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In Paradise: For the Time Being

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By Jim Miller

I recently had the pleasure of spending some time at Devils Postpile National Monument basking in the stunning beauty of that geological marvel and the accompanying reminder of the deep time that underlies the shallow surface history that we mistake for all that is.

Indeed, if there is a heaven, places like this are surely part of it. Nonetheless, while pondering the unintentional artistry of glaciers it was impossible not to notice how dry the mountains are now after several years of drought.

In and around Yosemite, the creeks, rivers, and waterfalls are drying up far earlier than usual, and the forests are perpetually vulnerable to fire. During my stay, I had to, as one always has to in the summer now, keep my eye on reports of fires—this time one was threatening the western edge of Yosemite near El Portal and had closed the Crane Flat, Bridalveil Creek, and Yosemite Creek campgrounds leaving firefighters to hold the line and keep the National Park open for the time being.   [Read more…]

The History of Neighborhood House in Logan Heights: Emma Lopez

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

By Maria Garcia

Emma Lopez is a spunky lady who will turn eighty-eight in November. She was born at 821 Beardsley in Logan Heights and started attending Neighborhood House when she was around nine years old, in the early 1930’s. Her parents owned the Neighborhood Café which they had purchased in 1935. The Neighborhood Café was next door to Neighborhood House. Like the others interviewed Emma has very fond memories not only of Neighborhood House but of the Logan Heights community.

It has been very difficult finding women who attended Neighborhood House. Unlike the boys who spent most of their day at Neighborhood House the girls took a specific class and then went home. Emma’s participation in Neighborhood House activities reflected that social expectation. While she was allowed to attend activities at a young age as she got into her mid-teens her participation was more limited. Emma’s independent streak, however, exposed her to a few more adventures than other girls of that time.   [Read more…]

Escondido Mayor Abed Paves Over Inconvenient Facts

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By Don Greene / Escondido Democrats

In the past month, much ado has been made over a parking lot located at 540 W. Grand Ave. The blog, Escondido2014.com, ran two posts on the parking lot and the potential of some funny business involved in the paving of that lot.

The owner of the lot is Escondido Mayor Sam Abed. He owns not only the vacant lot in question, but the adjacent office building at 562 W. Grand (the corner of Grand and Quince). The office was recently home to a fitness business that used the unpaved lot next door as a track area for outdoor exercise. Now that the office building is vacant, the formerly dirt lot has become a paved parking lot.

The paving of this lot has raised many questions and they were addressed in the posts on Escondido2014.com. Did the Mayor overlook – or get a pass on – state storm water regulations? City storm water regulations state that any lot being paved over 5,000 sq feet must conform with state storm water regulations. The actual city document is 130-pages long and covers a variety of mitigation factors which appear not to have been implemented when this lot was paved.   [Read more…]

North Pacific Dispatches: Mercury, Cesium, Plankton and Whales

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Second in a Series About Life About a Research Vessel

By Lori Saldana

Tuesday July 29– I completed my first 12 hour data collection work shift late last night and immediately went to the galley to ingest some calories before sleeping- not usually a good idea, but things are different on board a working ship.

For one thing, food always tastes better at sea. Perhaps its the fact someone else has prepared it for you, and our cook is excellent; she uses fresh fruits and vegetables, delicious and in-season, prepared well at each meal. Roasted squash, made-from-scratch soup,well-seasoned salads and soups on thick, warm bread. It’s nice to have a great deli down the passageway from the science lab!

Add to that: we have been engaging in physical work for many hours on a cold deck. with cold water running around our feet, and at times over our hands, as we gather water samples and look for plankton and trace amounts of mercury and cesium- the first, a persistent and toxic pollutant, the second, a radiation marker linked to the Fukushima accident.   [Read more…]

An OB Victory! City Council Unanimously Approves OB Community Plan

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With a 9 to zip vote, the San Diego City Council approved the Ocean Beach Community Plan Update, yesterday, the 29th of July and in the middle of the afternoon. Immediately, the 150 plus OBceans jumped to their feet with whoops of delight and sustained applause that went on for minutes.

It was an emotional day for OB, with the Council vote culminating a very long process of updating the community’s urban design blueprint, a blueprint that will significantly affect OB for the next 20 to 30 years.   [Read more…]

Who Runs San Diego? – Local Broadcast TV News Operations

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By Doug Porter / Democratic Woman’s Club

The sameness of the content can become overwhelming.

It’s happy, rappy and don’t-be-crappy whenever possible. Drama is reserved for ledes that bleed, i.e., crime and confrontations. Nuance is too difficult to jam into 30 seconds. It’s a formula, differing in graphics, presentation and the personalities of the persons reading the script.

It’s by-and-large an echo chamber. There’s a long standing tradition of prioritizing content based  on what appears in print media.  In San Diego that means “Papa Doug” Manchester and his Mission Valley minions have a disproportionate influence when it comes to political reporting.

Welcome to the world of commercial broadcast news in San Diego.

NOTE: This is the second installment of the Who Runs San Diego? series, a project of the Woman’s Democratic Club.   [Read more…]

A History of Neighborhood House in Logan Heights: Mary Hart Taylor and the Health Clinic, 1914 to 1938

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

By Maria Garcia

For over two decades Mary Hart Taylor directed the health clinic and various core health programs at Neighborhood House. She was well liked and respected by the community. It was a well-known fact in Logan Heights that if your child became ill in the middle of the night, you knocked on Miss Taylor’s door and you would be allowed in or she would follow you to your home to administer medical advice and care.

One of the reasons that Neighborhood House was established was to address the high mortality rate of Mexican children in Logan Heights.   [Read more…]

Living Fully in Nancy’s Place

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By Ernie McCray

Nancy left these shores on the 22nd of July, five years ago, and my son wrote some pretty words about her on Facebook that brought tears to my eyes, the soft tears that flow from memories held dear.

He says, of her passing, “It was not the last time I’ve heard her wisdom, felt her spirit, followed her counsel or shared a smile with her. I am motivated each day to bring change and happiness to this world and my mother is one of the motivations.”

Then he says, “Laurel (his wonderful partner in life) gave me a beautiful card this morning with a quote she chose that embodies how I’ve coped with the reality that I can never dance with my mother at my wedding, cry on her shoulder, or feel her hugs.” The card says, “The greatest gift we can give to those who have left us is to live fully in their place.”   [Read more…]

From Unist’ot’en Camp: What Does Solidarity Look Like?

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By Will Falk

Each night Unist’ot’en Clan spokeswoman, Freda Huson, and her husband Wet’suwet’en hereditary chief Toghestiy fall asleep on their traditional land not knowing whether the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are going to storm their bridge in the depths of night.

Each winter, when Freda and Toghestiy ride their snowmobiles down forestry roads to bring in supplies, to hunt, or to check their traplines, they don’t know whether they will find piles of felled trees maliciously dragged across their paths.

Each time Freda and Toghestiy leave their territory for a few days they don’t know if they will return to find another attack in an old tradition of cowardly arson perpetrated by hostile settlers on Wet’suwet’en territories leaving smoking embers where their cabin once stood.

I ponder this as I sit in a workshop with other settlers during the 6-day Unist’ot’en Action Camp – a series of workshops hosted on the traditional territories of the Unist’ot’en Clan of the Wet’suwet’en Nation to promote strategic planning and co-ordination in the struggle against the spread of fossil fuel pipelines.   [Read more…]

The Return of Comic-Con International: Revenge of the Press Release

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SDFP Writer Inundated with Comic-Con Related Emails

By Brent E. Beltrán

Last year I covered Comic-Con for San Diego Free Press. I wrote five articles in a series I called Adventures in Comic-Conlandia: A Nerds-eye View. You can read them here: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV & Part 5. This was my first attempt at writing about something I had loved since I started attending back in 1986. Though grueling I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and will cover the event again this week. I plan on being not so ambitious this year.

Sometimes Comic-Con sneaks up on you. You don’t know it is here until trolley station signs are written in Klingon or you’re standing in line for a happy hour beverage next to a Stormtrooper.

For me that wasn’t the case this year. You see, I’ve been inundated with press releases for the past month and it’s picked up even more within the last week. I’ve been sent hundreds of emails from the various media, toy and comic book companies that want to get the word out about their latest film, action figure or storyline.   [Read more…]

Going to San Diego Comic-Con? Put On Your Mask for the Surveillance Camera Network

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By Dave Maass / Electronic Frontier Foundation

In the TV series Person of Interest, two government artificial intelligence programs—one gone rogue—can access virtually every surveillance camera across New York City, including privately operated ones in places like parking garages, hotels, and apartment complexes. The creators of the show try to stay one step ahead of modern technology. So the question is: do cities really create a network of interconnected private and public security cameras?

Yes, they do. If you’re going to San Diego Comic-Con (and the Person of Interest team is), you’ll want to pull on your Batman mask or slather on the Sith paint if you’re passing any of the marked locations on this new map. You might very be under surveillance as part of the San Diego Police Department’s “Operation Secure San Diego.”

Operation Secure San Diego—ostensibly intended so first responders could get a view of a crime as it’s happening—encourages private businesses to allow the cops to access their surveillance video cameras. It also gives officers sitting in their squad cars the power to tap directly into live feeds. The first to share its streams was Hotel Indigo, a hotel popular with the Comic-Con set in San Diego’s Gaslamp district.

  [Read more…]

More Bare Facts About San Diego Government: How We Got From There to Here

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By Norma Damashek

Around this time last year San Diego’s former mayor Bob Filner was forced out of office.  As it happens, he was the first bona fide “strong mayor” our city has yet seen.

We voters had no choice but to wield our black markers once again and fill in the ballot bubble to select a new mayor.  The winner this time around was Mr. White Bread personified, Kevin Faulconer.

San Diego’s lead newspaper, the U-T, summed up the occasion in a neat sentence: “At least the day brought us one step further from our time of scandal and farce.”   [Read more…]

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