By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes
A native San Diegan and award-winning author, “San Diego” is a video poem from Ishmael’s 2013 book, Intimate Geography. [Read more…]
Photo Gallery: A Love for San Diego’s Wetlands
On the northern edge of Mission Bay sits the Kendall-Frost Mission Bay Marsh Reserve, a 16-acre wetlands habitat overseen by the University of California at San Diego, that is home to a wide range of wildlife. A recent repopulation program has been initiated in an effort to increase the number of endangered Light-footed Clapper Rails living in the marsh, and those who frequent the area say 28 of the rare birds have been sighted over the past few months.
Saturday, Feb. 15, marks the beginning of the Clapper Rail nesting season, which will be kicked off by the ever popular Love Your Wetlands Day event. [Read more…]
Rate Hikes for Solar Panel ‘Freeriders’ and Small Users Proposed, Courtesy of SDG&E, ALEC and the Koch Brothers
By Doug Porter
The business section of UT-San Diego leads today with an article informing us that the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is considering a proposal advanced by SDG&E to shift the costs of producing electricity to “lower tier” users. The kilowatt-hours charges on the base allotment of electricity would jump by 24% come July 1st.
What that effectively means is a raise in rates for homeowners, small businesses and buildings equipped with solar panels. Current billing practices shift a higher percentage of costs to heavy users. Should the proposal before the CPUC gain approval, the paper says, “the largest home-electricity users would avoid a major bill hike, and could see some reductions.”
This raise in rates fits in rather neatly with a national strategy articulated by carbon-based energy corporations. Since California’s rates are not directly set by the legislature, utility companies are making proposals directly to the CPUC. In many states, like Arizona, these concepts are making their way through the legislature. The similarity of the substance of these schemes is hardly a coincidence. [Read more…]
Floyd Morrow, Eternal Optimist in Paradise
By Mic Porte
Floyd Morrow is an ex-Marine sergeant who served in combat in the Korean War and later earned a law degree at the University of Texas. He has been a career attorney and longtime citizen activist, both in and out of the San Diego political scene since 1952. He currently leads a philosopher’s round table every Wednesday in the Linda Vista Village community room. The roundtable is a potluck and it’s a potlatch, a native people’s word that means everybody contributes.
“Everybody contributes” would be one of the tenants of Floyd Morrow’s philosophy of life, as well as “positivism,” his personal contribution to a round-the-table query of everybody’ s favorite “isms” which included “prism, hedonism, favoritism, romanticism, mechanism and fiesty-ism. ” We laughed that capitalism, socialism, and communism didn’t make the cut. We shared a moment of silence for the great Pete Seeger, who just died, at 92, a heroic voice of many generations, but only a moment of silence as there were many talkers at this council of scholars.” [Read more…]
Post Office Banking Could Be the Start of Something Big
If it works – and it will, if managed correctly – it will be a great boon for the transformative idea of public banking.
By Richard Eskow / Campaign for America’s Future Blog
It seems like an idea whose time has come. With one in four American households partially or entirely excluded from the current banking system, and with the U.S. Post Office in search of additional revenue, why not use the postal system to offer banking services to lower-income households?
In fact, this is an idea whose time has already come, more than once. Many nations – among them Great Britain, Japan, Germany, Israel, and Brazil – provide or have provided some form of postal banking services. So did the United States, until 1966.
It’s hardly a radical idea. The U.S. system was voted into law in 1910, during the presidency of William Howard Taft. In any case, a better way to describe it would be as a beginning. [Read more…]
Cue the Crazy: What Are They Smoking at Fox News?
By Doug Porter
One of the big stories in the media this week concerns the decision by CVS/Caremark to discontinue selling tobacco products at its 7600 stores. In the short term this move will cost the company $2 billion a year in sales,or about 1.5% of their total volume.
I expected to see debate over whether this was a prudent business decision. After all, no good capitalist likes to walk away from a profit. And questions about the viability of the company’s long term strategy are to be expected. Will a large enough number of consumers actually react positively to the concept of hard-core retailing of health care?
I also expected the ‘yahoo’ element to chime in, filling comment sections with trollish chatter about how, liquor, candy and sodas would probably be next. But I was astonished at how quickly Fox News spun this story into yet another Obama-centric controversy. [Read more…]
Wildcats Coach Sean Miller: A Dazzling Human Being
By Ernie McCray
I recently wrote about Steve Fisher, the coach of the San Diego State Aztec men’s basketball team, about how masterful a teacher he is. Now I’d like to share a few words about another virtuoso teacher, Sean Miller, who coaches the University of Arizona Wildcats.
I remember when he first popped up in my life. I was settling down in my easy chair, with a beer, perhaps, all relaxed (a talent of mine), waiting to hear Ed McMahon say “Here’s Johnny!” with that brassy introduction by Doc Severinsen and the mighty Tonight Show Band. “Hi-Yo!”
After a few jokes and the usual kidding around you expect on a talk show, this 14 year old kid comes out, sits down, and, as if this was just another day in the neighborhood, started talking about where he was from and how he had once made 50 free throws in a row and the next thing I know he was putting on a basketball skills show. He spun a basketball with blinding rotations on his fingers and bounced and/or juggled and dribbled between his legs what seemed like, in those moments, a crate of basketballs – like it was no big thing.
What a dazzling human being. What poise – in the midst of all the crowd noise. [Read more…]
The Water Crisis: Dealing With the Shower Police
By Will Falk
I have a problem with some of the people I call the “shower police.” These are the people yelling about how we all need to take shorter showers because of the water crisis. They deem anyone a hypocrite who accuses corporations and the government of being the worst water offenders while not enthusiastically letting a night of the strongest urine fester in their bathrooms.
My problem with the shower police is not that they’re wrong that we all need to live as simply as possible. We do. My problem with that shower police is not that they’re wrong that we all must endure much more than funky bathrooms. We will.
My problem is that the shower police often confuse personal change with social change. [Read more…]
New Study Finds Worrisome Pattern of Birth Defects in Fracking Communities
By Miriam Rotkin-Ellman/Switchboard–Natural Resources Defense Council
Science has long known that the developing fetus is sensitive to experiences of the mother – alcohol consumption, dietary factors, and mercury exposure are some of the more well-known examples. This sensitivity makes newborn babies an early indicator of something going wrong in the environment of the mother. Unfortunately, a team of researchers found preliminary evidence of something gone wrong when they looked at the patterns of birth defects in newborn babies in Colorado. The researchers found that babies whose mothers lived in close proximity to multiple oil and gas wells were 30% more likely to be born with defects in their heart than babies born to mothers who did not live close to oil and gas wells.
As a public health scientist, this finding raises alarm bells and leads to many questions. This is the first published peer reviewed study realistically examining whether people living near sites where fracking has occurred are experiencing more health impacts. The fact that it found a statistically significant association, is very worrisome especially in combination with early reports of similar findings from a study in Pennsylvania. Although these types of studies can’t tell us definitively that pollution from oil and gas wells is the cause of the elevated birth defects, the findings of this study are like a flashing light saying something is going on here and we need to take action to make sure our most vulnerable are protected. In fact, it is studies like this one that have ultimately led to the understanding we now have of how to protect pregnant women and ensure healthier babies. [Read more…]
“Special Interests” Define the Agenda in San Diego Mayoral Special Election
David Alvarez touts his status as champion of the little guy in the race for the top spot in San Diego City Hall.
By Andy Cohen
“Special interests” is a term that has been thrown around a lot during this mayoral special election, especially during the runoff between Democrat David Alvarez and Republican Kevin Faulconer. But it is a term that has not been easy to define; one that depends almost entirely on your political point of view.
In TV and radio ads and mailers, the Faulconer camp decries Alvarez’ support from the “special interests,” the unions that are funding “eighty percent of Alvarez’ campaign” for mayor. Alvarez is critical of Faulconer’s support from the “business community,” the “downtown special interests” that many on the political left in San Diego feel have held the real governing power at City Hall.
As far as Faulconer is concerned, he doesn’t have any “special interest” support. His is a campaign fueled by individual San Diegans who believe that he is the right choice for the top spot at City Hall. He is supported by business groups (including the Lincoln Club), industry groups that may have a particular interest in city government and that Faulconer believes will play key roles in growing the San Diego economy. For example, the Building Industry Association, or the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce. Not special interest groups according to Faulconer. [Read more…]
Hijacking Democracy: ‘Referendums Have Become the Tool of the Wealthy’
By Doug Porter
Starting with a guest editorial in UT-San Diego back on January 8th, City Attorney Jan Goldsmith has been at the forefront of a publicity blitz designed to counter community disdain for initiative drives sponsored by monied interests.
Repeated accusations about misrepresentations by paid signature gatherers, combined with a pair of lawsuits filed by the proponents of a new community plan in the Barrio Logan have left a bad taste in the public political palate.
I believe the big business backers of an subsequent initiative (the so-called jobs tax) must have been concerned about the blowback and dispatched their most loyal servant at city hall to do their bidding. But it could be a coincidence, right? [Read more…]
Point Loma High School Students Honor “Blackfish” Director and Her SeaWorld Expose
By Frank Gormlie / OB Rag
Hundreds of Point Loma High School students honored the director of the controversial film “Blackfish” – the expose on SeaWorld’s treatment of their Orcas – on Monday, Feb. 3rd.
Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite came to the campus after some film students had produced their own film criticizing SeaWorld and addressed an assembled group of them. She told them she wanted her documentary about the water-park’s captive killer whales to persuade SeaWorld to discontinue “using animals as entertainment.” Cowperthwaite also told the students that they need to form their own opinions on the issue.
Her film began, she said, as a research project on the death in 2010 of Orca trainer Dawn Brancheau and Tilikum, the killer whale. [Read more…]
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