When Tina Real opened Tina Real Talent Agency in 1972 the successful San Diego businesswoman drew upon her experiences and contacts as a John Robert Powers model and employee of John Alessio at the Agua Caliente Racetrack. She also continued the legacy of strong independent women established by her mother Priscilla Yanez and maternal grandmother Mercedes Murgia Morales. Tina’s path to this success was not always easy, but she persisted. [Read more…]
Priscilla Yanez — Civil Service Worker or Spy?
About month ago I sat down to interview Tina Real. Tina has memories of San Diego that span her eight decades here. What began as an interview of Tina herself quickly expanded to encompass her heritage of strong independent women–her grandmother Mercedes Morales and her mother Priscilla Yanez, who would become a spy for the United States during World War II. [Read more…]
A Nation Bamboozled: Invasion of Iraq 15 Years Later
By Bill in Portland Maine / Daily Kos
Today is the anniversary of one of the most avoidably-idiotic days in American history—the day Republicans shot our country in the face and expected a parade of sweets and flowers for it. It’s the 15th dumbstickiversary of the invasion of Iraq. As always, we mark the occasion with a reminder of some of the lying and/or moronic statements made by the band of Very Serious People who orchestrated and/or promoted the debacle. Feel free to hurl rotten tomatoes as you see fit…
“Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof—the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”
—George W. Bush (10/7/02)
“I will bet you the best dinner in the gaslight district of San Diego that military action will not last more than a week. Are you willing to take that wager?”
—Bill O’Reilly (1/29/03) [Read more…]
Top 10 Cool Inventions by Women That Changed the World | Video Worth Watching
Time for a Top Ten list. Here’s one from Ms MoJo that’s light-hearted but revealing. [Read more…]
Why Did Rosie Wear a Bandana? | Women’s History Month
Ellison Langford / Women’s Museum of California
Any time you see a little girl or woman dressed in a blue shirt and red polka-dotted bandana, you know instantly who she’s imitating– Rosie the Riveter.
It’s one of the most iconic outfits in popular culture. But for an era of haute Hollywood glamour, it’s interesting that one of the decade’s most iconic images is clad in a plain work shirt and bandana. Why? Because those clothes were safe.
Although half of the women who worked during World War II had been working before the attack on Pearl Harbor, many of them had never worked in industrial environments. Each position came with its own risks. Welding was a fire hazard, lathes involved sharp blades, and certain machines could snatch loose hair. [Read more…]
2017 – The United Nations Year in Review | Video Worth Watching
Think globally, act locally. To help provide that global perspective, here is the United Nations’ retrospective on last year. 2017 : The United Nations Year in Review. [Read more…]
A Walk With Brother Martin
Editor Note: This is the final article in the four-part series Brother Martin: From Logan Heights to a Trappist Abbey
Brother Martin devoted his Wednesday morning to giving my companion José Goytia and me a tour of the grounds of the Trappist Abbey of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Oregon. This time he was dressed in his monk robes. He showed us the dining room with its beautiful wooden tables. [Read more…]
Brother Martin: After the War, the War Within
While he was readjusting to living in Logan Heights, Brother Martin was having a war inside himself about what he wanted to do with his life. He spoke with priests and nuns about his confusion. He taught catechism and led a Boy Scout troop for boys from Saint Augustine. He seemed to have one foot in the religious world and the other in regular everyday life. He was unsure if he wanted to follow a religious life or continue on the path he was on. [Read more…]
Brother Martin Goes to War, Longs for Peace
Brother Martin remembers that Australia of 1943 looked like America of the 1920s. He was assigned to the 1st Calvary Division in a camp located near a suburb called Strapfine. He was an assistant to the “BAR Man.” (BAR stands for Browning Automatic Rifle, which was a big gun which fired 20-round clips with 30-caliber ammunition.) The BAR Man, Dick Chase, was an Episcopalian from Minnesota. He says they had some interesting discussions about their two faiths.
He celebrated his nineteenth birthday on an LST (Landing Ship, Tank) going from Australia to Oro Bay, New Guinea, on the way to a planned invasion of the Admiralty Islands. [Read more…]
Brother Martin: From Logan Heights to a Trappist Abbey
While I was collecting material for the book “La Neighbor: A Settlement House in Logan Heights”, my friend Emma Lopez recommended that I get in touch with a monk named Brother Martin, who grew up in Logan Heights. I wasn’t sure how much he would have to share, or, for that matter, how much he would remember, since he had been at an abbey for over 60 years. But I followed Emma’s advice and contacted Brother Martin via regular mail.
On one particular day, he asked when I was coming up to visit him. I promised I would go “next summer.” As “next summer” came to an end, I began preparations to meet Brother Martin. [Read more…]
How Coca-Cola Invented Christmas As We Know It
By Valerie Vande Panne / Alternet
The fat old white man clad in red is a marketing gimmick. Let’s consider replacing him. When you see Santa today, all fat and jolly and rosy-cheeked, you’re seeing an image created for and promoted by the Coca-Cola Company for over 80 years. Michigan artist Haddon Sundblom created the Santa Claus we know so well in 1931, for Coke’s “Thirst Knows No Season” campaign.”
Sundblom modeled his Santa on “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” an 1822 poem by Clement C. Moore. While people often point to that poem as the defining element of Santa Claus’ style, or to Thomas Nast’s versions of Santa Claus for Harper’s, it wasn’t until Sundblom and Coke codified the Claus in mass advertising that the world adopted and accepted that version of Santa Claus. Prior to 1931, Santa Claus was depicted all sorts of ways, from an old Diogenes-type man to a bishop to a sprite-like troll. [Read more…]
Mel Freilicher’s American Cream: Rewriting the Radical Past to Redeem the Future
Longtime San Diego resident, writer, educator, and activist Mel Freilicher was the editor of the regional literary journal Crawl Out Your Window for 15 years and taught at San Diego State and in UCSD’s literature department for several decades. In addition to this, Mel has published in a wide range of publications and anthologies including two chapbooks on Standing Stone Press and Obscure Publications.
His last two books on San Diego City Works Press, “The Unmaking of Americans: 7 Lives” and “The Encyclopedia of Rebels” engage radical American history in a way that brings together serious fiction, history, fantasy, memoir, humor, and political commentary in the service of excavating some of the lost stories of the American left and countercultures.
With “American Cream,” Freilicher gives us yet another unique window into the past as a way to cope with the dark present. As writer Stephen Paul Martin explains, “Within the nimble universe of Frelicher’s language, we see these people as we’ve never seen them—as people. But also as subversive signifiers in an unprecedented aesthetic design.” [Read more…]
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