San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

San Onofre Layoffs: Latest Sign of Nuke Plant’s Demise

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By Michael Steinberg / Blackrain Press

Monday’s notice that San Onofre’s owners are laying off 730 workers—one third of the workforce—is yet another indication of a nuclear power plant in severe distress.

Both formerly operating reactors have been shut down since January due to revelations that key components called steam generators had rapidly and largely turned into junk. In following months promises of restart from the company have repeatedly been pushed back.

On July 31 Huff Post LA reported that this crisis had cost the plant “at least $165 million” at that point. This figure consisted of “$48 million for inspection and maintenance costs” and $117 million “to buy replacement power.”   [Read more…]

The Starting Line — The DeMaio Campaign: Today San Diego, Tomorrow California?

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Moving on up… Could it be the Carl DeMaio is using the race for the Mayor’s office in San Diego as a stepping stone for bigger things? If last night’s Orange County fundraiser was any indication, the answer is yes. Let’s start with DeMaio’s own website’s description of the Newport Beach event, billed by some as a chance to show their support for the “next Scott Walker”, as in Scott Walker, the Wisconsin Governor who’s become a hero to conservatives around the country:

 DeMaio has been leading the “reform movement” in San Diego for years and is the author of the groundbreaking Comprehensive Pension Reform ballot measure. After cleaning up San Diego’s fiscal crisis, DeMaio is turning his focus on job creation and state-wide reform.

 Want to get reform in California? Then support Carl DeMaio as the “reformer with results” who is achieving fiscal reform and economic opportunity not only in San Diego, but articulating a vision for reform in California!!

 The emailed flyer for the event billed him as “State leader to cut pensions”. His hosts included Republican National Committee member Shawn Steele, Orange County GOP Chairman Scott Baugh, Flash Report publisher Jon Fleischman, Inland Energy honcho Buck James, and Lincoln Club Vice Chair Wayne Lindholm. It was a heavyweight group of supporters; Baugh actually brought Scott Walker to OC last year. Given that none of his hosts have any vested interests in San Diego, and are all considered big time players at the State level, it seems pretty clear that Carl DeMaio is being groomed for bigger and better things.

We have to wonder how the “swing” voters in San Diego would react if he was campaigning locally as the next Scott Walker, whose popularity with Koch/SuperPAC set might be off-putting to those who are of the less-than-true blue conservative pursuation.   [Read more…]

Movie Review : ‘Killer Joe’ and the SOL Underclass

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By Frances O’Neill Zimmerman

While I’m worrying about the disconnect between Paul Ryan’s beautiful blue eyes and baby face and his flinty role as Mitt Romney’s Slasher in Chief for every single American social, medical and educational program, I turned last night for solace to the Landmark Hillcrest Cinema and sexy, handsome, cool Matthew McConaughey in “Killer Joe.” I recommend it if you need a break from Mittens and his new hatchet man.

This is an incredibly violent, funny, and very dark film. It’s rated NC-17 for everything — did I mention violence? — but “Killer Joe” is really a perfect movie for our times. It provides as shocking a view of the SOL underclass in this country as I can remember, more powerful than the great dystopian “Blade Runner” from back in the ’80’s. That was sci-fi: this is 2012.   [Read more…]

Media Hacks: Why Our National Press Corps Is Failing the Public Abysmally

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You want a serious debate about the issues? Good luck!

It’s hard to imagine a greater irony than our political press, obsessed as it is with process stories, dubiously sourced rumors and trivial fluff, lamenting the fact that we can’t have a “serious national debate.”

Consider what may be the funniest lede in this cycle so far: “The elevated presidential campaign of ideas, fleetingly achieved after months of mudslinging, died Tuesday,” wrote Reid Epstein. “It was three days old.” Epstein went on to catalog all of the mean things the two campaigns were saying about each other, as if this is an election year or something.
  [Read more…]

Where Oh Where Have My Neighbors Gone? Redevelopment, Gentrification and Displacement in City Heights

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Perhaps what we call “diverse” communities are those that haven’t reached equilibrium, but are in the process of changing… Is there a stable equilibrium of genuine integration in this country?
Chris Hayes Up With Chris HayesJune 17, 2012

Before the housing bubble finally burst in 2008, taking the economy with it, the conversion of often aging rental housing stock to condominiums had been proceeding full bore. City Heights, ripe territory for sub-prime mortgages, attracted its share of condominium investments. To first time home buyers of limited income, these City Heights condo conversions offered a last chance for “affordable” home ownership, with units advertised in the mid to high $200,000 range.

One such condo conversion occurred across the street from me. The original 16 unit apartments, consisting of two long buildings of eight units each, were set back from the street with curb cut parking in the front and minimal landscaping in the Huffman architectural style. The owner spent little if anything on the external upkeep of the building. Like many parts of City Heights, the apartments looked like not much thought was given to them beyond their utility in providing the most basic level of habitability.   [Read more…]

How to lie, cheat, and steal your way to elected office

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Republicans embark on an unprecedented campaign of dishonesty and deceit.

So this is what it’s come down to. Republicans can’t win on the merits of their policy ideas, so they have to resort to deliberate and systematic deception in order to win. And people are buying into it like the fools they are. In fact, that’s what Republicans are counting on: That the voters are uninformed dolts that don’t pay attention to detail and swallow the hook of convenient sound bites that fit their ideology, accepting them without question.

Start with the fact that Republican claims of grave concern over the economy. The truth is that they revel in the slow economic recovery because they think it’s good for them politically. As long as the economy is still languishing, they can simply blame it on President Obama and spin it into political gold for them. The truth is that they have no interest in seeing the economy improve until they can reclaim control of both houses of Congress and the White House, if even then.   [Read more…]

Cafe Coyote Disappoints

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Four of us from my support group had tickets to see “Man of La Mancha” Sunday, August 19, 2012 at the Cygnet Theatre. (Thanks to Ro who ushers at the theater and is paid in “vouchers” for performances.) We decided to go early to find a parking place and then have lunch before the play. We arrived at 12:30pm and had no trouble parking in the little lot attached to the Cygnet. Everyday in Old Town is a parking/eating nightmare, but Sunday has to be the worst.   [Read more…]

Pondering the Definition of a Green Leaf

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 (Thoughts About Jerry Brown and Proposition 30)

I treasure such images as the one I saw earlier on this hot San Diego Monday morning: the vision of a nice number of San Diego City College students walking down hill in front of the B Building on their campus, heading for some trees for shade to listen to their governor, Jerry Brown, speak at a Press Conference regarding Propositon 30 – an initiative designed to raise as much money as possible to arrest the slow death of our schools. Their schools.
Nothing inspires more hope in me regarding the future of our species than seeing young people rising to remodel their world for the better. I hope that’s their intent, getting out there and talking to as many friends and family and others in their community as they can about how Proposition 30 is one of the most important proposals of our time, about how the learning needs of our children and young people or any active learner, for that matter, should be among our highest priorities as a state.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – The Huge Impact of the Republican Medicare Plan in the San Diego Area; It Ain’t Pretty

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Sorry, gang, I’m taking a day off today. I had a little medical “procedure” yesterday, and need to take a day off from typing. I’ll be back tomorrow. In the meantime, I hope you’ve got a rather large cuppa joe at your side, because I’m sharing a report issued by the Democratic Staff of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce that details just what the “Republican Budget” has in mind for seniors and people with disabilities who happen to live in the San Diego area.

The budget passed by House Republicans in April 2011 makes radical changes to Medicare. The Republican plan raises costs for seniors and individuals with disabilities enrolled in Medicare, reduces their benefits, and puts private insurance companies in charge of the program.  For current beneficiaries, important benefits – such as closing the hole in  Medicare’s drug coverage – would be immediately eliminated.  For individuals age 54 and under, Medicare’s guarantee of comprehensive coverage would be replaced with a “voucher” or “premium support” to buy private health insurance.  By design, this federal contribution does not keep pace with medical costs, shifting thousands of dollars in costs onto the individual.

This analysis shows the immediate and long-term impacts of these changes in the San Diego metro area.  The Republican proposal would have adverse impacts on seniors and disabled individuals in the region who are currently enrolled in Medicare.   [Read more…]

Please Stop with the War Memorials!

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By Dave Patterson

Recently I have been reading about the need to better the existing, or build more war memorials. I disagree that we need more or better memorials. In fact I believe that we already have too many Veterans memorials and I will argue that we need to remove some of the ones we already have. And yes, we can do so while still honoring our Veterans.

There are a lot of war monuments in Washington D.C. where Mr. Scruggs points our thoughts. There are war memorials specific to the military branches. There are statues of tired soldiers, flaming swords and waves and dolphins and fountains and granite obelisks and walls with tens of thousands of names of U.S. killed. There are salutes to those that served, and those that were injured and those that died, and those that loaded the bombs or dropped them, and those that slogged through the snow or jungle being killed and maimed while killing people that were defending their homeland against us.   [Read more…]

Interview : Author Selden Edwards Talks About Time Travel and Time Dislocation

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By Kit-Bacon Gressitt / Excuse Me, I’m Writing

Native Californian Selden Edwards is a born teacher, a convenient fact for a lifelong educator, Edwards’ career until his 2003 retirement. Except he didn’t stop teaching, not after the novel manuscript he had nurtured for 30 years became, in his supposed retirement, a 2008 best-selling novel — “The Little Book,” a story of time travel that carries protagonist Wheeler Burden from 1988 California to 1897 Vienna. Neither did Edwards stop teaching with his second novel, a sequel set in 1918, called “The Lost Prince,” from which he will be reading Friday at Warwick’s in La Jolla.

Even a recent phone interview — and a lively, fast-paced interview it was — turned into an enthusiastic introduction to the United States’ Progressive Era, a brief overview of existential individualism, and a synopsis of the Gilded Age. It seemed a natural and perfectly entertaining teaching opportunity, as are his novels.   [Read more…]

Feminists Deliver a Big Can of Whoop Ass to Todd Akin

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For those of you who missed it over the weekend, Rep. Akin, who is running for Senate against the incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill, was asked whether or not he believed abortion should be legal in the case of rape or incest. He said:

Well you know, people always want to try to make that as one of those things, well how do you, how do you slice this particularly tough sort of ethical question. First of all, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.

But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.

So here’s a roundup of comments about Republican Voodoo Vaginomics from around the blogosphere.   [Read more…]

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