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Hugh Thompson, An American Hero

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By Jack Doxey

March 16th, 2016 marks the 48th anniversary of the My Lai Massacre that occurred in Vietnam. To say that it was a sad day in the history of our country is a gross understatement. Our United States military systematically slaughtered over 500 Vietnamese women, children, infants and old men in the tiny village of My Lai.

Our country’s attention span is short; and revisiting old wounds can be painful. The result is that this event has been shoved into the “dust bin” of history.

Never the less, I beseech our government and every American citizen to not forget but instead “learn” from the events that unfolded 48 years ago in the tiny village of My Lai.   [Read more…]

Latinos and Baseball: In the Barrios and the Big League

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On February 19, 2016, I drove to San Bernardino to attend what turned out to be a very special project and event. This past summer I attended an advisory board meeting of the Mexican-American Baseball Project, Cal State San Bernardino. As I arrived at the John M. Pfau Library, I took a few minutes to rehash my last visit to the building.

At that time, we were talking about the possibility of San Diego having a baseball book like many other cities. I returned this time as a member of that advisory board.

I had recently completed a chapter for San Diego in a book that will be published later this year.   [Read more…]

Hogarth at the San Diego Public Library

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By Brett Warnke

“What’s your proposal? To build the just city? I will.” –W.H. Auden

What does it mean to construct the just city today? San Diego is admittedly no Flint. As I write this, there are unpunished poisoners like Rick Snyder still giving speeches, doing fundraisers, outside of a prison cell, with the craven media establishment recording every utterance. And even further east, goldbricker frauds on Wall Street giggle their way through new swindles—ones we won’t discover until we once again stand at the lip of another recession when “tough choices” will again “have to be made” in order to “save Main Street.”

But San Diego is a city not immune to corruption. Our streets, too, are peopled with the chalked bodies of unarmed black and brown men. In July 2015 we even played host to the American Legislative Exchange Council (or ALEC), that great instrument of business elites to capture the regulatory powers of the state for its own tax loopholes and favors. And just this year our local democracy was used by the Chamber of Commerce to thwart wage increases for thousands of workers.

What does it mean to construct a just city in such a corroded republic? “America’s finest city” is a city 41% more expensive than the rest of America, where people of every shade are scrabbling at the lower slopes of the wage scale and where 38% of residents, regardless of their neighborhood, are unable to earn enough to make a living. One method of coping is to laugh. Ours is a golden age of satire.   [Read more…]

Excerpt From Sunshine/Noir II: The Civil Disobedient

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By Michael Billingsley

The morning of January 15, 1976 started out just like any other in the Skyline neighborhood of southeast San Diego, but there were two special things that set this day apart. For one, it was the day before my 14th birthday. Second, it was the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

There had been a movement to make MLK’s birthday a national holiday—in fact, African Americans all over the country started celebrating before it became a legal holiday. One of the things that appealed to me was that my birthday was on January 16, one day after Dr. King’s and the day before Muhammad Ali’s.   [Read more…]

The Price of Beauty: ‘Guards at the Taj’ at the La Jolla Playhouse

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By Mukul Khurana

Shah Jahan translates roughly into the English “King of the World.” As such, Shah Jahan was an impressive ruler. In the seventeenth century, that meant that wars of conquest and constant expansionism were the order of the day. That also meant that the spoils of war and all that made the fifth Mughal Emperor of India a very wealthy man.

Having access to beautiful things made Shah Jahan want to replicate that beauty and he did that with great abandon when it came to architectural structures—he wanted to leave legacies behind. Ironically, he isn’t mainly remembered for many of those things. He is remembered for the Taj Mahal, the tomb and resting place for his favorite wife—Mumtaz Mahal.
  [Read more…]

I Don’t Mourn Scalia’s Passing

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The man who gave us Citizens United and Bush vs Gore is gone from the face of the earth. I for one do not mourn his passing. His decisions have not only contributed to the destruction of the US, but major portions of the world as well, and he was set to destroy the world consensus on climate change which would have destroyed the entire planet.

It was Scalia who said that unlimited corporate campaign spending is something “we should celebrate rather than condemn,” (Citizens United), that vote-counting should be halted for causing “irreparable harm” to the candidate who might lose as a result (Bush v. Gore), that protecting the right to vote is an odious example of “racial entitlements” (comments related to Shelby County v. Holder), and that allowing local anti-discrimination laws to protect gays and lesbians amounts to “special treatment of homosexuals” (Romer v. Evans), the 5-4 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, which held for the first time that the Second Amendment protected an individual’s right to bear arms just to name a few of the highlights of his ignominious career.   [Read more…]

Roger and Norma Cazares: ‘Action Matters’

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Norma and Roger Cazares together and individually have helped change San Diego. They usually share the same political views although there have been a few exceptions. Norma supported Hillary, Roger supported Obama. Once again they are split with Norma once again supporting Hillary and Roger supporting Bernie.

Roger says that he is totally amused with the Republican party. They’re destroying the Republican party similarly to what Pete Wilson did in California. He is concerned that we will not have a two party system. Roger believes this is dangerous. Both agree there needs to be a two party system in order to hold each other accountable. Roger says both Trump and Cruz have helped bring the closet racist out of the closet.   [Read more…]

Fray Serra o Capitan Frémont

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Part Six of Six*, with translation. Source: History of San Diego by William E Smythe. All quotes are from this book.

Transcribed by John Lawrence / From the original San Diego Free Press, circa 1969.

Las festividades del se gundo centenario de California se iniciaron en la ciudad de San Diego con toda la pompa y alboroto disponibles. El proposito de dichas festividades se supone que es el de con memorar la fundacion de California en San Diego. Aquel historico evento fue efectuado por Fray Junípero en 1769.   [Read more…]

Here Comes California’s Concrete Coast: Coastal Commission Director Sacked

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Escondido City Councilwoman Olga Diaz, voting as the alternate for County Supervisor Greg Cox, cast the deciding vote as the California Coastal Commission sacked executive director Dr. Charles Lester late yesterday.

The 7-5 decision ended a meeting in Morro Bay that ran late into the evening. The commissioners heard impassioned pleas from dozens of witnesses saying the director’s removal amounted to a green light for unchecked development on 1,100 miles of scenic mountains, cliffs and beaches along the Pacific Ocean.

Over 20,000 letters were received by the commission, with a vast majority supportive of Dr. Lester. Billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer delivered a petition with nearly 10,000 signatures asking the commission to “put coastal protection before the demands of special interests.” The outpouring of support apparently didn’t outweigh a letter from the Los Angeles County Business Federation, an alliance of 155 business groups, blaming the commission’s staff for a lack of accountability and regulatory overreach.   [Read more…]

Reds Liberate Mission

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Part Four of Seven. Source: History of San Diego by William E. Smythe. All quotes are from this book.

By John Lawrence / From the original San Diego Free Press, circa 1969.

During the years 1770- 1775 the San Diego Mission, newly transplanted from Old Town to its present location in Mission Valley, managed to survive. The priests even managed to convert a few Indians.

Of course the techniques of conversion were not always the most “Christian.” Whereas Christ fed the multitudes and advocated no-strings-attached giving to the needy, the Spanish priests modified that scheme as the following quote from Smythe shows: “Those who had accepted the new faith had been clothed and fed, while those who rejected the faith had been let alone.” Nice guys, the priests: bribery was for them an acceptable method of religious inducement.

After 5 Years of this treatment, the Indians had had enough. They decided to revolt against the Spanish settlement which had imposed itself on their homeland. The first Indian uprising was on November 4, 1775, a date that should be celebrated by the people of San Diego as it marked the initiation of the people’s struggle for liberation which is still being waged today, 200 years later.   [Read more…]

Military In Control From the Start

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Part Three of Seven. Source: History of San Diego by William E. Smythe. All quotes are from this book.

By John Lawrence / From the original San Diego Free Press, circa 1969

After the Spanish settlement had been established in 1769, there followed a period of digging in—trying to make a go of it and becoming self-sufficient.

There is no question that, behind the religious front, it was the military that was firmly in command. We quote Smythe: “With the dedication of the Presidio and the Mission, the first institutions had been established in what is now the State of California. These institutions were typical of Spanish civilization (sic)—the soldier and the priest working side by side, but always with the sword above the Cross in point of authority. It was essentially a military government, and the commandant was empowered to deal out justice, civil and criminal.”   [Read more…]

Little Landers, the Utopian Agricultural Commune, Washed Out By 1916 Flood

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Editor’s Note: On this day, January 27, 1916 at 5:05pm, the Lower Otay Dam broke, sending torrents of water into Otay, Sweetwater and the Tijuana river valleys. The flood caused the largest devastation in San Diego history.

By Patricia Maxwell / This is Part III of a Series

Little Landers was an idealistic, cooperative farming community built in the Otay river valley by a couple of visionaries who advocated that anyone could sustain himself on a “little land.” The flood of January 27, 1916 swept the land into San Diego bay.

“The raging waters, spreading widely over the flat lands of the valley in the night, rendered twenty-five families homeless and most of them lost everything. Two women were drowned. Boats and improvised rafts were necessary to bring marooned people to safety. Some few of these attempted to resume operations, either where they had been or on higher ground. Most of them simply quit and moved away.   [Read more…]

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