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The Dove and the Cockerel: Chapter 15

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From the copper colored ’74 Buick Regal, parked less than fifty yards away, Leonard Jefferson and Christopher Swank had watched in silence as Lester was arrested by the undercover narcs and the subsequent struggle. To their amusement, they also watched the two narcs being helped into a paramedic van and driven away a few minutes later. This did not, however, lessen the blow from the loss of profit they would have realized had Lester sold the 150 hits of LSD and not been arrested.

“Dumbshit,” grumbled Christopher. “I spotted those narcs a mile away.” Christopher was a skinny middle aged speed freak. He combed his thinning, greasy brown hair over the bald spot on top of his head. His droopy moustache was equally thin and looked more like a cheap disguise than the real thing. A native of Linda Vista, a small racially mixed lower income community overlooking Mission Valley to the south, Christopher was currently on parole from Chino State Prison where he had been serving time for his fifth conviction for possession and distribution of methamphetamine. Christopher had met Leonard while in the joint and had hooked up with him upon his release.

“That’s what I get for trying to branch out and diversify. I gotta just stick with crystal,” replied Leonard matter of factly.   [Read more…]

North Park Beer Scene Is Blowing Up

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North Park is an urban neighborhood located on the northeast side of Balboa Park. The neighborhood boundaries are roughly Mission Valley to the north, Interstate 805 to the east, Switzer Canyon to the south, and Florida Canyon to the west. In the past year North Park has received some national attention including being named the 13th best hipster neighborhood by Forbes. This ranking was based on the following criteria:

San Diego For Free: Hike on Cowles Mountain for the Winter Solstice – December 21st

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San Diego for Free is 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.

Location: San Carlos, hike starts at the trailhead near the intersection of Golfcrest Drive and Navajo Road

Best For: Restless spirits, insomniacs, hikers, walkers, strollers

Date & Time: Friday, December 21, 6 – 7:30 AM

Website : Here.

This Friday, December 21st is the Winter Solstice – the shortest day of the year and a date held sacred and marked on calendars (both paper and stone) since time immemorial.

To celebrate the date the Canyoneers volunteer hiking group is leading a trek up Cowles Mountain in the pre-dawn stillness to view sunrise from a Kumeyaay solstice observatory about halfway up the mountain.   [Read more…]

The Violence Behind the Violence

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America cannot truly address gun violence unless it is prepared to address the root causes of gun violence.

by Nadin Abbott

Since the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting in Connecticut, we have had many discussions on the sources of gun violence in our country. We were all shocked. Many fingers are pointing at both Hollywood and the video game industry. If we are to believe them, all this would go away if we removed the glorification of violence from the media.

I will be the first to admit this: Call of Duty is violent. It simulates war. We would be surprised if it wasn’t. It is also rated M by the ESRB, that would be for seventeen year olds and older. It’s not meant for kids. Ratings work, only if we use them as a guide.

I will also admit that a James Bond movie is pure schlock with quite a bit of violence. There are many other titles out there that include explosions, gun play, and bloody gore. Need I mention the Die Hard series? Argue all you want about how video games and movies encourage violent acts. But that’s merely scratching the surface and doesn’t get to the root of the real problem.   [Read more…]

Searching for City Heights: The 47th Street “Olivia” Canyon, IRC Aqua Farm and El Rey Tattoo Parlor and Barbershop

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It is not unheard of for someone to tell you that he intends to move to San Diego from some other state. It is frankly rare however, for someone to say that she is planning to move to San Diego and wants to live in the community of City Heights. Out of all the other communities in San Diego, she wants to live in City Heights?

Back in June of this year when my first City Heights Up Close & Personal column was published, I received an intriguing comment from Mary Best that she wanted to move to City Heights within the year. We exchanged emails and spent a long afternoon together a few weeks later when Mary came to town.   [Read more…]

12 Cool Holiday Traditions That Aren’t About God or Shopping

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Finding it a little tough to feel warm and chirpy about the birth of the baby Jesus?

By Valerie Tarico / AlterNet 

After an autumn of Bible-based gay bashing, and Religious Right candidates with “rape Tourette’s,” and End Times aficionados gunning for Armageddon rather than peace in the Middle East, some nontheists may be finding it a little tough to feel warm and chirpy about the birth of the baby Jesus. Fortunately the need to celebrate life and light at the darkest time of the year is something that long predates Christianity, and many of the yummy and playful customs of the season are rooted in cultures that have merged and morphed and been shared freely for millenna. Here are twelve traditions with ancient roots.
  [Read more…]

Desde la Logan: Barrio Logan’s Northgate is a Deferred Dream Come True

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On December 11, 2012 the first major supermarket in San Diego’s Historic Barrio District (Barrio Logan, Logan Heights and Sherman Heights) in almost 40 years opened it’s doors to the public for the first time. For Barrio Logan residents the opening of Mercado Gonzalez Northgate is more than just the opening of a supermarket, it is a deferred dream come to true.

It took 21 years for the city and developers to build this market. Twenty one years of promises. Twenty one years to gain an amenity that most communities have.

Not since the closure in the early 1970’s of Safeway, on the corner of 25th and Imperial, has there been a major supermarket that services these predominantly Mexican-American communities. For over 30 years these communities demanded a supermarket. None of the major supermarkets like Vons, Albertson’s and Ralph’s heeded this demand. Fortunately, after all those years, a Mexican-American grocer family stepped up.   [Read more…]

How Many More Mondays? Changing a Culture of Glorified Violence

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The plan for the day had been to finally get the Christmas decorations up and address cards. I turned on the news to get my daily laugh from the cirque de D.C. and see how much closer we were coming the fiscal cliff. I wish I had not. The news was so just awful, again, I wept. Twenty-six souls lost, 20 of them only 6 and 7 years old. In an instant, another mad man took away so many dreams, so much joy, and so much love.

According to reports, the 20-year-old murderer took his own life, so we will never get the chance to ask him why or how he became so full of evil. Even if we were able to, it would not stop the carnage which all too often frequents the innocent, here and abroad. It will not stop, because we either do not care enough, or we must ghoulishly enjoy it enough to not do anything about.

It was in January, 1979, I recall the first school shooting, at least the one which caught everyone’s attention. And it was here in San Diego. After barricading her house across the street from Cleveland Elementary School in San Carlos, 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer opened fire with a semi-automatic .22 caliber rifle, killing the principal, the custodian and wounding eight children and police officer before she surrendered after a seven-hour standoff. Tried as an adult, she received a sentence of 25 years to life in prison. She has been denied parole four times, and it will be 2019 before she is eligible again.   [Read more…]

SHOWGUNS

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By Bob Dorn

Growing up white in Arizona put you in touch with all kinds of guns — only your fingers and hands if you were the boss, your more vulnerable parts if you were not. Back then, white boys had the bb gun at the age of 6 or 7, a .22 rifle by the age of 11 or 12 and at 16 a 20-gauge shotgun for doves. Many of them knew something about clips and muzzle velocity and hollow point bullets before they’d even grown up.

I’m saying “white” because that, plus a bit of Mexican culture, is all I remember about Arizona at this point in my life, removed from that state and condition by at least 5 decades. In Phoenix, back then many, but not all, whites were — as Mitt Romney might put it — self-segregated. They chose to be cut off from the rest of the world, which made it possible to be white. You could have some large distortions in your thinking that were rewarded when you expressed them. And if they weren’t why, then, you had guns.
  [Read more…]

Crazy People with Guns Kill People

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By Frances O’Neill Zimmerman

Time for newly-re-elected President Obama and the lame Congress of the United States to enact an assault weapons ban and to provide safeguards against easy access to guns and ammo. The old assault weapons law was allowed to expire a couple of years ago, thanks to craven legislators succumbing to pressure from the National Rifle Association.

Here’s my personal random list of incidents of mass-murder perpetrated by
unstable people with access to our uniquely American weapons of mass destruction.   [Read more…]

“Today Is Not The Day” To Talk About Gun Laws

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Open wide and swallow:

Guns don’t kill people- people (with guns) kill people

Mentally ill people (with guns) kill people

Careless stupid people (with guns) kill people

Unarmed people enable people (with guns) to kill people

There. That was easy   [Read more…]

The Starting Line— Exposing the Myth of Incentivized Economic Development; It’s Like Crack Cocaine for Politicians

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Today I’ll take a break from breathless headlines and poke my journalistic nose into the mythology bandied about by the Official Press in reference to boosting local economies. This is particularly relevant to San Diego, as we (hopefully) move away from a mode of development that sacrificed neighborhoods in favor of corporate edifices downtown. Of course, we still have stuff in the pipeline and the ‘must have’ stadium scheme being promoted in Lynchesterland…

Three articles on related topics have come to my attention this week that I’d like to share: two debunk the idea that “incentives” given by government to companies are beneficial to local economies; the other pulls back the curtain on the “sports welfare” system in this country.

Here’s the deal: your tax dollars are supporting a system of kickbacks and enticements for corporations and individuals based on empty promises of employment opportunities and economic growth. Thus the rich get richer while the rest us pay more taxes.   [Read more…]

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