San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

The ‘March for Our Lives’ Parkland Students Collaborate with Artists Sage, Kesha and Chika to Create a Powerful Video on the Issue of Gun Violence | Video Worth Watching

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The March for Our Lives group has collaborated with artist Sage to create a video that is a sort of mashup of Groundhog Day and a Rube Goldberg device. From the SAGE YouTube web page:

“Safe” is the debut single from the artist Sage. Sage wrote the song while in his senior year of high school after the tragic mass shooting in a high school in Parkland, Florida. He played the first version of the song for his older sister, the music artist Kesha, who instantly felt the power of the track and wanted to help the cause by lending her voice to the song and movement. Chika, independent female rapper known for her vicious flow and fearless lyrics, contributed verses to finish the song.

More at the March for Our Lives website. [h/t to AGD]   [Read more…]

UPDATED With Suggestions | An Explainer on Electing Judges in California

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What to do about voting for or against judges is a thing this year. I’m hoping today’s column will answer some of the questions readers have asked in recent days.  

The attention paid to Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing has made a lot of people take notice of the judicial contests appearing on their ballots. At least that is what I assume is going on, having researched and/or produced a half-dozen or so voter guides since 2012.

San Diegans who have heard, read, or seen campaign materials about many candidates and propositions open up the ballot and are confounded by seeing 16 judicial contests for people they know nothing about. (There’s a seventeenth contest, and we’ll get to it further down in the story.)

Who are these people listed for California’s Court of Appeals and Supreme Court and why are we being asked to vote on them?   [Read more…]

Two City Works Press Books Explore San Diego’s Impact on the Psyche | Release Reading at Tiger! Tiger!

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San Diego City Works Press is a project of the San Diego Writers Collective, which is a group of San Diego writers, poets, artists, and patrons dedicated to the publication and promotion of the work of San Diego area artists of all sorts.  Our specific interests include local, ethnic, and border writing as well as formal innovation and progressive politics.

The Collective’s main focus is local, but we have engaged in occasional collaborations with writers from around the world. City Works Press is an all-volunteer non-profit, funded by local writers and friends of the arts, committed to the publication of fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and art by members of the San Diego City College community and beyond.  

Sunday, October 21, at 4:30 at Tiger!Tiger! City Works Press, in concert with Verbatim Books, is proud to present the release reading for local novelist Josh Turner and San Diego poet, Joe Medina.  Fall 2018 marks 13 years of publication by SD City Works Press, and Baxt and Medina’s works continue our tradition of birthing first books by homegrown authors.   [Read more…]

Pain and Suffering at the SDPD | My Reporter’s Life, Part One

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I worked for the San Diego Evening Tribune for approximately eight years and 11 months.  I was just 13 months short of being vested in the retirement program when I quit. That’s okay.  

If I’d stayed on at the paper I might have gone fully crazy.  

I was 28 when the Trib hired me out of a small-town daily in New Jersey’s rural northwest. I think somewhere I still have a picture of myself at the Sussex County Fair — taken by the staff photographer who’d accompanied me — as I tried to milk a Holstein. Standard stuff for small-town dailies back then.

I asked the wise guy Italian Assistant Managing Editor named Larry Lusitana why he’d hired me, and he said: “We’ve had good luck with people from New Jersey.”  It was only after I’d left the paper that I found out Lusitana was from that state.   [Read more…]

How the Wealthy Destroy Public Schools, One Gift at a Time

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By Jeff Bryant / Campaign for America’s Future

News about wealthy folks giving millions to education draw both praise and criticism. But two new reports by public education advocacy groups reveal the real impact rich people have on schools and how they’ve chosen to leverage their money to influence the system.

The first report, “Confronting the Education Debt” from the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools, examines the nation’s “education debt” – the historic funding shortfall for school systems that educate black and brown children. The authors find that through a combination of multiple factors – including funding rollbacks, tax cuts, and diversions of public money to private entities – the schools educating the nation’s poorest children have been shorted billions in funding.

One funding source alone, the federal dollars owed to states for educating low-income children and children with disabilities, shorted schools $580 billion, between 2005 and 2017, in what the government is lawfully required to fund schools through the provisions of Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESSA) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).   [Read more…]

Trump on 60 Minutes: “I’m President and You’re Not”

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By Mark Sumner / Daily Kos

In a lengthy interview broadcast on Sunday evening, Leslie Stahl presented Donald Trump a long series of questions. Though she occasionally got answers—many of them unrelated to what was asked—and many of those answers were deeply laced with equal parts ignorance and arrogance, the most horrifying part of the whole event was how familiar it all seemed. 60 Minutes with Donald Trump seemed much like every other minute with Donald Trump. And that’s a problem.

In all the questions she asked, Stahl discovered … nothing, really. Trump hates the press. We knew that. Trump is ready to claim that he knows more about science than the scientists. We knew that. He says he understands the military better than his generals. We knew that. When pressed on any issue he resorts to attacking the “unfairness” of the press rather than provide a straight answer. We knew that.

Though the interview did serve as a reminder of Trump’s readiness to pretend to knowledge he doesn’t have, his utter inability to admit the truth even when caught in an obvious lie, and his horrifying incoherence in attempting to describe even the simplest facets of policy, there was perhaps just one moment that broke through.   [Read more…]

German ‘Indivisible’ Movement Draws 240,000 to Berlin Rally | Video Worth Watching

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German far-right groups have been growing in numbers, but Germans opposed to racism and hyper-nationlism are in vastly greater numbers and continue to push back with counter-demonstrations. Organizers in Germany that are promoting inclusivity and diversity use the hashtag: #unteilbar (#indivisible in German) in recognition of the enshrinement of this principle in the German constitution. The organizers of this recent event in Berlin were expecting a turnout of around 40,000, but were amazed when participation swelled to around 240,000. Additional coverage at NPR here.   [Read more…]

Looking Back at the Week: October 7-13

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This week’s edition of Looking Back at the Week contains articles, commentaries, columns, and other work by San Diego Free Press regulars, irregulars, columnists, at-large contributors, and locally and nationally sourced writers on general election endorsements, Sanders stumping for Levin and Campa-Najjar, the Marriott Strike, Trojan Horse Tuck, horrible Escondido Mayor Abed, and lots of other grassroots news & progressive views from San Diego’s feisty, all volunteer, slightly funky, community news site.   [Read more…]

Tyger – Guilherme Marcondes | Video Worth Watching

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Following the election results in Brazil has been a bit discouraging with the “Brazilian Trump”—Jair Bolsonaro—getting 46% of the votes in the first round of the presidential election. Perhaps a slight silver-lining to this dark news cloud is that thinking of things Brazilian reminded me of the fantastic 2006 video Tyger by the Brazilian filmmaker Guilherme Marcondes, inspired by William Blake’s poem of the same name. For those curious about how Brazil may be getting its own Trump, check out John Oliver’s take on Last Week Tonight.   [Read more…]

Keb’ Mo’ – Put a Woman in Charge feat. Rosanne Cash (Official Music Video) | Video Worth Watching

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From the Keb’ Mo’ YouTube page:

“My mother just recently passed at the age of 91. She was smart. She was strong. She was a leader. This video is dedicated to her and amazing women everywhere that are getting the job done.” -Keb’ Mo’

[h/t to Annie L]   [Read more…]

A Sampling of 2018 Voter Guides for San Diegans | Progressive Activist Calendar, October 12-22, 2018

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I don’t know if there’s Blue Wave building, but I can tell you I haven’t seen such engagement and interest in an election in recent memory. This week’s activist calendar includes 36 events related to canvassing or voter education, and I know I just scratched the surface.

Another indication of voter interest is the proliferation of voter guides. Not that long ago, the term ‘voter guide’ either meant a handout from a political party or a slate mailer from a pay to play outfit.

Given that I worked on two such efforts this year, I thought I’d take a few minutes to catalog and comment upon some of what I’m seeing in the way of election-related compendiums and endorsement lists.    [Read more…]

Parkland Survivors Talk Gun Safety in San Diego

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“What if” we cut gun deaths in half by 2025?

By Mary S. Johnson / San Diegans For Gun Violence Prevention

What if we could create a bipartisan coalition to prevent another mass shooting in the United States?

Four student survivors of the Parkland, Florida shooting climbed onto buses, boarded airplanes, and juggled study time after traveling to California to work on preventing another mass shooting from taking place in the United States. On September 20 they brought their urgent activism to San Diego.   [Read more…]

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