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To Reach My Goals – Education in Barrio Logan

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Video by Media Arts Center San Diego’s Teen Producer’s Project
Intro by Brent E. Beltrán

With the battle looming over the future of Barrio Logan, due to Maritime Industry’s refusal to accept the Barrio Logan Community Plan update, I feel it is necessary to give voters of the city of San Diego a little history of Barrio Logan and highlight the issues residents face. In June, eligible San Diego voters will go to the polls to vote on wether to approve the community plan or reject it.

This week’s video, To Reach My Goals – Education in Barrio Logan, documents the challenges barrio youth have in school and highlights the Barrio Logan College Institute and their work to get neighborhood kids into college.   [Read more…]

“The Who & The What”: Tradition vs. Modern World at the La Jolla Playhouse

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By Alejandra Enciso Guzmán

La Jolla Playhouse has opened its last production of the 2013-2014 season titled ‘The Who & The What’ by author, playwright and screenwriter Ayad Akhtar.

The play had its first developmental reading February 2013, during the Playhouse’s inaugural DNA New Work Series, which entailed a six-week period of workshop productions and readings of new plays and musicals. “Yes, that is how this project started. Gabriel Greene, Director of New Play Development at the Playhouse, is in charge of new work series. It is this terrific opportunity for work that is in a very early stage to be heard out loud” explained ‘The Who & The What’ director, Kimberly Senior.

San Diego Free Press had a chance to talk to the Chicago based freelance director, regarding this piece and how it came about, along with other projects in store for her in the near future. “The Who & The What” was in a very early stage. We got a full day of rehearsal with professional actors and had an informal reading that evening where the public was invited. With that we were able to get some really good feedback on what was working and what was not,” Senior explained.   [Read more…]

Point Loma High School Students Honor “Blackfish” Director and Her SeaWorld Expose

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By Frank Gormlie / OB Rag

Hundreds of Point Loma High School students honored the director of the controversial film “Blackfish” – the expose on SeaWorld’s treatment of their Orcas – on Monday, Feb. 3rd.

Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite came to the campus after some film students had produced their own film criticizing SeaWorld and addressed an assembled group of them.  She told them she wanted her documentary about the water-park’s captive killer whales to persuade SeaWorld to discontinue “using animals as entertainment.”  Cowperthwaite also told the students that they need to form their own opinions on the issue.

Her film began, she said, as a research project on the death in 2010 of Orca trainer Dawn Brancheau and Tilikum, the killer whale.   [Read more…]

Conservative Darling Dinesh D’Souza Indicted for Illegal Contributions in Senate Race

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By Doug Porter

Just two years ago San Diego resident Dinesh D’Souza was sitting at the top of the conservative heap. He was a best selling author, president of Kings College, fledgling documentarian and sought after debater. Now he stands accused by federal prosecutors of making $20,000 in straw contributions in a 2012 Senate race.

According to an indictment made public on Thursday in federal court in Manhattan, D’Souza around reimbursed people (believed to be his ex-wife and mistress) who he had directed to contribute $20,000 to a senate campaign, believed to be that of Wendy Long, a Republican attorney who lost to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) in 2012. The indictment said the campaign was unaware of D’Souza’s activities, which apparently weren’t very helpful, as Long garnered just 28% of the vote..

D’Souza rose from Reaganite beginnings to become a fixture on the ‘90s speaking circuit, and became a personal favorite of UT-San Diego publisher Doug Manchester. The Daily Fishwrap ran scores of full-color ads promoting his shoddily-made documentary entitled 2016: Obama’s America.  

“Papa” Doug even helped finance the film, which set out to lead its audiences to the conclusion that the President of the United States hates this country, wants to destroy it and create a socialist state where everybody is taxed at 100%; one world under Allah.   [Read more…]

Interview with Playwright Caridad Svich: “In the Time of the Butterflies”

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The story of resistance against oppression continues at the San Diego Repertory Theatre

By Alejandra Enciso Guzmán

As part of its 2013-2014 season, San Diego Repertory Theatre will present In The Time of the Butterflies. This play, based on the novel by Julia Álvarez, captures part of the lives of the four Mirabal sisters. These women fought against the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, a former president of the Dominican Republic. Their struggle ended with the brutal loss of their lives in 1960.   [Read more…]

Organizations Commemorate 20th Anniversary of Zapatista Uprising

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Enero Zapatista Committee Organizes Month Long Series of Events

By Brent E. Beltrán

Twenty years ago on January 1 an unknown, rag tag rebel group walked out of the fog and rain forest of Chiapas, Mexico and into the imaginations of millions of Mexicans, indigenous people and lefties throughout the world.

On that fateful day, from below and to the left, the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN/Zapatista Army of National Liberation) made their first of many appearances upon the world stage.

Named after the great Mexican revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata the Zapatistas demanded work, land, shelter, food, health, education, independence, freedom, democracy, justice and peace not just for themselves but all Mexicans and oppressed people throughout the world.   [Read more…]

Movie Review of ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’

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A thrilling adventure film held back only by the lead heroine’s need for a savior.

By Melissa Phy

Screaming tweens and indulgent adults finally got to check back in with Katniss, Peeta, Gale and the rest of The Hunger Games crew this week after the second installment of the series, Catching Fire, was released Friday.

The movie starts out nearly a year after the last hunger games, in which Peeta and Katniss (tributes from District 12 in the futuristic Panem) both survived, making headlines as the first dual winners of the barbaric games in which two children from each district (there are 12 total, with a former 13th reportedly obliterated by the capitol for rebelling) duke it out in an arena in a fight to the death.

Katniss, now a sign of hope for the starving and suffering districts, is considered a threat by Panem’s president. In an effort to eliminate Katniss and restore order among the districts, the 75th’ Hunger Games has a twist: all participants will be pulled from the pool of previous victors, meaning Katniss and Peeta must return to the arena. The catchphrase of the film? “Remember who the enemy is.”   [Read more…]

CNN Joins the Cover-Up of the Kennedy Assassination

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By Frank Gormlie

This may not be a surprise to hardcore corporate media watchers, but CNN has joined the ranks of those establishment outlets that are continuing the cover-up of the assassination of John F Kennedy. The news station has jumped on the bandwagon that is making a lot of noise these days due to the 50th anniversary of the President’s murder.

It was a real disappointment however, in viewing CNN’s “The Assassination of President Kennedy” because one of my favorite actors, Tom Hanks, was one of the producers and I was looking for some truth. Alas, it did not come through.

The show promised a look at the Warren Commission Report, and it started out with a lot of television footage from those crazy days in Dallas, November 22nd through the 24th when Lee Harvey Oswald was killed by Jack Ruby. The old TV scenes in black and white gave the film authenticity, which were followed up by interviews of some of the major researchers and book authors on the killing of Kennedy.

It started off fairly balanced, with old scenes of Jim Garrison – the New Orleans DA who brought the only trial involving the assassination to life in America – , interviews with Mark Lane – the original critic of the Warren Commission, and also interviews with those who back the “3-bullet theory” and think Oswald did it and did it alone.   [Read more…]

How to tell if what you’re reading or watching is still part of the JFK assassination cover-up.

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By Frank Gormlie

We’re all fairly aware now that this month is the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy Assassination. President John F Kennedy was murdered on November 22, 1963 in Dealy Plaza in Dallas, Texas.

And boy, we’re being swamped with films, articles, videos and books about the assassination and the subsequent cover up. For example, both the History channel and National Geographic channel are throwing new films at us this month at almost a daily basis.

So, how can you tell if what you’re reading or watching is still part of the Kennedy murder cover-up?

Here’s three simple rules:
  [Read more…]

Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood

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By Ernie McCray

I’m not, necessarily, one for seeing movies or plays or other things that are staged more than once unless there’s something really special about it. That being said I can’t wait to take in my friend Calvin Manson’s wonderfully soulful musical “Don’t Let me Be Misunderstood” again.

I highly recommend this beautifully crafted piece of theater because it’s so personal to me. It features the songs of one of my show-people-heroes, Nina Simone. This inimitable singer and pianist not only dazzled the world with her sultry sincere soulful voice but she also, at the same time, actively pursued dreams of that world being one where all people live in freedom. With dignity. Like Robeson and Belafonte. That kind of service to humanity resonates deeply within me.   [Read more…]

Reflecting Upon the First Year of Desde la Logan

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By Brent E. Beltrán

One year ago today, October 12, 2012, my first Desde la Logan column was published here at San Diego Free Press. To date I’ve written forty-nine pieces: forty-four Desde la Logan columns and five articles on Comic-Con. If I had more time I probably could’ve written fifty more.

Like all SDFP writers I do not get paid to write. I write because the stories that I want to share rarely, if ever, get covered by the mainstream press. And the community I live in and write about doesn’t get much positive media attention.

I’ve taken it upon myself to cover the stories and issues that don’t get covered. To unashamedly champion the places, people, issues and causes that are near and dear to my community and myself.   [Read more…]

Don’t Miss Robert Reich’s Movie ‘Inequality for All’

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By Frances O’Neill Zimmerman

In the years before Ronald Reagan, income taxes on the One Percent were regularly in the range of 70%, including when Republicans Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon were in the White House.

Amiable President Reagan brought us the exaggerated and toxic notion of “welfare queens” on foodstamps. He also fired all the striking air traffic controllers without a peep of opposition and lowered income taxes on the rich to 28%, benefitting his plutocrat LA pals. In 2012  the GOP’s own Richie Rich,  Gov. Mitt Romney, paid 13% in taxes. And in 2012 Warren Buffett paid less income tax than any of his clerical help at Berkshire-Hathaway.

We’re talking serious income inequality here and now in the US of A.   [Read more…]

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