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Alliance San Diego Joins more than 150 Groups in Amicus Brief to Support President’s Immigration Actions

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By Staff

President Obama’s recent immigration actions would allow millions of immigrants to apply for relief from deportation and work authorization, and would improve the nation’s economy and society, civil and immigrants’ rights groups argue in an amicus (“friend of the court”) brief filed on April 7. This brief was one of several filed in support of the Obama administration’s immigration actions, which economists predict will raise the nation’s GDP by more than $200 billion over the next ten years.

“The relief proposed by the President would make a tremendous difference in San Diego,” said Andrea Guerrero, executive director of Alliance San Diego. “It allows students who grew up here and graduated from a local high school, to pursue their studies without fear of deportation. It also allows parents of U.S. citizens to remain here to support their children and contribute to our economy.”   [Read more…]

Fallen Leaves

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By Viet Mai

My grandma died
and I don’t know how to cry about it.

I was too busy working.
Too busy playing Halloween.
Too busy trying to create a future,
that I forgot about losing my past.

My bloodlines feel so thin at times,
it’s no wonder why I get anemic.   [Read more…]

Last Will by Steve Kowit

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By Steve Kowit

A message from the SDFP editors: Last year we kicked off National Poetry Month with a selection of works by San Diego poets. Steve Kowit was one of those poets. We are deeply saddened to learn of his death. The encomiums that he deserves and the extensive remembrances of his life as a poet, essayist and educator will be forthcoming. But at this moment, in this place, we remember Steve’s poetry and what he had to say about poetry making.

Poetry, when it is at its most ineffable, transports us to places we had no reason to believe language could take us. …   [Read more…]

Nuclear Shutdown News – March, 2015 Edition

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By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press

Nuclear Shutdown News chronicles the continuing decline of the US nuclear industry, and highlights efforts of those who are democratically working to bring about a renewable energy future. As nuclear plants in the US are approaching or surpassing their 40 year operating life, their ability to operate properly and safely lessens, creating more and more problems across the nation.

Here’s our March report:

Diablo Canyon – Last Nuke Plant in California

On February 20 a Federal Court of Appeals in Washington DC rejected an attempt by Pacific Gas & Electric and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to quash a lawsuit filed by environmental group Friends Of the Earth (FOE).  According to FOE, the suit alleges that the “NRC illegally allowed PG&E to alter Diablo Canyon’s nuclear plant license.” And …   [Read more…]

Readers Write: Super-Sizing the Crawford High School Stadium

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An Open Letter to the San Diego Unified School District and the Board of Education

By Jim Zumbiel

We in the El Cerrito Community, along with other neighborhoods all around the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD), have been under siege by SDUSD for the last few years and would like to respectfully pose some questions to SDUSD and Board of Education.

The proposed plan from SDUSD is to build an 18 million dollar sports complex at Crawford High School which will include a 2250 seat stadium in the residential El Cerrito neighborhood of San Diego. This school has not received any improvements, besides a new library and an internet upgrade, since its inception in 1957. It’s the last school in the district to receive upgrades of a substantial nature.   [Read more…]

A Note About the 50th Selma Jubilee March

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By Rev. Richard Lawrence

March 7, 2015 is a Saturday that will live forever in the hearts of every freedom-loving citizen in the world who caught the news about the 50th Selma Jubilee March.

That day found me completely overpowered with emotions as my four grown kids and I pushed to stand as close as we could to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma to hear our President speak.

I had marched in Selma in 1965, and I remembered the terror of being in a place where I was not wanted and where the opponents of voting rights for Black Americans were uninhibited in demonstrating their first Amendment right to freely express their disdain for our cause and savagely denigrated us for our misguided choice of lovers.   [Read more…]

Donna Frye: An Ode to Open Government – ‘Let the Sun Shine In’

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By Donna Frye / OB Rag

This past week, March 15 – 21, the annual celebration called Sunshine Week took place throughout the nation. It was started over 10 years ago by the American Society of News Editors, with its goal being to –

“enlighten and empower people to play an active role in their government at all levels, and to give them access to information that makes their lives better and their communities stronger.”

From news organizations large and small, the public learned about Sunshine Week and why open government matters. The Des Moines Register ran a series of editorials, guest views and features on the importance of open government. The Washington Post encouraged us to “think about how the federal government can be more open to the public” as they checked “on recent efforts to increase transparency.”And the Sioux Falls Business Journal noted in their headline that “every week should be Sunshine Week in S.D.”   [Read more…]

Water Issues for Laypeople: How the Otay District Works

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Do you know where your water comes from? Do you know where it goes after it runs down your drain?

By Barbara Zaragoza / South Bay Compass

I didn’t either, so in these troubled times when most media outlets are up and arms about the California drought, I went directly to the Otay Water District to find out.

The General Manager, Mark Watton, and the Otay team of employees were friendly and incredibly knowledgeable about water. In addition, I got the feeling they wished more citizens knew about their work because water, after all, is our most essential human resource.

On the other hand, if I can summarize California water in one word, I would say: CONFUSING.   [Read more…]

The New American Order: On the Path to Plutocracy

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1% Elections, The Privatization of the State, a Fourth Branch of Government, and the Demobilization of “We the People”

By Tom Engelhardt / TomDispatch

Have you ever undertaken some task you felt less than qualified for, but knew that someone needed to do? Consider this piece my version of that, and let me put what I do understand about it in a nutshell: based on developments in our post-9/11 world, we could be watching the birth of a new American political system and way of governing for which, as yet, we have no name.

Whatever this may add up to, it seems to be based, at least in part, on the increasing concentration of wealth and power in a new plutocratic class and in that ever-expanding national security state. Certainly, something out of the ordinary is underway, and yet its birth pangs, while widely reported, are generally categorized as aspects of an exceedingly familiar American system somewhat in disarray.

  [Read more…]

Caravan 43 to Travel Across the U.S.

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Events and actions to be held in San Diego on March 23 & 24

By Miguel Cid

On Tuesday March 10th at San Diego City College a press conference was held announcing the upcoming arrival of three caravans planned to begin travelling across the country, including one which will arrive in San Diego on March 23. All caravans will include students from Ayotzinapa and family members of some of the 43 normalistas that went missing from Guerrero, Mexico, this past September, with remains of all students except one yet to be found.

The arrival of one of the three caravans in San Diego on the 23rd will be the beginning of more than 45 cities in the U.S. that will be visited. The U.S. is also the first country outside of Mexico to call for action.

“One is the caravan Pacific that is going from San Diego to the Seattle. Then there is a caravan in the center of the country that is going from Texas up to Chicago. Then you have a caravan in the Atlantic coast that will travel up—and the three caravans will travel to Washington D.C. and end in New York,” said panel member and San Diego City College Professor Enrique Davalos.   [Read more…]

National City’s Mariachi Festival Set for March 14th

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By Barbara Zaragoza / South Bay Compass

It’s time for the Third Annual Mariachi Festival! National City expects between 10-15,000 people to join in the fun. Last year they had 11,000 people, making it one of the largest mariachi events in San Diego County.

This year, National City has invited mariachi students from throughout the United States and Mexico. At least 10 groups will compete and professional judges will hand out awards based on their stiff rubric.

The festival — which is free to the public — will also include ballet folklorico, a live Latin Band, carnival game booths, a beer garden and food.   [Read more…]

Activists Call on DA Dumanis to Act on Thousands of Petitions for Re-Sentencing Under Proposition 47 (Updated)

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We were misled…

 

There was a story here claiming the County DA’s office was refusing to process petitions for re-sentencing under the provisions of Proposition 47, which reduced penalties for drug possession and other minor offenses.

We have since learned that the source for this assertion was, at best, exaggerating.

Since nothing ever truly goes away on the internet, we’ve left the headline up and hope to correct any false impressions that had been made.   [Read more…]

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