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DA Bonnie Dumanis – Keeper of the Flame for San Diego’s Power Elite

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By Doug Porter

The race for District Attorney in San Diego has heated up in recent days, with incumbent Bonnie Dumanis actually showing up for a debate in Del Cerro after skipping events in Oceanside and La Jolla earlier this month. She also appeared at a Ramona Tea Party multi-candidate forum on Saturday, reportedly wearing a straw cowboy hat.

UT-San Diego gave Dumanis their editorial blessing this weekend, saying “She deserves re-election to a fourth term,” before acknowledging that she might have picked up some “baggage” over her 12 years in office. While that “baggage,” which includes a campaign finance scandal and an over-zealous (and failing) campaign against medical marijuana is of interest, it’s the broader accusations that Dumanis has politicized the District Attorney’s office that merit your attention.   [Read more…]

Orca Profiles in Captivity: No. 3 of the San Diego 10

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Third in a Series

 By Cara Wilson-Granat / OBRag

“Lots of people talk to animals. Not very many listen, though. That’s the problem.” –Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh

This is the third in a series of ten in which we meet one of the San Diego 10 orcas and hear from an advocate who continues to be one of the voices of these imprisoned voiceless, never stopping until the whole world listens. (Here are Orca Profile #1 and #2.)

Prisoner #3: Ulises
Age: About 36

Ulises, the oldest male orca in captivity, and the second largest (the largest being Tilikum, 12k pounds) is also a good candidate for a full return to the ocean. This hefty, Icelandic orca is 19 feet 6 inches (5.94 m), weighing 9,200 pounds (4,200 kg). Easily discernible, one can recognize him as not only being the largest captive whale imprisoned in Sea World San Diego, but he has the tallest dorsal; it stands straight up and droops ever so slightly to the right at the top.   [Read more…]

What We Lose When We Rip the Heart Out of Arts Education

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The course was speech, taught by Mr. Brannon. I was a freshman at a junior college just 15-20 miles from my home. Despite the college’s close proximity to my home, my father insisted I live on campus. But that class and those first two years of college were more than living on campus; they were the essential beginning of my life.

In one of the earliest classes, Mr. Brannon read aloud and gave us a copy of [in Just-] by E.E, Cummings. I imagine that moment was, for me, what many people describe as a religious experience. That was more than 30 years ago, but I own two precious books that followed from that day in class: Cummings’ Complete Poems and Selected Poems. Several years later, Emily Dickinson‘s Complete Poems would join my commitment to reading every poem by those poets who made me respond over and over, I wish I had written that.

But my introduction to Cummings was more than just finding the poetry I wanted to read; it was when I realized I was a poet. Now, when the words j was young&happy come to me, I know there is work to do—I recognize the gift of poetry.   [Read more…]

San Diego’s Maritime Industry Calls the Cops on Peaceful Protestors

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Five Barrio Logan residents and supporters stand their ground

By Brent E. Beltrán

I wasn’t planning on writing a column today but since maritime industry called the cops on my two year old son, his grandma, two others and myself, I changed my mind.

On Thursday morning I got up early. The day before, I found out that maritime industry was going to hold a press conference at 10:30am at R.E. Staite Engineering near the shipyards. This was only about 6 blocks or so away from my Barrio Logan apartment.

I’ve been itching to do a protest against maritime industry and their opposition to the Barrio Logan Community Plan Update. With them holding their presser within walking distance I knew I had to do something.

With the press conference taking place on a weekday morning, and less than a day’s notice to quietly get the word out (catching them off guard would be key), I knew there would not be a large turnout. Nonetheless, I had to do something, even if it was just my son Dino and myself.   [Read more…]

Gabriel García Márquez in His Own Words

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By Staff

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendía había de recorder aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevó a conocer el hielo.

This is the unforgettable opening line of Gabriel García Márquez literary masterpiece Cien años de soledad— One Hundred Years of Solitude.   [Read more…]

Orca Profiles in Captivity: The San Diego 10

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Activists Gear Up for Easter Protest at SeaWorld

By Cara Wilson-Granat / OB Rag

Dame Jane Goodall (famed British primatologist, ethologist, anthropologist, and UN Messenger of Peace) was asked a question. “Why did she do what she did for the chimps she has advocated for all her life?” She answered by sharing a true story.

A captive lab chimp had never lived outside a cage his entire life. Now freed by Jane and her team of researchers and scientists, the frightened primate sat and watched the other chimps in a large zoo compound—free of cages and offering grassy, rocky, chimp-appealing offerings, including the sight and sound of others like him. He was terrified by such a contrast—from darkness to light.   [Read more…]

Poems to Saturday by…

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Poems by John Wester

By Anna Daniels

Back in the early 70’s Julian was home to an enclave of young writers, intellectuals and politicos. John Wester was part of this group of kindred spirits that also included SDFP contributor Jay Powell and Bud Sonka who recently introduced me to John’s poetry. I hope that we will hear more about what they built and thought about up on the mountain during that time.   [Read more…]

“Taxifornia” Dreaming: Who Really Pays in California?

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By Jim Miller

Tomorrow is tax day, and we are likely to hear the usual histrionics from the pity the millionaire crowd about how the draconian taxes on the affluent and businesses in “Taxifornia” are killing growth and jobs and driving folks out of the state. There is only one problem with this—it’s not true. Indeed, far from the socialist hamlet that the anti-tax zealots like to portray us as, California’s tax system is still more regressive than progressive.

This is documented in the California Budget Project’s (CBP) Annual report “Who Pays Taxes in California?” that shows that, “Contrary to the oft-repeated claim that high-income Californians pay an unfair amount of taxes, it is actually California’s low-income households who pay the largest share of their incomes in state and local taxes.”

Consequently, the CBP argues that “Given widening income inequality over the last generation, and the ongoing economic challenges facing Californians in the aftermath of the Great Recession, policymakers could take specific steps to reduce the regressive nature of California’s system of state and local taxes and to promote economic security for low-income families.”
  [Read more…]

If We Don’t Connect It to Race and Class, Then Green Politics Is Just High-End Consumerism

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Instead of advocating “green” lifestyles that are financially and culturally inaccessible to millions of Americans, artist Marc Bamuthi Joseph proposes we ask a single, crucial question that connects race, class and ecology: What sustains life in a community?

By Marc Bamuthi Joseph / Creative Time Reports

As environmentalism goes mainstream, corporations are marketing the word “green” as a panacea for the world’s climate crisis. Today the word describes a set of prescribed, mostly consumerist actions: buy local, organic and fresh; go vegan; eat in season; skip the elevator; take the stairs. “Green” has come to mean shopping at Whole Foods and possessing a Prius. Meanwhile, leading corporate polluters like BP and Exxon Mobil place commercials on CNN advertising their “green” practices.

It should come as no surprise, then, that “green” lifestyles don’t resonate with low-income communities; being “green” involves a set of behaviors that are financially or culturally inaccessible to millions of Americans. This presents a major problem for the environmental movement. If it is going to be successful, environmentalism simply cannot afford to be demographically segregated or isolated from the pathos of economic disparity.

The environmental movement needs to do a better job of connecting issues of race, class, poverty and sustainability; in short, it has to become a broader social movement. And people of color need visibility in the movement. By that, I don’t mean Barack Obama presiding over environmental policy from the White House or Lisa Jackson heading the Environmental Protection Agency during Obama’s first term. I mean the recognition that sustainable survival practices in poor communities are just as significant as solar panels and LED lights. Ultimately this is where the citizenry of the planet can and must come together in order to move forward.   [Read more…]

So They Are All…All Honorable Men

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By Norma Damashek / NumbersRunner

San Diegans are no dummies. We know what happens to politically independent, outspoken, public-minded individuals who are brash enough to shake things up. They get maligned, noogied, humiliated, sent packing. Open your mouth too wide in this city and… you’re dead meat.

So we’re polite and genteel. Why look for trouble? Yes, the public gets screwed over and over again but we’ve learned to turn the other cheek. Forgive and forget — that’s our MO.

We swoon over the nice guys, especially the ones with agreeable manners. Like our avuncular ex-mayor Jerry Sanders, our puckish council president Todd Gloria, our sunkissed mayor Kevin Faulconer — honorable men beyond public reproach. Even when they’re plotting to pull the rug out from under us.   [Read more…]

Can Chris Christie Have It All?

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Does the 51 year old husband, father of four, lawyer and current Governor of New Jersey have what it takes to be President, too?

By Anna Daniels

“Will he or won’t he?” was on every pundit’s mind when New Jersey Governor Chris Christie arrived in Las Vegas to address the Republican Jewish Coalition. Anonymous sources say that the real reason for the visit was to receive the blessing from billionaire Sheldon Adelson for a 2016 presidential run, with the attendant promise of Adelson’s substantial financial backing. Christie coyly avoided directly answering a question about the purported meeting when asked at his Friday March 21 press conference.

Christie has a great deal riding on this visit to Las Vegas. He has clearly distanced himself from his two hour press conference in December 2013 when the Bridgegate Scandal genie could no longer be stuffed back into the bottle. During that press conference he seemed chastened, confused, vulnerable and according to an unnamed staffer, he looked… old. At one point he choked up, seemingly at the point of tears. His approval ratings plummeted, with some left wondering whether his inability to control his emotions led to questions about his leadership capabilities under stress.

The Republican Jewish Conference attendees seemed palpably relieved that the old Christie was back.   [Read more…]

March Madness Bringing out “The Thinker” in Me

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Go Aztecs! Bear Down, Arizona!

By Ernie McCray

My highlight of the 2014 March Madness Tournament was the Arizona Wildcat win over the San Diego State Aztecs in the Sweet 16. What a great game.

It was, however, a bittersweet win for me because, although I used to play for the U of A and the school is in Tucson, the town in which I made my debut as a homosapien, the Aztecs are my team too as San Diego is the town I came to when I decided that my “running around looking for shade trees” days were through. So my rejoicing after the game was somewhat tame. But I did do a little jig. For about an hour.
  [Read more…]

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