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What It Was Like Pounding Precincts in the 49th District for June’s ‘Jungle Primary’

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By Mark R. Day 

Like many Americans, I have grown weary of the squabbling pundits on cable television, and tired of fulminating at the latest gaffes and missteps from the man in the White House.

So when a neighbor suggested I get out the vote for the June 5 California primary, I joined the Democrat’s effort in North San Diego County to flip the 49th Congressional District —the seat left vacant by Republican, Darrell Issa.

When I told the recruiter that my first canvassing job was with Bobby Kennedy’s 1968 California primary, his jaw dropped.  

“That’s awesome,” he said. ”You made history.”   [Read more…]

Bonnie Dumanis: Will She Fool San Diego Again?

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By Timothy P. Holmberg

In 1998, as a cub reporter for the Gay & Lesbian Times, I was asked by then-publisher Michael Portantino to interview aspiring Superior Court judge candidate, and openly lesbian Republican, Bonnie Dumanis.

I arrived at Hamburger Mary’s (now Mo’s) dutifully on time at 11am sharp, with PR photo of Dumanis in hand, to find her already seated and waiting. Her signature hair was exactly as in her photo, and exactly the same as it is to this day. Dumanis struck me then as someone not indoctrinated to mechanical obedience to party orthodoxy. Her history with San Diego’s drug courts program spoke volumes of her desire to find not only justice but rational solutions. Reform over recidivism.

That Bonnie (apart from the hairdo) is gone.   [Read more…]

Why I Can’t Support Summer Stephan for County DA (and why we need Genevieve Jones-Wright)

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By Timothy Holmberg

I first met Summer Stephen one early morning as I schlepped into my 7am Rotary meeting. I had decided months ago to join Rotary for the good works at the core of their mission. They also specifically swore off political affiliations or allowing themselves to be used as a platform for the politically aspiring. We had officeholders speak to our group in the past, and all had heeded our organization’s prohibition on politicking at our meetings.

I expected the same of Stephen. I was wrong.   [Read more…]

Interim District Attorney Summer Stephan Did Nothing When I Was Assaulted By White Supremacists

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My name is William Johnson. I’m an activist here in San Diego and have been a regular at protests since 2011. I go out to march, rally, protest, and demonstrate, because I care deeply about fighting for the civil and human rights of all people, and against institutional poverty, environmental degradation, and militarism. Nowhere in our greater San Diego/Tijuana Metropolitan area are these issues more intersectional than at our border.

This has drawn me to protest there many times, most recently to protest Attorney General Jeff Sessions when he announced his policy to separate all migrant children from their parents, to which I called him “evil”. (And he announced this policy at Friendship Park of all places… The nerve of that man! But I digress…) To many people’s amazement, I walked away from this protest like I do 99% of the protests I attend; unscathed.

This was not the case on December 9th of last year, where I, and some of my friends and allies, were attacked by a group of well-known San Diego-based white supremacists.   [Read more…]

Prohibition 2018: The Paradox in Recovery

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A Journey into the Business of Substance Use Recovery, Mandatory Sobriety and their Role in Housing for San Diegans

A relatively recent affliction since my thirties, Alcoholism has followed me cross-country and has disrupted my life in moments when my anxiety peaked and the urge to self-medicate became imperative.

My name is Orlando Barahona and like my father, I inherited a propensity for self-medication. I suffer from two psychiatric diagnoses as well, which I have come to understand as latent elements in what I now brand a spiritual and intellectual myopia.

From a report submitted by the San Diego Housing Commission and the Health and Human Services, there are forty-one organizations offering residential recovery programs in San Diego County, most listed on the Network of Care website by zip code and specific clientele served.   [Read more…]

A Forgotten Massacre in Baghdad

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By Kilian Colin

I was few years old. I only remember snapshots of the war on Iraq in 1991.

I remember my parents and other families in the shelter rushing out of the shelter after hearing another shelter was bombed by a U.S. airstrike. People were crying and yelling while fleeing for their life. When we left the shelter that night, the sky looked like there was a firework show with a strong bombing sounds.

As a child, I smiled while watching the fireworks and wished it will continue forever. It really wasn’t a fireworks show; it was the U.S. airstrike and the Iraqi defense shooting each other like in a Star Wars movie. I didn’t understand what was going on until a few years later.   [Read more…]

Fifteen Years Later: Remembering the Invasion Of Baghdad | Readers Write

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By Kilian Colin

On April 9, 2003, I woke up to the sounds of bombs.

My bed was shaking and my sister, who was sleeping in the bed next to me, was awake crying and shaking in her bed. It was like an earthquake with very scary sounds. Shards of glass from the windows covered my bed. My parents ran into the room. My father said let’s go downstairs.

We lived in a 1-bedroom apartment on the second floor. We went downstairs and knocked on our neighbor’s door. He neighbor opened the door and let us inside his apartment without saying a word. He was clad only in underwear and held a copy of Quran in his hand. His name was Abo-Allaa.   [Read more…]

Former UFCW Employees Urge Local Democratic Party to Stand With Women

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By Rosy Miner, Isaura Garcia, Odett McAdams, and Debbie Principe

We are former employees who worked under Mickey Kasparian, President of UFCW Local 135. For more than a year, we have stood with our sisters: Sandy Naranjo, Isabel Vasquez, Anabel Arauz, and more recently Melody Godinez, who all filed lawsuits with serious claims involving our former boss.

We have firsthand knowledge of what it is like to work for Kasparian, and we have volunteered for several Democratic candidates over the years.

Our Party has failed us in its handling of – or refusal to handle – him.   [Read more…]

Readers Write: Violent American Culture, NC-17

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By Dave Patterson, San Diego Veterans for Peace

How can we talk with our school children about the irrationality of violence when we happily take them to gun shows, military air shows and military museums where indiscriminate killing is portrayed as a fun activity for all?  

Since the last school shooting, our educators are racing to prevent more violence by implementing depression screenings and Rachel’s Challenge non-violence program, while at the same time we promote our violent American culture. Now some are talking about banning sales of guns to those younger than 21, so wouldn’t it be logical to assign an NC-17 rating to the institutions that promote violence?

At the core of all this violence is the way we promote it in American culture. Selling someone an assault weapon that’s designed for killing people is clearly the promotion of violence against other people. In San Diego, we bus our school kids to the USS Midway where the ship was used to bomb Vietnam and helped kill 2 to 3 million people there. Yet everyone gets a thrill looking at the cool planes that deliver bombs on whomever.   [Read more…]

Readers Write: San Diego Legislators Lead the State on Environmental Justice

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Ana Reynoso / Environmental Health Coalition

San Diego, often celebrated as a green city, is home to neighborhoods overburdened with toxic pollution, disproportionately high rates of asthma, limited affordable housing, and a failing transit system. In October 2017, with the leadership of Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, San Diego moved closer to rectifying these injustices.

I first experienced urban inequities and environmental injustice growing up in a low-income household in upstate New York. My hometown, Albany, is a historically disinvested city. The transportation of fracked oil exposes communities along its path to major risks of derailment, oil spills, and explosions. My single mother worked long hours to feed my brother and I. For years, we depended on donations of unhealthy food from church pantries. Back then, I did not have the language to describe that my city’s food desert and crumbling infrastructure restricted our access to healthy food and an effective and affordable transportation. As I got older, I learned policy and organizing could change these circumstances.   [Read more…]

Readers Write: Why Guns May Be This Generation’s “Second Hand Smoke”

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By Karin Brennan

Some of my earliest recollections are of my mother smoking. At home, in the car, in restaurants…everywhere. My brother and I hated it, because we were always waving away smoke and avoiding overflowing ashtrays. In those days, it seemed like everyone smoked.

And why not? Our parents grew up watching movies where all the glamorous stars smoked on screen, and all the “manly men” in commercials did too. My generation also remembers being stuck on international flights in the last row before the “smoking section” started. How ridiculous does that seem today? The concept that my rights as a non-smoker could be usurped by someone else who chooses to do something that undeniably creates a risk to MY life? Risk YOUR life if you must, but your rights end where mine begin.   [Read more…]

Coming to a School Near You | Readers Write

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Who among us is not complicit?

Once again, a deadly weapon found its way into hands of some “unqualified” person, and it has been an instrument of chaos and carnage.

It’s the result of:

– an out-of-control industry;

– many sources of distribution;

– a fraternity;

– the NRA — which long ago abdicated its original purpose —

– owners who will not own up to being invested in the problem at some level;

– greedy, cowardly, unprincipled politicians of every office being on the take;

– and many of the rest of us who have sat on our hands and could not or would not organize to stop the mayhem we witness daily.

What do we wait for?   [Read more…]

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