San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

NOT GUILTY! #ChalkGate Prosecutor Fails to Impress Jury

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By Doug Porter

The case City Attorney Jan Goldsmith’s office made against Jeff Olson for writing protest slogans in chalk outside Bank of America branches failed to impress a  jury. He was found not guilty on all 13 charges.

This verdict follows a trial strategy pursued by the City Attorney’s office that included suppression of the defendant’s attorney mentioning any connections with the First Amendment during the trial.

The case, the prosecution said, was purely about acts of vandalism.

Olson was charged with 13 misdemeanor counts after Bank of America security officials pressured the San Diego Police Department’s Gang Unit into asking to the City Attorney’s office to prosecute. His arrest came months after the last incident occurred.   [Read more…]

Hairless Rats and the Invisible People of San Diego

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By Doug Porter

It was an “aha!” moment triggered by one sentence buried deep in the latest of an ongoing series of “news stories” published in the Daily Fishwrap that triggered a larger realization for me.

The purpose of the story and others like it was to propound upon the sore loser propaganda campaign promulgated by UT-San Diego publisher Papa Doc (that’s what his employees call him) and his like minded minions: With [insert disliked politician’s name] in power we are all doomed.

This latest essay by Craig Gustafson, ran with the headline (caps theirs)

“MAYOR’S ‘RUDE, CRUDE’ MANNER STIRS DISCORD AT CITY HALL.”   [Read more…]

New Documentary Captures Existential Crisis of Burning Man, Temporary Metropolis in Nevada Desert

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By Elizabeth Limbach / Alternet

Keeping the cameras rolling during trying times resulted in an insightful examination of the world-famous event.

In 2012, after 26 years of ballooning in popularity, Burning Man was on the verge of popping. And Steve Brown’s documentary crew was there with cameras rolling.

A year earlier, the entrepreneur and first-time filmmaker set about making a feature film that centered on a trio of artists as they struggled to realize their visions for Burning Man, a week-long gathering in the Nevada desert that takes place around Labor Day each year. When the Burning Man Organization (BMORG) granted the film access to behind-the-scenes meetings at its San Francisco headquarters, Brown and co-director Jessie Deeter could not have anticipated what was in store.   [Read more…]

Why Can’t Mayor Filner Just Be Nicer?: Corporate News as Propaganda, San Diego Style

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By Jim Miller

In this final installment of Under the Perfect Sun media critique greatest hits, I apply the propaganda model to San Diego’s media scene.  Interestingly, it should be noted that while the local press have largely continued the Filner as disruptive narrative cited here, articles in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times have recently presented a much prettier picture of Filner as a game changing mayor on multiple fronts.  This is surely an embarrassing development in the House of Manchester, but don’t expect that to change the party line.  

As the historic battle between Mayor Filner and San Diego’s big hoteliers over the tourism marketing deal unfolds, it’s clear where the lines are drawn.

On one side, you have a new strong mayor who is committed to ending business as usual in San Diego and on the other, you have folks like Terry Brown, chairman of the San Diego Tourism Marketing Association who, as Matt Potter at The San Diego Reader has pointed out, is a big time Republican funder as are the crew of business lobbyists, real estate developers, and San Diego Taxpayer Association types who have miraculously found they can love a tax after it has transubstantiated into a fee and serves as a giveaway to corporate interests.   [Read more…]

A Plea for Justice at San Diego’s Chalk-U-py Demonstration

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By Doug Porter

In a matter of days the prosecution of San Diegan Jeff Olson on 13 counts of vandalism stemming from chalking protests slogans outside Bank of America has become a worldwide cause celebre.  The 40 year old Olson was outraged by disclosures about B of A’s role in fostering the mortgage crisis leading up to the near-collapse of the economy and the suffering it caused millions of Americans.

His arrest did not come for months after he abandoned the chalking campaign. Pressure from bank security officials led the SDPD gang unit to recommend prosecution, a suggestion that City Attorney Jan Goldsmith’s office, whose role as a defender of San Diego’s entrenched financial interests has come under increasing scrutiny in recent weeks, was only too happy to accommodate.   [Read more…]

Tío Emilio and the Secrets of the Ancestors: Chapter 6 — The Dream

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“The world is as you dream it.”  Numi

By Richard Juarez 

I sat on my bed after dinner, partly listening to my radio, but mostly thinking about the day and about Tío Emilio. After a while, my eyes just felt so heavy, I couldn’t keep them open. Maybe sweeping the walks front and back, and sweeping out the patio and wiping down the patio furniture before dinner tired me out more than I thought. Or maybe it was from eating too much. I sat there with my eyes closed, thinking about the leather binder cover and the scene carved on it. Finally we would get to talk about it in the morning. The thought occurred to me to get up and change into my PJs. But instead, I plopped over on the bed and immediately drifted off into a deep sleep….

I must have been traveling very fast. What a rush, feeling the wind on my face, and hearing it speak to me as it whizzed past my ears. It told me to look up and see the clouds. They looked like huge beautiful puffy balls of cotton floating in the sky. The next thing I knew I was sailing up into one of the lower clouds and could feel the coolness of its moisture. I leaned to the left and curled back down out of the clouds, then sailed right back up into the cool mist. Sometime while sailing through the clouds, I realized that I was a small eagle, flying through the sky.   [Read more…]

Albertsons Worker Sues Chain for Work Conditions Causing Premature Birth and Death of Her Baby

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by Laura Clawson / Daily Kos

Reyna Garcia, a worker at an Albertsons grocery store in California, brought her bosses three doctors’ notes saying she needed her job duties altered because of a high risk pregnancy. They ignored her, and here’s the result that’s led her to file a lawsuit:

According to the complaint, García, a general merchandise manager at the Atascadero store, asked to leave work while in pain one day last November. But her request was turned down, and she continued heavy lifting at the store. She went into labor that night, rushed to the hospital and found out that her baby was losing fluid and sustaining brain damage, she says.

García gave birth two days later to a girl named Jade, but the baby only lived for a few minutes. According to the suit, “Baby Jade’s death over those several minutes was the most painful thing Ms. García had ever experienced.”

  [Read more…]

Sen. Warren’s Bill Gets Cold Shoulder as Student Loan Rates Spike Monday

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Lauren McCauley / Common Dreams

Despite the groundswell of support behind Senator Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) popular student loan proposal, Senate leaders have dismissed the legislation opting instead to let student interest rates double Monday as they pack their bags for a Fourth of July holiday recess.

Because of Congressional inaction, students will be left in the lurch as federal Stafford loans spike to 6.8 percent.

The Warren bill proposes to tie student loan interest rates to the same “discounted rates” given to big banks from the Federal Reserve, lowering student loan rates to 0.75 percent and saving students thousands of dollars.   [Read more…]

Research Shows that Monsanto’s Big Claims for GMO Food Are Probably Wrong

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It’s going to be a tough row to hoe, from here on out for Monsanto.

By Jill Richardson / AlterNet  

Oops. The World Food Prize committee’s got a bit of egg on its face—genetically engineered egg. They just awarded the World Food Prize to three scientists, including one from Syngenta and one from Monsanto, who invented genetic engineering because, they say, the technology increases crop yields and decreases pesticide use. (Perhaps not coincidentally, Monsanto and Syngenta are major sponsors of the World Food Prize, along with a third biotech giant, Dupont Pioneer.)

Monsanto makes the same case on its website, saying, “Since the advent of biotechnology, there have been a number of claims from anti-biotechnology activists that genetically modified (GM) crops don’t increase yields. Some have claimed that GM crops actually have lower yields than non-GM crops… GM crops generally have higher yields due to both breeding and biotechnology.”

But that’s not actually the case.   [Read more…]

Online Purchasing: Similar to “Online Dating?”

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By Judi Curry

In the past few years, I have found that I do a lot of purchasing from online companies. Lured by free shipping and no tax, I figure I have saved a bundle of money during these purchasing frenzies.

In the past year or so, I have stepped away from Amazon.com and started buying items that are specifically designed to be used in San Diego.  And have I been burned – at least initially.   [Read more…]

San Diego Gets Another Black Eye: Goldsmith’s #ChalkGate Prosecution Gets World-Wide Coverage

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“Chalk-U-Py” Protest, Petitions Follow Judge’s Gag Order in Bank of America Graffiti Trial

By Doug Porter

Things are going out of control for City Attorney Jan Goldsmith. His office’s decision to prosecute 40 year old Jeff Olson for using children’s washable chalk to scrawl protests on sidewalks adjacent to Bank of America branch offices has garnered world wide notice. And it’s not the kind of publicity the Downtown Tourism folks appreciate.

A newly organized group calling itself Liberals for Liberty has announced plans to create a chalk mural of the Constitution with focus on the First Amendment in front of the San Diego Hall of Justice.  A Facebook page set up for the event calls for local artists to meet up Saturday (June 29th) at the courthouse, 330 West Broadway, San Diego.

At Change.org, a petition went up Friday morning calling upon City Attorney Jan Goldsmith to drop the prosecution of Jeff Olson for chalk graffiti, citing “an obvious abuse of power and a wasteful use of the resources of the City of San Diego.” The influential Daily Kos blog has also announced a petition, saying “prosecuting people who chalk political messages on vandalism charges is a blatant abuse of power.”   [Read more…]

Republican Descent Into Irrelevancy Provides Political Openings for Progressives

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By Lucas O’Connor / Special to the San Diego Free Press

The week’s news cycle has been a non-stop roller coaster ride, with major stories piling on top of each other for coverage. It got so far out of hand that there was an actual election for the United States Senate l and hardly anyone noticed.

Why? Well partly (unfortunately) because of Paula Deen. But we had a major speech on climate change from President Obama, the Supreme Court gutting the Voting Rights Act and declaring racism over (Thanks guys!), the epic #StandWithWendy filibuster stretching late into the night followed by the stunning #SitDownWendy conservative backlash that should have been obvious, but had jaws bouncing off the floor around the world, and two more Supreme Court decisions striking down the Defense of Marriage Act and bringing the end of Proposition 8 . Most months don’t have that much excitement, must less the first half of the week.   [Read more…]

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