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Dear Mayor Filner: Can We Talk about Gun Violence and City Heights?

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Dear Mayor Filner: The Sandy Hook school massacre last month has opened a national conversation about gun violence in this country, and well it should. The lives of twenty-six human beings, the majority of whom still had their baby teeth, were snuffed out in the amount of time it took to discharge a high capacity magazine from a gun that was developed for the military’s conduct of war.

It didn’t take much time and the devastation was total, consistent with the military’s expectations in the conduct of war, and so not consistent with our assumptions of what it means to send our children in safety to elementary school.   [Read more…]

San Diego All-Stars Defeat LA City All-Stars 24-17 in Westlake Village

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Some of the best senior football players from around San Diego County traveled up to Northern Los Angeles, arrive back home the victors.

It was a rocky start for the team from San Diego. Los Angeles took control of the game in their opening offensive series, covering the final 38 yards on a halfback pass that was nearly intercepted by Point Loma safety Zach Eischen, but instead fell right into the hands of LA’s Bijon Parker (Fairfax High) who darted the final 20 yards to the end zone. 7-0 Los Angeles.

The San Diegans looked to answer right back when St. Augustine’s Dominic Morgan took the ensuing kickoff 97 yards to the LA three yard line. But the San Diego offense was unable to capitalize, and was forced to settle for a 27 yard field goal by Madison’s Anthony Herrera. 7-3 Los Angeles.   [Read more…]

Entreaty to Politico Spouses

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Entreaty to Politico Spouses

Please, please let your politico spouse

Do some decoration at the house!

Choose the new towels or buy kitchen tiles

Instead of re-development contractor files….

more inside…   [Read more…]

Two Sets of Two Moms on My Mind

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After receiving an invite to a baby shower
for my rather new friends, Alanna and Jan,
I thought to myself: Man,
it’s so nice to have lived
to see a new day
when human beings who are lesbian or gay
can more and more
feel that they
don’t have to tuck themselves away
uncomfortably in shadows of dark places
where no one should ever have to reside,
let alone stay –
What I’m getting at is, hey, the “closet” back in my day
was as crowded as Yankee Stadium
on opening day.   [Read more…]

Restaurant Review: The Beach House in Cardiff

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The Beach House

2530 South Coast Hwy 101
Cardiff, CA 92007
(760-753-1321)

One of the benefits of “on-line dating” is that you do not want to invite your “date” to your home so you meet at a coffee shop, or a restaurant, or someplace that is out in the open. Today, I elected to meet Richard at the Beach House” restaurant in Cardiff for lunch because he lives in San Clemente and it seemed like a good “half-way” place to meet.

The restaurant is on the beach just foot-steps from the Cardiff State Beach. There is outside as well as inside seating, and we elected to eat inside at a window seat because it was windy and cool outside. Although not the first ones there at 11:30am, there were only 2 other tables occupied – one outside and one inside. As it got later, there were more diners but never more than 8 tables filled at one time.   [Read more…]

Marijuana Smoothie, Anyone?

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By Laura Gottesdiener / Alternet

One of the nation’s leading cannabis doctors has an idea for a New Year’s diet: a marijuana smoothie. Dr. William Courtney, who has spent years researching the potential health benefits of medical marijuana, argues that juicing whole hemp plants can provide a host of healing properties, ranging from pain relief to even helping prevent diseases like cancer.   [Read more…]

Desde la Logan: January Happenings in Barrio Logan and Beyond

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Sometimes I take for granted the things that are happening in my barrio and the surrounding areas. I consider myself lucky to live in a community that cherishes culture in all it’s varied forms. I have Chicano Park, The Roots Factory, The Spot Barrio Logan and The Voz Alta Project all within two blocks of my apartment. My community is a living creature, alive and vibrant, with culture oozing out of it’s streets and alleys like sweat from a worker’s brow. For the most part I know what is going on around here.

Because I usually know the haps in Logan I sometimes fail to realize that others may not know what’s going on. Therefore as a service to not only my community but also the greater San Diego community at large I will regularly compile a list of cultural and activism related events that will be taking place. This list will not only feature events taking place in Barrio Logan and the rest of the Historic Barrio District but events elsewhere in San Diego that I think readers of this column and San Diego Free Press should consider attending. Most will be hosted by the places I normally frequent (and places I should frequent normally) and many will be related to Chicanismo, Native issues, lefty causes and other stuff that I’m down for. Please support these grassroots cultural happenings, spaces and organizations by attending their events and, if so inclined, throw a few bucks their way.   [Read more…]

Film Review: Smiling Through the Apocalypse, and the Sixties (at the Palm Spring Films Festival, January 3-13)

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By Bob Dorn

Apparently, we made it through the Apocalypse. It wasn’t the most recent one, predicted to accompany the exhaustion of the Mayan and Olmec peoples’ Long Count calendar last December. Instead, it was the one so many of us lived through starting some 50 years ago, the one we like to say lasted a decade, the 60s.

Back then, half of us seemed to aspire to higher consciousness and the other half of us learned to run from people who told us to travel astrally, or to go to Vietnam to kill Vietnamese, or to get a PhD in business management or to go out of our minds simply to find out what that might be like.   [Read more…]

Riding the Rails in the West – the State of Amtrak – Part 2

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One Zephyr too soon –

By JEC / Special to San Diego Free Press

News item, December 26th, China debuts the longest bullet train in the world. From Beijing to Guangzhou a distance of 1,428 miles, the ‘new’ train will serve 35 cities and cover the distance in under 10 hours, averaging speeds of 186 mph. The old train, the shame of Wuhan took almost 24 hours to cover the 1,428 miles. Hold the phone – the bad old train served the same 35 cities covering the 1,428 miles in less than 24 hours at an average speed of 60 mph. If we only had it so good.

Amtrak’s Premier West Coast train, the Coast Starlight is very similar; 1,377 miles from LA to Seattle with 30 stops in between. But it takes the Starlight over 34 hours, making an average speed of only 40.1 mph. If the Coast Starlight could match the old average speed of China’s Beijing to Guangzhou train of 60 mph, the trip would take less than 23 hours.   [Read more…]

San Diego for Free: Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego

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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.

Locations: 700 Prospect Street, San Diego, CA 92037 (La Jolla), and 1100 Kettner Boulevard, San Diego, CA 92101 (Downtown)

Free Hours: 3rd Thursday of each month from 5 to 7 PM. The museum is always free to those 25 and younger and to military and their families.

Best For: The curious, the bold, the beautiful, the pensive, the happy

Website – click here.

With a building on the coast in La Jolla and downtown San Diego the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) has prime locations to display their collection. The museum has a mission of serving “diverse audiences through the exhibition, interpretation, collection, and preservation of art created since 1950”.
  [Read more…]

The Starting Line – The Sound of One Hand Clapping at UT-San Diego

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We’ll start off today by talking about UT-San Diego, always one of my favorite topics. With advent of the New Year there are changes afoot at our local daily newspaper, changes that have me scratching my head… But hey, they’re the experts, right?

I learned via Twitter yesterday that Manchester’s minions are now required to gain management approval should any TV or radio station ask them to comment on pretty much anything. It seems as though UT-San Diego has done a deal with Clear Channel, one of the mega-corporate media meisters. Although they operate a half-dozen or so outlets locally, what we’re really talking about is giving KOGO (home to Rush Limbaugh and other righties in San Diego) and XTRA Sports radio first shot at any UT staffers.

  [Read more…]

Why I Became a Volunteer Coordinator for the 2013 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count

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I didn’t expect my life to change as a result of my research for articles about homelessness for The Huffington Post. But that’s exactly what happened.

In the course of my research, I contacted several lead agencies of Continuums of Care (CoCs) in California to learn about their responsibilities.

As you may know, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requires each Continuum of Care (CoC), a group of service providers with a lead agency, to conduct a biennial Count during the last ten days of January, of homeless people living within its geographical area. Some CoCs, including the one in San Diego, California, conduct their Counts annually even though they are not required by HUD to do so.

  [Read more…]

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