San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

Making Room for Lyric Allen on the Family Tree

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By Ernie McCray

Lyric Allen Anderson arrived on this earth on May 29th, 2013. He’s become the tenth person I can claim as a grandchild and every one of them is dear to me. But this beautiful baby boy is particularly special in that he’s the first to carry within his veins the blood of his Grandma Nancy, who passed away four years ago, and mine. She was my valentine and I welcome Lyric Allen to the world in behalf of both of us.

Oh, I don’t know if I can describe what it felt like holding him in all his raw innocence, for the first time, as what words can convey how one feels when one of the dearest beings in the world to him gives birth to someone equally as cherished? I’ll portray it as simply a wonderful moment in time.

And we’re just the family for him. I mean he was due on Wednesday of one week and didn’t as much as take a peek until the Wednesdayof the next week – and we can relate to that. We are true blue late kinds of folks, disciples of “Hey, we’ll get there when we get there or sometime thereafter” kind of thinking. So he passes the muster with us, with flying colors.   [Read more…]

Writing for the San Diego Free Press

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By Judi Curry

Fifty-seven years ago I said to my first husband – Ed – that I wanted to be a writer.  He laughed at me and told me that I didn’t have the intelligence to write; did not have any experiences to write about, and I should forget that goal.  I was 17 at the time.  (Yes, I was married very young.  I was also stupid, a fact that I hope has changed over the years!)

In the back of my mind, as I wrote essays, thesis’, opinions, case studies, etc. to obtain my Master’s Degree, I always remembered Ed’s comments to me.  As I taught my students English and Creative Writing skills, I wondered how I could be a successful teacher with so few “experiences” under my belt. When more and more of my students were producing wonderful writings, I began realizing that Ed may have been right then, but he no longer was correct in his perception of my abilities – we were only married 10 years so many things had changed. Basically, I grew up!

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Sex in San Diego: A Daddy’s Letter to His Little Girl (About Her Future Husband)

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By Dr. Kelly Flanagan / UnTangled

Dear Cutie-Pie,

Recently, your mother and I were searching for an answer on Google. Halfway through entering the question, Google returned a list of the most popular searches in the world. Perched at the top of the list was “How to keep him interested.”

It startled me. I scanned several of the countless articles about how to be sexy and sexual, when to bring him a beer versus a sandwich, and the ways to make him feel smart and superior.

And I got angry.   [Read more…]

Tony Baloney Says Meatless Mondays in San Diego Schools are Government Coercion

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By Doug Porter

Today’s round up of the news starts with public education. And one of the ways the English language gets mauled by those who have an aversion to the ‘public’ part of it.

The San Diego Unified School District Board of Trustees approved a proposal yesterday to incorporate meatless Mondays into its cafeteria menus for elementary and K-8 schools for the coming school year.

This isn’t some radical notion. The concept started a decade ago, as an initiative backed by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.  A report by the American Meat Institute in February 2011 found that 18% of American households now participate in Meatless Mondays. Oprah’s endorsed it. School districts in Los Angeles, Baltimore, Oakland and Arlington, Virginia all participate.

Note that the SDUSD policy doesn’t prohibit bringing a baloney and ketchup sandwich (a high school favorite of mine) from home, so if a student wants animal protein they can have it.

INSIDE: Peters to Come Out Swinging for Obamacare, VOSD Jumps the Shark, GOP Defunds (Non-existant) Acorn (Again)   [Read more…]

Bradley Manning’s Legal Duty to Expose War Crimes

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Although whistleblower Bradley Manning pled guilty to 10 offenses that will garner him 20 years in custody, military prosecutors are pursuing further charges – aiding the enemy and violation of the Espionage Act – that carry life in prison.

By Marjorie Cohn, Truthout

The court-martial of Bradley Manning, the most significant whistleblower case since Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers, has begun. Although Manning pled guilty earlier this year to 10 offenses that will garner him 20 years in custody, military prosecutors insist on pursuing charges of aiding the enemy and violation of the Espionage Act, carrying life in prison. The Obama administration, which has prosecuted more whistleblowers under the Espionage Act than all prior presidencies combined, seeks to send a strong message to would-be whistleblowers to keep their mouths shut.   [Read more…]

Why Do I Write for the San Diego Free Press?

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By John P. Anderson

Why do I write for the San Diego Free Press?  Simply, because I was asked to.

Today I’m extending that invitation to you.  I’d like you to write for the San Diego Free Press.  You can’t say that no one invited you to the party.

June 4, 2013was the one year anniversary of the Free Press going ‘live’.  I was invited to a meeting of the Free Press in July 2012 and my first article on The New Children’s Museum was posted on August 16 of that year.  Since that time I’ve written many pieces mostly under four categories: free things to do in San Diego, bicycles, environmental issues, and beer.   [Read more…]

Beats in Peru: A Daily Travelogue Parts I & II

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By Mikey Beats

San Diego DJ Mikey Beats, and his nurse wife Jenny, decided to take a vacation to Machu Pichu, Peru. Over the next few days San Diego Free Press will publish their daily adventures.

Sunday 6/2/13

We woke up just before 8am to the coffee grinder. All our things were prepped and all my stuff needed to be placed into my travel backpack. That backpack had been to Brazil with me, Ecuador and Panama with Jenny and now it would get me through Peru.

We stopped by Ramiro’s taco shop after a few quick texts to tie down loose ends and we hit the road. My breakfast burrito ended up all over my shirt as I was eating and driving. Just another aroma to remind me of home I guess.

We got to LAX a few hours early and took our time finding a cheap option to park the car for ten days. The garage was called Quick Park….   [Read more…]

Tying Up Loose Ends: Around City Heights, Jacaranda Weather, Too Many Cats and This Very Old House

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By Anna Daniels

I’m taking a month off from writing my weekly column and will return July 10. Next week I will start working on projects that have piled up inside and outside our aged house–more on that below–and nothing will get done once the weather turns hot.

City Heights News–the very good, the good and too soon to tell… City Heights will be getting its first skate park plaza! The Central Avenue Mini-Park and Skate Plaza in City will include a tot lot, a playground for older children, small open turf area for passive recreation, a plaza with games, landscaping, and relocation of trees.

This is the very good news-construction will begin in October 2014 and the park will be open to the public in November 2015. Congratulations and thanks to the amazing skateboard community, Mid-City CAN, Council members Marti Emerald, Todd Gloria and Mayor Filner.   [Read more…]

San Diego Professor Taking Global Warming Fight to the Markets

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A successful effort to convince CalSTRS to divest in fossil fuel stocks would be first significant economic victory in fight against global warming.

By Andy Cohen

Most people accept that global warming is real and that it’s happening. But even for those who continue to willfully deny the facts right underneath their noses, it is getting more and more difficult to ignore the increased frequency and intensity of the superstorms that have devastated our landscape.

The arguments against global warming are almost nonsensical, ranging from “God would never allow it” theology to ideological orthodoxy. Since global warming is the major threat to the recession proof oil and gas industry—an industry that represents enormous power and influence with the ability to sway policy on a whim—many climate change deniers simply reject the abundance of empirical evidence out of their own economic self interest. The decline of the oil and gas industry, after all, in their mind, is the demise of the Western World’s entire economic existence. Oil provides the energy that makes the world go ‘round. What would we do without it?

To the true believers, fossil fuels are, and will continue to be, the lynchpin to the American and global economies.   [Read more…]

Musings on The First Birthday of the San Diego Free Press

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By Doug Porter

Well, we made it to the one year mark.   So today we’ll skip the news round up and take a look at what’s been going on around here. On this date (June 4th) last year the San Diego Free Press went ‘live’.

Here’s how Patty Jones describes the process:

When Frank and I started the OB Rag it was sort of on a lark. We jumped in and before too much time had past, we had a collective of wonderful people around us. We felt like these people deserved a place where they could write about their own neighborhoods and the things near and dear to them. We had resurrected the OB Rag, why not the San Diego Free Press? We gathered these people together and we talked about it. We saw a light in their eyes…

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Monsanto in the Hot Seat

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By JEC

On Friday May 31st, NBC News posted a report from Reuters that South Korea has suspended wheat imports after the discovery of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready Wheat growing in a fallowed field of an Oregon farmer.  Problem is, Monsanto only field-tested the strain until May, 2004 when the Canadian Wheat Board, then the world’s largest grain seller, informed Monsanto it’s 10 largest red spring wheat buyers, including Japan, the U.K. and Malaysia, wouldn’t buy modified (genetically altered) varieties of wheat.  

Out of market concerns Monsanto pulled their GM Roundup Ready Wheat from the USDA’s approval process.  So how did this discontinued strain of Monsanto wheat end up on a farm in Oregon nine years after the company stopped working with this strain?  Has this modified strain found its way into the commercial wheat crop? 

On such concerns, Japan too has suspended imports of western-white wheat from the U.S., and canceled an order while the USDA is sending investigators to undisclosed locations throughout the western United States.  The story is just beginning and the weeks ahead could prove challenging for the U.S. agriculture business and Monsanto.   [Read more…]

Golden Hill – A Sustainable Vision

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By Beryl Forman

Golden Hill is a wonderful place to live, but it could always be better. Applying sustainable methods of urban design, green development, and enhancing its natural environment will certainly set a new bar for what is possible.

Golden Hill is located just above downtown San Diego, and is adjacent to the southern portion of Balboa Park. It is unfortunate that the access to either one of these locations is less than accommodating. Walking downtown entails crossing over the I-5 freeway on a large sparse bridge. Instead, I imagine this bridge becoming the welcome gateway to Golden Hill, lined with greenery, public seating, and food stands.
  [Read more…]

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