San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

Whose University? UCSD’s Racial Climate and the Making of Student Minorities

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By the Lumumba- Zapata Collective

On the night of Friday April 8th, the University of California, San Diego campus was covered with anti-Mexican slogans chalked by supporters of presidential candidate, Donald Trump. Following a string of similar events throughout the country (including incidents at UC Berkeley, Santa Barbara, and Riverside), slogans supporting Trump have persistently coincided with xenophobic attacks against underrepresented communities, specifically Latino, Black, Arab and Muslim students.

The recent chalking incident at UCSD specifically targeted incoming admitted students of Mexican descent.   [Read more…]

County Board of Supervisors Extends Moratorium on Medical Marijuana Projects

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By Terrie Best / San Diego ASA

The County Board of Supervisors met Wednesday to vote on staff recommendations to extend a moratorium against new medical marijuana activity in San Diego County. The 45 day moratorium was put in place on March 16 and was largely a knee-jerk reaction to a group of community members from Julian and Ramona. At the March meeting the Board instructed staff to come back with options including a ban on medical cannabis; enhanced enforcement and more zoning restrictions among other things. Instead, staff returned with a request for more time which was ultimately granted.   [Read more…]

Daniel Berrigan Dead at 94

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Jesuit priest lived life of peace activism

By Andrea Germanos / CommonDreams

Daniel Berrigan—Jesuit priest, peace activist, poet, author, and inspiration to countless people—died on Saturday. He was 94 years old.

When America magazine asked a then-88-year-old Berrigan if he had any regrets over the course of his long life, he replied, “I could have done sooner the things I did, like Catonsville.”

In 1968, Berrigan and eight other Catholic activists, including his brother Philip, a group subsequently known as the Catonsville Nine, took hundreds of draft files and burned them outside a Selective Service office with homemade napalm.   [Read more…]

Looking Back at the Week: April 24-30

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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: UT being sold?, the 2016 mayoral race, corporate education “reform,” Ernie celebrating 78 years, libraries reinventing themselves, homeless advocates rocking city hall, hippie life in OB, Carlsbad council follies, the oxymoron of affordable housing, CV’s eastern expansion, Judi revisiting Public Market and lots of other inspiring (and sometimes depressing), grassroots news & progressive views from San Diego’s friendly, neighborhood, all volunteer, slightly funky, community news site.   [Read more…]

May Day: The Forgotten Celebration of America’s Labor Struggles

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By Brett Warnke

On the books, May 1st is officially Law Day, whose origins (like the holy portions of the Pledge of Allegiance and “In God We Trust”) came out of the Eisenhower Administration’s rhetorical battle against the Soviet Union. Of course, the silent smear was that radical workers lacked respect for a nation of laws. But for those with a sense of history May 1 is and shall be a day of observance for workers mourned after the bloody Haymarket Affair in 1886 which later became memorialized when strikers pushed for an eight-hour work day.

Is it so hard to imagine an era of endless work? Of plutocrats and bought government? Of a used, dispirited and duped population?   [Read more…]

Hippie Life In Ocean Beach

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Editor’s Note: Frank Gormlie will speak about “Hippies in OB” this Saturday, April 30th at the OB Library, from 2 to 3 pm.

OB as the Haight-Ashbury of San Diego

In my many writings about Ocean Beach history – some of which I share below – I’ve always noted that in the late 1960s, OB became the Haight-Ashbury of San Diego. By 1967 – a year after the OB Pier had officially opened – it was already evident that Ocean Beach was morphing into the San Diego equivalent of that fabled and iconic San Francisco neighborhood synonymous with “hippie-ism”. If you were a hippie or a hippie-wannabe during this time somewhere in San Diego, you ended up in OB.   [Read more…]

Geo-Poetic Spaces: The Mediterranean Sea

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THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA

Landlocked
oligotrophic sea of transparency

Sheer blue openness
incapable of fending off light   [Read more…]

What If We All ‘Left No Trace?’

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By Averi Melcher / San Diego UrbDeZine

As I’ve been camping and sharing my adventures, there’s one thing that keeps showing up over and over in my experiences: trash.

About 2 months ago, I was crawling through mud caves in Anza Borrego, when I looked down and found 2 Starburst wrappers illuminated by my headlight. A month ago, I was hiking a mountain in the Joshua Tree back-country and happened upon a deflated helium balloon. Then – later that night – I sat my tent down and fell asleep, just to wake up in the morning and find myself trying to maneuver out of my tent on shards of glass and plastic.

I thought to myself: why is this happening? Why am I finding trash in areas that are off the beaten path – in fact, they are so remote that the Joshua Tree trail log I found indicated I was the first human to step foot on that mountain in a month?   [Read more…]

Solar Panels, Possible Carpetbagging In Chula Vista and Border Wait Times

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Where Are San Ysidro’s Solar Panels?

By Barbara Zaragoza

The Union-Tribune reported that EcoBusiness Alliance said it would install solar panels at the San Ysidro School District by November-December 2015, but the company hasn’t started the work.

As the article explains, in 2008 EcoBusiness Alliance contracted to install rooftop panels at seven San Ysidro campuses for free. The agreement said that the company would then sell $18 million worth of power back to the San Ysidro schools over a 25-year period.

Once the 2008 contract was made, San Diego Superior Court public records show that EcoBusiness Alliance was distracted by two lawsuits.   [Read more…]

Weekly Progressive Calendar: Upcoming in San Diego

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The Starting Line column is taking a day off, but this coming week or so of events of interest to progressive minded people are here for your perusal. This week it’s all about Political Debates, Organizing Campaigns, Tales of the Old Days, May Days and More…   [Read more…]

Teenage Girls Increasingly Requesting Labiaplasty to Get the Perfect Designer Vagina

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Very young women are going under the knife to sculpt parts that are still growing and changing.

By Kali Holloway / AlterNet

Never underestimate the power of beauty myths to manufacture inadequacies where before there were none. A little over a decade ago, labiaplasty—the partial or wholesale removal of parts of the labia minora, aka the inner vaginal lips—was a relatively obscure plastic surgery, compared with nips, tucks and lifts to various other parts. In more recent years, the number of women opting for the surgery has grown exponentially. Now very young women—girls still in their teens—are requesting the procedure in numbers growing so quickly that even some practitioners are concerned.   [Read more…]

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