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Reactions to Supreme Court Hobby Lobby Decision Range From Real Disappointment to Really Dumb

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By Doug Porter

The Supreme Court saved its most controversial decisions for last for this session, announcing twin 5-4 votes yesterday in cases limiting public sector unions and extending the concept of corporations as persons to include the right to opt out of contraceptive coverage based on the religious beliefs of the owners.

While the rulings were narrower than they could have been, they triggered reactions filled with hyperbole and misinformation. For purposes of today’s column, we’ll take a look at responses to Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the ruling holding closely held corporations (90% of all companies) are “persons” as defined by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993.

Make no mistake about it, the creeping person-hood of corporations combined with a ruling favorable to the theocracy set is serious business. But the headlines at places like the Huffington Post were beyond the pale.   [Read more…]

Endless Summer: On the Verge of the Sixth Extinction

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“The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson

We’ve seen a lot of bad news lately from the dismaying results of our last local election and a slew of reactionary court decisions at the state and national level to the re-emergence of the chaos in Iraq and the seemingly daily news reports of growing evidence that our widening level of economic inequality is becoming an entrenched and sadly taken-for-granted part of our new normal.

Even as we head into the heedless days of summer, we are greeted by yet more studies showing that the climate change fostered by our unsustainable way of life is causing huge chunks of the antarctic to break off which will result in rising sea levels and more severe damage to our ecosystem and consequent human suffering.

If you are paying attention, it’s hard not to be angry.  But, of course, there is already a virtual industry in place designed to turn people’s anger in the wrong direction, to deny basic facts about history, the economy, political power, and the actual state of the natural world.  Thus, just when we need to be turning the car dramatically to avoid the crash, there’s no one at the wheel.   [Read more…]

Lessons from Unist’ot’en Camp: Is Your Integrity Intact?

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By Will Falk

Resistance is often lonely.

I learn about loneliness waking up on a cold, hard storage room floor at 3 AM in a new friend’s house after a nightmare involving confronting all my old co-workers in the Kenosha, Wisconsin State Public Defender’s Office, hanging my head again in defeat and shame as I explain that I will never come back to work there. I stare at the ceiling asking myself just how in the hell I ended up in Victoria, British Columbia to stop the spread of fossil fuels in Canada.

I learn about loneliness watching the supply of my daily anti-depressants dwindle in the bottom of the orange pill bottle. I’m too embarrassed to ask how I would go about refilling my prescription. I’m confused about whether I even want to re-fill it after forgetting to take my medications for a few days and feeling the welcome return of swift, spontaneous emotions welling up to heat my body like a touch of whiskey on a winter day.   [Read more…]

Red Cross: How We Spent Sandy Money Is a ‘Trade Secret’

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By Justin Elliott  / ProPublica

Just how badly does the American Red Cross want to keep secret how it raised and spent over $300 million after Hurricane Sandy?

The charity has hired a fancy law firm to fight a public request we filed with New York state, arguing that information about its Sandy activities is a “trade secret.”

The Red Cross’ “trade secret” argument has persuaded the state to redact some material, though it’s not clear yet how much since the documents haven’t yet been released.   [Read more…]

Another Community Whose Plan is in Trouble – and This Time it’s Ocean Beach

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By Frank Gormlie

Coming on the heels of the electoral defeat of the community plan for Barrio Logan in the June 3rd Primary, there’s now yet another community whose plan in trouble, and this time it’s Ocean Beach.

After a 12 year process of updating its community plan, Ocean Beach finally had a Draft Update that was supported and endorsed by every community group in the village. The OB Town Council was on board as were the merchants’ association. Plus other groups as well, like the Friends of the OB Library.

But on its way for the anticipated final approval by the City Council, the OB Community Plan ran into a roadblock: the San Diego Planning Commission.

At their May 29th hearing on the Plan, the Planning Commission – having listened to City staff endorse it, and after nearly every Commissioner praised OB’s “unique character”, turned around and recommended gutting the very tool the community and its Planning Board have used for nearly 4 decades to create that “unique character” by its limits on bulky over-development. The design tool, the FAR, limits how many square feet a developer can construct on a lot.
  [Read more…]

San Diego Grit: Remembering Tony Gwynn

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By Jim Miller

Tony Gwynn died last week and it stopped me.  In part it was because he died too soon at 54, only four years older than me and many of my friends who grew up watching and admiring his skill as a player.  As is always the case when someone who has been a part of your collective experience goes, there is a new hole in your life, that sense that something’s missing that won’t come back except as a ghost, a haunting memory.

But it was more than that.  With the death of Gwynn, San Diego lost the last of his kind, a Southern California product who went to school at SDSU, came up with the Padres, and stayed here for his entire career, even when he could have left for greener pastures.  In an era of pervasive corporate delocalization in sports and the culture at large, Gwynn was an old school guy who embodied loyalty to his town and his team.  You couldn’t really think of San Diego without him.   [Read more…]

Photo Gallery: Predators Visit the Pacific Beach Marshland

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By Roy Little

Because the Kendall-Frost/Northern Wildlife Preserve in Pacific Beach is an isolated haven for small wildlife, various predators visit the marsh for food. Here are some photos of several breeds of hawks in the marsh and around the edges. These hawks mainly commute because the marsh and its surroundings are so close to human habitation. While their individual roosting and nest locations remains somewhat of a mystery, there is much to be said about their general size, appearance and habits.   [Read more…]

Smart Phone ‘Kill Switch’ Legislation Not So Smart

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By Doug Porter

District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis has an op-ed in today’s UT-San Diego praising yet another ‘common sense’ reform.  She and other law enforcement types around the state are rallying behind a bill authored by State Senator Mark Leno, D-San Francisco that would require cellphone manufacturers to have “kill switch” technology enabled by default.

She argues that the wireless industry is fighting this legislation to protect the profits made from selling replacements for stolen smart phones. It all just sounds so logical. Until you think about her real track record–Since when did our feckless DA become a populist crusader? And haven’t we learned our lesson yet about reforms that seem too good to be true?

Fortunately for consumers and citizens the folks at the Electronic Frontier Foundation have cried foul on Sen. Leno’s SB962. It’s a bad idea wrapped up in sheep’s clothing that has the potential to make your smart phone stupid and into a tool for suppressing free speech.   [Read more…]

Reflecting on Unist’ot’en Camp: Living with Death

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By Will Falk

There is a trail we all must walk. It begins at birth. It twists and turns through lush forests and barren deserts, under clear, star-filled skies and swollen storm clouds, up steep mountain passes and along lazy sweet-tasting streams. Eventually, we find ourselves approaching the heavy mists of death. Eyesight cannot pierce the mists. Rarely do we hear anything from the other side. We do not know where the trail through the mists leads because the mists of death form impenetrable walls.

I have lain in my own deathbed. Twice.

Through two attempted suicides, my trail slowed as it turned uphill and towards a cliff where the mists had gathered. The tip of my nose pressed into the deep chill. My cheeks were almost frostbitten with the violence I did to myself.   [Read more…]

Reflecting on When I Dreamed of Fatherhood as a Child

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  By Ernie McCray

 As Fathers Day approached I was thinking back to how I used to kind of dream of being a dad when I was a little boy.

 The concept of fatherhood has held some significance to me for most of my life. One of my first questions to the universe was “What does a daddy do?”

That was all about the fact that my mother was the one in my everyday life, working, as she would not let anybody forget, her fingers to the bone. And that was confusing to me since my dad, who didn’t live in our home, seemed to be resting and dressing and cruising – and I felt forced to get a job when I was only five years old.   [Read more…]

Reactionaries Reject City Council Compromise on Minimum Wage “Because They Can”

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“No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to exist in this country.” President Franklin D Roosevelt

By Doug Porter

Having successfully bamboozled their way through a series of political encounters over the past few years, downtown’s reactionary business class proved yesterday that they’re in no mood for any compromises.

With hours of a Council president Todd Gloria introducing a revamped minimum wage proposal the Chamber of Commerce’s newest front group, calling itself the San Diego Small Business Coalition, mustered a couple of dozen bodies in front of city hall to denounce the compromise proposal as ”massive,” threatening increased prices and reduced employment.

Gloria’s scaled-back proposal increases the local minimum wage in three annual increments. Stage one (originally $11.09) would be $9.75, stage two (originally $10.50) would be $10.50 and stage three (originally $13.09) ends up at $11.50, effective January 1, 2017. Allowing employees to earn paid sick days is also part of the measure.   [Read more…]

The Community Plan Domino Effect: First Barrio Logan, Now Ocean Beach Challenged

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By Doug Porter

More than four decades ago a grass roots movement arose in Ocean Beach in response to development plans that would have destroyed the essential nature of the community. Now the  city planning commission is seeking to override sensible conditions for development included in the latest up date of the Ocean Beach community plan.

At issue is a change in the formula used to determine floor area ratio restrictions. Currently development in OB is regulated in size and scope by a requirement that can limit the size of the building on a lot. The change being insisted upon by downtown will allow development similar to that in place in Mission Beach, where sprawling buildings sit cheek by jowl in a soulless wasteland.

The grand plans drawn up back in the 1960s by the spawn of the Peninsula Chamber of Commerce for high rise hotels, apartment complexes and a yacht harbor may not be possible these days thanks to the 30 foot high limit and environmental concerns. However, the desire to over-develop with little or no regard for the consequences continues to exist.

The current community plan up for consideration was written over a 12 year period by community members and has the support of every community group. There are, however, several landlords with clout who have made their opposition known.   [Read more…]

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