San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

Donna Frye Makes the Case for Vivian Moreno as D8 Councilmember

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By Donna Frye

Last week I officially endorsed Vivian Moreno to serve as the next Council District 8 City Councilmember. Vivian is someone who has strong core beliefs and values that will not change based on politics. She is honest and straightforward- she tells it like it is and I appreciate that.

Vivian and I agree about what it takes to be a public servant. It means listening to others with an open mind, understanding what people are saying about their positions on issues and the reasons people believe as they do and working hard to find equitable and reasonable solutions. Vivian was active in serving her community long before she ever thought about running for office. Her passion to serve is a result of her upbringing and strong family ties. Vivian is a lifelong resident of South San Diego and knows firsthand the challenges facing the community.   [Read more…]

Yes! Some Good San Diego Architecture! | A Photographic Look

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This month’s A Photographic Look is dedicated to architect Robert Venturi who died last month at the age of 93. While a vocal proponent for what became known as Post-Modern architecture, he (along with his partner Denise Scott Brown) made good buildings in other styles, too. I just hope he doesn’t try redesigning the pearly gates.

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While I have a definite partiality for Art Deco, I enjoy and appreciate all types or categories of architecture. For me, a structure just has to make design sense no matter what form or style the design might take. (Not being out of place in its location also helps a bunch.)

What I mean is that whatever form the design had in the architect’s mind, must have a reason, a functional basis in reality—not just be something different for its own sake, or something added-on just for the adding of it. I am not fond of Post-Modern architecture for this reason. Go look at The Aventine in La Jolla for an example. The tiny windows I understand (it’s more the perspective of the large wall area), but why are those little adornments there? That doesn’t mean a building can’t have some feature that is intended just for decoration. Just that it should be done well, not simply added-on as if from a catalog.   [Read more…]

Can Women’s Anger Save America? | Video Worth Watching

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From the Atlantic website:

In America today, women are angry. But this isn’t a modern phenomenon, argues the author Rebecca Traister. In her new book, “Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger,” Traister details how female rage has long been the country’s political fuel. She expounded on this idea at Aspen Ideas Festival in June, where, in a video interview, she discussed how the fury of American women—from the suffragists to the abolitionists to Rosa Parks—has catalyzed major political movements.

[h/t to AGD]   [Read more…]

San Diego Progressive Voter Guide, November 2018

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A few words about our process are in order. The San Diego Free Press is an all-volunteer group which has been publishing daily since June 4, 2012. A commitment to activism and progressive politics is what drives our dedication to this project. We’ve been researching the candidates and causes on the general election ballot for the past 18 months.  You can see the various articles we’ve published at our archive of 2018 election coverage.

The editorial board includes Brent Beltrán, Anna Daniels, Frank Gormlie, Patty Jones, Rich Kacmar, Annie Lane, and Doug Porter. We met on September 24 to vote on endorsements, starting out by acknowledging that the country is in dire straights these days. We feel this election is about triaging the damage already done as much as it is about building a better future. 

Another factor differentiating this year’s evaluations was something I’ll call the Kavanaugh caveat. In situations where all things were close to equal from a policy perspective, we defaulted to the women running for office.   [Read more…]

Marshall Tuck: The Republicans’ Trojan Horse

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In last week’s column, I wrote that “the future of public education and the heart and soul of progressive California” were at stake in the Superintendent of Public Instruction race.  What makes this race so important is that it represents an attempt by moneyed interests and forces on the right to play in Democratic politics through the use of stealth and dishonesty.  Indeed, if you like the way the Lincoln Club intervenes in and tries to upset the Democratic apple cart in races here in San Diego, you’ll love how the right is trying to game California’s Democratic voters in this contest.

It’s so bad, that the state party came out with this extraordinary assertion last May leading up to the primary in response to Tuck’s refusal to disavow his Republican allies:

Tony Thurmond has won the overwhelming support of Democrats for Superintendent of Public Instruction because he champions our progressive values. Marshall Tuck’s support is limited to ultra-wealthy billionaires and right-wing thugs like Newt Gingrich and John Cox, who we see next to him in the latest independent mailer that Tuck has tacitly endorsed. It doesn’t matter how many pictures of President Obama he sends out to voters. We hear both sides of his mouth, and we know the conservative agenda he is part of.

  [Read more…]

Garbage In, Garbage Out: Supes Ready to Vote Based on a Failed Staff McClellan-Palomar Airport Analysis

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The San Diego County Board of Supervisors  (BOS) cannot decide wisely when it relies on poor staff information.

Need an example?  Look at the BOS October 10, 2018, McClellan-Palomar Airport, Agenda Item.   Palomar is in the city of Carlsbad.

County staff recommends that the Board approve a 20-Year Palomar Master Plan (PMP) to spend up to $112,000,000 to extend the 4900-foot runway up to 900 feet and to relocate the runway about 100 feet to the north before 2036.     [Read more…]

UN Climate Report Warns of Grim Consequences, Shrinking Time Frame for Action

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By Meteor Blades / Daily Kos

A decade, maybe a little more, is all the time we have left for acting to keep global temperature rise to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius over the pre-industrial era, U.N. scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change announced Monday. That’s 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. Since the dawn of the industrial age, global warming has boosted temperatures 1.0-1.2 degrees Celsius.

The good news from the scientists is that the 1.5-degree goal may still be attainable. That’s unlike what most scientists thought when the 2015 Paris climate agreement included 1.5 degrees as an “aspirational” goal. Their view was that it was only realistic to shoot for 2 degrees (3.6 degrees F).

The bad news is we’re nowhere near either of those goals and the consequences of not acting soon are grim. As we have heard from scientists more than once previously, those consequences are happening more immediately than previously thought, according to the draft IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C.    [Read more…]

It’s a Scary Time for Boys? | Video Worth Watching

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Is it really a scary time for young men and boys? [h/t to Annie L.]   [Read more…]

Do You Know Who Doesn’t Want You To Vote? | More Video Worth Watching

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Does taunting work? Knock the Vote intends to find out. Here’s a PSA produced for the campaign by the Acronym group. It slams Millennials for just about all of the negative stereotypes out there. Will it motivate its audience to prove the stereotypes wrong by showing up at the polls on November 6th? I guess we’ll find out in 29 days.   [Read more…]

Looking Back at the Week: September 30-October 6

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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 the confirmation of Kavanaugh, mail in ballots, the Occupy SD troll, Dems gaining in the Assembly, the local Republican congressional pity party, the importance of Tom Thurmond, Carlsbad’s crossroad, poli-trick-ians Summer Stephans and Myrtle Cole, and lots of other grassroots news & progressive views from San Diego’s feisty, all volunteer, slightly funky, community news site.   [Read more…]

Talking Heads – Burning Down the House | Video Worth Watching

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Music for our Times? Talking Heads – Burning Down the House (and maybe the Senate, too?)   [Read more…]

Blues For A Warm Planet [Adagio from Khachaturian’s Gayane Ballet Suite] | Video Worth Watching

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Here’s the Adagio from Khachaturian’s Gayane Ballet Suite, envisioned by Politesseo as a lament for a warming planet.   [Read more…]

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