Government and organizations must prime themselves now to get measures on this year’s November ballot. You may remember that residents are complaining about the lack of infrastructure in Chula Vista. The western part sees crumbling roads and schools. The eastern part sees too much housing, but not enough amenities like retail stores, public transportation and schools to accommodate the growth. According to the San Diego Reader, the city is considering either a half-cent sales tax on certain items or a $200 million bond measure, which would come from an increase in property taxes. [Read more…]
Will Carlsbad Stop Making Puppy Mills Profitable?
At the Carlsbad City Council’s April 12 meeting, Dale Bartlett, policy manager for the Humane Society of the United States puppy mill campaign, will ask the council to ban stores that source their pets from puppy mills. Oceanside, Encinitas and San Marcos have already instituted such bans.
So far, only council members Keith Blackburn and Lorraine Wood have agreed to meet with local animal rights activists about a ban. Mayor Hall and council members Mark Packard and Michael Schumacher have refused to meet with them. [Read more…]
What’s Behind America’s Unusual Fixation With Large Breasts
Well-endowed women have to put up with all sorts of bizarre assumptions.
By Carrie Weisman / AlterNet
In 1995, cultural anthropologist Katherine Dettwyler wrote a book called Breastfeeding: Bicultural Perspectives. Her research took her to Mali, West Africa, where she attempted to explain the western eroticization of breasts. Those she fell into conversation with regarded the behavior as “unnatural,” even “perverted.” They seemed to have a hard time believing that “men would become sexually aroused by women’s breasts, or that women would find such activities pleasurable.”
Years earlier, anthropologist Clellan Ford and ethnologist Frank Beach conducted a study of 191 cultures. The pair found that breasts were considered sexually important in only 13 of those cultures, and of those, just nine preferred large breasts. If you’re reading this from Anywhere, America, you might join me in assuming the U.S. was one of them. [Read more…]
Cancel April Fools Day – Who Needs It When We’ve Got Trump?
The Republican party’s leading candidate for president is behaving so outlandishly that no made-up prank could possibly top it. It’s worse than a bad joke and the soiled image of the United States is the punch line.
The Donald’s had a bad couple of days, acting like a five-year-old on steroids as he defends the indefensible, makes vulgar threats, and runs roughshod over common decency. [Read more…]
San Diego’s Old Central Library: Public Benefit or Profit Center?
A not-so-common idea for a building that belongs to us
For three years, 150,000 square feet of space in downtown, belonging to the citizens of San Diego, has stood vacant. Each night, for these past three years, impoverished human beings have spread their cardboard beds on the brass inlays of the terrazzo at the entrance of the old Central Library on E Street.
But any suggestion that this place could provide shelter for homeless people is dead on arrival, so I won’t be wasting words on that idea. But I do think we need to come up with a fair and just use of this building that retains the spirit of its original reason for being built. After all, it belongs to us, if we are willing to fight for it and put a little imagination into its transformation. [Read more…]
What San Diego Should Learn From the Country’s Best and Worst Public Transit Systems
From Portland’s TriMet to Atlanta’s MARTA
By Hutton Marshall / SanDiego350.org
Not all public transportation systems are created equal. Across the country, there’s a huge gulf between bumper-to-bumper black holes like Los Angeles versus cities like the subway-happy New York City, which boasts 660 miles of rail transit.
Many of the cities we now see as pinnacles of functional transit became that way out of utility. New Yorkers, for example, have come to see their expansive subway system as a way to escape fierce blizzards and even fiercer rush hours.
Today, however, many cities have come to see public transit as an important tool in growing in a sustainable, environmentally conscious manner.
[Read more…]
International Women’s Day Celebration in Pictures
Los Angeles site of March 5 rally and march
By Bree Davis
International Women’s Day is a global celebration to recognize the women of the world. Af3irm, a leading political feminist organization that has many chapters throughout of California, is the organization that put the march together in downtown Los Angeles this year. The focus of the March 5 celebration was different issues among transnational women of color.
The rally started out strategically in front of the Downtown L.A. Police Department with speakers and musicians. Supporters of the #blacklivesmatter movement were there and even went as far as to call out the LAPD and their racist police officers and how racial profiling needs to end. Other people came to talk and support the trans+ community, Muslim community, Asian community, and reproductive justice, along with other issues that face women of color. [Read more…]
Why Fixing Climate Change is Women’s Work
Natural resource scarcity and unpredictable weather affect women first, yet they’re often the last to be heard on how to combat it. That’s slowly changing.
By Kate Stringer / Yes! Magazine
Marla Smith-Nilson has completed more than 1,500 water sanitation projects as founder and executive director of Water1st International, but there’s a moment she still anticipates at the completion of each one.
At every ribbon-cutting ceremony for new groundwater wells, a woman from the community—whether in Bangladesh, Honduras, Ethiopia, or India—stands on stage with a large pot that has served as her companion during daily, mile-long treks to the river. Sometimes the woman is young. Sometimes she’s as old as 75. She raises the pot over her head and shouts “I will never carry this again!” before smashing it to the ground where it explodes into shards.
The community laughs as the pot shatters, but it’s the women in the crowd who feel the most relief. As primary caregivers, many women in poorer countries are responsible for trekking miles to collect water and fuel. When climate change depletes water, women notice first. Water is a climate change issue, and climate change is a women’s issue. [Read more…]
First Look: City of San Diego June 2016 Primary Ballot
The 2016 primary season is officially upon us. Today I’m presenting a quick review of what San Diego City voters can expect to see on June 7 (Or earlier if voting by mail). This is just the first of what will be many columns and articles over the next two months. And, yes, we’ll be talking about other contests throughout the region.
After months of hand-wringing in the pundit class, we now have two viable challengers to incumbent Mayor Kevin Faulconer. Odd-numbered city council districts are up for grabs, and three of those will choosing somebody new to represent residents.
There are ballot measures A thru I, most of which are updates to the City Charter. Just about the time your eyes will want to glaze over from all the legalese coming from Measure G, there will be two significant choices to follow. Stay Awake. These are important decisions. [Read more…]
Readers Write : Media Reduces Sanders Supporters to 50 Shades of White
An Open Letter to the New York Times
Amy Chozick,
I’ve been stewing over your New York Times story on Bernie Sanders’ sweep of Alaska, Hawaii and Washington states ever since I read IN ITS SECOND SENTENCE that those victories were a consequence of “the largely white and liberal electorate of the Pacific Northwest.” Did you really mean to write that? [Read more…]
Creating a Space for Seniors for Life at SDSU
Combating the invisibility of Senior aged students
By Lee Taylor
Walking onto the San Diego State University campus for the very first time I paused for a few moments, purely for speculation. I stood smack in the middle of the everything simply observing the many students strolling around me — most of whom were in their 20s, gabbing and texting as they walked by — and realized I could’ve been a fixed statue, for no one really noticed me.
So many skateboards buzzed quickly down the walkways as well, even though technically they weren’t really allowed. I couldn’t help but think there was an accident in the making. It was then that I thought, “Where are the Seniors, the Senior Aged Students?” [Read more…]
Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Very Precise Female
By Brett Warnke
On the trip to Brooklyn, there is a large sign that says “OY.” From another perspective it also spells “YO,” an insider joke to the division of the borough between the Jewish and African-American diaspora population. Christopher Wallace (“Biggie Smalls”) and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (“The Notorious RBG,”) both were born and raised in Brooklyn. Both grew up in families without much money. And both had to gain respect in a world that had marginalized them.
Just as Justice Stevens was the best decision to come out of the mediocre Gerald Ford administration, RBG was undoubtedly Bill Clinton’s only decision that has had a progressive result.
President Clinton’s goal was to find someone who, when their name was uttered, said, “Yes. Wow. A home run.” [Read more…]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 293
- 294
- 295
- 296
- 297
- …
- 747
- Next Page »
