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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…]

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…]

Straight from the Pit of Hell: Lethal Injections, the Truth about Turd Blossom and Fukushima’s Cherry Trees

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The SDFP Science Corner, because science is now a liberal conspiracy

By Anna Daniels

It has been an amazing week in science. The bones of the world’s largest dinosaur were discovered in Argentina, scientists appear poised to turn light into matter and the 12,000 year old skeleton of a young girl found in an under water cave in Mexico offers new information about the evolution of Native Americans.

This week in chemistry: The recent botched execution by lethal injection of an Oklahoman inmate has spurred discussion by citizens and members of the medical and legal professions, as well it should. The use of lethal injection for executions has been grotesque in its results.   [Read more…]

Say “No” to Mayor Faulconer’s Library Budget Shell Game

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Library materials budget reduced by $500,000 to pay for pilot after-school program

By Anna Daniels

Library supporters across the city breathed a collective sigh of relief when Mayor Jerry Sanders was termed out. Faced with a tanking economy and structural deficits, his top down leadership style coupled with the demand for centralized control and uniformity had a uniquely savage and disproportionate impact on the library department.

Children in low income neighborhoods were left without computer access when the hours were cut; seven neighborhood libraries were threatened with closure; material budgets were slashed and staff was cut to the bone. By 2011 the library budget had been reduced 22.2% from 2007 levels, while the police department had realized a 9.6% increase in funding and fire a 14.4% increase in that same period.

When Bob Filner was elected, his proposed library budget included additional hours of library operation. This was part of his platform of shifting General Fund support back to neighborhoods. It appeared that Sander’s vindictive, out of touch brand of cronyism carried out by capo Kris Michel and spinmeister Gerry Braun had ended. A more cynical explanation provided by a city council member was that the economy was improving and that explained the additional hours.

It is budget time for fiscal year 2015. Filner is gone as well as Sanders. We are now getting a glimpse of the budget priorities and management style of our third strong mayor, Kevin Faulconer.   [Read more…]

Straight From the Pit of Hell! The SDFP Science Corner

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Because science is now a liberal conspiracy

By Anna Daniels

It has been hard for some of us here at SDFP–ok, hard for me– to shoe horn in a few words on this particular site about the discovery of a new dinosaur, recent revelations about the universe or how jellyfish are becoming our evolutionary overlords and crazy ants are making people crazy in Texas, which is already a crazy enough place. Science, people! But finding the grassroots news or progressive views angle hasn’t been all that easy.

And then a new breed of Republican, as in back to the Dark Ages “new,” dropped science right into our liberal laps. This same breed of Republican who gets elected to public office because he doesn’t believe in government, is now sitting on science and technology committees because he doesn’t believe in science. And yes, most of them are “he.” The fervid religious beliefs and ignorance that have existed at our societal fringe are now firmly ensconced in school curricula, state legislatures and the Congress of the United States.
  [Read more…]

Video Pick: The-Dream’s “Black” and Saturday Poem: “The Great Pax Whitie (Peace be Still)” by Nikki Giovanni

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“The Condemnation of Racism Must Make Itself Manifest Now”

By Anna Daniels

Vigilante rancher welfare queen Cliven Bundy’s recent musings on “Negro” history, the Supreme Court decision on affirmative action, and NBA Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s racist “etiquette” pointers for his girlfriend are the past week’s dismal trifecta of old white male willful ignorance.

Yes, Meat with Eyes Sean Hannity quickly distanced himself from Bundy’s “maybe slavery was better” ravings. There was an immediate outcry over everything that was in the Sterling tape and I’m not willing to stick my hand into that particular septic tank to fish out an example. The good news being peddled is that as a society we know an old white male racist when we see him and we won’t stand for it.

But before we get all self-congratulatory, the Supreme Court decision upholding Michigan’s affirmative action ban shows how little we are willing to deal with institutional racism, which is quite different than recognizing your garden variety racist.   [Read more…]

National Poetry Month: Ending with a Bang, not a Whimper

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“Poetry doesn’t belong to those who write it but to those who need it.”

By Anna Daniels

So, is “April the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.”? T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

or is April when

“the ponds open
like black blossoms,
the moon
swims in every one;
there’s fire
everywhere…”? Mary Oliver, Blossom

And here we are on May’s cusp– “depraved May, dogwood and chestnut, flowering judas”–except when it isn’t because a different poet thinks about May in a completely different way.

Poetry is the Big Bang of language, beginning with a singularity of individual expression that spawns whole universes of thought, emotion and even action. Poetry enables the universe to know itself, express itself in an utterly astounding way by virtue of the human capacity for language.

Fleas are incapable of writing poetry about themselves. We do it for them…because we can.   [Read more…]

Poem of the Day: “When Death Comes” by Mary Oliver

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“I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.”

Introduction by Anna Daniels

SDFP readers submitted more requests for Mary Oliver’s poetry than any other poet. Oliver’s unique form of poetic consciousness blurs the boundaries that separate the human from the natural world. “At its most intense, her poetry aims to peer beneath the constructions of culture and reason that burden us with an alienated consciousness to celebrate the primitive, mystical visions that reveal ‘a mossy darkness – / a dream that would never breathe air / and was hinged to your wildest joy / like a shadow.'”   [Read more…]

Poem of the Day: “Just Another Day” by Sandra María Esteves

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Introduction by Anna Daniels

Sandra María Esteves is a madrina–founder– of the Nuyorican poetry movement that began operating out of East Village cafés in the 1970’s. She describes herself as a “Puerto Rican-Dominican-Boriqueña- Quisqueyana-Taino-African-American,” born and raised in the Bronx. Her explorations of identify are as informed by the Civil Rights and liberation movements of minorities and women as by her own personal heritage.   [Read more…]

Poem of the Day: “Ode to a Composting Toilet” by Sharon Olds

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“Poetry is the music of being human.”

By Anna Daniels

Sharon Olds has the ability to write poetry about “unpoetic” life events with a provocative boldness. Her poem The Pope’s Penis immediately comes to mind. The results are nevertheless quite poetic in their use of form and language. She is also known for her versatility. Her poems about familial relationships can sizzle and crackle with rage and anxiety. Olds’ poems about sex are about more than what bodies do, although she describes that. Sex is wrapped in often disjunctive raw emotions. It is that coupling of body and feeling that shocks.   [Read more…]

Poem of the Day: “Quagmire” by Kyle Dargan

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“Biology all makes sense if you live long enough.”

By Anna Daniels

Bill Moyers has long been a champion of poetry. Last year he ran a memorable poetry series on Moyers and Company. It was so memorable that a number of readers sent me the link as a source for poems this month. Kyle Dargan is a young professor of writing and literature at American University. He has three award winning books of poetry under his belt and he has a beautiful reading voice.   [Read more…]

Poem of the Day: “Enigmas” by Pablo Neruda

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Translation by Robert Bly

By Anna Daniels

Nobel Prize winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda is well known for his love poems which have been translated by such luminaries as WS Merwin and Robert Bly, both poets in their own right. Matilde Urrutia, who is the subject of a number of those poems, has been described as his muse of love. Neruda hearkened often to the muse’s call.

Less well known are his keen observations of nature that reflect an inquisitive and informed intellect. His poems about birds in Arte de Pájaros/Art of Birds as well as those about the sea and sea life are as sensual in their language as the love poems.   [Read more…]

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