Many Thanks, Maya

I miss you, Maya,
but you will forever reside
in the breezes of
the breaths of fresh air
you gifted us with
when you were here,
ever so lovely and dear,
so wise beyond any years,
captivating us with your smile
and your wit
and your humor, all the while,
teaching us the ways of “We,”
you, him, her, them, me –
all of humanity. …   [Read more…]

Balboa Park 2015 Centennial: Rising from the Ashes?

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By Doug Porter

Let’s start with some good news for a change. (Because the last item in this column is truly depressing!)

Activist David Lundin, along with representatives from the Balboa Park Committee of 100, the Save Our Heritage Organisation and preservationist/developer Sandy Shapery have joined together to craft a major event for the Balboa Park Centennial celebration in 2015.

Today they’ll be talking up a Community-conceived, planned and organized long weekend event [dates to be determined] in Spring of 2015 to both celebrate the Park’s past and work to secure its future. While specifics have to be determined, subject to public input, the general idea is to “Spring to the Past” throughout the park.   [Read more…]

Straight from the Pit of Hell: Do You Have the Right to Know How Many American Children Die from Gun Violence?

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The SDFP Science Corner because science is now a liberal conspiracy

By Anna Daniels

“As harsh as this sounds – your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights.” Samuel Wurzelbacher (aka Joe the Plumber)

Let’s get right down to it. How many dead kids are we talking about? Doesn’t the public have the right to know how many dead kids are watering the tree of liberty with their blood?

The short answer is that we don’t know and if Congress continues to have its way, we will never know. ProPublica reports that “Since 1996, when a small CDC-funded study [Center for Disease Control] on the risks of owning a firearm ignited opposition from Republicans, the CDC’s budget for research on firearms injuries has shrunk to zero.”

Gun violence data, firearm safety and gun violence prevention are removed from the realm of public health discussions and research because Congress is cowed by the NRA leadership, gun manufacturers and the lobbyists they employ.   [Read more…]

Reclaiming Public Spaces: The Art of the Alley in Logan Heights and North Park

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By Avital Aboody

Last weekend, hundreds of San Diego residents picked up shovels and paint brushes to successfully beautify and activate four alleyways in North Park and Logan Heights. The Media Arts Center on El Cajon Boulevard started the “Take Back the Alley” initiative three years ago by converting their parking lot into a beautiful outdoor events area. But this is the first time that the initiative has actually expanded into the alley (spanning the two blocks between Kansas and Ohio Street), as well as three parallel projects in Logan Heights! For more about how this project got started, read my previous article: Take Back the Alley!   [Read more…]

Carlos and Linda LeGerrette Named Mesa College 2014 Distinguished Alumni

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By Lina Heil / San Diego Mesa College News

For more than 50 years, San Diego Mesa College graduates (Class of 1969) Carlos and Linda LeGerrette have been committed to service, equality, education, and social justice. On Saturday, May 17, at the college’s 50th commencement exercises, the couple was named the recipients of the college’s 2014 Distinguished Alumni Award.

“Mesa College is where we cut our teeth. It was our beginning. Without the great teaching and guidance from our professors I doubt very seriously that we would have the foundation necessary in making the wonderful and challenging decisions that have brought us to where we are today. Mixed that together with our work with our mentors, Cesar Chavez and Sol Price, we are truly a couple totally blessed,” said Linda LeGerrette.

As students at San Diego Mesa College in the mid-1960s, the young couple was inspired primarily by Professor Gracia Molina de Pick, and started a student club that would later become MEChA. Inspired by Molina de Pick, they attended a meeting of the local support group of the Delano grape strike, and their life’s path was sealed.   [Read more…]

The ‘Big Deal’ about Prevailing Wage in Escondido

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By Don Greene / Escondido Democratic Club

At the final public hearing on the proposed city charter, Mayor Abed was cavalier enough to admit that he was “championing the charter proposal” and that while it was about home rule, mostly it was about preventing the city from having to pay prevailing wages. What’s the big deal with prevailing wages, anyway?

In a report issued by the Center for Policy Initiatives (CPI), the outlook for working families in San Diego county is bleak. For a family of 4 with a preschool aged child and infant, both parents need to make an hourly salary of $20.06 for the family to be self-sufficient. That’s not a combined minimum hourly wage; each parent must make the $20.06 to live a basic life in San Diego without relying on public or private assistance.

County-wide, there are 13,395 workers in the agricultural industry, with 65.2% of these workers living below the standard of self-sufficiency. This is the population hardest hit by salary inequality. 40.9% of those in construction are below the self-sufficiency standard and 37.7% of those in retail sales positions also fall short. In terms of ethnic groups, Latinos (who make up 49% of the population of Escondido) are effected the most with 58.9% of those workers living below the self-sufficiency threshold.

These numbers are particularly telling for Escondido.   [Read more…]

Vote Like You Mean It on June 3rd – The Bad Guys Certainly Will

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By Doug Porter

The 2014 primary elections in California are just a week away. I’ll go out on a limb here and predict victories for well-funded incumbents and many causes supported by a minority of the public. The reason is simple. People aren’t voting. When people don’t vote, bad things can and do happen.

It wasn’t supposed to work out this way. The “top-two” primary system opening the ballot to all voters, reformers told us, would increase turnout as decline-to-state voters, once excluded from partisan races, became more engaged.

What the experts haven’t taken into account is the collateral damage from increasingly cynical and factually challenged campaign advertising. Now that restrictions on campaign funding are largely absent, the noise level is rising and the bullshit is getting deeper. People are getting more conditioned to swallow the lies; it’s less work that figuring out the truth. And the course of least resistance is to do nothing, as in not vote.   [Read more…]

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