The group Artcolectivist on November 18th decided to assist the proto-type border wall testing effort by seeing how the models stand up to light graffiti. As one member of the group explains “Always, from the beginning, the way to face the power of the government has been with humor and with comedy”. [Read more…]
Letter from Puerto Rico: ‘56 days after Maria and honestly everyone here is tired’
By Jessica Carrera
Hola mi tia.
Well yeah there was another “blackout”. Which is funny because most of us don’t have lights anyway and are using generators. On Sunday my neighborhood got lights. We heard “llegó la luz llegó la luz,” turned our breaker on and we are pretty much the only house now on my block with no lights. I had a meltdown and could only sit and cry.
The electric company told Eduardo that it would be a few weeks before our lights come on because of the downed electric pole from the hurricane that is still on the patio. Which they didn’t remove! “Few weeks” in Puerto Rico time is months. No lights or cookies for Christmas. [Read more…]
Accolades for Maria Garcia, ‘La Neighbor’
“I always knew that knowledge could not be taken away.”
Over the course of one extraordinary week Maria Garcia was recognized for her work in historical preservation and documentation in Sacramento and as a Latino Champion and as Citizen of the Year here in San Diego. Maria is well known to San Diego Free Press readers for her award winning weekly series “The History of Neighborhood House in San Diego.”
Maria turned that series of stories about the lives of a forgotten and overlooked community into the book “La Neighbor: A Settlement House in Logan Heights.” By showing how residents lived their lives — worked, voted, raised their families — she firmly established them, Neighborhood House and Logan Heights in the history of San Diego.
Maria’s contributions have not gone unnoticed. The San Diego Union-Tribune selected the retired school-principal and longtime Chicana activist as a Latino Champion. She received a prestigious Governor’s Historic Preservation Award for “La Neighbor.” On the same day that she received the Governor’s Award in Sacramento, she flew back to San Diego just in time to receive the Citizen of the Year Award from the San Diego Chapter of Phi Delta Kappa, the professional educational honor association. [Read more…]
San Diego’s Community Choice Energy Technical Study Stands Up Under Scrutiny
Conservative Assumptions Camouflage this New Energy Option’s Benefits
By Tyson Siegele / San Diego 350
San Diego struggles under the yoke of the highest electricity prices in the state. Meanwhile, thousands of cities across the United States have executed a plan to reduce their electricity prices, called Community Choice Energy. City officials hired an expert to determine if Community Choice would work here too. The technical study, also know as the feasibility study, found that San Diego would benefit from Community Choice, just like thousands of cities before it.
In July, when the City released the technical study, several publications such as the San Diego Union Tribune and the Voice of San Diego highlighted the main finding of the study: “San Diego could provide cheaper, greener energy than SDG&E.” Now, having had several months to digest the findings and compare them to Community Choice Energy programs across the state, additional conclusions can be teased out of the study. [Read more…]
Readers Write: Another ‘Business As Usual’ Fixer at City Hall Won’t Help the Homeless
By Martha Sullivan / San Diego Housing Emergency Alliance
Longtime mayoral fixer, Kris Michell, returns to San Diego City Hall this week as Deputy Chief Operating Officer. She seems to be Mayor Faulconer’s “Jared,” with a wide-ranging portfolio:
“Michell was announced Sept. 28 as a top city adviser on homelessness, special events, corporate sponsorships, the commission on arts and culture and the city’s redevelopment arm, Civic San Diego.”
Michell returns to City Hall after several years doing much of the same as the head of the Downtown Partnership — the Business Improvement District for downtown. This city-sanctioned partly-funded entity has been a primary tool for persecuting unsheltered San Diegans left with nowhere to live, after the city’s replacement of 10,000 low-income housing units with market-rate/luxury development (mostly downtown) since 2010. This devastation started during her six years as chief of staff for Mayor Jerry Sanders. [Read more…]
San Diego’s Cruelty Toward Homelessness Must Stop – Progressive Activist Calendar November 10 – 20, 2017
Oh, San Diego: just how low can you go? How about shutting down a church-based program to feed the hungry right before the holidays? Or making it illegal for charitable groups to feed the homeless? Or trying to arrest your way out of the problem?
According to Fox 5 News, the La Jolla town council is demanding the Mary Star of the Sea church put an end to the nine year old ‘So Others May Eat’ program of feeding homeless and low-income people. And pastor Jim Rafferty agreed, saying “I don’t want to be known as the pastor that brought Hepatitis to La Jolla.”
The El Cajon City Council has bought into the idea that harassing homeless humans will make the problem go away, passing an emergency ordinance prohibiting food distribution on any city-owned property. Hundreds of activists from throughout the region will be converging on Wells Park on November 19 & 25 to test the city’s willingness to enforce this law. [Read more…]
Immigrants and Allies Rally Nationwide for a Clean Dream Act
Thousands of people in Washington DC and ten states rallied today to demand Congress pass a clean version of the Dream Act, a replacement for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program ended by the Trump administration. Students walked out of classes on at least four San Diego campuses in support of this action.
While there has been lip service by Congressional Republicans on passing some version of this legislation, the GOP leadership is insisting on adding measures to escalate border security and deportations. Senate Republicans are saying they have no plans to consider any bills this year.
“Operation Clean DREAM Act Now” is demanding Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, and congressional leaders allow a vote on a clean Dream Act—meaning a bill free of any poison pills ramping up Donald Trump’s mass deportation force—as soon as possible. [Read more…]
Press Issa to Support a Clean Dream Act Now | Video Worth Watching
With the imminent expiration of DACA in March 2018, the ACLU of Northern California, the ACLU of Southern California and the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties have initiated a campaign, “CA is my home”, to pressure key California representatives to actively support the House bipartisan Dream Act and pass the bill by December 2017. The key representative for the San Diego area is Darrell Issa. In the last election Issa lost to his opponent, Doug Applegate, by about 7 percentage points in San Diego County. It was the Orange County voters that tipped the total in his favor, allowing him to retain his seat. Issa should be feeling vulnerable. [Read more…]
Let’s Talk About The Real Winners of the 2017 Elections
Some pundits called last night’s elections a blue wave, as Democrats just about ran the table in competitive districts coast-to-coast. Others called it a repudiation of Trump.
Let’s tell the truth here. Yes, the most of the victors in the 2017 general election had a (D) next to their name, but the people who made it happen were led by political newcomers. And a disproportionate number of those doing the hard work were women and people of color.
Diversity and campaign themes not fitting on the front of a red baseball cap were the real winners. Healthcare mattered. Confederate statues didn’t. [Read more…]
Two More Knees Need Attention
Camp Lejeune’s history of poisoned drinking water causing illness, disease, birth defects, and death is one all Americans should hear about
By Nancee Kesinger
This tale of two knees is timely and true. The first knee is mine, touching down to meet the cool tile floor of a hospital exam room a few weeks ago in mid-September. Yes, I am the person kneeling, yet the story is not mine.
Far from stadium crowds and television cameras, under fluorescent clinical lights that render no warmth, I tilt forward out of my chair to approximate eye level with my loved one who is lying face down on the low table enduring the physical pain of a bone marrow biopsy and aspiration. He has the pose of a day-dreaming sunbather with arms raised above his shoulders and hands casually crisscrossed under his head, but this beautiful black man doesn’t need a tan, and his relaxed position betrays some starker truths.
My taking a knee on this day is wholly in support of this glad-hearted and serene Marine—my partner of many years, my significant other, my mate—who is learning on this day the complete details of his alarming, week-old leukemia diagnosis (cancer of the blood and bone marrow). [Read more…]
Protests Organized Against El Cajon Ban on Feeding Homeless
The city of El Cajon has bought into the idea that harassing homeless humans will make the problem go away, and activists around San Diego are pushing back with actions possibly including civil disobedience starting on Sunday, November 19.
The East County city with nearly one in four people living in poverty and a soaring rate of homelessness has passed an emergency ordinance prohibiting food distribution on any city-owned property.
What this means is serving meals to groups of homeless people in parks and other public spaces is now against the law in El Cajon, along with panhandling, sleeping on the sidewalk and setting up encampments. [Read more…]
‘Pursuit’ – a Time-Lapse Extravaganza of Cloud and Thunderstorm Poetry in Motion | Video Worth Watching
While the weather here in San Diego hasn’t been as dramatic as depicted in this video, it has definitely taken a more winter-like turn in the last few days. We’re not likely to see the kind of activity captured in this video in the San Diego region, but thankfully storm-chaser Mike Olbinski created a montage of some of these dramatic Plains states events. Near the end (beginning at around 6:18) it features a rare cloud formation—undulatus asperitas—only recently acknowledged by the World Meteorological Organization in its International Cloud Atlas as a distinct category. [Read more…]
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