This week’s edition of Looking Back at the Week features articles, commentaries, columns and toons by San Diego Free Press and OB Rag regulars, irregulars, columnists, at-large contributors, and sourced writers on the cops vs community crisis, the Texas Obamapocalypse, the Civic SD showdown, the UT-SD sale (yes!), stupid neoliberalism, SD’s FY ’16 budget, a certain terror instigator and free speech hater, the Korean War and Logan Heights, SDFP’s website upgrades, the Ruskies in Baja, modern age Jedi raising, protecting Mauna Kea, extreme weather, and a longboard sized helping of news and notices from Ocean Beach. [Read more…]
Search Results for: Mauna Kea
Waiting For Death: Ecopsychology as Human Supremacism
So many indigenous people have told me that the levels of sustainability their traditional cultures achieved prior to the arrival of colonizers were based on lessons learned from non-humans. Implicit in these lessons is the truth that humans depend on non-humans. This dependence is not limited to the air we breathe, the water we drink, or the food we eat. This dependence sinks into our very souls.
For many indigenous people I have listened to, the basic reality of human dependence demands that humans regard non-humans, regard life, regard the universe with deep humility.
Approach non-humans with humility, and you may find them willing to teach you.
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Loving A Child, Protecting the Future
By Will Falk
Not long ago, a few hours after his birth, I held a new-born baby to my chest in the hospital. The baby is my girlfriend’s nephew. We arrived at the hospital and crowded into a maternity room with my girlfriend’s sister, brother-in-law, little niece, and mother.
During the pregnancy, my girlfriend’s almost three year-old niece was asked what her little brother’s name should be. She answered, quickly, matter-of-factly, “Pineapple.” He has another name, but for this essay, he will be Pineapple.
Conversation revolved around what Pineapple would be like when he was older, the adventures his big sister and he would have, and what the relative ease of his birth might mean for his life. We were excited for what we might teach him, what he would teach us, and we made predictions about the milestones in his life. [Read more…]
Empire’s Newest Terror: Climate Colonialism
By Will Falk
I was recently invited to an event at Chicano Park billed as “Live Art For a Sustainable Future.” The promotional poster featured a beautiful image of an indigenous woman with the phrase, “All my relations against climate colonialism.” The event will feature San Diego’s best artists gathering in one of San Diego’s most beautiful spaces to encourage action against climate change on Friday, October 9 from 4-7pm in Chicano Park.
I have seen the term “climate colonialism” being used more and more often and I think it reflects the proper analysis. As one of the San Diego Free Press’ resident radicals and after spending two years on the road fighting the forces producing climate change, I want to express my thanks to the poster designer who used the term “climate colonialism.”
It’s good to see the term being used because it stems from a radical understanding of the connectedness of environmental and political issues. [Read more…]
Returning From Darkness: National Suicide Prevention Month
By Will Falk
I am an attempted suicide survivor. I tried to kill myself twice – once in April, 2013 and again in August, 2013. It has been over two years and I am still struggling to make sense of what I did. I just learned that September is National Suicide Prevention Month and for the last several days I have lost myself reading heart-breaking story after heart-breaking story of those affected by suicide – both attempted and successful.
The first time I tried to kill myself I was in Milwaukee, WI. I was a public defender in Kenosha, WI and was overcome with anxiety, guilt, and a spiritual kind of exhaustion when I came back to my empty apartment on a snowy, Wednesday night. Looking myself in the eye in the mirror, I realized I did not want to wake up the next morning. I put on my pajamas, brushed my teeth, and swallowed a whole bottle of sleeping pills.
I woke up in the emergency room – my throat coated in charcoal, the hair on my chest ripped from the monitors, my arms and hands pricked with needle marks where they missed my veins with the I.V. in the ambulance. A doctor asked me if I knew what happened. “I tried to kill myself,” I said. So, they involuntarily committed me to the psyche ward of St. Francis Hospital on the shores of Lake Michigan on the south side of Milwaukee. [Read more…]
Looking Back at the Week: June 21-27
Compiled by Brent E. Beltrán
This week’s edition of Looking Back at the Week features articles, commentaries, columns, toons and other work by San Diego Free Press regulars, irregulars, columnists, at-large contributors, and sourced writers on: a dumb idea to link Balboa Park and Downtown, Dems defecting on TPP, hateful flags, victory in SCOTUS on Obamacare and gay marriage, “The Black Problem,” Falk’s war coverage in Hawaii, white privilege, home grown terror, the takeover of Chicano Park, border boundary monuments, Frye calling for a “massive river park,” Mission Bay restoration, SD’s homeless food fight, and lots of other grassroots news & progressive views. [Read more…]
Looking Back at the Week: June 14-20
Compiled by Brent E. Beltrán
This week’s edition of Looking Back at the Week features articles, commentaries, columns, toons and other work by San Diego Free Press regulars, irregulars, columnists, at-large contributors, and sourced writers on Peters/Davis’ disappointing TPP vote, wage theft in the restaurant industry, Uber’s labor situation, hate in Charleston, the Chargers stadium dilemma, vocabulary for haoles, Trump 2016, girls social clubs in Logan Heights, saying no to ALEC in SD, vacation rentals, a Qualcomm exec going to jail, the Maya at the NAT, lifeguards getting screwed out of benefits, and lots more grassroots news and progressive views. [Read more…]
Looking Back at the Week: May 31-July 6
Compiled by Brent E. Beltrán
This week’s edition of Looking Back at the Week features articles, commentaries, columns and toons by San Diego Free Press and OB Rag regulars, irregulars, columnists, at-large contributors, and sourced writers on The Freeps turning 3, demolishing LGBTQ history, the upcoming TPP vote, extreme rain and flooding in Texas, pule action, a certain Repug hypocrite, Los Chicanos social club, thanking Snowden, CHE Café on the endangered list, defending Cory Briggs, and much more news and views, plus the usual selection of goodies from SD’s most funky beach community.
We turned three this week! Happy birthday to us!
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Looking Back at the Week: May 24-30
This week’s edition of Looking Back at the Week features articles, commentaries, columns and toons by San Diego Free Press and OB Rag regulars, irregulars, columnists, at-large contributors, and sourced writers on the new SDUT, Bernie running for prez, Dem local problems, memorializing the dead, Ernie’s sweet memories, Ireland choosing equality, St. Oscar’s beatification, Los Lobos de Logan Heights, SOHO awarding Freep Maria, Greek problems, Esco’s loco charters, Will Falk from the summit, some this and that, and a bunch of other stuff from our OB buddies. [Read more…]
Looking Back at the Week: May 10-May 16
This week’s edition of Looking Back at the Week features articles, commentaries, columns and toons by San Diego Free Press and OB Rag regulars, irregulars, columnists, at-large contributors, and sourced writers on the labor struggle in San Quintín, GOP vultures, Todd Gloria wanting to change referendum process, Emerald replacements lining up, Jim Miller turning 50, out of touch Issa, 1950’s Logan Heights, a call to close Florida Dr., SD style “progress”, Hawaii haters, the Freeps’ GALASTRAVAGANZAVERSARY, and a tobacco water pipe full of OB news and views [Read more…]
Looking Back at the Week: April 26-May 2
Compiled by Brent E. Beltrán
This week’s edition of Looking Back at the Week features articles, commentaries, columns and toons by San Diego Free Press and OB Rag regulars, irregulars, columnists, at-large contributors, and sourced writers on that Nat Geo vanity “doc”, Bernie taking on Hillary, Baltimore cops charged!, the environmental and economic justice challenge in SD, the fall of Saigon’s impact on City Heights, a defensive Civic SD, Ernie still groovin’ and grateful, history for haoles, broken windows plus so much more, and, as always, enough news from OB to fill a sandcastle. [Read more…]
Looking Back at the Week: April 19-25
Compiled by Brent E. Beltrán
This week’s edition of Looking Back at the Week features articles, toons and poetry by San Diego Free Press and OB Rag regulars, irregulars, columnists, at-large contributors, sourced writers and poets on National Poetry Month, Chamber’s widow kicking, manufactured stadium consent, CityBeat slacking, jamming up Peters on TPP, Cali taxes & inequality, CivicSD, bits from the barrio, Gov. Brown chummy with water hogs, stupid people things, watching Mission Valley, Will Falk’’s Hawaiian mountain solidarity, Armenian genocide a century later, and enough OB news to stuff in a traveler’s backpack. [Read more…]