San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

You are here: Home / Archives for Columns / Editor's Picks

Stay the Course, Republicans! Billionaires Blowing Through Cash is Very Entertaining

by

By Bob Dorn

The Republicans may be catching a bad case of Campaign Contribution Fatigue.  It can lead to money failure.

JEB! has found out that fundraising $13.4 million and enjoying his last name and the family bank account aren’t enough to purchase the lead in the Republican race for the nomination to the presidency.   He’s behind Trump, Carson, Rubio and Fiorina, and tied with Ted (Vampiro) Cruz at fifth place among the 15 nuts and fruits still running.  

Gov. Chris Christie is near busted, with only $1.4M on hand in his account, which used to be enough to buy a New Jersey Congressional seat, and at any rate is not enough to shut the mouths of 67% of the state who say he should go AWOL from the platoon of declared candidates of his party.   [Read more…]

North of the Fence: Sex Parties and Lawsuits

by

By Barbara Zaragoza / South Bay Compass

Last week I focused on the U.S.-Mexico border after former Arkansas governor, Mike Huckabee, visited. I thought that would be the end of it–time to turn our focus on Chula Vista’s lawsuits. But nope. The border continues to be in the news this week, this time with the Union-Tribune reporting that employees, including a supervisor, in the San Diego sector of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) allegedly used government time to recruit workers for swinger parties. (What in the world?)

The headlines about alleged sex parties overshadowed an interesting KPBS report that migration from Mexico to the U.S. slowed to 164,621, down more than 41% from the previous year. Their source is the highly regarded organization El Colegio de la Frontera Norte (COLEF).   [Read more…]

Wonder Where San Diego’s Redevelopment Money Went?

by

…Not to address homelessness

By Jeeni Criscenzo/ Part one of a series

Since the statewide dissolution of redevelopment agencies in 2011 Katheryn Rhodes, a local advocate for homeless people, has been speaking up at City Council meetings about the millions of dollars that could be used to address homelessness that the City is letting slip away. You’d think that someone suggesting that there is money available for a problem that is starved for adequate funding, would get an eager audience. Problem is, no one seemed to understand the reams of spreadsheets and data the soft-spoken Rhodes provided to support her claims.

At a recent event, I told City Councilmember Gloria that I believe Rhodes claims have merit, but I’m at a loss how to explain it. He sighed, admitting no one seems to be able to figure it out. That’s actually progress because for the past five years eye-rolling has been the usual response to Rhodes’ requests to consider her findings. Reasonably smart people, myself included, assumed that since they couldn’t make sense of the myriad of acronyms, encumbrances and legal requirements Rhodes offered to support her claims, that she is either a financial savant or a flake. No one likes to admit that something is too complex for them to comprehend.   [Read more…]

Geothermal: The Other California Renewable

by

By Peg Mitchell / SanDiego350

Burning less coal, oil and gas is not only something we must do, but something we can do. Nature gives us a variety of renewable energy sources, and the technology to tap into them is getting better all the time.

Climate change makes the news often for a variety of reasons, from the multiple impacts we have been witnessing locally — drought, record-breaking temperatures, mudslides, fires — to the President’s issuance of the “Clean Power Plan” to the Pope’s encyclical. But ultimately climate change discussions must focus on economically viable solutions.

We are fortunate to live in a state that has ample natural non-fossil-fuel resources to provide electricity for our citizens. Not only do we have an abundance of sun to power solar generation, but we have a reliable steady-state resource right in our backyard: the Salton Sea Known Geothermal Resource Area in the Imperial Valley.

The geothermal fields near the Salton Sea are the hottest, most prolific resource in the U.S.   [Read more…]

San Diego Celebrates the Dead: Días de los Muertos 2015

by

By Brent E. Beltrán

Candles. Photos. Marigolds and other flowers. Some favorite foods. Maybe a beer or shot of tequila. We all remember differently our loved ones who have passed.

Some remember with regret, others with joy, sadness, longing. But we remember.

Death is but a natural part of life. We carry our dead with us in our hearts and some are hoisted upon the bony blades of their forbearers. But we remember.   [Read more…]

Thinking of Josephine and James and Langston and Other Gay Icons

by

By Ernie McCray

After writing recently about a five-year-old girl being kicked out of a Christian Academy, in what seemed to me to be an example of rampant homophobia in the black community, I began thinking “Is it just me?”

Then a childhood friend commented on what I had written with these words: “This is all new to me in the black churches… many gay persons played the music, sang in the choir, helped get those fashion shows together and no one said a mumbling word or they never appeared to out loud.”

What a relief to discover it just wasn’t me who feels the way I do because what my homey had to say is so how I remember things back in the day – so how I happened to live all these years thinking that black folks were okay with folks who are gay.   [Read more…]

Guns, Angry People and Mass Murders: The Cycle Continues Until We Stop It

by

By John Lawrence

We live in a sick society where little kids play violent video games, you can’t flip through the channels on a TV without seeing drawn handguns, and hunters use automatic weapons to kill innocent animals. It’s a culture of violence in movies and TV, a culture of violence in video games and a culture of violence in terms of unending wars and people blown to smithereens every night on the nightly news.

It was disheartening to me to see a few days after the horrific mass murder at Umpqua Community College, pro gun demonstrators protesting the American President as he landed there to give comfort to the families who had lost loved ones. Where were the anti gun protesters? Where were the ones who protested the taking of innocent lives by sick minds who are bolstered every day of their lives by a sick culture, a culture which glorifies and celebrates gun violence. It’s ubiquitous. It’s celebrated and it’s done in order to make money from “entertainment.”

That’s right. We’re entertained by people killing each other with guns. Is there an action movie in which there are no guns? I don’t think so. How many video games don’t involve the player or shooter not pulling a trigger. We train them up young with hand/eye coordination. Then we send them to schools in which there is no recess so that their energy and anger builds to the point that they feel justified in blowing people away for no justifiable reason.   [Read more…]

San Diego County Wage Board’s Heartbreaking Hearing

by

By Doug Porter

More than thirty low-income workers came before an ad hoc committee on Saturday to testify about the realities of low-wage life in San Diego County. Many wept openly as they told their stories, encompassing a range of human misery in sharp contrast with the image of San Diego as the economic juggernaut portrayed by civic boosters.

Tales of living without running water, of not being able to afford medication for sick loved ones, of having not being able to afford school supplies and more were heard by the panel composed of representatives from faith, academic, labor and business groups. Every one of the speakers was employed; some were working two or more jobs. None of them could make ends meet on the wages they were being paid.

San Diego’s regional forum was one of several dozen held around the country, with low-income workers also testifying in Denver, Phoenix, Atlanta, New Orleans, Detroit, Kansas City, Mo., St. Louis, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Houston and Milwaukee.
  [Read more…]

Turista Libre Teams Up With Tijuana Photography Festival

by

Turista Libre tour of Tijuana Photo Festival captures border town’s moment of change

By George Howell

What better way to get to a photography festival than to sit in an old school bus with the artist-organizers and a handful of curious Americans, listening to booming dance music while the eastern hinterlands of Tijuana whiz past your window?

On Saturday, October 3rd, I hopped on board the bus tour co-sponsored by Turista Libre, the Tijuana-based tour operator, and the coordinating team of the modest, but highly ambitious First International Festival of Photography Tijuana (FiFT). As artist Rebecca Goldschmidt told me, “We don’t just want to take people to the sites where the festival events are taking place. We want a dialogue.”   [Read more…]

In Drought Conditions, the Rich Are Using Millions of Gallons of Water

by

One San Diego Household Used an Astonishing 4.6 Million Gallons

By John Lawrence

Hey, we’re in a drought and people are being encouraged to take shorter showers and only wash their cars sparingly. But that doesn’t apply to the rich. They are using millions of gallons of water and neither the state or local water districts are limiting them in any way. The water bill for a 11.8 million gallon user in Bel Air for the 12 months ending April 1 was $90,000. This guy was only charged 0.76 cents a gallon! No wonder he consumed water excessively; it was so cheap! California is in the fourth year of a water crisis, but the rich are using water as if there were no tomorrow.

Mother Jones nailed the zip code data on this, although no water district would reveal their excessive users by name. Privacy trumps the public’s right to know who these water gluttons are, but it’s not hard to guess. They all come from exclusive neighborhoods.

Take San Diego, for instance. There are 92 persons or families who have consumed more than a million gallons, mainly in La Jolla and Carmel Valley. The biggest single user in San Diego was someone who consumed 4.6 million gallons in a year. Anybody want to step forward and admit what a scofflaw you are and try to justify your excessive water usage?   [Read more…]

“Express Yourself”

by

Acknowledging the Playwright Project’s
“Deborah Salzer Excellence in Arts Education Award”

By Ernie McCray

Being recognized
for any contribution
I’ve made to the arts
is like being recognized
for breathing
a breath,
like being identified
for being myself –
as I was raised by a mother
and a grandfather
and a great-aunt
and cousins
and a church
and more than a handful of neighbors
and a teacher or two
at a segregated school
to,
in the spirit of the Golden Rule:
Express myself.   [Read more…]

Sunshine/Noir II: A Continuing Exploration of Literary San Diego and Tijuana

by

San Diego City Works Press Celebrates 10th Anniversary with Anthology:
“Sunshine/Noir II: Writing From San Diego and Tijuana”
Friday, October 16th at 6:00 PM at the Glashaus Mainspace
 1815 Main Street in Barrio Logan

By Jim Miller

This fall, San Diego City Works Press marks its 10th anniversary with the release of Sunshine/Noir II: Writing from San Diego and Tijuana, an anthology of local writing about San Diego edited by Kelly Mayhew and myself.  

Sunshine/Noir II is dedicated to the late local poet Steve Kowit, who was an original member of the San Diego Writers Collective and, as so many San Diego writers can attest to, a fellow traveler and one of our community’s great treasures. His work appears in the anthology along with poetry, fiction, and nonfiction from Sandra Alcosser, Marilyn Chin, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Stephen-Paul Martin, Mel Freilicher, Elizabeth Cazessús, Perry Vasquez, and many more. Local journalist Kinsee Morlan formerly of San Diego City Beat as well as Doug Porter, Anna Daniels, Brent Beltran, and Frank Gormlie of the SD Free Press and OB Rag appear in the anthology along with former SDUT Book Review editor and columnist Arthur Salm.
  [Read more…]

©2010-2017 SanDiegoFreePress.org

Code is Poetry