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San Diego Residents: Keep San Onofre Shut Down

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By Michael Steinberg

A recent poll of Southern California residents found that most of them want to keep the troubled San Onofre nuclear power plant shut down . The poll also found that the residents don’t trust its majority owner and operator, Southern California Edison, to keep safety as its first priority at the nuke plant.

” A strong majority of Edison customers want to keep San Onofre shut down and almost half don’t trust Edison to put safety before profit,” environmental group Friends of the Earth reported on October 1.

Friends of the Earth (foe.org) commissioned David Binder Research to carry out the poll. The company talked to 700 registered voters in the counties San Onofre provides electricity to.

The results: “58% of respondents said they oppose reopening the plant…Only 32% said San Onofe should reopen,” Friends of the Earth reported.   [Read more…]

Eyewitness Account: Man Dies After Fatal Stabbing in Sherman Heights

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by Remigia (Remy) Bermúdez

According to witnesses, passers-by and police officers, at approximately 5:30pm on Monday (October 1st) an altercation that started in Logan Heights at 22nd Street and the southern side of Imperial Avenue resulted on a man stumbling down at the corner of 22nd and L Streets in Sherman Heights bleeding from repeated stab wounds. According to a SDPD press release, sent to this San Diego Free Press’s (SDFP) contributing writer, the man died en route to the hospital.  Homicide detective Lt. Duran added, “The deceased victim has been identified, but his name will be withheld until his family can be notified.”

 It was like a scene from a movie, as the SDPD corded off the area with yellow plastic tape, topping fences of surrounding properties in the eastern and western sides was 22nd Street from L Street heading southerly through what appeared to be Commercial Avenue. The area remained cordoned off from around 6pm Monday evening through Tuesday’s morning hours of October 2nd to protect evidence from being disturbed, according to SDPD officers.

The first media on the scene was the San Diego Free Press, as this contributing writer lives nearby.    [Read more…]

The Obsession of Right-Wing Media With an Imaginary Woman’s Success Story

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Alternet / By Joshua Holland (Originally published Sept. 21, 2012)

Conservatives talk a lot about “dependency,” but it’s not clear that they know what the word means. Consider, for example, the right’s bizarre reaction to a rather benign online campaign the White House pushed briefly earlier this year called “The Life of Julia,” a slide-show featuring a fictional Everywoman that was meant to highlight how Obama’s policies might improve the lives of average Americans.

  [Read more…]

Red States Outpace Blue States in Income Growth — Thanks to Food Stamps

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Alternet / By Sarah Jaff (Originially published Sept. 27, 2012)

Government programs are helping ease poverty in red states, despite the GOP’s best efforts.

Americans love nothing more than a good Red-State-Vs.-Blue-State argument, especially during election time.

So a new story in USA Today, looking at the changes in income, state by state, since the beginning of the Great Recession, of course breaks down the results into “red,” “blue” and “swing” states. It declares that red states have seen incomes grow 4.6 percent since 2007, adjusted for inflation, while blue states have only seen incomes grow 0.5 percent. In swing states?
  [Read more…]

5 Biggest Lies About America’s Public Schools — Debunked

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Alternet / By Kristin Rawls

Just weeks into the 2012-2013 school year education issues are already playing a starring role in the national conversation about America’s future. Because it’s an election year, the presidential candidates have been busy pretending there are many substantial distinctions between them on education policy (actually, the differences are arguably minimal).   [Read more…]

A Reading Guide to True the Vote, the Controversial Voter Fraud Watchdog

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ProPublica / By Suevon Lee (Originally published Sept. 27, 2012)

As Nov. 6 approaches, the efforts of True the Vote, a Texas anti-voter fraud group recently profiled by the New York Times, are gaining national attention.

Despite scant evidence of voter fraud, the group is laser-focused on weeding it out. It has pushed for voter-ID laws, voter roll purges and other controversial voting-related measures in a host of states. (Here is our guide to the voter ID controversy, where we note that evidence on both sides of the issue is lacking.)

  [Read more…]

GREGG ROBINSON: Candidate for County Board of Education

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By Mel Freilicher

Gregg Robinson is running as a candidate for the County Board of Education. He has dedicated his life to addressing, and working toward redressing, the growing inaccessibility of educational opportunities due to poverty. This is reflected in his scholarly research and publications, his career as a teacher as well as his ongoing involvement in community organizations.

Gregg’s Ph.D. is from UCSD: he has spent the last 22 years as a sociology professor at Grossmont College. Before that, he worked at UT San Antonio; Austin State; University of Maryland at Eastern Shore, and as a substitute teacher for the SD Unified school district. So while he speaks from experience, eloquently and directly, about issues concerning income gap and educational access and success, he also easily cites major studies from schools like Stanford or UCLA to substantiate his positions.   [Read more…]

San Diego Ashford University Ex-Employee Writes About Getting Shafted

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(Editor’s Note: We received this letter in response to a story that we ran this week about Bridgepoint Education/Ashford University laying off hundred of employees here in the San Diego area. Our premise for the original story was that Bridgepont/Ashford was just another in a long series of morally bankrupt corporations that have been touted as the darlings of the San Diego establishment. Our correspondent, who for obvious reasons wishes to remain anonymous, certainly does a good job of making the case for us.)

As a former employee of Ashford University, I am very upset with the way we were treated, lied to and disposed of by a company that found legal loop holes in the system that allowed them to take advantage of 450 people.

I was hired early in the summer and was told that we should not worry about the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) denial of the company’s application for accreditation, and that Ashford had already started making corrections to get the approval the next time around.
  [Read more…]

San Diego City Council Unanimously Denies Quail Brush Power Plant

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by Nadin Abbott/East County Magazine

September 24, 2012 (San Diego)–The mood was tense as people from multiple walks of life and political views filed into San Diego City Chambers. Among them was Republican Santee Councilman Jack Dale and Democrat David Secor, candidate for U.S. Congress for the 50th district. Both Dale and Secor came to oppose the Quail Brush gas-fired power plant.

So did Massada Disenhouse, activist for the Sierra Club and Martha Sullivan, a former California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) employee, and many others.

There were supporters of the plant as well, including Gary Salas, a member of the electrical trades. Also supporting the project was John Gibson, of Hamman Construction in El Cajon.

  [Read more…]

4 Ways Christianity Sneaks Into Our Secular Government — And Why it Matters

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Alternet / By Greta Christina (Originally published Sept. 14, 2012)

What often gets called “ceremonial deism” is all over our government.

“In God We Trust” on the money. “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. Creches and crosses on public land. Religious mottos on public buildings. Prayers starting public government meetings. Prayers in the public schools. If you didn’t know better, you’d think the religious right was right, and the United States really was a Christian nation.

Of course it’s not. The United States is a secular nation. The principle that citizens have the right to reach their own conclusions about religion, and that government should stay out of that choice, is deeply enshrined in the foundation of our government, in the First Amendment and elsewhere.   [Read more…]

Google News In Review: Sept. 14 through Sept. 21

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By Bob Dorn

A snapshot of the news featured by Google, the world’s leading aggregator, and what it left out.

When it’s at its very best, the news industry offers our eyes and ears reason to hope that we can find a voice that speaks like our own.

When I hear a presidential candidate say that half the country is comprised of “moochers” who are “dependent” on government to provide them the basic necessities of life, I should be able to hear or read an alternative position — something like this, for example: Professional politicians now are saying money is the mark of godliness, and the more of it they have the nearer to God (or the presidency, depending on which you think is more important) they become.

Last week, Mitt Romney and some of his supporters gave us the one view; no publication featured in Google News gave us the other.   [Read more…]

Sherman Heights March Highlights Poor Working Conditions at WalMart Warehouses

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By Nadin Abbott

The rally started at the Golden Hill park and made its way to the Sherman Heights Farmer’s Market — the future site of a new Walmart.

As the marchers came down the street, chants could be heard: “Walmart escucha, estamos en la lucha.” (Walmart listen, we are in the fight). “One, 2, 3, 4, we don’t want your Walmart store. Five, 6, 7, 8, Walmart discriminates. “¡El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido!” (The people united, will never be defeated.)

Nearly 1,000 people attended the demonstration, according to Lorena Gonzales, Secretary-Treasurer/CEO of the San Diego and Imperial Labor Councils. They came together from local unions and a long list of community groups to demand that Walmart treat its workers fairly.   [Read more…]

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