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Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood

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By Ernie McCray

I’m not, necessarily, one for seeing movies or plays or other things that are staged more than once unless there’s something really special about it. That being said I can’t wait to take in my friend Calvin Manson’s wonderfully soulful musical “Don’t Let me Be Misunderstood” again.

I highly recommend this beautifully crafted piece of theater because it’s so personal to me. It features the songs of one of my show-people-heroes, Nina Simone. This inimitable singer and pianist not only dazzled the world with her sultry sincere soulful voice but she also, at the same time, actively pursued dreams of that world being one where all people live in freedom. With dignity. Like Robeson and Belafonte. That kind of service to humanity resonates deeply within me.   [Read more…]

UT-Faux News: Scraping the Bottom with ‘Filner Era’ Journalism

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By Doug Porter

News organizations relying on dead tree products (print) have been taking a lot of body blows over the last decade.  The continual decline of ad revenues since the second quarter of 2006 is so depressing for publishers that the Newspaper Association of America simply stopped reporting quarterly figures last month.

Some publishing companies are making up for the loss in revenue with increased subscription revenues. Others have morphed into multi-platform businesses. And still others, like our city’s UT-San Diego, are dabbling in faux news, a term acknowledging the role played by the homonymously-named TV network news operation plying the airwaves with Barely True News.

“Slow news day? Make something up!” appears to be the operating philosophy at their Mission Valley headquarters these days.   [Read more…]

Kevin Faulconer and the Republicans Really Don’t Want Liberal Voters to Vote for Nathan Fletcher

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By Frank Gormlie/OB Rag

It’s very clear – Kevin Faulconer really doesn’t want you – the liberal voter at the beach – to vote for Nathan Fletcher.  Faulconer, of course, is OB’s current City Councilperson and sole Republican candidate for mayor of all San Diego.  And of course, Nathan Fletcher is one of his Democratic opponents.

Two recent, slick campaign fliers have recently hit the beach area and tell the story.

One of them shouts out that “Nathan Fletcher is a trusted conservative.” as a quote from liberal nemesis, Karl Rove.  Natch, there’s also a nice color photo next to the quote showing Fletcher and Rove standing together – and Karl has a huge smile.   [Read more…]

Urban Design for Climate Change- The Third Way

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Ideas for linking urban design and healthy communities

By Jim Bliesner

Local Woodbury Architecture School students in the graduate Landscape Urbanism program under Professor Rene Peralta have undertaken to develop designs for the “Greater Logan Heights” area to link urban design and healthy communities. The question raised by the student’s designs is whether community level efforts can qualify as strategies for reducing CO2 levels.

The idea is that reducing carbon emissions does not just need to be about electric cars, modified freeways and bullet trains but can in fact be the impetus for making our communities more livable. Sound ecological urban design can both achieve carbon reductions and make our communities more walkable and healthy according to the students.   [Read more…]

Even Congressman Darrell Issa is Threatened by Falling GOP Poll Numbers

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By Doug Porter

Bad things come in threes, so the saying goes, and the Republican Party just got a triple whammy of disastrous poll results.  How bad is it?

It’s so bad even a “safe” Republican like Congressman Darrell Issa’s numbers have tanked. You know it’s bad when the local Democratic Party sends out fundraising emails talking about unseating Brian Bilbray in the last election and saying Issa’s next.

A Public Policy Polling (PPP) survey of 650 voters in the 49th Congressional district taken October 15 & 16 shows Rep. Issa with a 49-43 disapproval margin (9% undecided).  For the first time ever, voters preferred a generic Democratic opponent in a theoretical match up, if only by 1%, well within the margin of error. And his constituents opposed the GOP’s “shut ‘er down” strategy by 62-32%.   [Read more…]

Just Say No to Shills Telling Tall Tales to Sell the Phony Maritime “Jobs” Initiative

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By Doug Porter

San Diego shopping centers and grocery stores were blanketed this weekend with contract employees reportedly retained by Southwest Strategies.  They were being paid $1.75 for each signature gathered on a petition that aims to challenge the Barrio Logan community plan.

People signed the petitions in droves. Why wouldn’t anybody? After all these shills were peddling anything but the truth.  And the implications of this initiative effort for other neighborhoods in San Diego are huge.

Want a change in your neighborhood plan for something big and ugly favored by special interests?  If you’ve signed one of those petitions, that’s what you’re opening the door for.   [Read more…]

Project Censored 2012-13: The Human Costs of Corporate Propaganda

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By Jim Miller

Projected Censored recently released their list of the “Top 25 Most Censored Stories of 2012-13.” As I noted in a column about last year’s list, Project Censored’s definition of censorship is a nuanced one:

We define Modern Censorship as the subtle yet constant and sophisticated manipulation of reality in our mass media outlets. On a daily basis, censorship refers to the intentional non-inclusion of a news story – or piece of a news story – based on anything other than a desire to tell the truth. Such manipulation can take the form of political pressure (from government officials and powerful individuals), economic pressure (from advertisers and funders), and legal pressure (the threat of lawsuits from deep-pocket individuals, corporations, and institutions).

In sum, the folks at Project Censored argue, along with Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman, that all the information we consume in our market-driven system has to go through a series of “filters” before a story makes it (or doesn’t make it) to our eyes and ears.  This is not a definition that implies a conspiracy; it is a structural analysis of how our media system works in the real world with all the economic, political, and legal pressures that shape the process of delivering the infotainment we call news.   [Read more…]

Barrio Logan Split Really About Business as Usual (Or Not)

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By Doug Porter

If you want to see a critical difference between Democrats Nathan Fletcher and David Alvarez, look beyond the article posted in today’s Voice of San Diego.

Reporter Liam Dillon does a good job of exploring the opposition to Alavrez’s mayoral ambitions from within his Barrio Logan, starting with Rachael Ortiz’s long standing opposition to the District 8 Councilman.

Her current issue with Alvarez is the contention that he sold out Barrio Logan’s interests by proposing a compromise solution with the maritime industry regarding the Community Plan approved by the City Council.

The headline on the VOSD article suggests this deal could come back to haunt him.   [Read more…]

Department of Duh: Congressman Issa Investigating Why Monuments Closed During Shutdown

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By Doug Porter

You have to give this guy credit.

Rep. Darrell Issa never misses a chance to make Congress look silly.  I’ve lost track of all his investigations, but I do know one thing; the sum total of their actual impact on government operations (the thing he’s supposed to be overseeing) has been: Zero.

His latest crusade involves getting to the bottom of just why park service Director Jonathan Jarvis closed monuments on the national mall in Washington DC.   [Read more…]

Judgement Day: Filner Plea Bargains, Boehner Begs for Help

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By Doug Porter

It’s one of those twists of fate: the former standard bearer for all that’s liberal in San Diego and the former standard bearer for all that’s not liberal in Washington DC both hit bottom on the same day.

We’ll start with the local courtroom drama and end with DC’s cloakroom conspiracies in the nation’s capital. There are lessons to learned from both.

Robert Earl Filner stood before California State Superior Court Judge Robert Trentacosta  and pled guilty to one felony count of false imprisonment by violence, fraud, menace and deceit and two misdemeanor counts of battery.   [Read more…]

Koch Brothers Letter, Plummeting Poll Numbers Bring GOP to Table

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By Doug Porter

In the wake of two major developments over the last 48 hours, Republican intransigence appears to be weakening in the Battle of the Budget, 2013 Version.

Small, mostly symbolic, steps occurred yesterday towards ending the threat of default triggered by a Tea Party-led refusal to raise the debt ceiling and, possibly, the re-opening the federal government.

Following a White House meeting for Republican representatives, a public willingness to engage in further discussions emerged. Congressman Paul Ryan told the press both sides should “put their guns back in their holsters”, according to Politico.

This motivation to sound reasonable came on the heels of a letter from financiers and Tea Party backers David and Charles Koch responding to claims made by Senate leader Harry Reid implicating them as instigators of the current standoff.   [Read more…]

Less Popular Than Zombies: Congressional Approval Rating Drops to Single Digits

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Veteran’s Pension Payments and Disability Funding to Dry Up at End of Month

 By Doug Porter

VA Secretary Eric Shinseki is testified today before a House Committee about the consequences of the current government shutdown and the news was all bad for 3.8 million veterans who will not receive disability compensation come November.  An additional 315,000 veterans and 202,000 surviving spouses and dependents will also see pension payments stopped should the logjam not break.

He told the House Committee on Veterans Affairs the short-term effects include disability claims production slowing by an average of about 1,400 per day since the shutdown began Oct. 1, and that has stalled the department’s efforts to reduce the backlog of disability claims pending for longer than 125 days.   [Read more…]

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