San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

CPI Asks: Why Should We Fund Poverty Wages?

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The Center on Policy Initiatives (CPI) has long been a fighter on the San Diego scene for economic justice causes. Whether it’s advocacy on the part of financially distressed homeowners facing foreclosure or fighting for an understandable, open and fair budget for the City of San Diego, CPI has been in the thick of it.

Now they’ve jumped into fray over Mayor Filner’s refusal to sign off on a deal negotiated by the previous administration that would hand $1 billion over the next four decades to a group essentially run by San Diego’s large hoteliers.

CPI has asked supporters to focus on the Mayor’s demand that the big hoteliers pay a living wage to their employees as part of any deal with the City.

Come inside to see all the people who wrote us on this issue!   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Who is a Reporter? Press Association Forum Triggers a Conversation That Needs to Happen

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The topic for the evening was ‘Grade the Media’.  Local newsmakers were invited by the San Diego chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists to offer critiques of media coverage at a forum held at Point Loma Nazarene University last Tuesday evening.

Sitting on panel were Darren Pudgil, former Mayor Sanders’ director of communication from 2008 to 2012, Jan Caldwell, public information officer for the SD County Sheriff’s Department, and Michael Shames, the controversial former leader of the Utility Consumers’ Action Network (UCAN).

I wasn’t there. I ‘watched’ the evening unfold via my Twitter account. I’ve read a couple of accounts written by people who were there. And watched a couple of clips posted on YouTube. So much of what I’m writing about here has been gleaned through other people’s eyes (or fingers, as the case may be).   [Read more…]

Already Plotting to Unseat Mayor Filner

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By Norma Damashek / NumbersRunner

I suppose there are women who would do battle to become queen bee but they’re the exception, not the rule. On the other hand, the lineup of San Diego males practicing their back-stabbing techniques to become emperor… potentate… sultan… ruler of the roost… snakes the length of I-805 and back again.

Our local warriors come in different shapes and modes — from the programmed-android Carl DeMaio… to the sybarite Doug Manchester… to the changeling-striver Nathan Fletcher… to the overweening Jan Goldsmith…to the Brutus-clone Todd Gloria (why he’d identify with James Mason instead of Marlon Brando is beyond me).  They’re panting hard at the prospect of unseating the trenchant and obstinate Bob Filner on whose head the crown currently rests.

It’s not even springtime after the 2012 November election but the word is trickling out that 2014 (just around the corner) is the year of choice for a pitched battle to recall Mayor Filner and replace him with one of the above-named self-styled gladiators.   [Read more…]

Restaurant Review: “The Original Pancake House”

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The Original Pancake House
3906 Convoy St  San Diego, CA 92111
(858) 565-1740

I can’t believe that people do not know about the Original Pancake House. It has been here forever, but when I told several people that I went there for my birthday breakfast, I was asked where it was located and if it was any good.

YES! It is good. Very good.  Not to brag, but of course that won’t stop me, but I don’t know of anyone that makes pancakes better than me. My pancakes are like my jam – eclectic; different; and succulent. I NEVER order pancakes out because they do not compare to mine, but at this restaurant I make the exception.   [Read more…]

Frank Gormlie to Speak on History of Community Planning in Ocean Beach – Tonight, Feb. 21

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A Historical Perspective of OB’s Planning “Crisis” in the 1970s and the Village’s Response

Frank Gormlie, Editor of the OB Rag, will give a program on the history of the early days of Ocean Beach’s Planning Board and the importance of O.B. residents taking part in their community groups. Frank was a member of the O.B. Planning Board, and for one year was the chair, which was also one of the first San Diego Community Planning Boards.

Frank will talk about the importance of a good community plan that reflects what the residents want, and how they want to shape their future. Frank will stress the participation of residents in running for the board, going to meetings and voting in the election.
  [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Mayor Crashes Press Conference to Defend City Against Dubious Hotel Deal

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City Attorney Jan Goldsmith’s attempted to undercut Mayor Bob Filner’s questioning of the pending hotel tax-but-not-a-tax deal by staging a hastily called press conference yesterday afternoon. Things didn’t work out quite like Goldsmith hoped.

As Goldsmith stood before the assembled media questioning the legality of the Mayor’s proposals, Filner joined the audience, initially sitting in the back row.

After Goldsmith failed to answer a 10News reporter’s questions about whether the City Attorney had offered his legal advice to the Mayor, Filner hijacked the conference by answering “No”. The local media has played up the drama of the situation while largely ignoring (except for the Voice of San Diego) the real issues at stake.

Goldsmith’s intent was. I believe, part of a coordinated effort to bring pressure on Filner   [Read more…]

Author Q & A: ‘The Golden Shore: California’s Love Affair with the Sea’

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Conservationist David Helvarg talks about his book, “The Golden Shore,” a tribute to California’s beautiful and iconic coastline, and the Navy’s and San Diego’s roles in shaping it.

By Serge Dedina / Wildcoast

No one has done more to educate the public on ways to preserve our coast and ocean than David Helvarg. Author of six books and the founder and Executive Director of the Blue Frontier Campaign, Helvarg will be speaking about his newest book, The Golden Shore: California’s Love Affair with the Sea at the Birch Aquarium on Tuesday Feb. 26 from 6:30-8 p.m. Helvarg is also a former San Diegan who wrote for the OB Rag.

Serge Dedina: What is your first memory of the coast in California?

David Helvarg: Flying into San Diego at night to help out some friends in trouble in the Ocean Beach neighborhood and then staying up ’til dawn watching the Pacific lapping on the shore, small breaking wavelets sparkling with silvery luminescence. Two days later there was a concert on Sunset Cliffs. Watching the young OB residents dancing on the beach and wading into the bracing 68-degree water where silky-haired California girls in bikinis were tossing Frisbees, I knew I’d come home to a place I’d never been before.   [Read more…]

Frank Thomas: ‘Do We Have Time to Save Mother Earth?’

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Editor: One of the San Diego Free Press’ most active writers on climate change is Frank Thomas, who often collaborates with John Lawrence. Readers appreciate Thomas so much that a group of them invited him to speak at their “pro-science” club meetings. Problem is, Thomas lives in the Netherlands. Here is his gracious decline along with more expositions on his part, ‘do we have time to save Mother Earth’.

By Frank Thomas

Thank you for trying to reach me through the San Diego Free Press and John Lawrence.

I would much enjoy meeting with members of your pro-science club. But, unfortunately I live in the Netherlands where I’m actively engaged as a free-lance trainer/lecturer and writer. For some time now, I’ve have been researching and writing about macro-micro comparative U.S. and European economic, social, environmental issues. High on my and John Lawrence’s list has been the U.S. and world dependence on environmentally finite and polluting fossil fuel greenhouse gas emissions.

One respected researcher on climate change and Arctic greenhouse gas conditions is University of Utah Professor of Physics, Timothy J. Garrett. If you contact him, he may know colleagues in California who are well-informed on this carbon dioxide-methane intensive region. Prof. Garrett sees climate change as a fight between human beings and physics … where the physics of climate change becomes irreversibly deadly unless something is done IMMEDIATELY to drastically reduce GHG emissions worldwide.   [Read more…]

Sex in San Diego: Sugar Daddies Site Boasts California Colleges Among ‘Fastest Growing Sugar Baby Schools’ Thanks to Tuition Hikes

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By Amanda Marcotte / Alternet

Soaring tuition rates are causing a number of reactions from the public: concern for young people saddled with ever-growing debt, anger at governments for cutting back on education instead of taxing the rich appropriately, calls for system-wide reform to help restore America’s global competitiveness. But some see it as an opportunity to market sexual services to men who find the idea of college women in dire economic straights to be arousing.

The leading company in this market recently sent out a glowing press release — heavy with sexist, outdated terms like “coed” — applauding the explosion of desperate college students and letting its customers know that the pool of available sex workers had grown tremendously. It particularly recommended universities in California as a place where the market is flooded with young women who are willing to pretend to like having sex with you in exchange for the kind of financial relief that used to be the government’s responsibility.

For example, UC Berkley experienced a 67% growth and UC Davis experienced a 220% growth, earning them spots among the “Fastest Growing Sugar Baby Schools of 2012.”

  [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Looking Past the Sequester Blame Game

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The world as we know it will end in just nine days.

That’s about the only thing Democrats and Republicans agree about on the subject of the sequester, a kick-the-can-down-the-road budget deal that’s come due.

The GOP has decided to dig in their heels and allow billions in automatic cuts to domestic and Pentagon spending kick in March 1st. Their issue seems to be preventing the closing of tax loopholes mostly used by the very wealthy.

Democrats, led by President Obama, are taking to airwaves to warn of doom and gloom. Locally Congressman Scott Peters has led the charge, predicting dire economic impacts on jobs and basic government services.

 Today I’ll attempt to explore some of the notions surrounding this would-be fiscal Armageddon. I can’t claim to be non-partisan, nor do I want to be. But I know what bullshit smells like no matter what kind of bovine creature is dispensing it.   [Read more…]

Why Democrats and Republicans Are Both Wrong About the Economy

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The unemployment rate is 7.8%. Both parties agree that this is too high, but they propose totally different solutions to create more jobs. The Republican solution is to give more tax breaks and other advantages to the rich and to corporations because they are the job creators.

Really? Then why haven’t they created more jobs in the last 30 years. This historical experiment of “trickle down” economics has been tried since the time of Ronald Reagan and it has proven to be an abject failure. Yet Republicans are still pushing it as the solution to all our problems.

Esteemed Nobel laureate and Princeton professor Paul Krugman wants to take the traditional Keynesian approach and do deficit spending to improve the economy. He says there’s no reason to worry about the deficit since the US can borrow money at extremely low rates. Not to worry. He sides with Dick Cheney who famously said, “Deficits don’t matter.”

Cheney and Bush then went on to add trillions to the national debt by fighting two unpaid for wars, tax breaks for the rich and an unpaid for prescription drug benefit for seniors that was in reality a giveaway to the pharmaceutical companies. But now that a Democratic President is in office, Republicans are all worried about deficits. They should have been worried when George W Bush was doing the profligate spending.

However, I disagree with both Cheney and Krugman. Deficits do matter and here’s why:   [Read more…]

You Got to be Yourself, Jack (Looking at the Likes of 5 Hour Energy by Keeping it Real)

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I had a childhood buddy whose answer to all that we faced as growing boys, like how to hit on the girls and how to get Murray’s Pomade to turn our naps into waves or curls, was “You got to be yourself, Jack” which is old school for “Keeping it real.”

And I thought of my philosophical friend the other day as I watched a man on TV who said that he: played a round of golf; read a book while teaching himself to play guitar; ran 10 miles while knitting himself a sweater; jumped out of a plane; became a ping pong master while recording his, debut album, which he sings in an auto-tuned voice and then he says, “How you ask? 5 Hour Energy!”

The bit’s funny but, whoa, what is this fantasy really all about? The dude did everything but drop dead, which would have been real, and from a couple of articles I’ve read the product is alleged to have caused death. But the stuff sold to the tune of 1.3 billion dollars last year. Seems there are a ton of people not “being themselves.”   [Read more…]

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