People stare at me
Six feet of blue eyes
looking out over a sea of black hair
People stare
at minority me [Read more…]
Helga: Growing up in Hitler’s Germany
By Karen Truesdell Riehl
I met Helga in 1977. She was the librarian in an elementary school east of Seattle. We became friends and daily lunch companions. Helga had a heavy German accent but never mentioned growing up in Germany. One day I asked her how long she’d been in this country. She told me she met her American soldier husband in Germany, shortly after the war. They moved to the United States in 1948.
I asked her to tell me about her experience during the war. She hesitated a moment, then announced, not proudly, “I was Jugend.”
“What’s a Jugend? I asked. [Read more…]
Layla and the Owl’s Eyes: Ecopsychology and Being Human
Recently walking up Main Street in Park City, Utah, I saw in the Visitor’s Center doorway what looked like a man holding a great-horned owl surrounded by children. As his voice carried across the street, I heard the man explain that this owl had been found with an injured wing after being struck by a car.
I love owls. I love the haunting sound of their hoots in the darkest hours before dawn. I love the joy that accompanies the lucky sight of a splash of brown feathers against newly-fallen snow when an owl makes the rare decision to reveal herself in winter daylight. I love how owls’ mysterious nature have made them omens in so many cultures’ imaginations. So, when I saw what I thought was a great-horned owl, I automatically crossed the street with a feeling of anticipation. [Read more…]
Study: SDPD’s Racial Bias is Undisputed and Ineffective
By Martha Sullivan, of Women Occupy San Diego
The afternoon before Thanksgiving, the San Diego Mayor’s Office released a long-awaited report on racial bias in traffic stops by the San Diego Police Department (SDPD) prepared by San Diego State University (SDSU) under contract to the Mayor’s Office.
There has been much news about the delay by the Mayor’s Office in releasing this study, as well as that office’s use of the well-worn tactic to release bad news on the eve of a major holiday.
As San Diego Councilmember Todd Gloria pointed out in the Council’s Public Safety & Livable Neighborhood Committee’s hearing on this report last week, the Mayor’s handling of this study on racial bias in San Diego policing has only deepened the mistrust of the Mayor and his Administration among community members who have experienced such racial bias throughout their lives, but whose experiences have not been validated by the Mayor or his management team.
There has also been much news in the past two weeks about the findings of this report, which are elegantly summarized in its Executive Summary: [Read more…]
Wanna Fight Trump? Start by Acting Locally
Join the San Diego People’s Inaugural, Monday, December 12
…I caution fellow Democrats: make your focus the American people, not Trump. We will defeat him one day, and when we do, we better have something to offer people. –Congressman Keith Ellison [Read more…]
King Tides, Otay Mesa’s Industrial Growth and Disturbing Feminicides
Murphy Development broke ground on a 79,050 square foot industrial building. The project will complete the total 2.1 million square foot Siempre Viva Business Park.
Siempre Viva Business Park has a large lineup of Fortune 500 companies, including General Dynamics, FedEx and Tyson.
Murphy Development is also working on the 1 million square foot Brown Field Technology Park.
Andy Irwin, senior vice president and director of marketing for Murphy Development described the vast growth of Otay Mesa in a press release saying, “Otay Mesa is enjoying a renaissance, spurred on by several major projects. The Cross Border Express Terminal (CBX) connects Otay Mesa directly to Tijuana International Airport, which offers direct flights throughout Mexico and to Asia. Construction is anticipated to start next year on a major renovation and expansion on the 330-acres of Brown Field Airport. The transformation into Metro Airpark will involve new aviation, retail, hospitality, commercial and industrial uses. [Read more…]
Trump’s Plan to Make Education Great Again: Abandon Public Schools
President-elect Trump described his choice for Secretary of Education in a Nov. 23 tweet as a “passionate education advocate,” who will “break the bureaucracy that is holding our children back so that we can deliver world-class education and school choice to all families.” Tweeting her reply, Betsy DeVos vowed to work with Trump “on his vision to make American education great again.”
Will tweets follow, identifying those years of greatness, together with the plan to return to them? Don’t hold your breath.
Over the last half century eight presidents (four Democrats, four Republicans) recognized the shortcomings of American education. [Read more…]
Veterans Help #NoDAPL Resistance Achieve Significant Victory
By Brian Trautman
Over the past eight months, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of North Dakota have been joined by more than 200 allied tribes and tens of thousands of non-Native activists for a nonviolent resistance campaign against Energy Transfer Partners’ (ETP) $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL).
The pipeline, which has been projected to transport at least 470,000 barrels of oil per day over 1,100 miles from the Bakken oil field to an existing hub in Illinois for delivery to refineries on the Gulf Coast, was rerouted in 2014 from north of Bismarck to the south, taking it through unceded treaty lands of the Sioux.
Pipeline construction over this altered route desecrated sacred ancestral sites, and, until last Sunday, was slated to cross the Missouri River at the Lake Oahe reservoir, which would have threatened the safety of the drinking water of the Standing Rock Sioux and millions of people downstream. [Read more…]
Take Your Football Stadium and Shove It, Mr. Spanos!
These are extraordinary times, and for a passionate progressive like myself, it’s hard to look away from the Basket of Deplorables being assembled to run the country’s executive branch.
But for today we need to discuss something both local and deplorable. Another hair-brained idea to build a downtown stadium for the San Diego Chargers is making the rounds, coming out of a Wednesday sit-down between Mayor Kevin Faulconer and team owners Dean Spanos.
After getting his ass handed to him at the ballot box in 2016 (56% voted No on a stadium measure requiring two-thirds approval), Spanos is counting on a future court ruling lowering the threshold to a simple majority, and on Rams owner Stan Kroenke’s desire to have the Los Angeles market all to himself. [Read more…]
American Dreamtime for San Diego Refugees
By Nat Krieger
The story being read out loud in the room is illustrated with black, gray, and white sketches. It is about a man who visits the land of his birth. He brings his wife and son. The man is shown greeting a grandmother who he knew as a younger person before. Before.
Does that picture really explain before to a ninth grader with almost no English who has arrived in San Diego from a refugee camp in Thailand three weeks before? We need a bridge and Paw, a junior at Hoover High provides one. [Read more…]
The PangeaSeed Murals of Local Ocean Beach Artist, Celeste Byers
By South OB Girl / OB Rag
Local artist Celeste Byers has done ten murals for PangeaSeed Sea Walls: Murals for Oceans.
Some of the murals have been in San Diego and some have been abroad. PangeaSeed mural projects aim to raise awareness about different issues effecting our oceans. As an artist for PangeaSeed she has traveled to Sri Lanka, Vietnam, New Zealand, and several cities in Mexico. [Read more…]
Readers Write: Military Too Small?
Regarding the proposed expansion of the military–
Good thinking!
By all means we must ramp it up, for the following rational reasons, in no particular order:
The weapons manufacturers are in dire need of further enrichment,
and Congress needs the various kinds of kickbacks available in order to avoid being poverty-stricken; [Read more…]
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