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Advertising on Television Reaches $5 Billion as Super PAC Spending Skyrockets

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Alternet / By Steven Rosenfeld / Sept. 27, 2012

After the votes are counted in November, there will be a big winner in the 2012 election who is not Mitt Romney, Barack Obama nor their top donors. This winner does not want to change anything about how America’s latest national election was run.

The unadvertised victors are media businesses that are seeing political advertising profits reach into the billions. There is no one estimate that combines all of 2012’s campaign advertising across all media, but one of the biggest winners clearly will be local TV stations and regional TV networks in 10 presidential swing states—and in California because of its costly statewide ballot measures.   [Read more…]

Ezell Singleton, One Bad Cat, Jack

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The first time I heard about Ezell Singleton was at my barber shop soon after I had come to town in 1962. His name came up in an animated conversation about “Who Was the Baddest Athlete to Ever Come out of San Diego.” A dude who was wearing, as close as I can remember it, a red hat, yellow suit, blue shirt, green socks and pink shoes spoke through his gold teeth on behalf of Ezell, summarizing his multihued speech with “He was one bad cat, Jack!” Well, that’s the “G” rated version of what he said. If he had been like Isaac Hayes singing about Shaft, his back up singers would have had to sing “Hush yo’ mouth.”

His name would come up in picnic football games. Somebody would make a flashy move and get teased with “Who you think you are, Ezell Singleton or somebody!”   [Read more…]

The Right Employs Creative Thinking to Explain Why Unemployment Is Below 8 Percent

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Alternet / Adele M. Stan / Oct. 5, 2012

This month’s jobs numbers are out, showing the unemployment rate to have fallen to 7.8 percent, robbing Republicans of a favorite talking point. That number is a 44-month low, according to the Associated Press , which reports the unemployment number fell from 8.1 percent because “the number of people who said they were employed soared by 873,000.” Predictably, right-wing Republicans are crying foul , insisting, based on nothing, that the career civil servants at the Bureau of Labor Statistics must be cooking the books.   [Read more…]

Romney’s Debate Strategy: The Testosterone Ploy

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Alternet / By Alison Rose Levy / Oct. 4, 2012

Do we choose the nice guy with the solid values that we share, or do we choose the primate who beats his chest and displays high testosterone?

Just like in the ads featuring beautiful women, luring consumers to buy products, in this week’s Presidential debate, Mitt Romney pulled out something alluring—testosterone—offering this country a choice with which many women are familiar: Do we choose the nice guy with the solid values that we share, or do we choose the primate who beats his chest and displays high testosterone?

During the debate, while reversing his position on almost everything, and hoping Americans would forget his choice of running mate, Romney set his jaw, puffed his chest, and shouted over the moderator. In contrast, Obama repeatedly looked down, and looked tired. But who wouldn’t? (Note to Dem media advisors: Tell the President to look up and assure that he is positioned to Romney’s left in future debates.) Having pulled this country back from the brink of disaster created by the previous administration, and having fought to get anything done with a Congress more partisan and uncooperative than any in U.S. history, what’s President Obama served for dessert? A buffet of narrow-minded racism. After all of that, and much more, who wouldn’t be tired?   [Read more…]

National Organization for Marriage (NOM) Pans My Nice Little Hetero Marriage

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By Kit-Bacon Gressitt
The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) emailed a link to its two new campaign advertisements this week. The ads support Minnesota’s Amendment 1, which would amend the constitution to restrict marriage to “only a union of one man and one woman.” What the ballot measure fails to note, but NOM makes evident in the first of its new ads, is that the woman had better be fertile, because, “Marriage is more a commitment between two loving people. It was made by God for the creation and care of the next generation.”   [Read more…]

SD For Free An Old Favorite – The Public Library

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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.

Website: http://www.sandiego.gov/public–library/

Best For: Readers, thinkers, learners, children

I love to read and my earliest memories of books are from reading at bedtime with my parents and trips to the library for reading hour.  Many years later, and many states away, I am on the other side of these memories and trying to foster a love of reading in my daughter.  We often visit the library to find new books, meet other children, and read together.   [Read more…]

Sex In San Diego: The 10 Weirdest Sex-cessories

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Alternet / April De Costa

No judgement: Everyone has their own sexual preferences, predilections and fantasies, and it’s also understood that sex with one, or two, or however many of the same person(s) can grow tedious. The Internet has grown, in part, to accommodate everyone’s erotic interests, and to capitalize on niche fetish markets. So I’m not here to lower your freak flag, and of course this third party could never understand the nuances of your beaudoire repertoire. All that said, here are 10 weird sexcessories used by consenting adults that seem somewhat unnecessary, or even counterproductive to the whole enterprise.   [Read more…]

Staged Events– Mitt Romney, Barack Obama and Juanita LaRue

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Teresa has spent the last two decades addressing the impacts of inter-generational poverty, drug addiction and incarceration upon our young people– the very issues our presidential candidates have chosen to overlook. She carefully unwinds these young people’s stories resulting in fully realized, complex human beings who deserve not only our compassion and our understanding, but more importantly our commitment to finding solutions.   [Read more…]

Mexico by the Numbers

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Some interesting facts about our largely misunderstood neighbor.

Mexico is a diverse nation with complexities that most Americans have trouble fathoming. It is a country that is stuck with the stigma of having a third world economy with a poor education system, among other problems. The truth is that it is a far more advanced country economically and culturally than most people know.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line –GOP Voter Registration Fraud Program Continues to Unfold; Is There a San Diego Connection?

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Does anybody remember the Fox News generated story about voter fraud allegedly perpetrated by ACORN during the 2008 election cycle? The sum total of their evidence was that individuals were attempting to scam the voter registration system by turning in falsified forms. No monies from the Democratic Party were ever tied to ACORN, nor was there proof that any of the fake voters actually attempted to vote.

It should be noted that actual voter fraud (where somebody casts an illegal vote), despite regular histrionics by right wing zealots, is exceedingly rare.

Now there is a nation-wide voter registration scandal unfolding involving companies directly funded by both State and National Republican Party groups, and over at Fox News there’s not a peep to be heard.   [Read more…]

Red States Outpace Blue States in Income Growth — Thanks to Food Stamps

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Alternet / By Sarah Jaff (Originially published Sept. 27, 2012)

Government programs are helping ease poverty in red states, despite the GOP’s best efforts.

Americans love nothing more than a good Red-State-Vs.-Blue-State argument, especially during election time.

So a new story in USA Today, looking at the changes in income, state by state, since the beginning of the Great Recession, of course breaks down the results into “red,” “blue” and “swing” states. It declares that red states have seen incomes grow 4.6 percent since 2007, adjusted for inflation, while blue states have only seen incomes grow 0.5 percent. In swing states?
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We Read Banned Books: City College Hosts 7th Annual Week-Long International Book Fair

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Despite the financial difficulties that came with trying to fund a big cultural event featuring books during hard economic times, the San Diego City College International Book Fair continues to deliver excellent literary talent for San Diego. Director Virginia Escalante has put together a lineup that features a little bit of everything with emerging writers, like Reyna Grande, alongside established talents such as Susan Straight and Gustavo Arellano.

  [Read more…]

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