On Sunday, Dec. 9, the San Diego Free Press held its second contributor meet-and-greet at the home of Patty Jones and Frank Gormlie in Lemon Grove. Approximately 10 contributors attended for a pleasant afternoon of introductions, brainstorming and food (because the former isn’t impossible without the latter).
Come inside for all the photos! [Read more…]
The plan for the day had been to finally get the Christmas decorations up and address cards. I turned on the news to get my daily laugh from the cirque de D.C. and see how much closer we were coming the fiscal cliff. I wish I had not. The news was so just awful, again, I wept. Twenty-six souls lost, 20 of them only 6 and 7 years old. In an instant, another mad man took away so many dreams, so much joy, and so much love.
According to reports, the 20-year-old murderer took his own life, so we will never get the chance to ask him why or how he became so full of evil. Even if we were able to, it would not stop the carnage which all too often frequents the innocent, here and abroad. It will not stop, because we either do not care enough, or we must ghoulishly enjoy it enough to not do anything about.
It was in January, 1979, I recall the first school shooting, at least the one which caught everyone’s attention. And it was here in San Diego. After barricading her house across the street from Cleveland Elementary School in San Carlos, 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer opened fire with a semi-automatic .22 caliber rifle, killing the principal, the custodian and wounding eight children and police officer before she surrendered after a seven-hour standoff. Tried as an adult, she received a sentence of 25 years to life in prison. She has been denied parole four times, and it will be 2019 before she is eligible again. [Read more…]
Open wide and swallow:
Guns don’t kill people- people (with guns) kill people
Mentally ill people (with guns) kill people
Careless stupid people (with guns) kill people
Unarmed people enable people (with guns) to kill people
There. That was easy [Read more…]
A report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development documents San County’s homeless population as the third largest and among the fastest growing in the United States.
While the number of homeless fell by nearly 6% nationally, San Diego’s increased by 6.1% over the past year. The report indicated that there were 10,013 homeless people living in our region. Only New York and Los Angeles had more people living on the streets. And LA showed the largest decrease nationally.
Come inside for more of today’s daily news digest… [Read more…]
In June 2011, I received a telephone call. The source of the call was as unexpected as the call itself. The caller identified himself as a deputy prosecutor from a small northern Colorado town and he asked me to confirm I was indeed who I was. Hesitant, I asked why before I said, “I am.” I had not been to Colorado since I was thirteen on a family vacation, and I am certain anything I did there was past the statute of limitation. I am still, however, very wary of prosecutors from anywhere. What he related to me was nearly unbelievable.
Seems the authorities had arrested a fella for rape. As abhorrent as that is, it did not really shake me, until he told me the name: Stephen Morehouse. I actually said the last name in unison with prosecutor, as the memory came flooding back. He did not need to ask if I recalled my encounter with Morehouse. He did ask, however, whether or not I would be willing to fly back to Colorado to testify against Morehouse. Here’s why. [Read more…]
La Virgen de Guadalupe, the Catholic patron saint of Mexico, is without doubt the most deeply loved and revered religious presence there and among Mexicans everywhere. La Morenita-the Beloved Brown Skinned One– is also inextricably intertwined with Mexican national identity. She is a fusion of Mexico’s indigenous peoples with those of the European conquest, testimony to what writer Richard Rodriguez describes as the “absorbent strength of Indian spirituality.”
Her brownness, her constancy and her accessibility to those who suffer are her hallmarks. Yet those alone do not explain her ubiquitous presence and devoted following. It is not difficult to find images of the Virgen de Guadalupe at any time of the year in City Heights. Small stores on University Avenue sell blankets, key chains, candles, clocks, clothing and jewelry with her image. In the past it was not uncommon to see guys walk by on my block with a tattoo of the Virgen on their arms or shoulders. I was told that they were inked in prison. My own front porch has a now badly broken ancient plaster Virgen watching over the house. [Read more…]
The Chargers are likely headed toward a major housecleaning, but the bulk of the blame for the team’s failures is misplaced.
Last week, the U-T San Diego’s Kevin Acee reported that according to “sources,” both Chargers head coach Norv Turner and GM AJ Smith would be fired at the conclusion of the season; that owner Dean Spanos had made up his mind weeks ago and is waiting until the season’s over to make it official.
Spanos responded to the report by releasing a brief, angry statement saying “There is only one person in this organization who will make those decisions and that’s me, and I haven’t shared my thoughts with anyone. I will make my evaluations at the end of the season. Anything coming out now – from sources or otherwise – is pure speculation.”
And there you have it. Nothing has been decided (yeah, right).
One thing is certain, and anyone who follows football or the Chargers knows it: Something’s gotta change. Spanos decided at the end of the 2011 season—after yet another non-playoff year in which the team bumbled and stumbled its way to the finish line—that he was going to stand pat with his guys. In his gut Turner and Smith could turn things around, and he was going to give them one last chance to do it. [Read more…]
San Diego Republicans, in an attempt to prove that they really aren’t the ‘anti-science’ party are conducting a field trial designed to prove the veracity of the commonly used definition of insanity. You know, the quip that goes, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
A press release issued yesterday proudly announced that, on the heels of getting their asses handed to them in 2012, the local Republican Party branch is sticking with the same management team. Heh, heh. Quote:
Preparing to take advantage of mid-term election opportunities, the Republican Party of San Diego County tonight elected its leadership team for the 2014 election cycle.
The decision by the Supreme Court on Friday to hear arguments on two cases relevant to gay rights (Defense of Marriage Act & Calif. Proposition 8) continues to reverberate around the United States. Although no decision is likely until early next summer, talking heads around the nation used the weekend press to contemplate the likely outcomes and their potential impact.
The San Francisco Chronicle highlighted the nervousness many have about any potential decision. The New York Times marveled at the speed that same sex marriage issues were moving through the courts, noting that other major issues had often taken decades to get a hearing. And many newspapers around the country featured articles about couples in Washington State flocking to get married now that a voter approved law is in effect. [Read more…]
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.
In last week’s column, I discussed Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman’s propaganda model and noted how it was even more relevant today than it was when they first published Manufacturing Consent in 1988 as the concentration of media ownership they decried in the eighties has only continued to increase dramatically. I ended that column by referring to Project Censored, an organization that has been monitoring the news media and putting out a list of the top 25 “censored” stories of the year since 1976. [Read more…]
I had other plans. I was gonna write my next column about Ruben Torres’ 3rd annual Love Thy Neighbor Toy & Clothing Drive that takes place on December 15 at The Spot in Barrio Logan. The drive plans on bringing Christmas to thousands of kids throughout Tijuana, Rosarito, Tecate, and homeless families in San Diego.
Instead I have to write two columns. Do twice the work because some millionaire decided to put up a demeaning billboard in my neighborhood. In the community that I live in. The community I write about. Now I have to write about this jerk. And then write another column about something I care about in time to plug the toy drive that will bring a little joy into some kids’ lives.
On Wednesday December 3 a giant advertising billboard above Union Electric on 28th Street, viewable from Interstate 5, went up. But, instead of advertising some crap that people don’t need, a millionaire named Marc Paskin bought the space for $5000 to advertise his love interest. With a big picture of his smiling, ugly mug the billboard said, “All I Want for Christmas is a Latina Girlfriend.” And then listed an email address, ChristmasLatina@aol.com, to contact him. [Read more…]
By Laura Gottesdiener / AlterNet / Dec. 5, 2012
The directors of the anti-Obama film hilariously claim the film faces discrimination.
Gerald Molan, the director of the extremely anti-Obama movie, 2016: Obama’s America , is mad that his and Dinesh D’Souza’s film wasn’t on the shortlist of documentaries nominated for an Academy Award.
“The action confirms my opinion that the bias against anything from a conservative point of view is dead on arrival in Hollywood circles,” he complained to the Hollywood Reporter. [Read more…]
