On New Year’s Eve
as I sat quietly
in my easy chair,
out of thin air
from a place called nowhere,
Maxi, my cat,
skittered across me
in the middle of my ease,
creating a little breeze,
landing on the mantle over the fireplace
with a couple of tip taps of her feet
and I picked up the beat
and patted rhythms on my thighs
and on my knees
and my bongos
and the next thing I know…. [Read more…]
Ringing the Bell on the Best of San Diego 2012
In some Buddhist traditions people bring in the New Year with contemplation, evaluation, and meditation. One element of this celebration can be a fire ceremony where the karma of the old year is symbolically burned leaving one open to the next moment. Usually, after yet more meditation, at midnight a bell is rung to welcome in the New Year. Or, to put it more accurately, they bring in the happy new instant.
So, before the old moment bleeds into the new one, here are a few things cultural and political to remember and be grateful for about the last calendar year in San Diego as the next one comes into being. [Read more…]
What’s In a Name?
By Fred Moramarco
It’s December.
It’s Christmas.
It’s the Yuletide.
It’s the Holiday Season.
It’s Kwanzaa.
It’s Chanukah.
It’s the Winter Solstice. [Read more…]
Readers Write: My Plane’s Emergency Landing (The Healing Power of Poetry)
Two weeks before Hurricane Sandy swept up the East Coast, I boarded a westbound plane at JFK Airport in New York City. I was flying home from the Princeton launch of my new book, Intimate Geography. It was an uneventful flight until we approached the Arizona-California border and our flight was diverted to Los Angeles due to fog over San Diego. As we approached LAX, the Captain, announced that the weather over Lindbergh Field had cleared. We would land in LA, refuel, and then head down to San Diego…. [Read more…]
A Poem for Thanksgiving
We’re taking the day off. Enjoy! Poem By M. Porte [Read more…]
The Starting Line – Voting Rights; Don’t Take Them for Granted
In case you haven’t noticed, San Diego Free Press has a terrific story up here about local efforts at “Poll Watching” underway via the Election Integrity Project and True The Vote, organizations with connections to the Tea Party movement. Our citizen journalists have been ‘watching the watchers’ over the past few months.
It’s pretty obvious from reading their materials that the underlying idea behind these ‘watchers’ is voter intimidation of certain classes of people that they have deemed to be suspicious. In practice—despite claims to the contrary—this has generally meant people of color, students, and other groups whose voting history runs counter to the conservative cause.
Despite promises from True The Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht earlier this year to recruit and train a million volunteers to watch the polls, the group has fallen far short of that goal. For example, Election Integrity Maryland has only about 200 recruits. Nevada Clean Up the Vote has about 700. And our SDFP observers also report a sharp decline in volunteer participation in local efforts More Inside…
Also: LA Mass Transit Exploring San Diego Link, Encinitas’ Parents Still Threatening Legal Action Over Yoga Classes
A Timeless Red Man Speaks
Looking through words about California history, my mind wanders momentarily, and a tall timeless man with reddish brown skin and long braids ala Russell Means, appears in the periphery of my daydreams. He says:
They, these conquering men, stepped from their boats
wearing more clothes than was necessary,
shiny metal hats and vests,
heavy leather foot wear,
bearing swords and knives,
boasting of braveries
and discoveries
and some day living in the memories
of civilizations yet to be
and when they gazed our way
they never looked us in the eye
with any deep sense
of wonder
or human curiosity. [Read more…]
SDFP Exclusive: The Dove and the Cockerel
Editor’s note: Steve Burns is a former cop for the San Diego Police Department and first introduced himself to the Free Press as a Sex in San Diego contributor. His 32-chapter novel, The Dove and the Cockerel, is set in the late 80s and takes place over the 72-hour period of an investigation of some murders. A new chapter will be published every Saturday. Chapter 5 will be published tomorrow October 13. Prior chapters are available.
Chapter One
The vibram resole on his black leather, steel-toe boots barely made a sound on the aging, cracked concrete sidewalk adjacent to the 800-block of “G” Street. The leather of the boots had been oiled and polished so many times it had long since forgotten to squeak with his steps — steps which carried a cautious authority well learned and developed through 18 years as a street patrolman. There was not the politically correct “Police Officer” found on the badges of his newer coworkers — those with less than 15 years — but “Patrolman,” now almost worn from his brass badge.
[Read more…]
SD For Free An Old Favorite – The Public Library
A weekly column dedicated to sharing the best sights and activities in San Diego at the best price – free! We have a great city and you don’t need to break the bank to experience it.
Website: http://www.sandiego.gov/public–library/
Best For: Readers, thinkers, learners, children
I love to read and my earliest memories of books are from reading at bedtime with my parents and trips to the library for reading hour. Many years later, and many states away, I am on the other side of these memories and trying to foster a love of reading in my daughter. We often visit the library to find new books, meet other children, and read together. [Read more…]
The Starting Line –GOP Voter Registration Fraud Program Continues to Unfold; Is There a San Diego Connection?
Does anybody remember the Fox News generated story about voter fraud allegedly perpetrated by ACORN during the 2008 election cycle? The sum total of their evidence was that individuals were attempting to scam the voter registration system by turning in falsified forms. No monies from the Democratic Party were ever tied to ACORN, nor was there proof that any of the fake voters actually attempted to vote.
It should be noted that actual voter fraud (where somebody casts an illegal vote), despite regular histrionics by right wing zealots, is exceedingly rare.
Now there is a nation-wide voter registration scandal unfolding involving companies directly funded by both State and National Republican Party groups, and over at Fox News there’s not a peep to be heard. [Read more…]
Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps.
By Dave Rice
Ten elderly nuns get kicked out of an Indiana polling station for not having driver’s licenses or other state ID.
Electronic voting machines in Georgia report massive malfunctions – but only in Democratic-leaning low income districts, where the hot, humid conditions of polling stations aren’t conducive to electronics. The ones in wealthy, Republican-leaning districts are protected in well kept, air-conditioned buildings – and have no problems registering votes.
Thomas Brown, a black Floridian, has his name purged from voter rolls because a white man with the same name and birthday once committed a felony.
Foreclosure firm Trott & Trott shares an office building with John McCain’s Detroit campaign headquarters. Whenever Trott completes a foreclosure, the McCain campaign challenges the foreclosure victim’s voter registration to have it purged from Michigan’s voter rolls: if they’ve been kicked out of their home, the address they used to register must not be valid.
Mad yet? Greg Palast is hardly getting warmed up …. [Read more…]
The Dove and the Cockerel: Chapter 1
A Novel by Steve Burns
Editor’s note: Steve Burns is a former cop for the San Diego Police Department and first introduced himself to the Free Press as a Sex in San Diego contributor. His 32-chapter novel, The Dove and the Cockerel, is set in the late 80s and takes place over the 72-hour period of an investigation of two murders. A new chapter will be published every Saturday.
Prelude
Nothing can convey the impression of that overwhelming darkness. It was not just the absence of sunlight, for the sun had never touched this spot. The top of a mountain, the middle of a desert have their stars, wind, dawn, their feel of space. Here was nothingness. Eternity passes our comprehension, but in that forgotten pit I think I had a flash of what it might be like …. Then as I climbed higher I heard the faint rat-tat-tat of a drill machine. Above me and off in a side tunnel, men were working. I scrambled on; the sense of mystery fell away, and my pit became what it properly was — a hole in the ground. Even so, I climbed out of it a little wiser than I had been. I doubt me now if there is any such a thing as complete self-sufficiency. Wherever we go, whatever we do, we travel with the inbred knowledge that somewhere others of our kind are waiting. Were it not so, we would lack the courage to travel at all, and hell is a place where man is alone. — One Man’s West by David Lavender
Man is born crying. When he finishes crying, he dies. The Fool, from Akira Kurosawa’s film Ram
Chapter One…