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Straight from the Pit of Hell: Lethal Injections, the Truth about Turd Blossom and Fukushima’s Cherry Trees

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The SDFP Science Corner, because science is now a liberal conspiracy

By Anna Daniels

It has been an amazing week in science. The bones of the world’s largest dinosaur were discovered in Argentina, scientists appear poised to turn light into matter and the 12,000 year old skeleton of a young girl found in an under water cave in Mexico offers new information about the evolution of Native Americans.

This week in chemistry: The recent botched execution by lethal injection of an Oklahoman inmate has spurred discussion by citizens and members of the medical and legal professions, as well it should. The use of lethal injection for executions has been grotesque in its results.   [Read more…]

My Maria and SDSU’s CBB Multicultural Community Counseling and Social Justice Education Program

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By Ernie McCray

She’s really something, my Maria. Maria Nieto-Senour. College professor by way of the Mexican barrios of San Antonio and Austin and the inner-cities of Detroit. Mo-Town.

At any moment she’ll be retired which means she gets to hang out with me more. I can’t wait because she’s fun to be around and she’s about as loving a human being as one could be.  

That loving nature of hers has served her well as the Director of a master’s degree program at San Diego State University called CBB (Community-Based Block).

  [Read more…]

A History of Neighborhood House in Logan Heights: Jane Addams and the 1930’s

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SDFP exclusive series The History of Neighborhood House: From 1918 to the occupation in 1972

By Maria E. Garcia

Jane Addams was born in 1860 to a prosperous Northern Illinois family. As a young child she had tuberculosis of the spine. This health problem would affect her the rest of her life. Her father was a founding member of the Republican Party. Her dream of becoming a doctor died after her first year of medical school due to health problems and a nervous breakdown. So why would this woman who wanted to be a doctor and came from a rather wealthy family have any role or influence in San Diego, California? Why would she have any roots in a settlement house in the middle of a Mexican Barrio?

In 1887 she read a magazine article about a settlement house. It became her dream to establish one. She and her close friend Ellen Gates opened Hull House in Chicago. Many women who came from wealthy families and were in the college in the 1920’s developed a similar interest and involvement. College had made them progressive in their thinking. They had a sincere interest in social issues as well as a desire to help immigrants and the less fortunate.

This social philosophy took root in San Diego among various educated, wealthy women who included Helen Marston.
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Memory Against Forgetting: The May 1970 Peace Memorial at UCSD

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Editor: the following is based on a speech delivered by the author, Niall Twohig on last Friday, May 9th, in front of a group of fifty gathered in Revelle Plaza at UC San Diego to unveil The May 1970 Peace Memorial. The Memorial is dedicated to George Winne, who immolated himself and died as a protest against the Vietnam War in May of 1970, plus it’s dedicated to those students who carried on the May 1970 Student Strike.

By Niall Twohig

Why a memorial for May 1970? Why a memorial for peace? Why now?

To suggest some answers, I want to ask you, the reader, to take an imaginative leap back in time to May 1970.

In order to make this leap, we have to remember that the U.S. was waging an unpopular proxy war in Southeast Asia, made all the more unpopular after the invasion of Cambodia at the end of April.

If we found ourselves transported to May 1970, this would be all too apparent. We would see the images?the aerial views of bombs upon bombs pulverizing the Vietnamese countryside, images of GIs burning huts, footage of badly burnt villagers running from the firestorm of napalm, photos of rows upon rows of mutilated bodies scattered in the fields and anonymous soldiers packed away in coffins draped in stars and stripes.   [Read more…]

Straight From the Pit of Hell! The SDFP Science Corner

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Because science is now a liberal conspiracy

By Anna Daniels

It has been hard for some of us here at SDFP–ok, hard for me– to shoe horn in a few words on this particular site about the discovery of a new dinosaur, recent revelations about the universe or how jellyfish are becoming our evolutionary overlords and crazy ants are making people crazy in Texas, which is already a crazy enough place. Science, people! But finding the grassroots news or progressive views angle hasn’t been all that easy.

And then a new breed of Republican, as in back to the Dark Ages “new,” dropped science right into our liberal laps. This same breed of Republican who gets elected to public office because he doesn’t believe in government, is now sitting on science and technology committees because he doesn’t believe in science. And yes, most of them are “he.” The fervid religious beliefs and ignorance that have existed at our societal fringe are now firmly ensconced in school curricula, state legislatures and the Congress of the United States.
  [Read more…]

Capitalism: A Comparison of Marx and Piketty

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By John Lawrence

Thomas Piketty’s new book Capital in the Twenty-First Century begs comparison with Karl Marx’ Das Kapital written in 1867. The two books are alike in the sense that they both point out the incredible centralization and concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands. They are unlike in the sense that Marx’ book is more exhortatory while Piketty’s is more of a massive collection of historical data presented in the form of numerous graphs and charts.

While Marx was more of a “workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains” kind of guy, Piketty is a Dragnet’s Sergeant Joe Friday’s “The facts, ma’am, just the facts” kind of guy. While Marx’s solution to the dilemma of inegalitarianism was revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, Piketty’s is a global tax on wealth, something that even he concedes is unlikely to happen.   [Read more…]

A History of Neighborhood House in Logan Heights: 1918-1929

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SDFP exclusive series The History of Neighborhood House: From 1914 to the occupation in 1972

By Maria E. Garcia

From its inception in 1914, Neighborhood House became the heart of the Latino, Mexican-American and Mexican community. The building was known throughout the barrio as Neighborhood House, the Neighbor or Big Neighbor. It was modeled after Hull House, a settlement house established in Chicago.

The local history of Neighborhood House is in many ways the history of prominent San Diegans. People in the community who had a sincere interest in helping others would donate time and money to assure that the settlement house located at 1809 National Avenue was serving the community.

One family that gave of their time as well as their money was the George Marston family. …
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May 1970 Student Strike Against Vietnam War to Be Commemorated at UCSD May 9th

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UCSD Students to Honor George Winne’s Self-Immolation and Protests 44 Years Ago

By Frank Gormlie / OB Rag

Forty-four years ago exactly, college and university campuses across America exploded in violent and non-violent protests against President Nixon’s expansion of the Vietnam war. It was May 1970.

Over the course of the month, the nation would witness more than 450 university, college and high school campuses being shut down by student strikes that involved more than 4 million students. It was the largest American student protest before and since.

During protests, National Guardsmen killed four students at Kent State University on May 4, 1970 in Kent, Ohio, and Jackson city police and Mississippi state troopers killed one student at Jackson State College and a high schooler passerby, in Jackson, Mississippi on May 15.   [Read more…]

A History of Logan Heights’ Neighborhood House: Becoming Maria

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An introduction to the SDFP exclusive series The History of Neighborhood House: From Inception to Occupation

By Maria E. Garcia

I was born in Yuma, Arizona and came to San Diego at the age of three. With the exception of one year, when my mother had TB and we returned to Yuma so my aunts could help care for us, my whole life has been in San Diego County. Our first apartment in San Diego was at 33rd and Imperial Avenue. My parents, thinking a Catholic education was of value, sacrificed to send me to Saint Jude School. That’s where I learned that there was something wrong with being Mexican, and my name was changed to Mary Helen Garcia.

St Jude was my first experience with racism, a concept a shy six-year-old girl had not experienced until she met the nuns. In fifth grade we moved to an old house in Encanto. I attended Encanto Elementary, O’Farrell Jr. High and Morse High School. The blessing with all three of those schools is that they were multi-ethnic and we all learned to play together.   [Read more…]

‘Happy Dance’ for San Diego State University Dance Company on Turning 25…

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By Alejandra Enciso Guzmán

The SDSU University Dance Company will celebrate twenty-five years of dance this spring with a concert featuring stunning young artists in a contemporary dance work by SDSU faculty and guest artist Gina Bolles Sorenson. Intrigue, the bizarre and the fascinating set the tone for this showcase of San Diego’s rising new dance talent.

Lizbeth Price, Public Affairs Specialist at the SDSU School of Music and Dance, contacted San Diego Free Press to share the great news. I had the opportunity to direct a few questions to Melissa Nunn, Choreographer and Emeritus Professor of Dance.

“The objective is to provide advanced students with performing experience under the direction of professional faculty and guest choreographers; to prepare these students for professional work once they graduate” shared Nunn who will premiere a choreography of her own in this concert titled Presence.   [Read more…]

Your Tax Dollars Fund Creationism In Schools

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Americans in 14 states have spent $1 billion on voucher programs that fund anti-science education.

Alex Kane / Alternet

American tax dollars are funding the teaching of creationism in schools. An in-depth report by Politico’s Stephanie Simon reveals that taxpayers in 14 states are spending $1 billion to fund tuition for private schools, including hundreds of institutions that teach that God created the Earth and that biology and geology are full of lies.

While taxpayers don’t directly fund private schools, they do fund voucher programs that allow parents to spend public money on private schools that have virulently anti-science curricula. Voucher programs have long been a favored cause for the Christian right. And the Christian right is now having an impact on what kids are learning.   [Read more…]

Historic Win for Labor and A New Direction in the University of California System

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By Daniel Gutiérrez

La Jolla, California — On Tuesday, April 15th, UAW Local 2865, representing graduate student-workers across the University of California system, reached a tentative agreement with UC management regarding the procurement of all-gendered bathrooms and lactation stations. UC management succumbed to the necessities demanded by UAW Local 2865, acknowledging that both all-gendered bathrooms and lactation stations are a labor right to graduate student-workers. The historic achievement was reached after the union went on strike for two days early this month, in which nearly two dozen students were arrested and many others intimidated.   [Read more…]

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