San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

Las Monthly Ondas June Edition: Taco Shop Poets Dream of Sugar Skulls

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Read Tacos. Eat Poetry.

By Brent E. Beltrán

Has it already been twenty years since a band of guerrilla word slingers thought to share poetry with taco shop patrons? Apparently so, as the Taco Shop Poets are back in poetic motion for a gig at The Front in San Ysidro.

Founding Taco Shop Poets member Adolfo Guzman Lopez told me “it’s been 20 years since the idea for taco shop poetry was put in motion. We’re presenting the group’s 2011 book Sugarskull Sueños at the Tijuana book fair and what better place to reflect on our personal journeys as Mexican Americans, Chicanos, Latinos, cuarentones, border vatos, and fathers than a homegrown community space in San Ysidro.”

Originally started as a large, loose knit group of mostly Chicano and Latino raconteurs the Taco Shop Poets almost singlehandedly helped recreate the California spoken word poetry scene. They eventually whittled themselves down into a tight collective of border bards that have toured the nation and beyond. Their influence on the Chicano poetry world can still be felt today even though they’ve been relatively dormant the past few years.   [Read more…]

DeMaio Runs for Congress

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Carl DeMaio announces bid to challenge Democratic freshman Congressman Scott Peters.

By Andy Cohen

It’s official. Carl DeMaio has announced his bid to challenge freshman incumbent Scott Peters for the 52nd Congressional District seat in central San Diego. The right wing/Tea Party conservative who lost his mayoral bid to one of the most liberal candidates ever to seek the top job at City Hall now has set his sights on the left-of-center consensus builder who took down a long time Republican incumbent Brian Bilbray, who was only slightly less conservative than DeMaio.

Congress is broken, he tells us, and he’s just the guy to go and fix it.

“If we want better results from Washington, we have to change the people we send there and impose new rules to govern the way we operate,” said DeMaio in a press release announcing his candidacy.   [Read more…]

SD For Free: Free Mulch for Greener Yards and Gardens

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A weekly column dedicated to sharing the best sights and activities in San Diego at the best price – free! We have a great city and you don’t need to break the bank to experience it.

Address: Miramar Greenery / Landfill – 5180 Convoy Street, San Diego, CA 92111 (Miramar / Kearny Mesa)

Date and Time: Monday – Friday 7 AM to 4 PM, Saturday – Sunday 7 AM to 4:30 PM

Best For: Reducing water usage, increasing plant life, healthier neighborhoods

It’s officially spring on the calendar, although in San Diego the type of weather associated with spring can be found in any month of the year. Spring is known as a time of planting and renewal of life. If you’re adding tomatoes and peppers to your garden or planting shrubs or trees you may find the use of mulch to be a helpful tool to increase your success rate. In San Diego residents can pick up free mulch at the Miramar Greenery (part of the Miramar Landfill).   [Read more…]

Enterprise Zone Reform, Ban on Plastic Bags Getting a Chance in Sacramento

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By Doug Porter

The political will to reform California’s state enterprise zone (EZ) program has finally reached critical mass in the wake of the disclosures via a Public Records Act request documenting tens of thousands of dollars in tax credits going to Sacramento-area strip club owners.

A televised report by KCRA news, complete with footage shot inside an area strip club, has provided reform supporters with a boost. The State of California is losing out on $750 million in revenues annually due to EZ program….

Get ready for another PR assault on sanity, brought to Californians by a group calling itself the American Progressive Bag Alliance (APBA).

It seems as though the APBA and their allies haven’t been able to spread enough money around Sacramento to stop a Senate vote this week on Senate Bill 405, which would phase out plastic shopping bags. Two other bills with much the same purpose died in committee.

INSIDE: The Race to Replace Everybody’s Favorite Congressional Wacko   [Read more…]

Excavating Golden Hill: Between “South Park” and “the Other Side of the Freeway”

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By Jim Miller

The southern border of Golden Hill is clearly marked by the 94 Freeway that sets it off from what much of the city still refers to as “Southeast San Diego.”

Despite City Council Member George Stevens’s successful effort in 1992 to ban the use of that moniker in any official city business, it lives on in the cultural imagination of San Diego and, for many white suburbanites, stands in for “the bad part of town,” teeming with gangs, crime, and urban squalor.

Indeed, despite years of dropping crime rates and gentrification, the image of the southern part of Greater Golden Hill as a kind of liminal zone between “South Park” and the ‘hood persists in some quarters of San Diego’s culture of fear.

As someone who spent a lot of time visiting friends in the neighborhood back in the day, well before this current wave of gentrification began, I find this to be an amusing but sad phenomenon, as even when Golden Hill was grittier than it is now, it was never rough compared to other big American cities like Los Angeles or Oakland. What distinguishes Golden Hill from other parts of San Diego then is not crime, but race and class, as it is still browner and more working class than downtown, Bankers Hill, or “South Park.”   [Read more…]

Community Groups Find Banks “Out of Compliance” With Attorney Generals Settlement

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By Jim Bleisner

Frustrated at experiencing bank violations of legal requirements, community organizations attended shareholder meetings to protest. Organizations from California and New York traveled to Tampa on May 21st to speak out at JPMorgan Chase’s annual shareholder meeting and demand accountability by the bank. The groups, which hold shares in JPMorgan Chase, detailed the harms the bank causes to communities throughout the country through its abusive and discriminatory mortgage lending and foreclosure practices.

The groups supported resolutions that would require the bank to disclose its lobbying activities and spending and to separate the positions of Board Chair and bank CEO. JPMorgan Chase has lobbied heavily against financial reform despite its failure to impose regulations written to ensure that the bank treats homeowners in foreclosure fairly and to prevent significant proprietary trading losses.   [Read more…]

Daughter of an Arranged Marriage

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By Monica Luhar / Alhambra Source

At the age of 19, my mother fastened a red bindi in the middle of her forehead, wrapped herself in a silk sari, and walked seven times around a sacred fire in Karamsad, India with a 26-year-old man she hardly knew.

At 19, I was a single Indian American college sophomore who certainly did not have any plans to have an arranged marriage like my parents. And a relationship was not really an option, because my parents did not allow me to date. For years, they had one strict rule: I was to focus on school until I graduated from college. Meanwhile, most of my friends were in committed relationships and some were even engaged to their high school sweethearts. I resented the rule, and felt that they were limiting me from dating because they did not have any experience themselves.

Arranged marriages have been a common practice in India — and many other cultures — for centuries, but my parents never pressured me into one. The summer after I received my college degree, my mother casually told me I was allowed to date.   [Read more…]

Peace Breaks Out at City Hall as Filner, Employees Announce Contract Proposal

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By Doug Porter

More than a decade of demonizing public employees in San Diego appeared to be coming to close yesterday, with the announcement of a tentative deal between the City and six labor unions.

Previous administrations have exploited concerns over pension indebtedness and budgetary shortfalls caused by the great recession, using city employees as a public whipping boy for political gain.

One need look no further that former Mayor Jerry Sanders’ refusal to negotiate with the Police Officer’s Association during the Proposition B campaign to understand just how egregious these political games have been for everybody except a small group of politicians.

The proposed labor pacts will save taxpayers $60 million in pension plan payments in the first three years, according to Mayor Filner. You know it was a big deal because the press release coming from the Mayor’s office had three, count ‘em, three, exclamation points in the headline.

INSIDE: UT-San Diego Circles the Drain, WalMart’s Up to the Usual Crap   [Read more…]

Where Will Taxi Drivers, Hotel Maids, Grocery Clerks, School Aides and Retired People Live? A City Heights–Golden Hill Conversation

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The San Diego Free Press neighborhood focus during the month of May has been on Golden Hill, one of San Diego’s oldest communities. One of the most visible elements of Golden Hill is the elegant old mansions that comprise the historic district.

These mansions are a tangible reminder of individual wealth and power amassed in years past. Today, many of those mansions are still owner occupied, while some have been divided into rental units; others are now attorney offices or operated as half-way houses. These disparate uses reflect a more nuanced story about wealth, power and changing demographics in Golden Hill today.

I spent a few hours walking around Golden Hill, not along the historic or commercial district, but along one particular side street off of 25th Street that has been beckoning to me. I set off down a steep hill and explored streets that dead ended at the 94 Freeway or on the other end, at a flight of steps up to Broadway.   [Read more…]

Testing…testing…does this thing work?

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What’s better than sending Tommy Test Taker to class with school-sanctioned Ziploc bag of Lucky Charms?

By Aaryn Belfer /thematically fickle

No, I’m not talking about my neglected website. I’m talking about the grueling season that is right now bearing down on many of California’s kids. It’s testing season, folks, the time of year when No. 2 pencils and prison-like lockdowns on school campuses reign.

It’s the season that helps make Pearson one of the wealthiest companies in the world (read that thing with tissues in hand because you will weep); the season that causes Michelle Rhee, Ben Austin, Rahm Emmanuel, and other like-minded education “reformers” to gleefully piddle in their pants at the idea of closing more “failing” schools. Score one for privatization.   [Read more…]

Helping Homeless People Die Indoors

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By Christine Schanes

There is one certainty in life – we are all going to die. How and where we die are the only issues.

Will we die quickly or have a lingering death? We don’t know. However, most of us housed people are pretty sure we will die indoors in some health facility or in our own home. In fact, some of us buy insurance so that we are assured of the particular standard of care and facility we prefer in our last days.

However, what about unsheltered homeless people? They live outside and very likely will die outside.

How do I know this? Because over the past several years I have been involved in the end of life care for three homeless friends. I’ve written about Bobby Ojala who passed in late August 2012 and Susan Hunt who died twelve days later in early September. But, Karen Lee Creeden was the first homeless person I helped die indoors.   [Read more…]

No “Sticker Shock” for Covered California Health Care Consumers

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By Anthony Wright/California Progress Report

Covered California held a press conference last week announcing plans and rates that will be available to consumers starting January 1. This is one of the most significant steps yet toward being ready to serve consumers by the federally mandated 2014 deadline for health exchange availability under the 2010 Affordable Care Act. You can watch the press conference on the Covered California website, where you can also download a booklet with a description of all the plans that will be offered and sample rates.

Covered California – the state marketplace for individuals, families and small businesses buying health coverage, and a core component of California’s implementation of the Affordable Care Act – announced the health plan options and premiums that will be offered next year, starting in January 1, 2014. Covered California is one of the only exchanges in the country that took advantage of the opportunity to employ “active purchasing” – using its purchasing power to negotiate with insurance companies for plans on behalf of California consumers.   [Read more…]

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