San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

A Look at a “Dangerous Friendship”

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By Ernie McCray

A couple of years ago at a showing of “Sing Your Song,” a documentary that highlights Harry Belafonte’s role in pursuits for human and civil rights, I met Ben Kamin, a scholar who has written much about the social struggles of those times. I just finished reading, with delight, his latest book, “Dangerous Friendship.”

The book puts the spotlight on Stanley Levison, a little known figure in the civil rights movement, who fully dedicated his life to helping Martin Luther King.

Regarding this man, Clarence Jones, another prominent aide to Martin, says “I am extremely upset, and I get angry, 24/7, and have been for many years about the glaring omission of the name and history of Stanley Levison in the civil rights chronicle.”   [Read more…]

California Premier of “Water by the Spoonful” at The Old Globe

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By Alejandra Enciso Guzmán

Over the course of eight years, playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes wrote three plays inspired by the experiences of her cousin, Elliot Ruiz. Each play stands alone, but taken together, the plays follow the history of a family. Each uses a different kind of music–Bach, Coltrane, and Puerto Rican folk music–to trace the coming of age of a bright but haunted young Puerto Rican man.

The first play Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue takes place in 2003-2004, when Elliot is 18 and 19 years old. The piece became a finalist for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Drama.

The second one, Water by the Spoonful which won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Drama is set in 2009, six years after Elliot first left for Iraq. In this play the former marine is back in the United States working at Subway and trying to kick-start his acting career. In the final play The Happiest Song Plays Last, Elliot has returned to the Middle East – this time as a consultant on a film about the Iraq War.

The Old Globe ‘went to the middle’ and presented the California premiere of Water by the Spoonful.   [Read more…]

National Abortion Rate Sees Huge Drop As More Women Are Using Birth Control

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By Tara Culp-Ressler / ThinkProgress

Between 2008 and 2011, the national abortion rate declined by 13 percent, according to a new report from the Guttmacher Institute that will be published in a forthcoming issue of thePerspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health journal. That puts 2011′s abortion rate at 16.9 abortions per every 1,000 women of reproductive age, the lowest rate recorded since Roe v. Wade legalized the procedure in 1973.

The anti-choice community celebrated the news, claiming that an increasing number of women are choosing to carry their pregnancies to term. “This is a post-sonogram generation,” Charmaine Yoest, the president of the conservative Americans United for Lifegroup that helps push state-level abortion restrictions, told the Washington Post. “There is increased awareness throughout our culture of the moral weight of the unborn baby. And that’s a good thing.”

“It shows that women are rejecting the idea of abortion as the answer to an unexpected pregnancy,” Carol Tobias, the president of the National Right to Life Committee, agreed.

In fact, that perspective doesn’t actually align with the research in this area.   [Read more…]

The Bottom Falls Out of Papa Doug’s Publishing Platform

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By Doug Porter

Thirty three thousand. That’s the average daily decline in newspaper sales for UT-San Diego over the past six months according to the Alliance for Audited Media (formerly the Audit Bureau of Circulation).

Don Bauder at the Reader broke the news late last week:

For the six month period ended March 31, 2014, compared with the six months ended March 31, 2013, Sunday circulation dropped from 425,000 to 362,166. (These data include branded editions and digital.) On Monday, the decline was from 222,572 to 196,062. On Tuesday, the drop was from 226,400 to 182,516. On Wednesday, the decline was from 230,151 to 192,751. Thursday’s drop was from 285,474 to 249,201. Friday’s decline was from 288,385 to 243,201. [There’s more detail at Bauder’s piece]

  [Read more…]

Seduced and Reduced By The Weather

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By Bob Dorn

Aren’t we really just being chumps for weather reports?

Last week was hell. I tuned in every night to the weather forecasts, and that for me IS hell; all that almost-innocent T&A, witless humor and mirthless studio laughter, chartreuse simulations of doppler radar defining drizzle somewhere I don’t live, the pictures of puppies being sprayed in the back yard… these people get paid to do this stuff.

(I’ll bet the guys who managed to choose ‘lectric chartreuse don’t get paid as much as the on-air hooters and hootees do.)

These people are all over the map, without a weather map.   [Read more…]

Remember the Folks Who Brought You the 8-Hour Day?

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By Jim Miller

Last week, May Day came and went and, while there was a small march downtown, most people barely noticed. Indeed most Americans don’t know much about May Day and if they do, they associate it with the state sponsored holiday in the former Soviet Union.

The truth of the matter is, however, that May Day has deep American roots. It started in 1866 as part of the movement pushing for the 8-hour day.

In the course of this effort, the nationwide American labor movement was born. Workers joined together in the service of the principle that, in the emerging industrial age, they should have a say in their economic lives and a voice in our politics—neither of which would come without a struggle.   [Read more…]

He Wants Them to Leave Barrio Logan

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By Sara Kent /Sara’s Ramblings

Chris Wahl, spokesman for Shipyards industry executives, wants Barrio Logan residents to move away.

Under the new Barrio Logan Community Plan Update, the foreign-owned companies Wahl represents can expand up to 20% by right, then go through special permitting processes if they want to grow further.

Nobody is kicking them out, the zoning for the Shipyards remains untouched, and the Navy has unilaterally stated it will not leave San Diego because of the Barrio Logan Plan (if you heard that condos were being built at the Shipyards or that the Navy was leaving, it’s because Shipyards representatives like Wahl lied about it).   [Read more…]

The Unbearable Annoyance of Neighborhood Tattling

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We all need to cut our neighbors some slack, even if they’re urban chicken farmers.

By  / OtherWords

I met my friend Rachel because we were both in the same situation: We each had neighbors who inexplicably hated our chickens. Rachel and I each had small flocks of hens, no roosters, and sprawling, fertile, organic vegetable gardens in our yards. And we live in urban San Diego.

There certainly are reasons you might complain about chickens living next door in the city. If they’re noisy, smelly, or unhygienic, that’s a problem. If their owners let them escape into your yard, that’s a problem.

And I’m guessing that you might not like glancing out your window to behold your neighbor killing chickens in the back yard, either.   [Read more…]

Cyclists Take Over Barrio Logan for a Day

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Photos from the 18th Annual Barrio Logan Grand Prix

By Brent E. Beltrán

On Saturday May 3 hundreds of cycling enthusiasts from throughout the region and beyond descended on San Diego’s most historic Mexican community for the 18th annual Barrio Logan Grand Prix.

This event, organized by the San Diego Bicycle Club to benefit the Logan Heights Family Health Center, has become one of the largest cycling events in southern California.

The Barrio Logan Grand Prix coincides each year with the Logan Heights Family Health Center Health Fair that offers free health screenings, free children’s vaccinations, free pregnancy testing, food, entertainment and prizes for those in attendance.   [Read more…]

All of California Is Now Under Drought Conditions

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Consumers will feel the effect soon as food prices are expected to skyrocket.

By Cliff Weathers / AlterNet

For the first time in 15 years, all of the Golden State suffers from a water shortage, and while that’s very bad for the region, it may also send food prices skyrocketing throughout the country.

The U.S. Drought Monitor, a weekly map of drought conditions produced jointly by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Agriculture, and the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, says that the entire state suffers from conditions ranging from “abnormally dry” to “exceptional drought.” The heavy-population centers all suffer from “extreme drought” or “exceptional drought.” The latter designation, also known a as a D4, being the most critical.   [Read more…]

The Unist’ot’en Camp – Preparation: Home, Language, Self

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By Will Falk

It is almost time to go.

I am going to the Unist’ot’en Camp in northern British Columbia. The Unist’ot’en Camp is a resistance camp built by the Wet’suwet’en people on the path of seven proposed pipelines from the Tar Sands Gigaproject and where corporations are extracting liquid natural gas from the Horn River Basin Fracturing Projects.

I am nervous. I am excited. I am scared. Mostly, I just want to get started. Writing helps me organize my thoughts, sift through my emotions, and steel my heart, so I offer this up as my trip approaches.   [Read more…]

Orca Profiles in Captivity: No. 5 of The San Diego 10

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By Cara Wilson-Granat / OB Rag

This is the fifth in a series of ten in which we meet one of the San Diego 10 orcas and hear from an advocate who continues to be one of the voices of these imprisoned voiceless, never stopping until the whole world listens.

This week’s Prisoner Advocate is Doni Lantow. (After reading about Prisoner #5, Keet, please scroll down this article and “meet” one of the top San Diego 10 Prisoner Advocates.) [Here is Prisoner Orca Profile #1 and #2, #3 and #4.]

Prisoner #5: Keet

Age: 21

Born on February 2, 1993, at Sea World San Antonio, Keet (his name is Tlingit Indian for “orca”) is known for being the grandbaby of Shamu, and also for being one of the most heavily transported orcas in captive history. It’s amazing this beautiful orca has such a gentle nature considering how disruptive his entire life has been.

Barely 18 months old when he was separated from his mother, Kalina, Keet was left behind when she was moved away from him to Sea World Orlando, pregnant with another calf. Remember, in the wild, orcas generally live in close-knit family pods consisting of several females, calves, one or more males and/or juveniles.   [Read more…]

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