San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

Sex In San Diego: Who Gets to Say Vanilla Is Boring?

by

by Catherine Scott/Bitch Magazine

If we bemoan the oversexualization of culture, should we also be concerned about the kinkification of culture? As BDSM blogger Clarisse Thorn writes, “Being a sex-positive feminist, I worry that other women will read my work and it will increase their performance anxiety … that it will lead other women to feel like, ‘gosh, is this something liberated sex-positive women do? Is this something I should be doing?”. Thanks to a prescriptive media, the competition to be having the most out-there, kinky, freaky, dirty sex keeps escalating, with “Ultimate Perv” engraved on the winner’s medal. Fantastic if you’re antsy to compete, but what if you’re just not into all that stuff? What if you think you secretly might be…[whisper it, now!]…vanilla?

One of the reasons I didn’t dare join a fetish community website, or go to a play party, ’til years after I was first curious about BDSM, was a subconscious sense that I was probably “too vanilla.” I didn’t dress head-to-toe in latex or own any seven-inch heels, and I didn’t take my partner down to the local shops on a dog leash. I’ve since realized that the scene is open to anyone who feels their sexual tastes land outside the mainstream—there’s no test you have to pass. However, by labelling every non-kinky person as effectively the same, is the BDSM community just as judgmental as those who judge us?   [Read more…]

Companies You Need to Avoid That are Giving Money to Stop Proposition 37 (GMO Labeling)

by

The next time you take a swig of Odwalla’s Organic Carrot Juice, or munch on a bowl of Orville Redenbacher’s Organic popcorn, take note: A lot of popular organic and all-natural brands are made by companies that are spending thousands of dollars to defeat Proposition 37, the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act.

Donations are pouring into the campaign to defeat Prop 37. Among the big donors are companies like J.M. Smucker, Hormel Foods, Kellogg Co., Coca-Cola North America and PepsiCo. – companies that make a fortune marketing ‘natural’ and organic brands with slogans like “We’re good to the earth.”

All of these companies are members of the powerful Washington, DC-based Grocery Manufacturer’s Association (GMA), a multi-billion-dollar trade association which represents America’s $1.2 trillion “Big Food” industry. The GMA itself has already pitched in $375,000 to the anti-labeling campaign. And it’s still early in the game.
  [Read more…]

Looking Into Google News: A Week’s Worth

by

by Bob Dorn

Like the news industry on which it depends, Google News is a big, sprawling mess. There’s little consistency in what it chooses to emphasize hour by hour, day by day, week to week. But, lurking not far beneath Google’s aggravating, aggregated news site is the larger industry’s basic conservatism.

This year Google News intensely chased, first, the Romney/GOP nomination, and secondly the Romney vs. Obama mini‐series as slavishly as the news industry itself did ‐‐ not saying much given the fact that Google News doesn’t originate stories; it reprints them. The media’s obsessive preoccupation with Romney began to sag by mid‐summer along with his polls. But then the August 11th nomination of Paul Ryan by the Romney gave the national press corps something to believe in again, sending them hyperventilating down to Florida to cover Ryan‐‐ “the next president of the United States,” in the Romney world – where the new guy appeared with his mother at campaign stops ‐‐ a kind of Immaculate Perception that gripped the media as if something had happened.

Then the Missouri man, Todd Akin, took the top spot away from the Romney/Ryan and Obama.   [Read more…]

San Diego for Free – Salk Institute for Biological Studies – An Architectural Gem Nestled Above the Pacific

by

 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.

Neighborhood & Address:  Torrey Pines Mesa; 10010 North Torrey Pines Road, San Diego, CA 92037

Best For: Architecture students and fans

Hours: 8:30 – 17:00 daily, closed holidays

Free Hours: Free guided tour Monday through Friday at 12:00,  online registration required.  Visitors are also welcome to explore public areas on their own during regular hours.

Website: http://www.salk.edu/

Just south of the famed Torrey Pines Golf Course lies the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.  The institute was created in 1960 by Jonas Salk, developer of the polio vaccine.  Salk wanted to build on the success of the polio vaccine and create a institute to increase knowledge of biology and a unique, inspiring environment for researchers to work in.  Today the research at the Salk Institute is focused on molecular biology and genetics, neurosciences, and plant biology.  Over 50 years after being created, the Salk Institute continues to build on past successes.  As described by Jonas Salk:  “The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more.”
  [Read more…]

San Diego’s morphing water policy

by

by George J. Janczyn / Groksurf’s San Diego / August 28, 2012

The San Diego City Council has been working on a comprehensive water policy for several years. While incremental developments have been sporadically reported in the news media, it’s easy to lose the thread, so here’s a backgrounder.

In late 2010, anticipating an eventual announcement that the drought was officially over, then San Diego City Councilmember Donna Frye proposed that the city’s temporary Drought Response Level 2 restrictions on water use be made permanent, rather than be discontinued.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line — Reporter Assaulted by Goons at Mission Valley Hilton Press Conference Exposing Mistreatment of Employees

by

Mission Valley mayhem… A press conference being held yesterday by the Employee Rights Center to air charges that the hotel’s operator, Connecticut-based HEI Hospitality, had been named in a complaint alleging wage theft totaling approximately $250,000, was disrupted by loud music apparently at the direction of hotel management.

Reporter Dave Rice, whose account of the incident is online at the SDReader, found the source of the noise behind a hedge over a hundred feet from the presser. Photographs published with the story clearly demonstrate the Hotel’s involvement:

When I walked around the corner to ascertain the source of the music, I found two men next to a limousine with large speakers aimed at the crowd and a power cord leading back toward the hotel….   [Read more…]

A Review of “An Iliad” – A Reimagined Classic

by

“An Iliad” – A Reimagined Classic
La Jolla Playhouse
2910 La Jolla Village Drive
La Jolla, CA 92037

A Review …and …. events leading up to the play … and after.

This “dating game” that I am playing sure has many twists and turns. I met a man on-line Saturday and he told me he had tickets to see “An Iliad” the following day, Sunday. He asked me if I would like to go. I said sure. We agreed to talk to each other Sunday morning, and finalize the plans.

I called him around 10:15am and we agreed to meet at the box office at 1:30pm for the 2:00pm matinee. In the course of our conversation he asked me what I would be wearing. I told him I didn’t know yet; it depended on the weather. He informed me that he hoped I would not be wearing anything “frumpy” because he didn’t like frumpy women. He said that many of the older women he has met already have “one foot in the grave, and are not aware of how they look.” He is 65. He asked me if I was overweight or fat. Hmmm. I told him I was overweight. He said, “so am I.”

I arrived at the playhouse at 1:20pm and called his cell phone to let him know I was there. He said he was on La Jolla Village Drive and would be there in just a few minutes. He said he was wearing a white hat.   [Read more…]

Paul Ryan: Will Swap Unborn Babies for Vice Presidency

by

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt / Excuse Me, I’m Writing / Published Aug. 25, 2012

Less than two weeks after joining Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign as the GOP’s presumptive vice presidential candidate, U.S. Congressman Paul Ryan has publicly confirmed his erstwhile inner opportunist.

Ryan, who is “very proud of [his] pro-life record,” was faced with a choice between the dangling prize of the vice presidency and remaining true to the source of his pridefulness. Lo and behold, Ryan is surprisingly pro-choice, albeit in a 1-percent sort of way.

Ryan chose to abandon his 100-percent rating from the National Right to Life Committee (a rating based partially on his rejection of abortion ban exceptions for rape and incest), to jump on board the Romney presidential campaign, which, at least for the moment,* supports an abortion ban with exceptions for rape, incest and threat to a mother’s life.   [Read more…]

Still Loving San Diego and Its Children After 50 years

by

Looking at a picture of me on stage at the Lyceum Theatre, honoring a couple of girls who had written a remarkable play, I couldn’t help but reflect on my fifty year love affair with San Diego and its children – going back regarding the city to when I first laid eyes on the place, after flying here with my University of Arizona Wildcat basketball team back in the 50’s. The raw beauty I observed on the ride from the Grant Hotel through Balboa Park on what was then 395 (now 163) absolutely mesmerized me. So it was easy for me, after earning a couple of degrees, to leave the burning deserts of the Old Pueblo and head to a town where there existed cool ocean breezes.

I arrived in a rusty 49 ford with my mother at my side because she was afraid I would fall asleep on the drive. My wife and kids had preceded us by a couple of days.   [Read more…]

National Democratic Leaders Highlight Importance of San Diego Elections, Fall Short in their Support

by

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer appears in San Diego to support Scott Peters in Congressional race–UPDATED

Did you hear that Steny Hoyer was in town last week? My guess is probably not since it received very little coverage, if any. But yes, the second most powerful Democrat in the House of Representatives—second behind San Francisco’s Nancy Pelosi—was in San Diego last week to drum up support for Scott Peters in his run to unseat Republican incumbent Brian Bilbray. On Friday I had the opportunity to participate in a media availability with the Congressman from Maryland; a chance to get an idea from someone who represents the national Democratic Party just exactly what their plans are for the local races.

“This is a critical race for us,” Hoyer said about the Peters-Bilbray matchup.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Mission Valley Hotel Workers Allege Unlawful Treatment; Father of Prop 8 DUI Busted (Updated)

by

Hotel employees blow the whistle… Employees at the Hilton Mission Valley will speak at a press conference today, detailing claims that they have filed against HEI Hospitality, owner of the property, for nearly a quarter million dollars in lost wages with the State Labor Commissioner. The event, scheduled for noon in front of the Hilton, will be hosted by Alor Calderon of the Employee Rights Center and Rabbi Laurie Coskey, Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice.

  [Read more…]

Banned by the Pros: Reuters News Succumbs to Digital Randomness

by

By Bob Dorn

Banned. That’s the word Reuters used back in March – March 20 of this year, it was ‐‐ when their pop‐up popped up just after I’d clicked the SUBMIT button. POW!! “We’re sorry, you’ve been banned from our comment posts,” they said, or words like those. Imagine seeing that word, BANNED, in a sentence bearing your name. Would a banning from a news organization show up on your credit
rating? During an investigation of your CV by a prospective employer? If you were under the age of 18 would Reuters reach out and tell your parents about the banning?   [Read more…]

©2010-2017 SanDiegoFreePress.org

Code is Poetry