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The Starting Line – The Battle for America’s Youth: Guns, God and High Stakes Testing

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“Who knows? Maybe you’ll find a Bushmaster AR-15 under your tree some frosty Christmas morning!”

The New York Times kicked off a series of investigative articles yesterday examining the gun industry’s influence and the wide availability of firearms in America.  First up in the investigation: a look at industry/NRA marketing aimed at young people.

Threatened by long-term declining participation in shooting sports, the firearms industry has poured millions of dollars into a broad campaign to ensure its future by getting guns into the hands of more, and younger, children.

The industry’s strategies include giving firearms, ammunition and cash to youth groups; weakening state restrictions on hunting by young children; marketing an affordable military-style rifle for “junior shooters” and sponsoring semiautomatic-handgun competitions for youths; and developing a target-shooting video game that promotes brand-name weapons, with links to the Web sites of their makers.

Inside: Guns Get Religion, Filner Gets Spun, McCain Flips (or is it flops?)   [Read more…]

The Battle for the Soul of the Democratic Party Continues

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In the wake of President Obama’s electoral victory and inauguration much of the political analysis has been about the continued chaos inside the Republican Party. With some establishment conservative figures openly questioning whether it was good for the party to continue to be dominated by the hard right, some in progressive circles have been downright giddy, as they have watched the circular firing squad proceed. While this is surely entertaining sport, the more important battle may be happening inside the Democratic Party.

As Politico recently observed, “almost as soon as the echo of Obama’s inaugural address fades and he instantly becomes a lame duck, Democrats are going to have to face a central and unresolved question about their political identity: Will they become a center-left, DLC-by-a-different-name party or return to a populist, left-leaning approach that mirrors their electoral coalition?”   [Read more…]

Wall Street: From Too Big to Fail to Too Big to Jail

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After the financial meltdown of 2008, the Bush administration shoveled tons of money into Wall Street as did the Federal Reserve. TARP, the Troubed Asset Relief Program, was a $700 billion carte blanche gift to Wall Street to prevent an imminent meltdown. This was engineered by Henry Paulson, Bush’s Treasury Secretary.

But that was miniscule compared to what the Fed ponied up. A lawsuit by Bloomberg News forced the Fed to reveal that it had given $7.7 trillion to banks all over the world to prevent the looming crisis. And the Fed is still at it with its policy of Quantitative Easing (QE).

But while the banks have been bailed out and are still being given monthly money cards, they have not been held to account for the behavior that caused the financial crisis in the first place. No banker has gone to jail despite the massive fraud and corruption that they perpetrated and in fact are still perpetrating.   [Read more…]

Field of View: 40th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade – Then and Now

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Tuesday, Jan. 22, saw the 40th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade, in which abortion was officially legalized.

Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest celebrated the anniversary with a fundraiser dinner that highlighted the past and present of the organization’s history, including it’s pro-choice fight for safe and legal access to reproductive healthcare.

Abby Silverman-Weiss, a local attorney and champion of reproductive rights, was honored as the 2013 Defender of Choice.

“Tonight is a tremendous sense of belonging and empowerment,” Silverman-Weiss said.   [Read more…]

San Diego For Free: Get Lost in the Map & Atlas Museum of La Jolla

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A weekly column dedicated to sharing the best sights and activities in San Diego at the best price – free! We have a great city and you don’t need to break the bank to experience it.

Location: 7825 Fay Ave Suite LL-A, La Jolla, CA 92037 (Located in lower courtyard of building)

Free Hours: Wednesdays & Thursdays, 1st and 3rd Saturdays of each month. Also by appointment for groups – call 855-653-6277

Best For: Travelers, geography whizzes, explorers, navigators, the lost

Website: mamlj.org

As the first month of a new year comes to a close you may still be thinking about (or drafting) resolutions for 2013. If those resolutions include a goal to travel somewhere the Map & Atlas Museum of La Jolla may be a good resource for you to further ponder a destination. The museum has a wide variety of maps dating from the 15th through the 20th century and is sure to inspire even the biggest homebody to sail for distant seas.

I received a copy of Maphead by Ken Jennings (of Jeopardy fame) for Christmas in early December and had just finished the book when I saw an article about the Map & Atlas Museum in the San Diego Reader. I decided I had to go and visited later that month.
  [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Desperation on the Right: Where is All This Extreme Rhetoric Going?

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Having lost the November elections and (for the time being) the vaunted fiscal cliff budget/debt ceiling showdown, GOP politicians are acting increasingly frantic.  Polls show that public support for the party and its policies is continuing to drop.

Is this behavior simply irrational venting or is it a desperate attempt to stir up acts outside the normal bounds of the political process?

Exhibit A today is House Speaker John Boehner, who told a group of Republicans on Tuesday he believes the primary goal of President Obama’s second term is to “annihilate the Republican Party.” From The Hill:

“Given what we heard yesterday about the president’s vision for his second term, it’s pretty clear to me that he knows he can’t do any of that as long as the House is controlled by Republicans,” Boehner said in a speech Tuesday to The Ripon Society. “So we’re expecting over the next 22 months to be the focus of this administration as they attempt to annihilate the Republican Party.

“And let me just tell you, I do believe that is their goal — to just shove us into the dustbin of history.”

  [Read more…]

A Different Kind of Listening: John Cage on 45th Street

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It is only half past January and I have had it up to here, estoy harta, with the right wing rage and whining that followed the election; enough, basta already, to the manufactured misery of the fiscal cliff and debt ceiling threats that immediately shut out the voices of citizens who made their intentions and desires known in the November election. There is a ringing in my ears from the dreadful noise, and I worry about my ability to hear what is really important and stay focused. …
  [Read more…]

California Budget Outlook Brightens Considerably, Despite Laments of Phil Mickelson

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Professional golfer cites California tax policy as cause for dire outlook for his personal finances despite tens of millions in earnings.

A Monday story in the UT-San Diego told an interesting tale of the hardships faced by professional athletes living in California. These poor guys just don’t make enough money to survive, it seems, because the state and federal governments are taxing them to death!

I kid, of course, but apparently the passage of Prop 30 in last November’s election is enough to make some of California’s wealthier residents consider looking for someplace else to call home. Phil Mickelson, one of the world’s top professional golfers and a San Diego native—and local hero the stature of Tony Gwynn and the late Junior Seau—lamented in a press gaggle at a tournament in Palm Springs over the weekend that he was going to have to make some “drastic changes” in his lifestyle because of the way his rate of taxation is going up. He even decided to drop his bid to become part of the ownership group that recently purchased the San Diego Padres.

But revenues in the State of California had to be increased, and the voters spoke loud and clear when they decided to not only raise the marginal tax rates on the wealthiest state residents, but to raise the state sales tax, effectively spreading the pain to EVERYONE in the state, among other measures.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Looking Back on When San Diego Said ‘No’ to Honoring Martin Luther King

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The year was 1986, and San Diego, like much of the nation, was swept up in a national discussion about a new holiday commemorating MLK’s contribution to US history. Legislation (signed three years earlier) making Dr. King’s birthday a national holiday was going into effect, and many cities around the country were honoring the slain civil rights leader by naming streets and buildings after him.

It seemed like a no-brainer for the San Diego City Council, then led by Mayor Maureen O’Connor. After some deliberation they announced that Market Street would be renamed Martin Luther King Way.

The reaction of merchants along Market Street, spurred on by developers eyeing redevelopment possibilities, was strongly negative. Claiming that they’d been excluded from the decision making process, they organized the Keep Market Street Initiative Committee and delivered nearly eighty thousand signatures to the city clerk, a move that put the question, eventually known as Proposition F, on the November ballot.

Black community leaders felt that the impetus behind the campaign was racism, pure and simple.
  [Read more…]

Congressional Hypocrites Add $77 Billion of Pork to Deficit Reduction Bill

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The most important thing to Republicans is deficit reduction. It’s the chief thing they talk about. It’s their main concern, it’s their singular issue. Right?

Right…. Then why did they vote to add $77 billion in pork to the so-called ‘fiscal cliff’ bill? But don’t get me wrong – Democrats not only voted for it but were instrumental in adding it to the bill as well. But why were the American people kept in the dark and not told that this bill like a lot of others was all about the pork?

It’s not that this bill was not discussed at great length by the punditry. Bloviators were bloviating non-stop for months. Pontificators were pontificating full time. Purveyors of bovine excrement were shoveling constantly. But no one saw it coming. Not David Gregory of Meet the Press, not Bob Schieffer of Face the Nation, not Ed Schultz or Rachel Maddow of msnbc. It’s not like pork is a recent phenomena. But it takes sheer gall to add $77 billion in tax break loopholes for the rich to a deficit reduction bill!   [Read more…]

Desde la Logan: What does Martin Luther King mean to you?

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On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day [in 2013] I attended the All People Celebration that took place at the San Diego Public Market here in Barrio Logan. With the event taking place in my neighborhood I wanted to put together a column that somehow related to MLK. Since every news media outlet in San Diego was covering the event I knew I had to think up a different approach than the rest of them. So, as I walked the two blocks from my apartment to the location of the celebration I decided that I would ask as many people as I could recognize a single question: What does Martin Luther King represent to you? These are their thoughtful responses.

“Non violent change. We gotta be a better society.”
– Bob Filner, Mayor of San Diego

“To me it’s about service to others. How are you doing something to make the world better? How are you part of making the world better. You do that by being in service. In my case, as a public servant, days like this make you feel good. It’s what you work for. It’s what you strive for.”
David Alvarez, San Diego City Councilman District 8 

And more than a dozen other San Diegans chime in….come on inside!   [Read more…]

Remembering the Real Martin Luther King Jr. Without Apologies

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As we celebrate the rich legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I am drawn back to my favorite speech of his, “Where Do We Go From Here?”. This was Dr. King’s last address as President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, given toward to end of his life in 1967. It outlines two core principles of King’s unfulfilled legacy that united the questions of racial injustice with those of economic inequality and rampant militarism. It was a deep, radical interrogation of the underpinnings of American society and it still resonates today.

When dealing with the issue of poverty, King notes that, “We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life’s marketplace. But one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.” For Dr. King, this meant looking at the entire society and asking questions about “the economic system [and] the broader distribution of wealth.” It meant thinking about “the restructuring of the whole of American society.”   [Read more…]

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