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The Tuna Boat House

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Steve Schoenherr / South Bay Compass

The house that stands today at the corner of Oaklawn and D Street in Chula Vista is unique in the South Bay. It was built by Lorne Dunseith during World War II and looks like a boat. In fact, it is a boat.

Dunseith had moved to San Diego in 1934 and lived in a trailer court on National Avenue until he was ready to build a house. However, he had trouble getting building materials during the war until he heard about the tuna boat “Lusitania” that was being stripped down to the keel for renovation. He bought the old top of the tuna boat and had it transported to his lot in Chula Vista for $120.

He put the main deck on a cement foundation and added a second story that had the same appearance as the lower deck. He kept some of the original portholes, converted others to normal windows, but kept the brass fittings for use inside the house. He made a staircase out of the wooden rails taken from the outside top deck. The wheelhouse was removed from the top of the boat deck and became a separate building next to the house.

Despite grumblings from some neighbors, his do-it-yourself project passed building inspection and he moved in with his wife Nell in 1950.   [Read more…]

Central American Refugee Families Once Again Crossing the US-Mexico Border

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It’s only a matter of time until one of the nattering nativists at Fox News ‘discovers’ the latest wave of refugees from Central America showing up in ever-increasing numbers at our southern border.

The number of unaccompanied children crossing the US-Mexico border over the past two months has more than doubled over the same time period in 2014. Health and Human Services Secretary Burwell has notified congress that the Administration for Children and Families — the HHS agency responsible for caring for the migrant children — could face significant funding problems, even with budget numbers requested by President Barack Obama.

The US Border Patrol has already opened shelters in Texas and California. Figures for October and November indicate that 10,588 unaccompanied children along with 12,505 family members crossing together have been apprehended at the US-Mexico border.   [Read more…]

New Laws from the Republicans’ Alternate Dimension: Obama Forbidden to Mention Climate Change

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In addition to repealing Obamacare for the 457th time, Congress has been busy with a new agenda. HR 4031 will officially make it illegal for President Obama to attend any more climate change conferences. In fact, he won’t even be allowed to mention climate change in his upcoming State of the Union (SOTU) speech.

As part of the Fossil Fuel Enhancement Act of 2015, Governor Jerry Brown of California will be forced to abandon his plan to decrease greenhouse gas emissions. Instead, he has been ordered to increase greenhouse gas emissions and to give subsidies to automobile manufacturers as long as they don’t convert to electric engines.

As part of the Act, subsidies have been increased to ExxonMobil by $5 billion to further encourage them in the fine work they’re doing promoting and selling fossil fuels.   [Read more…]

Carlsbad Report on Caruso’s Lagoon Mall: Close Enough for Government Work?

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By Richard Riehl/ The Riehl World

On February 23 the people of Carlsbad will vote on Measure A, an L.A. developer’s attempt to bypass normal city and state reviews, allowing him to build a thirteen-acre shopping center overlooking the Agua Hedionda lagoon.

The City council’s staff report claims to be an “impartial planning, policy, economic, and environmental analysis” of Rick Caruso’s lagoon mall plan. But I was reminded of a summer job I once had with the Washington State Highway Department, working to keep contractors honest by testing their highway asphalt samples.

I learned how politics trumped highway safety when my supervisor kept telling me to re-test failed samples until they passed. I guessed he didn’t want to bring bad news to his boss’s desk. So I stopped bringing it to his, following the advice of my fellow workers, the lab’s old timers, “Close enough for government work.”   [Read more…]

Excerpt From Sunshine/Noir II: San Ysidro Blues — 30 Years After the Massacre

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By Francisco J. Bustos

I remember playing on the kitchen floor when the shots started firing.
I remember my cousin and I running outside the apartment, like many others did.
The sound of bullets instantly changed everybody’s eyes and nobody could
explain it.
We lived on Sunset Lane, just a couple blocks, de aquel Mac Donals, 30 years ago.
We jumped outside at the sound of more bullets,
if we could make it to the corner, we could catch a glimpse of our San Ysidro
Boulevard.

I don’t know why we tried running to that corner. Something pushed us. With every step that we took, more shots sliced the air,
and more shots and more shots, again and again and again.   [Read more…]

Pinyon-Juniper Forests: The Oldest Refugee Crisis

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My thoughts race with yesterday. My friend Max Wilbert and I left Park City, Utah in the pre-dawn bitter cold crossing the Wasatch Mountains that form the eastern edge of the Great Basin. The drive west from Salt Lake City on I-80 is disorienting. We began the journey with the radio on. We both became too frustrated by news of another politician refusing to accept refugees, so we turned the radio off to watch the land as we traveled.

Interstate 80 took us past the sites of some of the West’s most destructive extraction industries including Kennecott Copper’s Bingham Canyon Mine. The Oquirrh Mountains stand tall on the Salt Lake Valley’s west side, each peak a majestic testament to the forces of beauty who formed the Great Basin.

Each peak, save one.   [Read more…]

Now Is The Time to Welcome Refugees, Not Shut Them Out

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By Rebecca Paida

Now is the time to welcome refugees, not shut them out. Given the recent controversy over refugees, I am compelled to write about my refugee story and call on cities to create inclusive Citizen Commissions on Refugee and Immigrant Affairs. My refugee journey began in 1997 when my family escaped from Sudan to join my father in Nairobi, Kenya. We stayed in Kenya for nearly three years as part of our vetting process.

During this time, we were subjected to rigorous and comprehensive background and health screenings. My parents provided a myriad of confidential documents to different U.S. agencies, participated in live interviews, as well as attend a mandatory cultural orientation. On June 3, 1999, my family and I came to the United States as political refugees and began establishing our roots in the City Heights neighborhood of San Diego, California.   [Read more…]

Restraining Order Offers Glimpse into Escondido School Board Follies

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Sometimes big headlines result from big spin. Take Escondido, for instance. Politicians in that north county bastion of reaction have mastered the fine art of drama when it comes to politics.

Whether it’s banning immigrants from renting homes, terminating a social service agency’s contract in retaliation for its speech, and enforcing a restrictive ordinance that stifled rallies and demonstrations, the yokels in America’s 11th most conservative city know how to stand the truth on its head to advance their cause.

From the mindset that imagined refugees from Central America were here to sell drugs, spread disease, and rape their daughters, comes the story of poor hard working Republican school board members being bullied by a mean old Latino Democrat.   [Read more…]

The Feast Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe

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On December 12th millions of Catholics will go on a pilgrimage to the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City. They will celebrate the feast day of the Virgen de Guadalupe, which has been a national holiday in Mexico since 1859.

Tijuana, too, has its pilgrimage to their most beloved church: the Cathedral of Our Lady Guadalupe. Located in the heart of downtown, the Church is considered a historic site.   [Read more…]

It’s Time for Quantitative Easing for People Instead of Banks

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Income Inequality is Getting Worse

Income and wealth inequality is only getting worse. It’s not hard to understand why. Certain corporations have a lock on economic activity throughout the world. Mom and Pop operations have been forced out of business or have merged with the Big Guys. Artificial intelligence, automation, robots and computers have taken over many menial but used-to-be-better-than-minimum-wage jobs like check-out clerks, bank tellers and customer service operators. Other jobs have been off shored to cheaper labor jurisdictions.

The rest of us, college graduates included, have been reduced to being expendable appendages of the large corporate machines to be sucked in and spit out at their pleasure. When our skill sets are outmoded, we will be laid off and fresh talent will be acquired. The job pool is shrinking because the number of necessary jobs is shrinking. Today, there are approximately 1.2 million fewer jobs in mid-and higher-wage industries than there were prior to the 2008 recession, while there are 2.3 million more jobs in lower-wage industries. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics most jobs in the next decade won’t even require a college education. They are jobs that can’t be done by robots: care givers, nurses, house cleaners, gardeners, retail.

Another reason for income and wealth inequality is that the US Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing policy screws savers who get zero interest on their life savings while injecting money into the largest Wall Street banks. This money is siphoned off by wealthy investors and hedge funds. It never enters the real economy. It only encourages the average Joes and Janes to take on more debt. Ninty percent of the money supply is created by private banks who loan money into the economy through their policy of fractional reserve banking. As the money supply increases, so does debt.   [Read more…]

“Those People”

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I just got back from a Paul Laurence Dunbar Junior High Reunion. Dunbar was Tucson’s first-thru-ninth grade school for “colored” kids aka Negroes.

Many of us show up at the school’s auditorium, the Friday after Thanksgiving, every two years. As black people and/or African Americans.

And let me tell you, it’s so nice to be among people who were at your side when you were a kid growing up trying to figure out how to make it in a world where you’re looked at as “Those people.” People to be looked down upon.   [Read more…]

Energy Democracy: Inside Californians’ Game-Changing Plan for Community-Owned Power

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Large utility companies control about 75 percent of the electricity market in California. A hybrid between a public agency and private utility, the new Community Choice program is a model for communities that want greener, cheaper energy.

By Al Weinrub / Yes!

On September 21, Pa Dwe, a 16-year-old student at Oakland’s Street Academy, spoke out against the export of coal through the Port of Oakland to City Council members: “I’m opposed to this coal export because it will make my community in West Oakland sick. I support jobs, but not the kind of jobs that make us sick. There are clean job alternatives, like Community Choice energy, and this will be good for the health of my community. This is my generation; I want to have a healthy life.”
  [Read more…]

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