San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

It’s 11 AM. Where’s Doug Porter’s Starting Line?

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By Staff

Just a reminder from the SDFP editors that Doug Porter is either on vacation in The Land of Enchantment or receiving instructions from the Illuminati at some undisclosed location. His Monday through Friday column The Starting Line will resume publication on Monday April 7.

SDFP has a full week of posts and news scheduled. John Lawrence has an article about the value of a college degree; Anna Daniels will be giving an update on the Albertsons closure in City Heights; there are poems by Will Falk and Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes; Micaela Porte writes an art review from Paris about an extraordinary life size terra cotta Army of Daughters…   [Read more…]

Zen and the Art of Baseball

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It’s spring and opening week is here and that makes me very happy. Baseball helps me live. It’s perhaps the best American manifestation of the kind of daily ritual that enables us to achieve a small portion of the balance and harmony we need to provide ballast against the chaos of the world. Whether it’s playing the game or simply contemplating it, baseball provides one with precisely the kind of focused yet purposeless activity that can take you out to the ballgame and into the heart of the moment.   [Read more…]

A Green Balboa Park Centennial Celebration for 2015

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By Lori Saldaña

As George Santayana famously observed: “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” But in the case of the Pan-American centennial planning, organizers need to learn from the history of the event to help them re-create its grandeur and appeal, and make the 2015 Balboa Park centennial a celebration of innovation, rooted in the first Exhibition’s origins.

Here’s a brief statement of the original events’ main theme:  “The purpose of the Panama-California Exposition is to illustrate the progress and possibility of the human race, not for the exposition only, but for a permanent contribution to the world’s progress.”

There may still time to develop a successful 2015 Balboa Park centennial celebration, especially if planners and city leaders broaden their vision to take into account the main themes and purpose of the original celebration, consider what attracted people not only to travel but set down roots here 100 years ago, and actively incorporate those elements into the modern event.   [Read more…]

If César Chávez Were Alive Today, He Would Join the Resistance Against Walmart

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By Sarita Gupta / Alternet

This month, a new film documenting César Chávez’s historic campaign to organize farmworkers in America was released in time with what would have been his 87th birthday. Chávez rose to prominence as a founder of the United Farm Workers (UFW), where he organized thousands of poor Latino workers laboring in fields throughout central California.

Through nonviolent but aggressive tactics — many of which we’ve seen revived today — Chávez and the UFW successfully won higher wages, safer working conditions, and collective bargaining rights for generations of farmworkers, culminating in the passage of the Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975.

So as we celebrate the legacy of this historic leader, we must also pause to consider that today farmworkers — and others laboring for low wages along the food supply chain — are still struggling. Back then, Chávez and his supporters famously camped outside grocery stores to encourage shoppers to boycott grapes until conditions and wages improved. But today, instead of a grocery store, he may indeed have been standing outside of a Walmart.   [Read more…]

El Padre del Barrio: Father Brown

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Film by Media Arts Center’s Teen Producers Project.
Intro by Brent E. Beltrán

With the ballot battle looming over the future of Barrio Logan, due to Maritime Industry’s refusal to accept the Barrio Logan Community Plan update, I feel it is necessary to give voters of the city of San Diego a little history of Barrio Logan and highlight the issues residents face. In June, eligible San Diego voters will go to the polls to vote on whether to approve the community plan or reject it.

Over the next few weeks I will post a video on Sundays that highlights the community of Barrio Logan and the beauty within San Diego’s most historic barrio.

This week’s video is El Padre del Barrio, a short documentary on Father Brown and his dedication to Barrio Logan and its residents.   [Read more…]

Marijuana POWs in Colorado Could Soon Go Free

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Colorado approves landmark retroactive reversal of pot convictions.

By Owen Poindexter / AlterNet

Colorado residents who were charged with cannabis possession prior to legalization are eligible to have those charges overturned, after an Appeals Court ruling on March 13. A three-judge panel determined that part of a Colorado woman’s 2011 sentence for drug possession should be undone, due to the “significant changes in the law,” that have come about since then, according to RT.com.

Possession of up to one ounce of pot became legal in Colorado on Jan. 1, 2014, leaving tens of thousands of Colorado residents convicted of marijuana possession stuck in an ambiguous legal middle ground, as what they had done was no longer a crime in Colorado, but remains illegal federally. The Appeals Court decision begins to clear away that confusion.   [Read more…]

Mexico’s Oil Belongs to Its Citizens, Not the Global 1%

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On the anniversary of Mexico’s 1938 oil nationalization, artist Yoshua Okón argues that the “energy reform” currently underway in his country will deprive citizens of income directed toward education, health care and anti-poverty programs.

By Yoshua Okón / Creative Time Reports

Translated by Georgia Phillips-Amos

Oil in Mexico is much more than a symbol of national pride. For the past 75 years it has been an enormous source of income for developing Mexico’s infrastructure and improving social welfare. When, on this day in 1938, President Lázaro Cárdenas expropriated U.S.- and U.K.-owned oil companies, he allowed Mexico to achieve relative independence and modest prosperity. The nationalization of oil saved Mexico from becoming a paralyzed, essentially colonized country like Guatemala, which has a major mining industry that is almost entirely foreign-owned.

Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), the state-owned company with exclusive access to Mexico’s oil, is one of the most lucrative companies in the world. In 2012 it declared profits of over 900 billion pesos (or $70 billion), earnings comparable to those of American oil and gas giants like ExxonMobil and Chevron. More importantly, PEMEX has historically distributed its profits among the Mexican population more equitably than any other industry in the country. Sixty percent of Mexico’s spending on social welfare comes from oil income. Among the things this income currently pays for are education, health care and programs to fight extreme poverty. Every Mexican citizen owns PEMEX, and the profits the company generates have made palpable differences in all of our lives.   [Read more…]

CicloSDias to Hit Pacific Beach – Sunday, March 30

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By CicloSDias /OBRag

The next CicloSDias is Sunday, March 30, 2014, 10am-3pm. This time it’s about introducing Pacific Beach up to La Jolla to this amazing open streets event. Check out the route here.

Decorate yourself, decorate your bike and join us for the first ever CicloSDias Bike Parade!

When: 11:30am, March 30th.

Where: Cass and Garnet HUB

A friendly panel of judges will determine the winners. Top 3 in store for some great prizes! See you on the 30th for a Car Free PB!   [Read more…]

What’s with All Those Protests at SeaWorld?

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By Barb Dunsmore / Special from the OB Rag

When it comes to impassioned feelings about SeaWorld, most readers of the OB Rag are well aware that much has recently been written, discussed, filmed, and documented. The world began to take notice with the release of Gabriella Cowperthwaite’s documentary Blackfish. It started with ripples of awareness that have now become waves of deep concern. The worldwide anger the movie unleashed is nearly impossible to ignore.

While SeaWorld was celebrating their 50th anniversary last Friday [March 21], everyday citizens, myself included, were standing on Sea World Drive protesting 50 years of inhumane captivity, drawing attention to what we, and a growing number of people around the world see as a new vision for SeaWorld: the recently proposed California Captive Orca Welfare and Safety Act – AB 2140. A new vision that could be a win-win for the orcas and SeaWorld alike, where the orcas would finally be free from the confines and cruel control inflicted upon them daily.   [Read more…]

And Why Shouldn’t the Government Force Corporations to Cover Abortion?

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By David Atkins / Hullabaloo

Justice Anthony Kennedy, on whose vote the Hobby Lobby SCOTUS case rests, seems very concerned about the government forcing corporations to cover abortion:

WASHINGTON, DC — Justice Anthony Kennedy thinks gay people are fabulous. All three of the Supreme Court’s most important gay rights decisions were written by Justice Kennedy. So advocates for birth control had a simple task today: convince Kennedy that allowing religious employers to exempt themselves from a federal law expanding birth control access would lead to all kinds of horrible consequences in future cases — including potentially allowing religious business owners to discriminate against gay people.

Kennedy, however, also hates abortion.   [Read more…]

The Rent Is Too Damn High? How About the Cost of Cars?

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The average San Diego household that rents pays more for automobiles than housing.

By John P. Anderson

SANDAG recently approved $200 million for bicycle initiatives under the Regional Bike Plan Early Action Program (EAP). This money will be spent across the county for high-priority projects over the next decade. There are 42 projects included in the EAP which will add 77 miles of new bikeways to the region.

$200 million is a lot of money and I was thrilled when the EAP money was approved. I’ve attended many meetings over the past few months and written a number of articles regarding two of the projects in the EAP – the Uptown Regional Bike Corridor Project and the North Park – Mid-City Bike Corridors Project. The approval of this money means that those projects can go forward, hopefully with a focus on University Avenue which is the best opportunity in the county for showing what bicycling infrastructure can do.   [Read more…]

We’re Finished. Now What?

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By Will Falk

I don’t know how to write this, but it looks like humanity is finished.

Many of us know it in our hearts. We watch as civilization marches us to the edge of the cliff. We look around to find most governments refusing to implement the radical shifts needed to save us and killing those who fight back against these governments. We are searching for the serious resistance movement we have needed for the last sixty years while nothing materializes. Even though we have invented a million reasons why we’ll be saved like the belief in technology or a faith in economics, we know what is happening.

Of course, this culture is suspicious of the implications of any easily observable phenomenon that is not stamped with the approval of the currently dominating priesthood – I mean – scientific community. And, even the scientists have known our doom for decades.   [Read more…]

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