San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

Sex in San Diego: 16 Things You’d Never Suspect About Phone Sex

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By Wednesday Lee Friday / Kinkly

Takeaway: Boredom, bathroom breaks and kinks galore are just a few of the challenges of working as an adult conversation specialist.

Despite the proliferation of Internet porn, phone sexcontinues to be a multimillion dollar industry. And having been a phone sex operator for more than eight years, I can tell you from experience that phone sex can be a fun, sexy, lucrative gig. But I also learned that it can be frustrating, shocking, confounding, exasperating and unexpectedly hilarious. Here are 16 things you’d probably never suspect about phone sex.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Report: California Leads the Nation in Right Wing Extremist Groups

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The popular image of the Golden State is that it’s a hotbed of liberalism; it’s the “left coast” of the country in conserve-speak. The Republican Party is all but irrelevant, and even Orange County, the former bastion of conservatism is no long safe for the GOP. It would seem that, having been defeated in the electoral arena, some right wing activists are moving into the grey areas of political activity.

So it may come as a surprise to some that a report from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) issued yesterday names California as the national leader when it comes to the number –82–of conspiracy-minded anti-government so-called “Patriot” groups. Such groups have seen substantial growth since the 2008 election of President Obama and are described as becoming increasingly militant.

In 2008 there were 149 such organizations nationally, rising to 512 in 2009, jumping again to 824 in 2010, to 1,274 in 2011 and increasing yet again in 2012 to 1360. The report warns:

Now, in the wake of the mass murder of 26 children and adults at a Connecticut school and the Obama-led gun control efforts that followed, it seems likely that that growth will pick up speed once again.

Inside: Has the NRA Gone Too Far for Firearm Manufacturers?, Yes We Can Kill; Here Come the Drones, Letter Talks About Hoteliers’ Damage to San Diego, Food Riots Likely to Become the New Normal   [Read more…]

Covered California Builds a Narrow Bridge

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by Linda Leu/California Progress Report

The Board of Covered California, California’s new health benefit exchange system created in compliance with the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA), met Tuesday in Sacramento. The board and stakeholders in attendance heard a variety of reports on the progress of implementation. According to the countdown on the newly launched website, Covered California is 307 days away from providing quality affordable coverage to Californians.

An update on the progress of California’s implementation efforts for “Obamacare.”
  [Read more…]

Chargemaster: Hospitals’ Killer App for Sucking Your Financial Blood Dry – Part 1

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We spend more on artificial knees and hips every year than Hollywood collects at the box office.

A recent exhaustive article in Time magazine details the exhorbitant charges that hospitals are imposing on the American people, charges that have nothing to do with the actual costs of services provided. A woman in Stamford, Connecticut suffering from chest pains called 911. She was taken by ambulance to the emergency room at Stamford Hospital, a non-profit institution, four miles away.

After a few hours of tests she was told that she just had a case of indigestion; her heart was fine. So she went home. Her bill: $21,000 – for a false alarm. That breaks down to $995. for the ambulance ride, $3000. for the doctors and $17,000. for the hospital. Unfortunately, she had no insurance because she had been out of work for a year.

The American medical marketplace is such that those least able to pay are charged the most money. Their prices are determined by what is called a Chargemaster, a massive computer file thousands of items long. Every hospital has one.   [Read more…]

The Sequester and the Tea Party Plot

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by Robert Reich

Imagine a plot to undermine the government of the United States, to destroy much of its capacity to do the public’s business, and to sow distrust among the population.

Imagine further that the plotters infiltrate Congress and state governments, reshape their districts to give them disproportionate influence in Washington, and use the media to spread big lies about the government.

Finally, imagine they not only paralyze the government but are on the verge of dismantling pieces of it.

Far-fetched? Perhaps. But take a look at what’s been happening in Washington and many state capitals since Tea Party fanatics gained effective control of the Republican Party, and you’d be forgiven if you see parallels.

Tea Party Republicans are crowing about the “sequestration” cuts beginning today (Friday). “This will be the first significant tea party victory in that we got what we set out to do in changing Washington,” says Rep. Tim Huelskamp (Kan.), a Tea Partier who was first elected in 2010.   [Read more…]

Tourism Marketing District Could Be Made Subject to Living Wage Ordinance

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Obstinance of San Diego City Council and big hotel interests stymieing TMD deal, tourism ad campaigns.

The Bob Filner era in San Diego is only in its infancy stages, but it has certainly not disappointed in the fireworks department. The sometimes brash yet affable new mayor has left no doubt that there’s a new sheriff in town, and the old wink-wink nudge-nudge ways of doing business Downtown have come to an end. Filner made his disdain for the “downtown special interests” a major focal point in his campaign, and thus far he’s held true to his word.

The most recent big controversy at City Hall—until yesterday, that is—was Filner’s refusal sign, and thus finalize, a contract drafted during the Sanders administration to provide the Tourism Marketing District $30 million per year for the next 39 years, ostensibly for the purpose of promoting San Diego as a major tourism destination in various media markets around the country. The agreement calls for levying an additional assessment on hotel guests on top of the transient occupancy tax that even San Diego City Attorney Jan Goldsmith calls legally dubious (he says it’s in a “legal gray area”).   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Mayor Filner Keeps Up the Heat on Hoteliers

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Get ready for more UT-San Diego editorials calling Mayor Filner a bully.

He’s calling into question the deal struck between former Mayor Jerry Sanders and the downtown crowd giving them control over the Convention Center’s sales and marketing. Yesterday Filner’s office released a letter calling for an end to that agreement, demanding return of those functions to a City sponsored non-profit.

This agreement was the quid pro quo demanded by hoteliers in 2012 in return for their cooperation with an increase in taxes to pay for the Convention Center expansion.

INSIDE: SABOTAGING THE NEW SUPERINTENDENT? – VOUCHERCARE IS NEXT ON GOP AGENDA   [Read more…]

Yeah, I’m Bad! (Honoring My History)

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Yeah, I’m bad.

That’s what I was thinking as two City College communications majors talked to me behind the camera that was focused on me in the Quad at SDCC.

And I wasn’t just thinking that I’m bad. No, not at all, for I am: Truly. Bad. And I don’t say that as a wolf ticket kind of brag. But as a black man you can’t reach 74.99 years of age, in these here United States of America, with all your senses, and not indulge in a little swag. So please excuse me if I break into a bee-bop stance with a little Bojangles tap dance and act out just how bad I am.

The reason I was on the premises was because I had been asked to speak at a ceremony that was dedicated to Black History. Now that invite, alone, sets the tone for how bad I am because they didn’t just ask anybody to address them. Can there be a greater honor than having someone think that you have something to say?   [Read more…]

Restaurant Review: Origano

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Origano
3650 5th Ave., Suite 103 
San Diego, CA 
619-295-9590

Headed out today to do a review of “Carnitas Snack Shack” in North Park with a new acquaintance but the line was so long that we decided to go somewhere else and I will do the review on a weekday, not a Sunday.

Phil knew of a few places near where he lives – Balboa Park area – so we took a drive to the Hillcrest area looking for a place to eat.  Several of the places he wanted to try were closed, and we settled at “Origano”. The inside was very crowded – and very noisy – so we elected to eat outside instead.

The menu started out with Breakfast specials; salads and soups; lunch specials; pizza’s; Panini; pasta; small plates and large plates.  Additionally there was a list of daily specials on the table. The special for Sunday was “bottomless Mimosa’s” for $10.  The special soup du jour was Pasta e Fagioli   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – White on White: the California GOP Convention

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As California goes, so will go the rest of the country. State Republicans, fearful of obvious signs the party is declining into irrelevancy, circled the wagons over the weekend in Sacramento for their 2013 convention.

The theme of “fighting back” was continuously raised throughout the weekend.

The confab was larger this year than in the recent past, with controversial (among Republicans) guest speaker Karl Rove serving as a drawing card at a Saturday luncheon. The consultant to former President George Bush told delegates to “Get off your ass” and “Get back in the game and fight.”

Although incoming chair Jim Brulte pulled off somewhat of a coup by getting the GOP strategist to skip his normal six figure speaking fee, the decision was not without controversy.   [Read more…]

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

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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…]

Reflections from a Rally at the Hilton Mission Valley

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Much has been made of Bob Filner crashing the City Attorney’s news conference a little while ago but we shouldn’t forget that in that flurry of feistiness he pointed out that there are people among us, fellow citizens, family, friends, you name them, who are paid tacky wages. Like hotel workers.

He made it clear that the tourist industry isn’t going to ply their trade with $30 million dollars of the city’s money unless they pay hotel workers what they deserve.

How refreshing is that, a mayor for the people, a man standing up for the folks who make visitors to “America’s Finest City” comfortable and well fed, with nice pools for a swim on well manicured hotel grounds. These people get out and about town and spend money by the ton and the people who added so much to the fineness of their stay don’t get anywhere near their fair share of this bounty.

The hoteliers, however, get way more than their ownership status should allow and around these parts they have historically treated their workers as though they don’t care about them. The reason being? Because they don’t care about them.   [Read more…]

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