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The Trans-Pacific Partnership Vote: A Character Defining Moment

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A couple of weeks ago, Bill McKibben penned a very sharp editorial in the New York Times in response to the Obama administration’s choice to allow drilling in the Arctic noting that, “The Obama administration’s decision to give Shell Oil the go-ahead to drill in the Arctic shows why we may never win the fight against climate change. Even in this most extreme circumstance, no one seems able to stand up to the power of the fossil fuel industry. No one ever says no.”

Indeed, it is precisely this kind of political cowardice that may very well cost us far more dearly than we can imagine. In his defense, Obama went to Twitter and had little to offer other than red herrings and equivocation about the limitations of existing regulations.

But the bottom line could not be clearer: in the face of a stark moral choice, the President punted.   [Read more…]

C.H.E. Cafe Makes SOHO “10 Most Endangered List” for 2015

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By Monty Kroopkin

The Save Our Heritage Organization (SOHO) has announced its 10 Most Endangered List for local historic sites for 2015. The C.H.E. Café is on the list. The list was revealed at SOHO’s annual People In Preservation (PIP) dinner on May 21, 2015.

According to SOHO President Jaye MacAskill, it was explained during the PIP Awards dinner that “Ché Café is one of those beloved, old hangouts at UCSD that devoted students and alumni will always want to revisit. It may be the last remnant of 1960s counterculture on this campus, and a symbol of free speech served up with an earthy menu. Which is to say, Ché Café is beloved not at all by the university. SOHO supports students and others who argue that history, ‘even history rooted in revolutionary ideas and discourse’ deserves a place at the increasingly crowded UCSD table.”   [Read more…]

Wishing a World that Vibrates Hope for My Offspring

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By Ernie McCray

All I can think of since the birth of my granddaughter, Marley Mandela, is how she and her brother, Lyric, personify my hopes for a better world being born someday.

But I’m just a hopeful kind of being any old way, even considering all I’ve seen since I arrived on the scene 77 years ago, what with Jim Crow and wars and all.   [Read more…]

The History of Neighborhood House in Logan Heights: Gilbert Reyes and Los Lobos

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Lowriders. Metal taps on shoes. Club jackets. These expressions of 1950s popular youth culture were evident in Logan Heights. Youth social clubs such as Los Gallos in last week’s article developed along with that culture. Los Lobos was another social club in Logan Heights that expressed and interpreted youth culture in unique ways.
  [Read more…]

Making Mountains Out of Molehills at KPBS/inewsource

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I have yet to be convinced that San Diego’s hoteliers and their doppelgangers in the management of America’s Finest Tourism Plantation have the best interests of the citizenry at heart.

For just about a year or so, the non-profit inewsource has been investigating San Diego attorney Cory Briggs. This week their latest report claims the organizations serving as plaintiffs in the environmental lawyer’s many lawsuits “flout state, federal laws.”

These inewsource stories are given much play at KPBS and follow a now predictable format: seeming contradictions, omissions and/or errors found in documents associated with Briggs are presented to various persons with impressive sounding titles and deemed to be something just short, maybe, of something illegal.   [Read more…]

Partisan Politics Go Unchecked in Escondido’s Publicly Funded Charter Schools

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By Rebecca Nutile / Alianza North County

In today’s world of education “reform,” the charter school sector has grown beyond its original intent of being a laboratory for public schools, into networks of poorly-regulated schools of varying quality with a quasi-public status. In these publicly-funded/privately managed schools, subtle and not-so-subtle partisan politics often go unchecked. And while charter schools are not required by law to adhere to many parts of the education code, they are supposed to be held to the same standards as traditional public schools in the areas of political partisanship and the separation of church and state.

In Escondido, Escondido Charter High School, Heritage Elementary and Heritage Digital Academy have become points of controversy and division in the community. Most know them as the controversial school with strong ties to conservatives in Escondido City government that took over a heavily-used library branch.   [Read more…]

SDFP Writer Maria Garcia Receives SOHO Cultural Heritage Award

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The Save Our Heritage Organization (SOHO) announced its People in Preservation Awards this past Thursday, May 21, 2015. San Diego Free Press contributor Maria E. Garcia was one of the ten people tapped for recognition. The majority of award recipients had beautifully and lovingly restored residential or commercial property to their original architectural state.

Maria’s designation was distinctly different. Her cultural heritage designation conveyed the underlying premise of the evening that “The past is not the property of historians; it is public possession.”
  [Read more…]

Sweet Memories of Perry Elementary

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By Ernie McCray

There’s a school that means the world to me: Oliver Hazard Perry Elementary. It’s the first school to which I was assigned after earning a teaching degree.

It was a place of colorful personalities: a teacher who sang opera beautifully and wore a hairpiece that could be identified as a wig immediately; a school nurse with a drawl as southern as any character’s on Hee Haw; a lovely and entertaining secretary who made the school office as funny and lively as The Carol Burnett Show…

It was a place of uncommon camaraderie where we: put potlucks together practically every other week; dined together monthly at fine places to eat; played volleyball after school; partied wildly at the drop of a hat, with lampshades on the head and stuff like that…   [Read more…]

The History of Neighborhood House in Logan Heights: 1950s Social Clubs–Los Gallos

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Social clubs have been a noteworthy part of Logan Height’s history. After WWII, Leonard Fierro, Frank Peñuelas, Mike Negrete and Armando Rodriguez were reunited and started a new Toltec Club based on Frank’s 1930s prototype at Neighborhood House. Girls participated in the Lucky 13 Club. The 1950s brought a revived interest in social clubs for the young people in Logan Heights. Los Gallos was one of the first of these clubs.
   [Read more…]

History Undone by 60 Minutes

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Last Sunday (May 17) on 60 Minutes, Scott Pelley summoned every hormone and nanoparticle in his body to reach that sweet spot where his voice can sound like a god’s and said:

“Time is the enemy of history.”

Say what? I mean… What?   [Read more…]

Protecting Mauna Kea: Talking Story

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Looking up at the still, lingering morning stars from the best stargazing location in the world early on the third day since my arrival at the occupation on Mauna Kea, my personal velocities catch up with me and I listen. I stand at 9,200 feet above sea level. North and above me, Mauna Kea’s shoulders broaden as they rise into the heavens. Down and to the east, a thick cover of clouds hides the valley below and deadens the rattle of rifle fire coming from the US military training center on the Mountain. Wind scatters the volcanic dust at my feet.

I have never been to a place like this, never looked down on the clouds from any where other than a plane seat, never marveled at the feel of lava pebbles in my palm and I wonder what it all means. Dawn’s thin air only offers my own reflections back to me.   [Read more…]

Notorious Repeat Offender Behind Oil Spill ‘Nightmare’ in California

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State of Emergency declared as oil-soaked pelicans die on shore

By Nadia Prupis / Common Dreams

As an investigation into an oil spill along the California coast continued on Thursday, environmentalists described a “nightmare” scenario in the area and new details emerged about the pipeline operator’s long history of generating similar disasters.   [Read more…]

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