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The Starting Line – The National NRA Convention: No Sane People Allowed

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Going Great Guns, Deep in the Heart of Texas

By Doug Porter

Stories about pushback resulting from votes against the Senate’s most recent efforts at gun legislation are making the rounds this week, including poll results showing voter frustration with elected officials who opposed background checks.

This weekend, however, the media landscape will shift as the National Rifle Association holds a three day gathering in Houston, Texas.  Today’s ‘leadership forum’ will boast conservative heart-throbs like former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Rick Santorum.

INSIDE: Is Obama the Worst Socialist Ever?, Ethiopian Blogger Imprisoned, Where Have All the Teachers Gone?   [Read more…]

Video of Mission Beach Cigarette Citation Goes Viral and Lights Up National Debate Over Cellphone Videos

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See Video Below

By Frank Gormlie / OB Rag

A video by a guy on the Mission Beach boardwalk who was being given a citation for smoking a cigarette has gone viral. The incident involved Adam Pringle who refused to shut off his cellphone while videoing the San Diego police officer – and now Pringle’s video of part of the incident has sparked a conversation that has gone national over the rights of people using the video on their cellphone (or other cameras).

Pringle – from Escondido – was smoking a cig on the boardwalk at Mission when he was approached by San Diego Police on bicycles. As the officer began writing up a citation, an infraction, Adam Pringle began using his cell phone to video the officer.

The officer then asks Pringle to shut off his cellphone. Pringle refuses – saying it was his right. The officer asks him at least one more time – and Pringle continues to video the officer.

Pringle then told the press that his cellphone was then slapped out of his hand and then tackled to the ground by the same officer who was writing the ticket. He was then arrested for disorderly conduct.   [Read more…]

Women in Ground Combat Service: Victory for Women’s Rights?

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By Kathy Gilberd / Draft NOtices /April-June 2013,

In January, outgoing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced the lifting of the Combat Exclusion Policy (CEP), which formally excluded women from ground combat service in the military. Panetta’s action, which reflected the unanimous recommendation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will give women potential access to over 230,000 positions previously closed to them.

In his announcement Panetta also said, “We are moving forward with a plan to eliminate all unnecessary gender-based barriers to service.” The lifting of the exclusion policy follows a 2012 decision to open more than 14,000 additional positions to women, allowing them to serve in select positions in ground combat units at the brigade.

The change is not immediate, however. While the services must submit plans for integration by this May, the overall plan is set to phase in through 2016, and it may not be universal.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Whoa! Stop that Walmart! UFCW President Calls for ‘Extreme Measures’ in Wake of State Audit

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By Doug Porter

So much news, so little time… Here is today’s roundup.

A fifty eight page report from State Auditor Elaine Howle examining the City of San Diego’s practices regarding permitting for construction projects has raised serious ethical and legal questions about a Walmart location under construction in Sherman Heights.

Community groups opposed to the destruction of the Historic Farmer’s Market building in Sherman Heights were joined by organized labor in protests and lawsuits aimed at halting Walmart. But their complaints fell of deaf ears as city officials claimed all appropriate reviews had been conducted and touted the mega-retailers plans to create jobs in business-friendly San Diego.

Now it’s come out that the City didn’t even issue permits until after construction was underway, even after the lawsuits were filed.   [Read more…]

Golden Hill: “Tis a Picture Worth Seeing”

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By Jim Miller

May is Golden Hill month here at the San Diego Free Press where we will do our collective best to spotlight one of San Diego’s oldest and most dynamic communities. 

A particularly interesting question we will be engaging is how the imagined community of Greater Golden Hill that is shared by many long time residents as well as entities such as the Golden Hill Community Development Corporation conflicts with the official separation of Golden Hill from South Park.

The more narrow designation of Golden Hill’s boundaries sets Interstate 5 as the western border and 34th Street where A, B, and C Streets end as its easternmost limit.  To the south, the Martin Luther King Jr. freeway separates Golden Hill from its neighbors in ShermanHeights and Grant Hill while Russ Boulevard and A Street mark its northern border.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Hell Froze Over: UT-San Diego Endorsed Labor Leader Lorena Gonzalez

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By Doug Porter 

I checked the calendar to make sure it wasn’t April Fools Day this morning after reading an editorial in UT-San Diego endorsing Lorena Gonzalez in the race for the 80th District Assembly seat.

There are, after all, only two Democrats, officially in the race and I fully expected the paper would pass up the opportunity to say anything encouraging about either of them. (There is, I’m told, also a write-in campaign by a Republican.)

Their endorsement was apparently triggered by Gonzalez’s positions on ‘job creation’.  Rather than play into the conservative meme that ‘jobs’ and ‘the environment’ are mutually exclusive propositions, she told them during an extensive interview that policies  respecting both are possible.

As much as I hate to do this, I’m going to agree with the UT-San Diego’s choice of candidates in this race, although for different reasons.  Lorena Gonzalez has done a terrific job of actually ‘leading’ labor in this town into areas way outside their traditional comfort zone.

I don’t know how the UT-SD missed this, but her efforts to get out the vote and involvement with grassroots organizing outside the walls of the Labor Council offices are a major reason why Democrats are an ascendant force in this town.

If she was smart enough to fool them, just think how good she’ll be with those dumbasses up in Sacramento.

INSIDE: Fighting Test to the Test, Junior Seau’s Brain, and the GOP’s Rube Goldberg Immigration plan.   [Read more…]

BLOG UGLY – The Memetoads Take on Filner

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Poisoning the Conversation at CBS8

By Bob Dorn

I see this image of the chickenhawk/wingnut/GOP-intern type of internet player in my head; he’s the sort that girls and women avoid by changing aisles in the supermarket if they see him before he sees them.

He (rarely a she, for reasons I’ll speak of later) hunches over the keyboard so the Cheetos shards don’t fall on the rug. He wears a Padres cap to keep his hair out of his eyes. His little belly is soft, but big enough to make his t-shirt catch some of the salt and crumbs from the chips. He’s smart enough to be snarky but in print he appears at times to be dumb. That’s because some of the chip debris now and then drops onto the keyboard and brings about the odd misspelling that sabotages the comment he’s working hard at producing.   [Read more…]

What’s in a Name? Five San Diego Neighborhoods in Search of an Identity

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By Avital Aboody 

About one year ago I moved from Los Angeles to San Diego and began working as the Project Coordinator for the Greater Logan Heights Community Partnership (GLHCP), a collaborative of community-based organizations serving Logan Heights, Memorial, Sherman Heights, Grant Hill and Stockton. These five neighborhoods are bounded by Route 94 to the north, 1-15 to the east, and 1-5 the south and west.

The GLHCP is an outgrowth of the Neighborhood First Initiative piloted by the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) in 2008. The group formed as an earnest effort to unite community-based organizations and empower residents to take action to create sustainable change in their neighborhood. Before taking this job, I had never heard of any of these neighborhoods, let alone the varying names that are used to refer to them collectively. But as I launched into my work, I quickly learned the significance of names in this community.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Evading Taxes as a ‘Human Right’ (?!)

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By Doug Porter

Say what? Will these people ever stop with the twisting of words?

Does it say that in the Bible? Is it in the UN Charter? Did the founders include it in the Constitution on orders from Jesus?

Cut me a break, already.

Bloomberg news has a story up detailing how tough things are becoming for gazillionaires who want to hide their money in overseas accounts.  It seems as though many of the world’s safe havens are becoming more transparent in the face of international pressure from countries tired of seeing cashed stashed in places where they can’t tax it. So now, somehow, evading taxes is becoming a human right.

INSIDE: International Workers Memorial Day, Brown Gets Down on Prison Court Orders, Basketball Player Comes Out, Guns and Votes   [Read more…]

City Councilman David Alvarez: How I See Barrio Logan

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By David Alvarez
District 8 City Council Representative

The community of Barrio Logan, of which I grew up in, is one of the oldest and most culturally-rich urban neighborhoods in San Diego. From historic beginnings to the vibrant mix of uses and people who reside and work in Barrio Logan, the neighborhood has played a vital role in the City’s development. The Barrio Logan community is a living example of the change and evolution that have continuously shaped the area’s cultural heritage, development patterns, economic opportunities, and social fabric.

Barrio Logan has a long history as a working-class waterfront community. Its early days as a base of homes and businesses for primarily Mexican immigrant workers helped shape the community into an important working waterfront neighborhood. As the community built up around maritime uses, such as tuna canning, military industries, and the Navy, the influx of Mexican migrant workers created a dominant presence in Barrio Logan in the 1910s and 1920s.   [Read more…]

Trying to Stay Wise at 75

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By Ernie McCray

Just turned 75.
As I think about being a year older,
my first thought is
I’m so glad to be alive.
No jive.   [Read more…]

Chicano Park Mural Recognizes the Father of the Immigration Movement: Bert Corona

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By David Avalos / La Prensa San Diego / April 19, 2013

This week the bipartisan group of Senators known as the “Gang of Eight” put their plan for “comprehensive immigration reform” before the USAmerican public, and once again served the Chicana/o community a Mexican Combo Platter steaming with piles of beefed-up border security smothered in drones, refried Bracero guest worker programs, and microwaved workplace enforcement.

Citizenship for the estimated 11 million immigrants in the country without legally adjusted status, (“amnesty” to conservatives) went sour when gang member Marco Rubio told Fox News “it will be cheaper, faster and easier for people to go back home and wait 10 years than it will be to go through this process that I’ve outlined.”

Herman Baca of the Committee on Chicano Rights (CCR) feels the Chicana/o community has no voice in the debate because it has forgotten the lessons of Bert Corona who introduced the foundational ideas and approaches to establishing immigrant labor rights in this country.   [Read more…]

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