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Las Monthly Ondas July Edition: Free Speech Chalk-In at BofA Barrio Logan and Other Branches

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By Brent E. Beltrán

Last week floundering Republican City Attorney Jan Goldsmith, at the behest of Bank of America, chose to prosecute Occupy San Diego protester Jeff Olson for writing anti-bank slogans on the sidewalk, in washable chalk, in front of their North Park branch.

Mr. Olson was charged with 13 counts of vandalism and faced a year in jail and a $1000 fine on each count. He faced a total possible sentence of 13 years in jail and $13,000! Luckily a San Diego jury on Monday, July 1st, using common sense, found him not guilty on all counts.

City Attorney Jan Goldsmith wasted over one hundred thousand dollars of taxpayer’s money to prosecute someone for exercising their 1stamendment rights, on public property, to do the bidding of his corporate master.

Freedom loving progressives and liberals all over San Diego are tired of right wing politicians working on behalf of corporations and the rich instead of defending the rights and interests of average citizens like Jeff Olson.

So tired that a Recall Jan Goldsmith Facebook page has garnered over 230 likes in less than a week. So tired that a nationwide Chalk-In is taking place this Saturday at various Bank of America branches throughout San Diego and the rest of the country.   [Read more…]

What the Food Industry Is Doing to Keep Americans Hooked on Junk

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By April M. Short / Alternet

With the exposure of troubling obesity rates, outrage over undisclosed genetically engineered wheat (and other) crops, the successful worldwide March Against Monsanto effort in May and statewide bans of GE crops that followed, the US citizenry is expanding its awareness and concern about food health. The junk food industry is responding by getting sneakier in its tactics to entice, exploit and beguile people into consuming its concoctions.

Here are a few of the most disturbing deceptions the industry is using to keep Americans hooked on its junk.   [Read more…]

Beats in Peru: A Daily Travelogue Epilogue

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By Mikey Beats

San Diego DJ Mikey Beats, and his nurse wife Jenny, decided to take a vacation to Machu Picchu, Peru. San Diego Free Press published their daily adventures. Read parts I & II, part III, parts IV & IV.5, part V, part VI, part VII, partVIII, part IX and part X.

Our plane landed in Miami at about 8am on the 12th of June, eight hours after leaving Peru. As we exited the plane it was a long walk to go through customs and we were greeted by an old, angry, white man with a badge yelling at us asking, “Why are you walking down this line?! You should be in that line!”

I responded, “Because your stanchions are wrong, calm down!” Jenny and I had to walk all the way around back to where we came in and then got in a line next to a middle aged, angry, black woman yelling at other Americans to get in line. We didn’t know what was going on and why people were so mad and then we realized we were back in America.   [Read more…]

Beats in Peru: A Daily Travelogue Part X

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By Mikey Beats

San Diego DJ Mikey Beats, and his nurse wife Jenny, decided to take a vacation to Machu Picchu, Peru. For the next few days San Diego Free Press will publish their daily adventures. Read parts I & II, part III, parts IV & IV.5, part V, part VI, part VII, part VIII and part IX.

Tuesday 6/11/13 Day 10 – The last day in Peru

We awoke without alarms in the Embajadores Hotel in Miraflores, Lima where we planned on leaving our big back packs for the day while stuffing our little back packs with more Peruvian goodies to take home. After a continental breakfast that didn’t compare to the one we were accustomed to at Arqueologo but still was better than the processed American food we get in American hotels, we headed out the lobby, west towards the beach, to put beautiful sights in front of our eyes.

When we reached the top of the cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, laid before us was a 180 degree view of beautiful Peruvian coastline. Although the marine layer was thick enough to block out the sun, it was not powerful enough to block out the beauty of the sets of waves crashing onto the black pebble beach.   [Read more…]

Restaurant Review: Koon Thai Kitchen

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Koon Thai Kitchen
3860 Convoy St. #102
San Diego, CA 92111
(858) 514-8111

By Judi Curry

Several years ago, just after my husband died, I began to going to physical therapy for two torn rotator cuffs that developed because I had to lift Bob in and out of the wheelchair. On my first visit I met a delightful receptionist – Bettye – that was enrolled in a nursing program at a nearby college. As I continued to go for therapy several times a week, a friendship developed and she told me that she had decided to drop the nursing program and become an Occupational Therapist instead. I told her that when she graduated I would take her to lunch.   [Read more…]

Beats in Peru: A Daily Travelogue Parts I & II

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By Mikey Beats

San Diego DJ Mikey Beats, and his nurse wife Jenny, decided to take a vacation to Machu Pichu, Peru. Over the next few days San Diego Free Press will publish their daily adventures.

Sunday 6/2/13

We woke up just before 8am to the coffee grinder. All our things were prepped and all my stuff needed to be placed into my travel backpack. That backpack had been to Brazil with me, Ecuador and Panama with Jenny and now it would get me through Peru.

We stopped by Ramiro’s taco shop after a few quick texts to tie down loose ends and we hit the road. My breakfast burrito ended up all over my shirt as I was eating and driving. Just another aroma to remind me of home I guess.

We got to LAX a few hours early and took our time finding a cheap option to park the car for ten days. The garage was called Quick Park….   [Read more…]

Restaurant Review: Pho Convoy

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Pho Convoy
4648 Convoy St., #101-B
San Diego, CA 92111
858-277-0133

By Judi Curry

When I reviewed “Saigon” a few weeks ago, I likened that restaurant to one that my husband and I liked many years ago. That restaurant was “Pho Convoy”.  The “gang of five” that were part of the “Saigon” group suggested that we try Pho Convoy and make a comparison of the two.

Last night we set out to do just that.  Three of us are journalists for the San Diego Free Press – Anna, Rich, and myself, along with George and Mary who were visiting from D.C.   [Read more…]

Eating 25th Street in Golden Hill – Part III: Dinner

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By Emma Goldman

My eyes adjusted to the darkness of the dimly lit bar from the bright early evening sunshine outside as my husband and I crossed the foyer of the Turf Supper Club. Immediately, my stomach started growling as the aroma of charring steak wafted out from the inner room that holds a large grill table capped by a giant copper hood.

We shinnied up to the bar that dominates the right side of the front room and each ordered a Ballast Point Sculpin IPA, contemplating our dining options along with the eclectic displays of horse racing pictures, Dia de los Muertos skeletons, Christmas lights, and gleaming, jewel-like bottles of liquor.

A longtime denizen of Golden Hill’s 25th Street corridor, the Turf Club (as we’ve always called it) skirts the line between dive and trendy.   [Read more…]

Las Monthly Ondas June Edition: Taco Shop Poets Dream of Sugar Skulls

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Read Tacos. Eat Poetry.

By Brent E. Beltrán

Has it already been twenty years since a band of guerrilla word slingers thought to share poetry with taco shop patrons? Apparently so, as the Taco Shop Poets are back in poetic motion for a gig at The Front in San Ysidro.

Founding Taco Shop Poets member Adolfo Guzman Lopez told me “it’s been 20 years since the idea for taco shop poetry was put in motion. We’re presenting the group’s 2011 book Sugarskull Sueños at the Tijuana book fair and what better place to reflect on our personal journeys as Mexican Americans, Chicanos, Latinos, cuarentones, border vatos, and fathers than a homegrown community space in San Ysidro.”

Originally started as a large, loose knit group of mostly Chicano and Latino raconteurs the Taco Shop Poets almost singlehandedly helped recreate the California spoken word poetry scene. They eventually whittled themselves down into a tight collective of border bards that have toured the nation and beyond. Their influence on the Chicano poetry world can still be felt today even though they’ve been relatively dormant the past few years.   [Read more…]

Testing…testing…does this thing work?

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What’s better than sending Tommy Test Taker to class with school-sanctioned Ziploc bag of Lucky Charms?

By Aaryn Belfer /thematically fickle

No, I’m not talking about my neglected website. I’m talking about the grueling season that is right now bearing down on many of California’s kids. It’s testing season, folks, the time of year when No. 2 pencils and prison-like lockdowns on school campuses reign.

It’s the season that helps make Pearson one of the wealthiest companies in the world (read that thing with tissues in hand because you will weep); the season that causes Michelle Rhee, Ben Austin, Rahm Emmanuel, and other like-minded education “reformers” to gleefully piddle in their pants at the idea of closing more “failing” schools. Score one for privatization.   [Read more…]

Eating 25th Street in Golden Hill Part II: Lunch

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By Emma Goldman

After making your way back from Tobey’s 19th Hole Café, which I mentioned in last week’s column, it’s time to turn your feet—and your stomach—to lunch. The 25th Street corridor from Gateway Park to the bridge over 94 in Golden Hill has probably more places for lunch than for any other meal since it serves the offices of many lawyers, architects, small businesses, nonprofits, and the like as well as neighborhood denizens and students and staff at City College just down C Street. Thus, a plethora of tastes await you as you meander down the street.

If you’re in the mood for sandwiches, salads, baked goods, and an array of drinks such as coffees, teas, smoothies, homemade lemon and limeades, beer, and wine, then stop in at Krakatoa on the west side of 25th between B and C. Just a block from the park, and nestled in an old, olive green Craftsman cottage under a giant magnolia tree, Krakatoa beckons you to come relax awhile either outside on their wraparound wooden patio or inside their funky dining space.

As you walk up the front steps, pooches greet you from under their owners’ tables and students hunker over their laptops, tapping out term papers at the seating areas ringing the deck. The lines at lunch can be long, but it’s worth the wait.   [Read more…]

5 Things to Know Before Today’s March Against Monsanto

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By April Short / Alternet

Fed up with the fact that she has to spend “a small fortune” in order to feed her family things she says “aren’t poisonous,” Tami Canal of Utah has organized a global movement against the giant chemical and seed corporation Monsanto. Monsanto is the conglomerate mastermind behind many of the pesticides and genetically engineered seeds that pervade farm fields around the world. Monsanto produces the world’s top-selling herbicide; 40 percent of US crops contain its genes; it spends millions lobbying the government each year; and several of its factories are now toxic Superfund sites.

Canal, who has a 17-month-old baby and a six-year-old girl, cites concerns over public health, adverse affects on the environment, and political corruption as her motivation to organize against the biotech giant. And her concern has resonated. Protesters around the world have responded to Canal’s call to action, and will amplify their dissatisfaction with the corporation in a “March Against Monsanto” on May 25.

“Not only are they threatening our children and ourselves as well, but also the environment,” Canal says. “The declining bee population has been linked to the pesticides that they use, and that’s just the start. I’ve been reading studies recently that butterflies are starting to disappear, and birds. It’s only a matter of time, it’s pretty much a domino effect.”   [Read more…]

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