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Jam Sessions with Bill Caballero at Barrio Logan’s Voz Alta

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by Bob Dorn

“At my jam everyone’s equal; nobody’s better than anybody else.”

What Bill Caballero is really saying is that the floor at Voz Alta Project in Barrio Logan is open to the worst players in San Diego, even if only for a moment. And, so long as they learn from their failures they’ll almost certainly win a few more choruses with the house band if they have the nerve to try and catch Caballero’s eye the next time they come to the jam.

No more than 1000 square feet of space within the building at 1754 National Ave., Voz Alta is where some of San Diego’s best musicians might drop by to sit in with the house band Caballero leads every Thursday night. It costs nothing to get in (tips are appreciated), though musicians often have to leave their pride behind at the doorway. The house band (which sometimes includes local music journeymen Kiko Cornejo Sr. and his son Kiko Jr. on timbales/percussion, Andy Esparza on bass, Ignacio Arango on guitar, Paul Lopez on congas/percussion and others) minus leader Caballero get a part of the tip jar; the hackers and nobodies must await their turn in the appropriate agony of anticipation.   [Read more…]

Why Do You Have a Fence in Front of Your Home?

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Thoughts on defensible spaces and private places

By Anna Daniels

A few days ago I realized that every single piece of residential property on my City Heights block, save one, has a fence and or a gate between the residence and the street. The business at the end of the block is also completely fenced.

I only became conscious of this fact after spending a number of hours last month walking along the side streets north of University Avenue a few blocks east and west of 30th Street in North Park. This area looks in many ways like the City Heights side streets off of University Avenue, farther to the east, where I now live. There are the same generic craftsman style detached houses and two story multi-unit apartments and condos, for the most part built more recently.

But these North Park side streets look different aesthetically in terms of the colors of paints utilized and kinds of landscaping; and they look different in terms of overall appearance than the area where I live. I was really struck by the fact that so many of the residences in this part of North Park, close to a busy commercial area, still do not have fences in front of the property.

So why are there so many fences in some parts of San Diego, and less or so few in others? Why are there so many more fences in the mid-city areas than there were thirty years ago, when I moved here? Do fences make good neighbors? Do fences make good neighborhoods?   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Unregulated, Unsafe, Unfair – the GOP Vision for California

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By Doug Porter

One of the favored propaganda ploys of conservative pundits over the past year or so has been the ‘everybody’s leaving California for Texas’ meme. This all started with an article in the ultra conserve National Review by former assemblyman Chuck DeVore, who left the Golden State for the Lone Star State after finishing third in the 2010 GOP primary race for US Senate.

“California may be dreaming, but Texas is working” said DeVore, who went on to tell a tale of woe including high taxes, burdensome regulations and a bloated bureaucracy that stood in sharp contrast to the lean, mean Texas machine.

And so it began. Thousands of businesses were fleeing “Taxifornia” for the freedom offered by Rick Perry’s Republican mecca, so we were told. By early in 2013, media accounts of a minor ad buy urging businesses to consider relocation to Texas painted a picture of a grand exodus underway.

Today’s report on National Public Radio by Wade Goodwin on the construction industry in Texas paints a sad portrait of the real costs of the GOP’s prosperity paradise.   [Read more…]

Five Stages of Republican Grief (A Tribute to the U-T’s Steve Breen)

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By Annie Lane
Last week I came across a Steve Breen cartoon in the San Diego Union-Tribune entitled “Mapping Bob Filner’s Brain” (see left). I had quite the guffaw. I mean, if guffaws were redefined to be humorless, silent events that’s what it was.

I find it interesting that, given Breen’s skill and Pulitzer Prize history, the brain he chose to draw was so boorishly simple. Don’t worry, I get it — it’s intended to represent the supposedly simple mind of our union-sympathizing, anti-hotelier mayor.

But it doesn’t matter what multi-syllabic, mildly offensive adjectives Breen uses to describe Bob Filner because, at the end of the day, he’s still the elected mayor of San Diego. You know, the guy who, like most Democrats in the 2012 election, fairly won against his Republican counterpart.   [Read more…]

‘State of Cycling in San Diego County’ – A Snapshot of the Region and Plans for the Future

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by John Anderson

Last Saturday, April 6, the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition (SDCBC) hosted a ‘State of Cycling in San Diego County’ event in the Balboa Room of the historic Lafayette Hotel on El Cajon Boulevard in North Park.

This event was held to mark the one-year anniversary of the 5-Year Strategic Plan the group adopted in 2012 and discuss progress and goals for the coming years. Every seat in the room was taken, plus some standing in the doorways. I counted approximately 60 people. A bicycle valet service was provided outside the hotel for attendees – a service the SDCBC also offered at the Padres home opener on Tuesday, April 8.   [Read more…]

Tuesday the Ninth 45 Years Ago – an Historic Day for the San Diego Free Press

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By Frank Gormlie

When it finally dawned on me that today was Tuesday, the ninth of April – I began immediately having flashbacks – not hallucinogenic ones – but ones that surrounded another Tuesday the 9th – a Tuesday the ninth of April exactly 45 years ago. It’s a date that has poignancy for us at the San Diego Free Press and for all of our readers and contributors.

For it was this day 45 years ago – itself just a few days after Martin Luther King was assassinated – that students at UCSD decided once and for all to begin publishing an underground newspaper, called the San Diego Free Press.

If we go back four and a half decades to that time, you’d find me as a new sophomore at the University of California at San Diego – totally unpoliticized, walking around in a daze, a definite neophyte in the land of politics. I had just left the US Army and had transferred right into the bowels of left-wing radicalism as I began taking classes from philosophy professor Herbert Marcuse. He and his graduate student assistants were beginning to fill my brain with all kinds of new thoughts – but I was still new to it all, still very wet behind my ears, more interested in completing my courses than in understanding what was going on across the country in 1968.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Coachella Hipsters Won’t Be Shot, Yet. Guantanamo ‘Party’ to be Renamed

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By Doug Porter

For those of you who are terminally uncool, the next two weekends are the time of year when tens of thousands of (mostly) otherwise sane people take to the desert for a time out to enjoy the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Annual Festival.

The Indio, California shindig features music from a variety of genres playing from stages located throughout the Empire Polo Club. People have been known to get stoned and occasionally naked, but the real reason to go is to say you’ve been there, done that. It’s cooler than a tramp stamp.

Lots of auxiliary (not officially sanctioned) events occur because the crowd is large and mostly affluent. One of them caught my attention yesterday, and it really rattled my cage. Some fashionistas have decided that it would be appro to throw a Gitmo themed party, I guess because human rights violations and torture are such ‘groovy’ ideas. This is stupider than stupid.   [Read more…]

Chronicling My Daily Newspaper Withdrawal Symptoms

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By Judi Curry

In 2004 when I broke my back and my then HMO – Kaiser – was unable to find the break along with 5 broken ribs, doctor’s prescribed morphine for the pain to be taken at regularly scheduled intervals. And, within a few short days, I was addicted to morphine and went through horrific withdrawal symptoms while I was being weaned off the medicine.

Last month I received notification that my subscription to the San Diego Union was expiring, and I could renew my yearly subscription for $150.

When I called the office to ask about the possibility of obtaining a “senior citizen” rate, I was told that I could have the paper delivered for $126 a year. I said that was still more than this senior could afford  since I was on a fixed income. The person I spoke to informed me that the yearly rate for “non-seniors” is $401 a year and the $126 was really a bargain.

Even after I told her that I would not be renewing my subscription, she never suggested to me the other alternatives that are offered – Sunday only delivery and/or weekend delivery.  Either of which I might have entertained if they had been offered.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – ‘AdRateGate’ Inquiry Underway; UT-San Diego Accused of Offering Illegal Political Discounts

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By Doug Porter

Our local daily newspaper continues to ignore the story about themselves, rolled out last Friday by inewssource/KPBS, concerning deep discounts in advertising rates given to GOP candidates Brian Bilbray and Carl DeMaio during last fall’s electoral contests.

The California Fair Political Practices Commission has confirmed that an investigation of the ad rates offered to various candidates and ballot measures by the UT-San Diego is under way.

A group opposing Bob Filner paid $25,000 for 16 full-page ads, according to campaign disclosures, or about $1,560 per ad. Brian Bilbray’s campaign got an even better deal, paying $25,000 for 27 full-page ads, or about $926 per ad.  And a pro-Proposition 32 group calling itself the Small Business Action Committee ran at least 20 full-page ads in the U-T during the fall campaign and reporting $26,000 in costs for print advertising.

Campaigns not favored editorially by UT-San Diego uniformly reported being quoted $8000 per page.    [Read more…]

Field of View: Barrio Logan

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In spite of being surrounded by freeway on-ramps and overpasses that attempt to make it appear like an oversight, Barrio Logan represents a culture and community that’s decidedly alive. It’s something that can be felt within seconds of parking, and seen in nearly every direction by way of the skillfully executed murals throughout the neighborhood.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Mission Valley Hilton Hotel Management Tactics Prompt Employee Hunger Strike

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Employees and the community supporters at the Mission Valley Hilton will be engaging in a five day hunger strike starting today in protest of a decision by the property’s new management company to dismiss nine long term hotel workers.

Following weeks of protests, including a sit-in where 20 people were arrested, employees at the Mission Valley Hilton Hotel were elated last month after hearing that their jobs would not be eliminated as part of a takeover of the property by Evolution Hospitality/ Tarsadia Hotels.

What they didn’t know is that the new managers would subject all the employees to immediate E-Verify background checks. Nine long term workers are now facing dismissal as soon as next Tuesday. Those employees believe they are being targeted for standing up for their rights as immigrant workers.   [Read more…]

You Make My Heart Sing

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A Shout Out to the Arizona Wildcat Basketball Team

Hey, you, Wildcats!
Man!
You could never understand
how you make my heart sing
when you take to the courts and do your thing.
It’s downright thrilling, appealing,
exhilarating, fulfilling…
And I’m sitting here in my den, chilling,
thinking of rhymes about how y’all beat Belmont
like they were no more than children out to play,
no more than feathers in a hurricane’s way,
and you attached yourselves to Harvard
like leeches feasting on fat prey,
like gloom on a nasty stormy day.
…..   [Read more…]

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