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Can You Hear Me Now? The Violence of Eastern Congo Is Calling

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by L.A. Moore

Ten thousand miles away, a small woman weeps into her delicate hands whispering the horrors she faces: Her husband was killed when he tended their crops. The rebels killed her son who tried to hide their money. The soldiers raped her. She has no home and no way to feed her children.

In this video from The Guardian UK, her voice comes across the miles from somewhere in Eastern Congo, where she and others pound mineral grit that will make a cell phone ring.

The grit from gold, coltan, tin and tungsten is used in the manufacture of electronic devices. The cellphone in your pocket or the iPad in your hands connect you directly to this horrific conflict.

Remember that film Hotel Rwanda, which brought the horrors of Africa violence into the mainstream American consciousness? Eastern Congo seems like Rwanda all over again. Who could forget exiting the theatre overhearing the same blithering comments: “Someone should have done something; all those people slaughtered ….”

Similar violence is taking place in Eastern Congo, and little to nothing is being done to stop it.   [Read more…]

Where Oh Where Have My Neighbors Gone? Redevelopment, Gentrification and Displacement in City Heights

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Perhaps what we call “diverse” communities are those that haven’t reached equilibrium, but are in the process of changing… Is there a stable equilibrium of genuine integration in this country?
Chris Hayes Up With Chris HayesJune 17, 2012

Before the housing bubble finally burst in 2008, taking the economy with it, the conversion of often aging rental housing stock to condominiums had been proceeding full bore. City Heights, ripe territory for sub-prime mortgages, attracted its share of condominium investments. To first time home buyers of limited income, these City Heights condo conversions offered a last chance for “affordable” home ownership, with units advertised in the mid to high $200,000 range.

One such condo conversion occurred across the street from me. The original 16 unit apartments, consisting of two long buildings of eight units each, were set back from the street with curb cut parking in the front and minimal landscaping in the Huffman architectural style. The owner spent little if anything on the external upkeep of the building. Like many parts of City Heights, the apartments looked like not much thought was given to them beyond their utility in providing the most basic level of habitability.   [Read more…]

Feminists Deliver a Big Can of Whoop Ass to Todd Akin

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For those of you who missed it over the weekend, Rep. Akin, who is running for Senate against the incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill, was asked whether or not he believed abortion should be legal in the case of rape or incest. He said:

Well you know, people always want to try to make that as one of those things, well how do you, how do you slice this particularly tough sort of ethical question. First of all, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.

But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.

So here’s a roundup of comments about Republican Voodoo Vaginomics from around the blogosphere.   [Read more…]

Power to the People or Power to the Corporations?

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In the quest for renewable sources of energy a battle is looming that most people are not even aware of. We need to replace electric power generated by coal and gas fired plants with power generated by solar and wind to be sure, but who owns the means of such production is a vital and crucial issue. Let’s take solar, for instance. There are two models basically to choose from. The first is the large solar installation in the desert owned and operated by the large power generating corporations like SEMPRA Energy.

That’s logical, you might say. There are acres and acres, square miles and square miles of desert real estate that is not much good for anything else. Why not build solar arrays there and truck the electrons so created via transmission lines to the urban areas where electricity is needed? The problem with this model is that transmission lines are inherently wasteful. Energy is lost for each mile the electricity has to flow to its destination just as water whose source is far away is evaporated and hence lost by canals as it traverses the route from source to destination.   [Read more…]

Putting the Sex Back in Birth Control: Why the Dominant Narrative on Contraception Undermines Young People

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by Andrew Jenkins, Choice USA

While I applaud Elizabeth Banks for her new ad supporting Planned Parenthood, birth control, and President Barack Obama–and wholeheartedly empathize with her personal story–I’m reminded of a sobering fact: the progressive community is deathly afraid of talking about sex and young people.

That’s right. I said it.

Between Banks new web promo aimed at female voters, Sandra Fluke’s testimony before Congress last February, and the reactive messaging around Rush Limbaugh’s vile comments, one thing has remained clear: our movement is far more comfortable elevating stories about birth control when they don’t involve sex. Pure unadulterated sex. Sex without the fear of an unintended pregnancy. You know… the primary reason young Americans use birth control.

And for arguments sake, maybe there’s a good reason for this. Maybe–just maaaayyyybe–we’re trying to appeal to conservatives. Perhaps we’re making our funders happy. Or maybe we’re just trying to sell a message that is palatable; easy to consume.

Nope. Bullshit. Not buying it.   [Read more…]

Papa Doug Manchester Plans 22-Story Skyscraper that Will “Transform” Mission Valley

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Originally Posted at OB Rag

The owner of the U-T San Diego, Papa Doug Manchester, unveiled his plans to “transform” Mission Valley recently, and at the top of his list of development for the San Diego River area is a 22-story containing 200 residences.   [Read more…]

The San Diego Public Market – A Force for Good (Food) Rising in Barrio Logan

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It’s a project that many would say, for a city of San Diego’s size and agricultural abundance, is one long overdue.

By John P Anderson

UDATE: 10:15AM- The San Diego Public Market has surpassed its fundraising goal.

The Barrio Logan neighborhood, just on the south side of Downtown San Diego, has a history similar to Little Italy, just on the north side of downtown. Both communities were severely damaged by the construction of Interstate 5 in the early 1970s. In the case of Barrio Logan, the Interstate construction lead to the creation of Chicano Park as a protest response to the development of the highway and damage done to the community as a result.   [Read more…]

The Big Little Fire That Never Was

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Returning from my much-ballyhooed drive out to El Centro on Tuesday – August 14th – I saw a wild fire that concerned me, but what I found out about it the next day disturbed me even more.

Driving out of downtown El Centro and hitting the freeway, I saw what looked like a tan plume of dust near Ocotillo – the tiny town on the edge of the desert. Oh, great, I thought, I might have to drive through a desert dust storm.

But as my rental car hurtled west on the Kumeyaay Highway with the a.c. nearly at full-blast, I could see that the dust storm was really smoke coming out of an area south of I-8 up in the mountains – not that near Ocotillo at all.

As I approached the mountains and began the climb up the steep incline, it was obvious that the brown-gray-white smoke was a wild fire up in the very rugged mountains, the eastern side of the terrain – south of the freeway – .
  [Read more…]

Our Poetry Place – WMD

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WMD

In countries

where people read

 

A writer

would rot in prison

for burning his president in prose

in the land that manufactured Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

remote-controlled drones   [Read more…]

Sex In San Diego: The War on Pubic Hair Must End

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KevinMD.com / Emily Gibson

I must have missed the declaration of war on pubic hair.

It must have happened sometime in the last decade because the amount of time, energy, money and emotion both genders spend on abolishing every hair from their genitals is astronomical. The genital hair removal industry, including medical professionals who advertise their specialty services to those seeking the “clean and bare” look, is exponentially growing.

But why pick on the lowly pubic hair? A few sociological theories suggest it has to do with cultural trends spawned by bikinis and thongs, certain hairless actors and actresses, a desire to return to childhood, a misguided attempt at hygiene or being more attractive to a partner. Surely human beings are not so naïve as to be susceptible to fashion trends and biases.   [Read more…]

DUMBSHIT Airways

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By Bob Dorn

Nowhere can ostentatious American dumb be seen in such sharp relief as when your international flight lands and you board the connecting flight home. Maybe you were impressed by the effete flight attendants and Spanish passengers who spoke your language and two others, but now, exhausted and nearly unconscious aboard the plane bound for San Diego, you look at the in‐flight television offerings and find blurbs meant to attract your eyes; words like these describing an installment in a Showtime serial: “Sean and Matt spend a day bonding together.”

Aside from the whisper of man‐sex in there, that blurb could only appeal to people whose kids bear those names. It’s a cinch that Delta did not for a minute consider offering Sean and Matt’s special day to fliers on the Madrid to Atlanta run; after all, passengers could see more interesting stuff going on in the seats around them. But look at the phrase, “bonding together.” That’s where stupid really lives in Delta’s in‐house tv guide. Which word could best be eliminated? Why didn’t Delta simply say S and M “spend a day together”? I know, I know, that’s inert, and lays there all flat, like Mitt Romney’s version of “America the Beautiful,” or the joke he might tell. Like Romney himself, the phrase, “spend a day together,” seems to lack something. So, the Delta blurber inserted “bonding.”   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – ‘Dump Romney’ GOP Group Surfaces Prior to Convention

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But he hasn’t even been nominated yet… Former backers of GOP candidate Rick Santorum have released a memo sent to delegates bound for the GOP convention later this month that calls for RNC delegates not to vote vote for Mitt Romney, even if they are bound to him.  Calling themselves “Jews and Christians Together,” the group briefly gained notoriety back in March for their connection with robocalls in Ohio that accused Romney of supporting “open homosexuality in the military, the appointment of homosexual judges, and the ENDA law, making it illegal to fire a man who wears a dress and high heels to work, even if he’s your kid’s teacher.”  Website Buzzfeed.com reports that “Jews and Christians Together” is the brainchild of Steve Baldwin, former head of the Council for National Policy, a low-profile, well-connected conservative group. The memo was reportedly sent out to 20,000 people in politics and the media, as well as RNC delegates.   [Read more…]

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