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The Dark Lord Rises: Carl DeMaio’s ‘I’m not Running for Mayor’ Media Blitz

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By Doug Porter

San Diego Mayor Bob Filner remains in office after more than a month of non-stop accusations. A recall movement claims to be building up a head of steam. Calls for his resignation are being reported daily. Those who haven’t joined in the mania are being shamed both in the mainstream and social media. There’s even a protest march slated for Sunday.

What’s not being reported is anything current about hizzoner. Bob Filner -the man- hasn’t been seen in over two weeks. And while his minions are going through the motions of defending him and proclaiming everything is okie-dokie at City Hall, his absence speaks more loudly than any press release.

A news vacuum always needs to filled, and Carl DeMaio has stepped up to the plate this week with a media blitz, hoping to take advantage.  He’s been featured at Roll Call, Yahoo News, 10News, KOGO radio and The Hill.  Coincidence? I don’t think so.   [Read more…]

Sex in San Diego: Porn Sex vs. Real Sex – the Differences Explained With Food

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By Emilie Astolat

I don’t mind the fact that my hubby watches porn, partly, I guess, because it’s inversely related to how often we have sex. Just because I’m not in the mood doesn’t mean that he has to remain sexually abstinent. Plus, I watch it, too, when the mood strikes.

What does bother me, however, is the often unrealistic portrayal of sex that pornography perpetuates for men and women. Being a woman, I can only speak for my gender and, while porn can be fun, it definitely has the potential to take its toll on the self esteem. I mean, there are just some so-called standards I just can’t live up to.   [Read more…]

City Heights, Where the Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round

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Transit Dependent Communities, Social Equity and Environmental Justice

By Anna Daniels

There is no trolley route through City Heights. This deficiency is not for a lack of trying. In the early 1990’s residents were advocating for significant mitigation to the construction of I-15 through the community. The proposed mitigation included the construction of a trolley line in the center of the freeway that would efficiently carry City Heights residents north and south to their jobs and concentrated employment centers.

The short story is that the steep freeway incline/grade made a trolley route infeasible. So while the heavily transit dependent community of City Heights does not have a trolley, it does have buses and will continue to rely upon buses. If you can get past trolley envy, buses become the workable solution to transit needs.

For decades, the highest bus rider ship in the whole Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) has been on the Number 7 bus. This one bus route carries a whopping 3,903,109 passengers annually. To put this in perspective, the Green and Orange trolley lines each record around seven million passengers annually. The Number 7 bus is a plodding workhorse, definitely not a racehorse.
  [Read more…]

Keeping the World Safe from Science: Issa Wins Climate Change Denier Award

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By Doug Porter

San Diego’s own Congressman Darrel Issa (R) has once again been nationally recognized for his efforts in Congress.

The League of Conservation Voters and Organizing for America joined forces yesterday at Issa’s Vista, Ca offices to confer the “Climate Change Denier” award to the Congressman. Sources say he was not available to receive the award.

A statement released by the groups said Issa was being recognized for “his extreme anti-science views, which put him at odds with 97 percent of scientists and a majority of the American people.”   [Read more…]

Progressive Politics in the Post-Filner Era; Getting Beyond “BlenderGate”

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By Doug Porter

Rumors of the Filner’s imminent resignation swirled through the city yesterday like scraps of newsprint caught up in the wind eddies regularly whipping through San Diego’s downtown canyons.

Could IT be today? Would IT be this week? Was the City Attorney working out a deal?

Several dozen people gathered at mid-day to protest the possible return of Mayor Bob Filner to City Hall, chanting “Bob must go!” for the assembled press corps.  The minions of the mainstream media nodded their heads in approval.

The organizers of the recall movement weren’t taking the resignation rumors seriously.  Organizer and Republican activist Michael Pallamary told UT-San Diego, “There’s no reason to believe he will resign. It’s not in his DNA. You got people now turning their tune from resign to recall. There’s only recall. There’s no way he’s going to resign.”   [Read more…]

CicloSDias San Diego – From Golden Hill to City Heights and Back

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Yesterday, Sunday, August 11th was CicloSDias in San Diego. Three friends and I – all on bikes – joined the celebrated 5.2 miles of open roads and streets just for bicycles and pedestrians, and we rode from Golden Hill, through North Park, over to City Heights – and back.

Weather was perfect, the streets were cleared of cars – except for the four that we counted along the way – and there was an enthusiastic turn-out for the event. Hundreds of San Diegans took part in the 6 hour free bike tour thr0ugh San Diego’s mid-city. Yes, hundreds – not the thousands that we wanted to see – came out. We wanted to see hordes on bikes – but were happy with what we saw and experienced.

Ever so often, there would be a few tents and the canopies of booths open to participants, some giving away gifts, others selling their bicycling-related products and services.
  [Read more…]

The Return of the Faux ObamaScare Death Panel

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By Doug Porter

The future is now for the Affordable Care Act (ACA). It’s survived a Supreme Court challenge, forty attempts at repeal or de-funding in the House of Representatives and another twenty or so in the US Senate.

Although the plan signed by the President in March, 2010 is essentially the same as health care reforms advocated by conservatives for many years, the fact that the word Obama is associated with this legislation (either that or because he’s black) has made the ACA a third rail for the GOP.

The Tea Party’s Freedom Works, the Heritage Foundation’s advocacy arm, the Koch Brothers’ Americans for Prosperity and a slew of other groups are mounting a furious effort to kill the implementation of the bill.

Now the cherry on top of this toxic propaganda sundae has appeared: the return of the Death Panel.  And nobody deserves the role of soda jerk in this circus parlor more than Sarah Palin.   [Read more…]

Are You Now or Have You Ever Been (A Filner Supporter)?

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By Doug Porter

There were developments aplenty yesterday in the San Diego’s Kabuki dance theater, also known as the Mayor Bob Filner scandal.

Attorney Harvey Berger filed a motion to move the legal venue for Irene McCormack’s lawsuit due to the media frenzy surrounding the case.  The motion will be heard in San Diego County Superior Court on Sept. 16

Today the UT-San Diego announced an on-line user-friendly format to keep score of who’s been naughty or nice in the Filner case, with naughty being that you haven’t sufficiently denounced the Mayor.

Politicos and union leaders from around the region were inundated with emails yesterday from the newspaper’s reporters yesterday demanding to know, as one union leader put it, “are you now or have you ever been a Filner supporter. And have you called for his resignation yet?”

The influential local American Federation of Teachers (Guild 1931) sent a letter to its 5000+ local members yesterday strongly condemning the Mayor’s actions while at the same time refusing to join in calls for Filner’s resignation.   [Read more…]

Sex in San Diego: New Pornographers Claim Their Work Is Ethical, Feminist and ‘Sex-Positive,’ But Will It Sell?

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By David Rosen / Alternet

The 8th annual Feminist Porn Awards, held in Toronto, April 4 to 6, were organized by Good for Her, a Toronto-based, women-orientated, sex paraphernalia store. Some 110 programs were submitted for such categories as Golden Beaver (Canadian content) and Smutty Schoolteacher (sex-ed).

When Carlyle Jansen started Good For Her in 1997, there were a very limited number of porn videos that appealed to her customers. “There was a narrow selection of videos, in particular those highlighting people of color, gays and lesbians, transsexuals and women with a variety of body types and desires,” she recalls.

The Feminist Porn Awards (FPA) grew out of discussions among the company’s employees to host an event that would acknowledge and celebrate diverse ways to sexually represent people, particularly women. Jansen noted that her customers wanted porn they could identify with. “They wanted movies, high-quality productions,” she said, “that did not feel degrading, were not misogynistic and turned them on rather than off.”   [Read more…]

Newspaper Acquisitions, San Diego Conspiracies and Cell Phone Paranoia

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By Doug Porter

The sale of the Washington Post this week to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has the chattering class in a tizzy, with pundits of every persuasion throwing figurative tarot cards on the table hoping to gain some insight to share with the public about this billionaire’s motivations.

I’ve read that Bezos is part of the anti-public education cabal seeking to impose the libertarian (lol) version of Sharia law on states resistant to charter schools.  Others are wondering why he “would buy a stodgy, moribund unionized organization like WaPo”, the implication being that technology based improvements would be impossible and therefore doom Bezos to failure.

Then there’s the debate over whether his purchase of the Post was motivated by philanthropic concerns or a desire to expand his political influence.

Yada, yada, yada.  I agree with Forbes’ Jonathan Salem Baskin.  Bezos bought the newspaper because he wanted to.   [Read more…]

Welcome to City Heights!

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By Anna Daniels

It is hard to make generalizations about a community with over 75,000 residents. It is even harder to make generalizations about a community in which 41% of the residents are foreign born and those residents were born in over thirty different countries. City Heights must be understood in bits and shape shifting pieces.

To understand City Heights, it must be rolled across the tongue and savored in the local markets and restaurants. It must be heard in the cacophony of buses, street vendors, garbage trucks, music from quinceañeras and children’s voices. It must be felt on an early morning canyon walk.

The San Diego Free Press focus on City Heights will be delivered up over the next month as a fragmented incomplete narrative. Twenty-one percent of the residents here speak no or little English. It is a daunting challenge to provide a way for myriad disparate voices to be heard. In the upcoming weeks we’ll be covering a variety of topics and people.   [Read more…]

The New Pope Castigates “The Greed of the Market”

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Pope Francis, a Pope of the People, takes up the cause of the poor

by John Lawrence

I like this new Pope even though I’m not Catholic. What’s not to like about a Pope who eschews those fancy red shoes and wears the basic black Payless variety instead? He even carries his own luggage, takes public transportation and pays his own hotel bills. Clearly there is something different about this Pope. I liked Pope John Paul too,who articlulated the “preferential option for the poor.” The preferential option for the poor refers to a trend, throughout the Judeo-Christian Bible, of preference being given to the well-being of the poor and powerless of society.

According to said doctrine, through one’s words, prayers and deeds one must show solidarity with, and compassion for, the poor. Therefore, when instituting public policy one must always keep the “preferential option for the poor” at the forefront of one’s mind. Accordingly, this doctrine implies that the moral test of any society is “how it treats its most vulnerable members.” The poor have the most urgent moral claim on the conscience of the nation. We are called to look at public policy decisions in terms of how they affect the poor.   [Read more…]

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