One hour from Jerusalem
there aren’t borderline personalities
speaking in Bible verses
outside airports
No religious right
to save the wronged from damnation
No television evangelists
to deliver widows from pension checks [Read more…]
The Days after November 8
By Linda Hutchison / Head Wind Journal
First morning, I wake up so sad. My mind is not moving well, under a dark cloud.
I cannot focus on my writing, do not have the heart for it.
I drive to the library neighborhood a mile away, dropping a memoir I just finished on living with heart disease into the return bin. I read it because I know the author and because I figure heart disease will get me eventually. Dad dead of heart attack, 52, uncle 54, his daughter, my only cousin, at 54. I’m interested in knowing more about the vegan diet the author adopted. The book offers some helpful information, books to read, and also confirms my suspicion I don’t want to write long memoirs about my emotional journeys.
I consider walking around the bay. It shines bright at the end of the street. Too bright, too harsh! So I stick to the still shady side of neighborhood streets, walking past old bungalows, new condos, apartment buildings.
I pass a construction site where workers are talking, some in Spanish, some in English. I wonder how they all voted, if they did. If any are fearful, any emboldened. I pass a young father wheeling a stroller. He smiles at me, a sad smile. [Read more…]
Five San Diego Protests Planned for Trump Inauguration Weekend
The ugly reality of the Trump era is coming more into focus every day as announcements about billionaires, generals, and bigots joining his cabinet are made.
Today, in addition to my usual list of upcoming progressive events in San Diego, I’m looking ahead to the activist actions being planned for the weekend of the inauguration. In addition to local events, there are already rallies, demonstrations, and marches planned for more than 60 cities worldwide.
The local events are still not quite focused, and I expect the lineup will change over the next month. The one that looks to be the biggest will be the Women’s March on January 21st. You can read about them all following next week’s events listed below. [Read more…]
Campsite at Border and High Number of Chula Vistans Living in Poverty
A Few Points About Our Political Representatives
Many of our political representatives took their oath of office this week: Irene Lopez, a new trustee for the San Ysidro School District; Kevin Pike and Nick Segura as trustees for the Sweetwater High School District; Roberto Alcantar and Griselda Delgado as trustees of the Southwestern Community College board.
For residents of South San Diego, your Councilmember David Alvarez experienced a disappointment. He was not voted in as the City Council’s new President, although many had hoped for this outcome. Alvarez made this statement.
State Senator Ben Hueso introduced a bill that would fund legal representation for noncitizens facing deportation. 68% of noncitizens held in detention facilities do not have legal representation. What’s more, people detained who receive lawyers are more than five times as likely to succeed in challenging their deportation. [Read more…]
Concerned Veterans for America – A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
By Shawn VanDiver
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has its fair share of challenges—no one disputes that. Still, over the last two years under Secretary Bob McDonald, VA has made irrefutable progress through the MyVA transformation. But you would never know that if you listened to the rhetoric of the politically motivated advocacy group calling themselves Concerned Veterans for America (CVA).
The deceivingly-named group has positioned themselves as champions of veterans who are simply seeking quality health care. Over the past year, CVA has slowly been exposed for what the American Legion called a “mouthpiece” vets group who is proactively trying to privatize VA.
Although they claim that their positions have been mischaracterized, CVA’s public statements and policies make it easy to remove the sheep’s clothing from this political wolf. [Read more…]
Navigating Between Worlds: The Peaceful Warriors of Standing Rock
By Ariana Krieger
When you see the somber brown hills of the Dakota Borderlands for the first time, they don’t look like the setting for a historic victory by a people armed only with the power of prayer and reverence for the land. Yet among these hills of Standing Rock has sprouted a camp, a human crossroads whose unique character has made the seemingly impossible happen.
Seven tribes lead this movement and among the tribal elders are men like Wanasa, a Lakota elder who greets everyone warmly during meal times in the main kitchen.
“The most important thing you can do is pray,” he tells us, “What is happening on the front lines is secondary; the main purpose of this camp is to pray.” [Read more…]
Twenty Point Guide to Defending Democracy Under a Trump Presidency
By Timothy Snyder / Facebook
Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so. Here are twenty lessons from the twentieth century, adapted to the circumstances of today:
1. Do not obey in advance.
Much of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then start to do it without being asked. You’ve already done this, haven’t you? Stop. Anticipatory obedience teaches authorities what is possible and accelerates unfreedom.
2. Defend an institution.
Defend an institution. Follow the courts or the media, or a court or a newspaper. Do not speak of “our institutions” unless you are making them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions don’t protect themselves. They go down like dominoes unless each is defended from the beginning. [Read more…]
Open Letter to Electors: Exercise Judgement and Choice
Esteemed Electors:
We, a bipartisan coalition of Americans including Electors, scholars, officials, and concerned citizens write to you in the spirit of fellowship, out of our sense of patriotism, and with great urgency.
There are times in the life of a nation when extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary measures. Now is a such time, and your courage and leadership are required.
Never in our Republic’s history has there been a President-apparent comparable to Donald Trump. His inauguration would present a grave and continual threat to the Constitution, to domestic tranquility, and to international stability: [Read more…]
Developer – Insider Benefits from Affordable Housing Program By Building Coastal McMansions
A developer and political insider – a former chairman of the San Diego Planning Commission – appears to have benefited big-time from a City of San Diego affordable and sustainability housing program – that he was ineligible for – by being allowed to construct single-family McMansions at the coast.
Tim Golba of Golba Architecture was given the green light by the City’s Development Services Department to obtain the permits for his single family home projects through the city’s “Affordable/In-Fill Housing and Sustainable Buildings Expedite Program.” We know this, thanks to the diligence of the Voice of San Diego. [Read more…]
Air Politics (Or Is It Just Gas?)
Because America fell to a fascist coup d’etat only a few weeks ago it’s not too early to talk about how it happened.
First and above all others, the Democratic Party was a necessary player in this debacle. Loyalists will be outraged seeing that in print. After all, they’ll say, we need now more than ever to grow more united, to bond again as Democrats because… stronger together. But that mother-loving phrase failed, didn’t it? It was empty of substance, like so many others the Dems put up. No one bought it.
It’s almost pathetic to watch the defeated party grope for explanations having to do with the decrepit Electoral College and Republican gerrymandering, the FBI’s Comey striking a blow at the last minute, the Russians hacking into party emails and releasing excerpts of conversations that revealed—Gasp!—cynicism equaling that portrayed in any House of Cards episode. [Read more…]
The Agony of Sandy Hook Continues Four Years Later
Sane people had their hearts broken four years ago today. Twenty-year-old Adam Lanza first shot and killed his mother, then went to Sandy Hook Elementary School, opened fire and killed 20 children and six staff members before killing himself.
The massacre in Newtown Connecticut was the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history. It was also, as New York magazine points out, “the first major American tragedy subjected to the full force of the internet’s conspiratorial machinery in real time.”
Insane (a state of mind that prevents normal perception, behavior, or social interaction) people adopted this tragedy as the gateway into a fact-free world, brimming with conspiracy theories, and full of hatred for the victims and their families. [Read more…]
Trump’s Cabinet Picks: A Basket of Deplorables
A Secy of Labor Who Doesn’t Believe in the Minimum Wage
By John Lawrence
Trump has chosen fast food executive Andrew Puzder as Secretary of Labor. Puzder is chief executive of CKE Restaurants, the corporation that owns Hardee’s and Carls Jr fast food chains. The corporation has 3300 locations in 42 states and 28 countries. Puzder has advocated replacing human beings with machines in fast food restaurants.
Puzder also is against the minimum wage altogether, let alone raising it to $15 an hour. He sees his job as executive of CKE as driving down the cost of labor and this means lowering the minimum wage and replacing workers with automated machines. [Read more…]
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