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City Councilman David Alvarez: How I See Barrio Logan

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By David Alvarez
District 8 City Council Representative

The community of Barrio Logan, of which I grew up in, is one of the oldest and most culturally-rich urban neighborhoods in San Diego. From historic beginnings to the vibrant mix of uses and people who reside and work in Barrio Logan, the neighborhood has played a vital role in the City’s development. The Barrio Logan community is a living example of the change and evolution that have continuously shaped the area’s cultural heritage, development patterns, economic opportunities, and social fabric.

Barrio Logan has a long history as a working-class waterfront community. Its early days as a base of homes and businesses for primarily Mexican immigrant workers helped shape the community into an important working waterfront neighborhood. As the community built up around maritime uses, such as tuna canning, military industries, and the Navy, the influx of Mexican migrant workers created a dominant presence in Barrio Logan in the 1910s and 1920s.   [Read more…]

How Much Is Your Life Worth?

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Price of some cancer drugs exceeds $100,000. a year

By John Lawrence

How much is your life worth?

In a free market economy like the US, that question is settled by ability of the individual to pay. If you can’t pay over $100,000 a year for a life-saving cancer drug, your life isn’t worth as much as someone who can.

In a free market economy your life is worth exactly your ability to pay. In countries where the government pays the cost of drugs, they decide how much your life is worth. In Britain it’s $50,000; that’s the price the British government has negotiated the most expensive drugs down to. Is there a moral limit to how much Big Pharma can charge for some life saving drugs?

Some doctors seem to think so.   [Read more…]

Extreme Weather Watch: Records Set as Flooding in Midwest Takes Its Toll

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By John Lawrence

There was definitely a lot of extreme weather in the Month of April as records were set for rainfall, snowfall, flooding and low temperatures and the month is not even over yet! However, none of it occurred in sunny San Diego so we should appreciate how lucky we are.

In Rapid City, S.D. April 2013 is the snowiest month on record with 39.5 inches. This beats the previous April and all-time monthly snow record of 38.5 inches set in April 1927. For Duluth, Minn. April 2013 is the snowiest month on record with 50.8 inches. This breaks the previous all-time monthly snow record of 50.1 inches set in November 1991. April’s snow total is more than Duluth saw all of last winter!   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Our SNAFU Congress: Stories of Inaction, Reaction and Sperm-Shaped Electric Cars

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By Doug Porter

Our national sausage making factory rises to the top my morning news heap today with a pile of stories that cry out to be told.

We’ll start with the number zero.  That’s how many Republican members of both houses of Congress showed up for a Joint Economic Committee hearing on long term unemployment. And the Democrats didn’t do much better.

Long term unemployment represents a huge economic, social and political challenge. In my opinion, it’s ticking time bomb, ripe for developing into a rich recruitment source for extremists and a rich environment for fomenting ‘lone wolves’ bent on acts of mayhem.  The sense of humiliation by forces outside one’s control is a powerful and very negative motivator.

There were suggestions for policy changes put forwards at these hearings, noted in today’s Wonkblog at the Washington Post. But they all involve some form of government intervention and cash money at a time when the now-disproved mantra of austerity continues to reign supreme in the nation’s capital.

INSIDE: CYA = Clear Your Airports, Issa’s Failed Sperm Car Loan Request, Local Protest on Immigration Policy, and It’s Kumbaya Time for Carl & Bonnie   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – California Education Issues Come Front and Center

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By Doug Porter

There’s a lull between big electoral periods right now (except for Los Angeles) and, fortunately this means there’s space available for bytes or ink with articles discussing education without the overlay of various campaigns.

The Big Issue in education since the “A Nation at Risk” study released during the Reagan administration has been reform. The changing needs of the nation’s workplaces, spurred by the revolution in technology, ran smack dab into the rising credo that argued for a smaller role for the public sector.

The word ‘reform’ has become tainted, laden with expectations or fears that private enterprise would alter the educational landscape. Three decades of interventions (and, yes, the ‘reformers’ have had many opportunities to try out their ideas) have left us only incrementally better off than we were when this entire hubbub started.

Along the way, programs not central to the theology of ‘teach to the test’ have been downgraded or discarded. Playing clarinet will not enhance your abilities to fill in bubbles on test sheets.  And earlier attempts at ‘scientifically’ updating instructional methods were conveniently forgotten. (Anybody remember the ‘New Math’?)

So it’s interesting that so many angles on the quest for a better education are in the news this week.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – GOP’s Lincoln Club Smear Campaign Suggests The “R” in Republican Stands for Racism

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By Doug Porter

Voters for the upcoming City Council runoff elections got a familiar sounding piece of mail this week. They’re getting campaign literature crafted by and credited to the Lincoln Club of San Diego, making many of the same claims made in the primary by the shadowy PAC calling itself San Diego County Voters for Progress and Reform.

Never mind that these claims have been debunked. Never mind that the group behind the original mailer tried (and failed) to fool voters into thinking the propaganda was somehow from the City of San Diego by putting an official looking logo at the top.   [Read more…]

Parts of Barrio Logan Have No Sidewalks – Does Anyone Care?

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Voice of San Diego doesn’t want to make judgment calls on that issue

By John Anderson

Voice of San Diego (VOSD) has been operating a Tumblr site featuring the damaged state of sidewalks across San Diego coined The Stumblr.  San Diegans are encouraged to send in photos from their neighborhood and the images are added to the site.  It’s a great idea to bring a public issue to light and has even received some love nationally including a nod from The Atlantic.

In preparation for our SDFP focus on Barrio Logan, fellow writer Brent Beltran noted the poor (read: non-existent) status of sidewalks in parts of the neighborhood, specifically along Harbor Drive.  Brent has a young son and mentioned he, and other Barrio residents, would like to be able to walk up to Seaport Village, the bayfront, Convention Center, and other destinations in the south-western part of Downtown.  No surprise – that area of Downtown is popular with locals and visitors alike and is a great place for a stroll, picnic, or throwing a frisbee.

I was already familiar with the area, but am usually on my bicycle and not paying particular attention to sidewalks.  I went out to specifically check out the area and take some photos.  There are large distances with nary a bit of cement sidewalk.   [Read more…]

Sequester Stalemate Cuts Legal Aid, Child Care, Housing

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by Brad Wong/Equal Voice News

Weeks after a political stalemate set in motion $85 billion in federal spending cuts for fiscal year 2013, sequestration has shifted from a political debate in the halls of Congress to a looming reality in neighborhood streets – especially in some of the poorest areas of the country.

In Georgia, the drop in federal dollars is taking an 11 percent bite out of extended unemployment benefits that more than 61,000 Georgians depend on for food, utilities and housing, according to the Rome News-Tribune.

In Mississippi, 2,300 children under the age of 3 will likely lose the care and early education they receive in federally-supported Early Head Start programs.

And in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley, sequester will mean cuts in legal aid services and housing vouchers for low-income families and reductions in job-search services for the unemployed.

Many community organizations that serve low-income families are already feeling the money pinch.   [Read more…]

Federal Government Should Carefully Consider Whether Aid Warranted in West, Texas

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Texans want limited government, their wishes should be fulfilled in West.

The explosion in West was ultimately caused by a failure of oversight in deference to private industry. This was a private company acting irresponsibly, not a natural disaster. The explosion was caused by an excessive amount of ammonium nitrate on the site. Ammonium nitrate is a primary component of some large bombs used by terrorists, including the bomb used by Timothy McVeigh to blow up the federal building in Oklahoma City.

The plant also reportedly had no automatic shutoff system, no firewall, and no sprinkler system. Safety for the workers and the surrounding community was obviously not any kind of priority.

It stands to reason, then, that the owners of the private West Fertilizer Company should be held responsible for the damage they caused, not the taxpayers. After all, that’s what the Conservatives in Texas want—for business to be able to do what business does best. That also means, however, being held entirely accountable when they screw up, which is not something Conservatives have been very good at. Apparently it’s not in the Republican lexicon.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Koch Brothers’ Coachella Failure-fest Set for this Weekend

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By Doug Porter

This weekend (Apr 28-29) hundreds of business executives and wealthy conservative donors will descend upon the Coachella Valley, hoping to forge a strategy to turn last fall’s drubbing of conservative candidates into future victories. I imagine the crowd will be considerably different from what locals have seen over the past two weeks.

Since 2003 billionaire industrialists David and Charles Koch have been hosting regular retreats at luxury resorts seeking to focus the resources and energy of wealthy and politically ambitious conservatives in the US.

Their latest invitation-only gathering, originally scheduled for January, was postponed.   [Read more…]

Part Two: Why Bomb the Boston Marathon?

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The Devil is in the Details

By Chip Berlet / Talk to Action

Editor’s Note: Since most of the news media ‘experts’ have no clue what they’re talking about when it comes to the backgrounds of the Boston Marathon bombers we’re publishing this detailed backgrounder by researcher Chip Berlet. Part One explained the genesis of Islamic terrorism, the apocalyptic viewpoint likely connected to the Boston bombing, and a quick primer on how the history of Chechnya fits in to this story.

 The prophecy about a mighty army of non-Arab Muslims under a sea of black flags storming Jerusalem from the region of Khorasan is very marginal within contemporary Islam. A hadîth is a saying attributed to the prophet Muhammad in one or more collections handed down over time within Islam. Some hadiths are concerned more reliable than others by experts within the faith. According to Sheikh Salman al-Oadah at Islam Today:

 The hadîth about the army with black banners coming out of Khorasan has two chains of transmission [historic references and cites], but both are weak and cannot be authenticated.

  [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Politicians Pandering to Prejudice in Boston Marathon Bombing Case

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By Doug Porter

Now that one Boston Marathon bombing suspect is dead and another has been captured the debate on the right seems to have swung around to arguing over whether or not a trial is even needed before execution takes place.

After all, this is “terrorism” by baby-killing “Muslims”. Be afraid, they say. Be very afraid. And the only rational “fight or flight” response in the conservative mindset is more violence.

Some public officials have called for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to be tried as a military combatant rather than in civilian courts. Others have urged that torture be used, although waterboarding might not be as effective as they dream it might be, given that Tsarnaev has a hole in his throat from a failed suicide attempt.

INSIDE: Was Boston bombing Terrorism?, Koch Bid to Buy LA Times Update, Issa Takes Border Crossing Hostage, The “Other” News in Texas Last Week   [Read more…]

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