San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

Prop 57 – If Sentencing Reform Passes, Will Hospital Bombers Run Amok?

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Prop 57 is the final part of Gov. Jerry Brown’s mea culpa for the tough on crime laws passed during his first term. As a result, the state prisons were filled to overflowing. Lawsuits and investigative reporting exposed the cruel and inhumane process amounting to little more than warehousing.

The Supreme Court agreed, saying conditions were so bad they violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual treatment. In 2011, California was ordered to reduce its population by more than 30,000 inmates.

California’s penal system became larger than its colleges, and, in fact, functioned as a crime training facility for a lost generation of the economically dispossessed, most of whom were people of color. And, let’s face it, a major legacy of that era’s thinking was the use of the penal system as a means of social control for people of the non-white persuasion.   [Read more…]

From Mission to Microchip: An Interview with California Labor Historian Fred Glass. Part 2

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In my Labor Day column, I gave a shout out to Fred Glass’s seminal new labor history of California, From Mission to Microchip: A History of the California Labor Movement. As Glass notes in his introduction, his history of working people in the Golden State is much broader than a narrow chronicle of unions…

…To learn more about this story and what about it is most important, I am pleased to present the second installment of my three-part interview with Fred Glass, author, teacher, union member, and long-time Communications Director for the California Federation of Teachers.   [Read more…]

Nuclear Shutdown News – September 2016

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By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press

Nuclear Shutdown News chronicles the decline and fall of the nuclear power industry in the US and abroad, and highlights the efforts of those who are working to create a nuclear-free world.

On September 19 the San Diego Union-Tribune ran this story: “Protests filed over the details of proposed Diablo Canyon Shutdown.”

Its shutdown date is set for 2025. The Union-Tribune story appeared just after the deadline for filing protests to PG&E’s shutdown proposal had passed.   [Read more…]

Looking Back at the Week: Sept 25-Oct 1

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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: justice for Alfred Olango, Props 51 through 56, saying no way to Measure A, the South Bay school elections, BLM’s DeRay McKesson, 77 deadly minutes in Sydro, loving life without the drink, OB slumlord Michael Mills, Manifest Destinitis, and lots of other grassroots news & progressive views from San Diego’s friendly, neighborhood, all volunteer, slightly funky, community news site.   [Read more…]

Geo-Poetic Spaces: Walking Into Big Sur

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A woman
is reading poetry with her hands
stanzas written into cliffs
before human beings walked upright

She combs beaches
retracing emotions
ocean drew out of sand   [Read more…]

Prop 56 – Tobacco Industry Lie Machine Runs at Top Speed

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EXTRA EDITION: Saturday Laryngectomy Rant 

The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Lung Association in California and American Heart Association have placed Prop 56 on the ballot increasing taxes on tobacco products and updating state law to include e-cigarettes as a taxable product.

The tobacco industry has amassed a $56 million dollar war chest to defeat Prop 56. They know arguing in favor of tobacco use won’t work, so they’ve unleashed a blizzard of bullcrap advertising seeking to confuse and obfuscate the matter.   [Read more…]

South Bay School Districts and Elections, Part II: The Candidates Write In

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Do you know who your school district board members are?

By Barbara Zaragoza

I wrote to several of the candidates running in the various South Bay school districts and received quite a few responses. I have paired them with bond measures where appropriate.   [Read more…]

Fear and Loathing in El Cajon – 1,000 People in the Streets for Alfred Olango

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el-cajon-wed-sitinHundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of El Cajon Wednesday, September 28th, in protest of the fatal shooting of Alfred Olango by police Tuesday afternoon. And on several occasions, the non-violent demonstrators faced off with helmeted police, as night fell and tensions mounted. This is my accounting of the protest that swept through the suburb of San Diego over a 7 hour period.

I had returned home a couple of hours earlier from a press conference and rally in front of the El Cajon Police station Wednesday morning, when I was shocked to see live-stream video on CBS8 of the protests that had continued – unbeknownst to me, as it had not been announced earlier.

Apparently, after the rally at the PD headquarters, at least a hundred demonstrators had walked back to the site of Olango’s shooting, at Los Panchos taco shop on Broadway, and over the course of the next couple of hours had managed to block several different intersections along Broadway.

  [Read more…]

Prop 55 – Keep On Funding Education in California

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Back in 2012 voters approved Proposition 30, which combined a one-fourth cent sales tax increase and a surcharge on incomes taxes for individuals earning more than $250,000 annually. The money raised went to fund education and healthcare agencies, both of which were severely impacted by budget cuts during the great recession.

The provisions of this measure expire at the end of 2018. Proposition 55 asks voters to extend the 1-3% increase on high-income earners through 2030. The sales tax increase would be allowed to sunset at the end of 2016.

The measure will keep money flowing to K-12 schools, community colleges, and (if the Gov. says ok) healthcare for low-income Californians, along with adding to the state’s rainy day fund. Even with the current level of funding, California still ranks near the bottom of the nation in per-pupil spending, class-size average and per-student ratio in nurses, librarians, and counselors.   [Read more…]

Avoid School Board Elections At Your Own Child’s Risk

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South Bay School Board Elections.

Much like the yawn-worthy water districts (because who really cares if we have safe, affordable drinking water anyway?), these “down-ballot” school board trustee names scream out one word:

BO-RINGGG.

And yet, when your child experiences something bad at school, who you gonna call? Who are principals, administrators and teachers gonna call? Probably, the trustees of your school board.   [Read more…]

Crohn’s Disease and the Purple Party: Why They’re the S**t

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The San Diego Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence

Imagine you’re a teenager. You’re in one of the stages of puberty. You’re trying to grow into yourself in so many ways. You’re going to school, making friends, finding extracurricular activities and hobbies you enjoy.

Yet, your path becomes frequently and annoyingly disrupted by severe abdominal pain and vomiting to the point where you become afraid to eat. You eventually develop a fever that lands you in the emergency room. Hours later, you’re admitted to the hospital for emergency surgery. You have ulcers along your digestive tract along with a blockage due to inflammation. Youre admitted to the hospital for an emergency surgery.

When you wake up, you’re told you have had an ileostomy – your colon and rectum have been removed and you have a stoma with an ostomy pouch attached. You’re taught how to live with this pouch, how you have to empty the pouch several times a day and change it every two to five days.

Great, you think.   [Read more…]

Family Calls for Peaceful Protests Over Death of Alfred Olango

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The Rev. Shane Harris of the National Action Network called a press conference on Thursday with the family of Alfred Olango, the Ugandan immigrant killed by a police officer in El Cajon earlier this week.

They gathered before the press, accompanied by supportive clergy and a couple of power lawyers, hoping to reshape what the family believes is a false narrative about the dead man.

In recent days following the official release of a single frame photograph from a bystander video, storylines casting aspersions on the character of Olango have worked their way into media accounts. These accounts include allegations of prior run-ins with law enforcement system and even the use of the word ‘suspect.’   [Read more…]

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