San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

The Starting Line – Protestors Claim Closing La Jolla Beach at Night to Protect Seals is Unconstitutional

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That’s right. A group calling itself Friends of the Children’s Pool has denounced Mayor Filner’s decision to restrict nighttime access to the La Jolla Beach for the duration of seal pupping season, which ends May 15. They even staged acts of civil disobedience Wednesday night when a dozen ‘supporters of beach access’ showed up and crossed the rope barrier. One individual received a citation for refusing to leave after sunset.

The Mayor’s decision to issue an emergency order to close the beach came in the wake a video that “captured people breaching the rope barrier at night, kicking, punching and sitting on top of the mother seals and their pups, and driving them from their resting places.”

“The behavior was shocking, reprehensible and certainly not a reflection of how most citizens in our fine City believe animals should be treated,” said Mayor Filner.

His actions drew an immediate response, via an unsigned opinion piece published in the La Jolla Patch on Wednesday   [Read more…]

Filner Frustrated by Lack of Cooperation

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Preliminary ruling favors mayor in TMD contract dispute–UPDATED: Statement from Mayor Filner

During the first four months of his administration, Mayor Bob Filner has received precious little cooperation from other city agencies. And although he won’t say it directly, he is frustrated. In an interview yesterday with the San Diego Free Press, however, the Mayor made it clear that he was not going to back down, particularly in his battle with the private Tourism Marketing Authority.

He also sounded very much like a man on a deserted island.

Discussing the Tourism and Marketing District controversy ahead of the court hearing Friday that will determine whether Filner is to be compelled to sign a contract agreed to by the previous City Council and mayor negotiated, Filner stood firm in his opposition to the agreement as presented. It is a fight that has very much isolated him from the rest of the city’s government.   [Read more…]

Nay to Hate and Yea to Culture at ECC

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Board meetings are usually not my cup of tea. But I attended one, not too long ago, at the Educational Cultural Complex (ECC) and as I sat there, anticipating data reports and budget considerations and other matters that might lead me to want to cop some Z’s, I experienced a few moments that absolutely captivated me.

Like, all of a sudden, from behind me, during a section of the meeting that highlighted “Community Connections,” I hear a woman walking towards the stage belting out:

“They call it stormy Monday

but Tuesday’s just as bad.”

And the next thing I know my shoulders are gliding from side to side and my head is doing likewise and my size 14 feet are patting along with my fingers that are popping to the beat and right away three more singers got me leaning forward in my seat with:

“Wednesday’s worse and Thursday’s also sad.”

Oh, such sweet music from my past. For a moment my mind began to stray to times when I had my moments up there where those singers stirred my spirit in song.   [Read more…]

Sex in San Diego: Why Do Gay Porn Stars Kill Themselves?

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Why do porn actors kill themselves? Who is responsible?

Whenever a porn star – especially a gay porn star – commits suicide, theories show up, and people act very, very certain about them. Arpad Miklos, who was as much as a porn “star” as anyone can be in a time when we are hyper-saturated with porn, killed himself on February 3rd, 2013, at the age of 45. As usual, many people felt sure they knew why he committed suicide, without much evidence. It was drugs, it was studios not treating him well, it was the feeling of dehumanization, it was the vague but all encompassing “porn industry” that did it, it was the feeling of being hollow, it was it was his loss of validation after being a star for so long.

I can’t claim any special knowledge about his death, I didn’t know him very well. We met in passing on a set; he’d just finished a scene, and I was about to start mine. He was huge and handsome; I’m not saying anything new. If you met him, you were impressed by his smile and his body and his presence. Looking at him almost made you feel a sense of unbalance in the world, like his handsomeness and flawless physique were proof of some deep inequality between people. But then you’d forget that feeling and be drawn back into the intense attraction.   [Read more…]

10 Years of Lying About the Iraq War Has to Stop Now – Bush and Cheney and Co. Must Be Held Accountable for the Sake of America

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From the OB Rag

Ten years of lying about the Iraq war has to stop now – immediately. The government – our government – lied to us, the America people, about the reasons they said it was necessary to go to war with Iraq – a country that was not threatening us. One decade ago to this day, their lies produced action: the “shock and awe” “bunker-busters” unleashed on the capital of Iraq, March 19th, 2003.

They lied to cover up their invasion of Iraq a decade ago to this day.

And now ten years later, after more than 4400 Americans killed, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed, 30,000 Americans injured, after we have spent over $3 Trillion dollars, we have come to the realization that, if America is to be honest with itself, we must now demand that someone be held accountable for these lies and the wastes of lives and resources.

Those to be held accountable, of course, must include the leaders of our government at that time: George W. Bush, President, and Dick Cheney, Vice-President and those who demanded the war which includes then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.   [Read more…]

Ten Years On: A Dying Mother, The Invasion of Iraq, and Samsay on the Porch

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Memory is a capricious thing- it shuffles all of those cards that signify the days, weeks and years of our lives and lays them out in a manner that doesn’t necessarily cleave to chronology– or even the truth.

 

I cut the deck, turn two cards face up on the table- the Queen of Hearts and the Jack of Clubs. It is March 13, 2003. I say that with certainty even though I do not trust my memory.

I have finished zipping up my suitcase and am nervously walking around the house stroking the cats and staring at the art on the walls as if it were for the last time. I will be taking a red eye flight to Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. My brother and sister have persuaded me that our mother is close to death. I would have one more chance at total denial of that indisputable fact.

My normal propensity for high drama was heightened significantly by the war drums that had been sounding for weeks, the rumblings that we were about to go to war, to invade Iraq. The sheer loathsomeness of Bush-Cheney had turned into something much darker, frightening and utterly incomprehensible. I was going to be 3,000 miles from My Beloved and my home while George W. Bush was explaining why war was necessary and inevitable.

So there you have the setting- The Queen of Hearts. The Jack of Clubs. But now one more card- The Joker. City Heights is always the Wild Card, the Joker, that becomes part of the mix. This place that I have called home for longer than anywhere else is a shape shifting character that looms large in my life, and so it was on March 13, 2003.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – San Diego’s Double Standard on Electioneering Dirty Tricks

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Last week I reported on misleading mailers being sent to residents in San Diego’s District 4. There’s a special election on March 26th for the City Council seat vacated late last year by Tony Young. I profiled District 4 and the nine candidates last week.

Chances are nobody will win this contest outright (50%+1 is required), so the real deal next Tuesday is about who will make it into the runoff. And it looks to me like our local Republicans, even though they don’t have anything more than a token candidate in the race, are trying their best to influence the outcome.

This contest is important to all San Diegans because the winner will likely be a key vote on a City Council hesitant to get with Mayor Filner’s program to shift the emphasis of development away from downtown and towards the many neighborhoods of our city. And it’s already very clear that our downtown interests aren’t going to give up their privileged position at the public trough without a fight.   [Read more…]

It Almost Always Rains on the Second Day of the San Diego Latino Film Festival (in Otherwise Sunny Southern California)

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By Mukul Khurana

It’s true! As long as I can remember, it has rained in normally sunny San Diego. This year was no different. The weather forecast predicted rain at around 10:00 PM. On the dot, on the way to the opening party at Café Sevilla it started raining heavily. O.K.—so it might not always be the second day…

But that didn’t stop hard-working Lou Diamond Phillips, Sergio Arau, and Yareli Arizmendi from making appearances and mingling. As the San Diego Latino Film Festival celebrated it’s 20th year in 2013, the party kicked off another great year of Latino films, art, and music.

As we wrap up 11 days of culture, it is a good idea to reflect as to what two decades of the festival have brought us. A lot has happened from the days of a student film festival held at the University of California San Diego.   [Read more…]

Why Should You Take A Moment to Support CMED?

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by Kevin Singer/Calitics.com

In 2011 alone, California produced a grand total of approximately 200 million barrels of oil and 230 billion cubic feet of natural gas, making our state the fourth largest producer of oil and the tenth largest producer of natural gas in the country. Yet, despite this, California does not get a dime for the resources that are extracted from our state and sold on the global market. This is because, unlike every other major oil and natural gas producing state in the nation, California has not enacted an extraction fee on the energy that is taken right from under our feet.

Let’s think about this for a moment. California, the ninth largest economy in the world, is ranked 43rd in the country in terms of K-12 spending per pupil. The University of California, the flagship public university system of the nation, has seen a 14% decrease in funding since 2010. And at a time when a quality college education has never been more important, tuition is skyrocketing, making a diploma unaffordable for an increasing number of young Californians. Meanwhile, at 9.8% unemployment, even those who have graduated from college find themselves without work or working at jobs they are tremendously over-qualified for. The appalling disrepair of our municipal infrastructure only discourages employers from bringing more jobs to our state. But our state government has its hands tied behind its back. The $250 billion dollar state debt all but assures that there will be no additional funding for education and infrastructure in the near future.   [Read more…]

Hotel Interests Battle to Preserve Business As Usual in TMD Fight

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Mayor seeks to turn over a new leaf in San Diego governance.

For decades San Diego has been governed by the principle that what’s good for our big corporate employers is good for San Diego as a whole, resulting in an arguably outsized influence by private moneyed interests over our elected officials, often leading to sweetheart deals and diminished public control over public assets.

That characterization manifested itself in last November’s mayoral election. The ballot reflected not only a choice between Carl DeMaio and Bob Filner, Republican and Democrat, last November’s election offered a referendum on the way San Diegans wanted business conducted at City Hall on their behalf. DeMaio represented a move even further toward deference to the Doug Manchesters of the region, while Filner offered a shift in focus toward neighborhood development over corporate development; a middle out approach rather than a top down approach.

Bob Filner won convincingly, signaling that San Diego was anxious for a change, with the fight over the Tourism and Marketing District reflective of the changes represented by Filner’s election.   [Read more…]

The Last Letter – A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran

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To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young

Originally posted at Truthdig.com

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Citizens Outraged Over Calif. Public Utility Commission Private Meeting

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Key Vote on Fossil Fuel Plants Set for Thursday

Clean energy advocates and neighborhood groups opposing further construction of fossil fuel generating plants in the San Diego region are calling up the public to protest a closed conclave being held by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) in La Jolla on Wednesday, March 20th.

Superior Court Judge Timothy Taylor yesterday denied an emergency appeal to stop the California Public Utilities Commission from holding a closed-to-the-public meeting with power companies and other ‘stakeholders’.

As a result, the CPUC, CEC, Cogentrix, SDG&E, CleanTech, and other industry and corporate stakeholders (excluding the public and the press) will meet in San Diego one day before the CPUC votes on whether the power plants are actually needed, and four months after the CPUC already rejected the proposed fossil fuel-burning plants as not needed.

The public is asked show support by attending a press conference and clean energy media event set for 11:30 to 12:30 on Wednesday at the  Scripps Seaside Forum at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (UCSD) – 8610 Kennel Way, La Jolla, CA 92037 (parking at Kellogg Park/La Jolla Shores, several blocks south on El Paseo Grande).   [Read more…]

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