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Urban Corps Begins Work for Barrio Logan MAD

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Nonprofit to clean community five days a week

By Brent E. Beltrán

Barrio Logan has not been the cleanest community in San Diego. For years this predominantly Mexican American neighborhood has been neglected by the city, the transient population that lives on its public spaces and even its own residents.

Graffiti has been ubiquitous throughout the alleys, walls and fences of property owners and businesses. Trash has been strewn along the streets and sidewalks due to a lack of receptacles and youth not caring. Weeds have overgrown green areas and sprouted through cracks in concrete and asphalt. Trees and bushes on public property have become unruly.

But not any longer.

The nonprofit Urban Corps has been called upon to help clean the dirty streets, alleys and sidewalks of Barrio Logan. Under the direction of the Barrio Logan Association and the city of San Diego Urban Corps began servicing the assessed parts of Barrio Logan in early November.   [Read more…]

Is the Pope Getting the Catholics Ready for an Economic Revolution? (Maybe He Read Marx)

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A spectre is haunting the Vatican.

By Lynn Stuart Parramore / AlterNet

In 1992, the Catholic Church officially apologized for persecuting 17th-century astronomer Galileo, who dared to assert that the Earth revolved around the sun. In 2008, the Vatican even considered putting up a statue of him.

Could a certain 19th-century atheist philosopher be next?

It is true that in 2009, a Vatican newspaper article put a positive spin on one Karl Marx. The author, German historian Georg Sans, praised Marx for his criticism of the alienation and injustice faced by working people in a world where the privileged few own the capital. Sans suggested that Marx’s view was relevant today: “We have to ask ourselves, with Marx, whether the forms of alienation of which he spoke have their origin in the capitalist system….” Indeed.   [Read more…]

Restoring Fairness to the World of California Water

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By Kate Poole/Natural Resources Defense Council

The Los Angeles Daily News penned a noteworthy editorial last week titled “California is drowning in ancient and unfair water rules.” It’s noteworthy because the editorial correctly debunks some of the common myths about California’s water system and, in doing so, points the way to several needed reforms:

  • Myth 1 – urban southern California is the biggest water hog in the state.

Wrong. As the editorial points out, “farming accounts for more than 80 percent of the state’s water usage, while providing less than 5 percent of its gross domestic product.” This is not to say that farming is not important – it certainly is. But because farmers laid claim to a huge amount of California’s water rights in the 19th and early 20th century, the State’s first-in-time, first-in-right system means that they continue to control a vast majority of the state’s water supply, even though agriculture is a far smaller piece of the State’s economic pie than it once was.  Meanwhile, many urban southern California water agencies have impressive plans to be highly efficient in their use and reuse of their piece of the remaining 20 percent.  When will we demand that agriculture be as efficient with this scarce resource?

Pet Store Owner Battling ‘Animal Rights Terrorists’ Sues Backers of Puppy Mill Ordinance

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By Doug Porter

Back in July the San Diego City Council approved an ordinance banning the sale of dogs, cats and rabbits at pet stores unless the animals are obtained from an animal shelter, an animal-control agency, a humane society or a nonprofit rescue organization.  The law came about following a slew of reports nationwide tying pet store sales of companion animals to high volume breeding facilities, also known as puppy mills, catteries, and rabbit mills.

Impacted by this move was San Diego Puppy, a Grantville retailer owned by David and Veronica Salinas.  They have filed a federal complaint, according to a San Diego Reader story by Dorian Hargrove, naming the City of San Diego, the local Humane Society, the San Diego Animal Defense Team, the Animal Protection and Rescue League, and the league’s lawyer, Bryan Pease, for their part in passing the Companion Animal Protection Ordinance.

The Salinas’ claim irreparable damage to their business, which the complaint says was the only retail “pet store in the city that is/was selling purebred and other high-quality puppies that are not purported to be from a rescue or shelter retail facility.”  Yes, animal lovers, we’re supposed to believe these plaintiffs are humble businessfolk, unreasonably persecuted by council members Lorie Zapf and Marti Emerald at the behest of activist organizations.

Starting Line on Hiatus (!)

I’ll be taking the weekend off. If anything really earth-shattering occurs I’ll post a special edition of this column.  Otherwise, see you Monday!   [Read more…]

Pass the Dinosaur, Pardon My Turkey and Love the Ones You’re With

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A Thanksgiving Cornucopia of Good Reads and Videos

By Anna Daniels

This year many of us will be thankful to sit around tables laden with wonderful food in the company of friends and family. And for many of us, a dinosaur will be the main dish. Seriously. We accept the fact, with a few stubborn creationist holdouts, that dinosaurs died out millions of years ago before humans were on the evolutionary scene. No more T Rex, Velociraptors or Stegosaurus.

But those were the non-avian dinosaurs. The dinosaurs that didn’t die out are the avian dinosaurs, more commonly known as birds. This is a fun fact for the kids at the Thanksgiving table, but it’s a heavy lift to mentally shift from the lifeless, plucked Butterball on the table, even if it’s a twenty-five pounder, to memories of Jurassic Park. A marauding wild tom turkey however is quite another thing. It may be a much scaled down tyrannosaurus, but admit it- it’s a dinosaur.   [Read more…]

Hell Freezes Over: California Conservative Launches Initiative to Raise Minimum Wage to $12

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By Doug Porter

Earlier this year California Gov. Jerry Brown signed off on legislation to increase the minimum wage.  The measure would raise the current $8 minimum wage to $9 an hour next July 1 and to $10 on Jan. 1, 2016. The 25% increase will be the first minimum-wage hike in California in five years, affecting an estimated 2.4 million Californians.

Golden State business interests and their conservative allies railed against the measure.  The LA Times quoted the president of the California Restaurant Association, saying the 87,000 eateries in the state would be forced to cut back employee hours and reduce hiring.  The California Chamber of Commerce labeled AB10  “a job killer.”

The conservative CalWatchdog.com predicted that 68,000 jobs would be lost over the coming decade and a “reduction in real output of $5.7 billion”, citing the Koch brothers sponsored National Federation of Independent Business.

Today’s New York Times reports that California conservative activist and millionaire Ron Unz is filing ballot language with the secretary of state , declaring his intention to gather enough signatures to place it on the ballot in 2014.   [Read more…]

A Taste of Colombia on Imperial Avenue: Antojitos Colombianos

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By Avital Aboody

If you’ve eaten on Imperial Avenue before, you’ve probably enjoyed some great tacos or perhaps pupusas. But you might not know about the newest gem on the corridor: “Antojitos Colombianos,” the first and only Colombian restaurant in San Diego. The doors at 2851 Imperial Avenue opened for business in January 2012, and this home-grown restaurant has been happily providing customers with a truly authentic Colombian experience ever since.

The owner of “Antojitos Colombianos,” Javier Rodriguez, is from Cali, Colombia. He moved to San Diego 28 years ago to study business at San Diego City College, and then decided to build his life here. Javier capitalized on his previous experience in hotel management, as well as his love for food, and spent the next twenty years managing various restaurants. In 2005 he got together with a couple of Italian friends and opened his first business, a continental restaurant in La Jolla.   [Read more…]

Talking Turkey About Climate Without Starting a Food Fight

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Via the Environmental Defense Fund

Climate change has become one of those divisive, polarizing issues that confound our political system. It’s often hard to even have a civil conversation with folks who disagree, even with close relatives or friends.

But it is clear that the climate crisis has arrived. And the key to solving it is educating those around us.

Chances are your friends and family fall into one of the following six categories:

Who Deserves Our Thanks for Truly American Food?

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Until 1492, Europeans had never tried potatoes, cranberries, corn, or turkey.

By  / OtherWords.org

What do turkey, sweet potatoes, and cranberries have in common?

Yes, you eat them on Thanksgiving. Additionally, they are all distinctly American foods. So are potatoes and the corn in your corn bread.

Believe it or not, the day that Columbus blundered into the Americas back in 1492, Europeans (and Asians and Africans) had none of those foods.

Thanksgiving is perhaps the one day a year when we Americans celebrate with truly American food.   [Read more…]

McDonald’s Advice To Underpaid Employees: Break Food Into Pieces To Keep You Full

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The “advice” was published on the “McResource” website, meant to give tips to fast-food workers.

By Alex Kane / Alternet

The latest friendly advice from McDonald’s to their low-wage workers includes tips on how to better handle stress–as well as how to fill yourself up better with dinner. The fast-food corporation instructs workers that breaking food “into pieces” will keep you full.

The advice was published on the “McResource” website, meant to give tips to fast-food workers. While you need to be a McDonald’s worker to log-in to the website, details of the advice have been publicized by the group Low Pay Is Not OK, a union-backed group seeking to organize low-wage workers at McDonald’s. The effort is part of the larger campaign to push for living wages, benefits and the right to organize among low-wage workers across a variety of industries.   [Read more…]

50 Years of the Big Lie – the Cover-Up of the JFK Assassination – Part 2

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JFK assass colorcropHere’s Part 1.

By Frank Gormlie

It’s finally here, Friday, November 22nd – exactly 50 years after President Kennedy was assassinated in Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas.

Of course you’ve noticed it – you can’t help but … as everywhere you go there are signs that everybody in the media is commemorating the half century mark of the end of the Kennedy Era – an era that was terminated with bullets.

It’s been 50 years since the end of Camelot and we are told it was the end of the “idealism of the Sixties”.

Well, it has been fifty years, and it’s been fifty years of the Big Lie – the Big Lie that Kennedy was killed by a lone gunman, and that Kennedy’s killer was then killed himself – which wraps it all up rather nicely, – case closed. The Big Lie is the Warren Commission Report – and all its apologists and defenders.

The Big Lie includes the failure of government to adequately and fairly investigate the execution of America’s chief executive, it includes the dismissal, omission, suppression and misrepresentation of evidence, it includes the manipulation, dismissal and intimidation of witnesses – and ultimately elimination of witnesses.

The Big Lie represents the plot necessarily carried out by a conspiracy to eliminate JFK and then to cover it up; the Big Lie is the half century of a carefully calculated deception laid on the American people, a deception that allowed governmental policies involving getting the US out of Vietnam, restricting the war industry, ending nuclear brinkmanship with the Soviet Union, and reproachment with Cuba to be reversed. The Big Lie is treason incarnate.

But the Big Lie is also very personal, as many Americans of my generation – the Sixties Generation – were all individually deeply affected by Kennedy’s murder and the subsequent shenanigans involving Jack Ruby killing Oswald on live TV. And we were all affected as a generation, as a class of humans by what happened in Dallas.   [Read more…]

Barrio Logan Group Faces an Uphill Battle Trying to Stop Shipbuilder Scam

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By Doug Porter

Superior Court Jeffrey Barton will hear from the Environmental Health Coalition (EHC) seeking a temporary restraining order aimed at stopping a referendum overturning the Barrio Logan Community Plan.  EHC and community supporters are saying signatures were fraudulently gathered on petitions submitted by the Protect Our Jobs Committee, a group created by shipyard repair companies.

The coalition has submitted affidavits from witnesses claiming petition gatherers were not truthful about the community plan’s details.  News media accounts and videos caught paid signature gatherers claiming the US Navy would leave San Diego should the community plan be implemented.

Posted around shopping centers in areas of the city where residents were likely to be unaware of the past history of callous disregard of health hazards by funders of the Protect Our Jobs group, voters were also told that 46,000 jobs were at stake and that the purpose of the plan was to allow developers to build condominiums in the area.   [Read more…]

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