San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

The Starting Line – San Diego’s Mayoral Contest: It Was a Bad Day for Carl DeMaio

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Echoes for DeMaio*….It was a tough night for City Councilman Carl DeMaio. After weeks of outreach and publicity about reaching out for the Latino vote in San Diego’s Mayoral contest, his expedition into Barrio Logan last night was a bust. Despite DeMaio’s web site’s boast that “The Latino Community is uniting behind Carl DeMaio’s vision for jobs and quality schools!”  the ‘Latinos for DeMaio’ event had exactly three voters show up. There were, however, six people who did appear on site to protest his appearance. *(h/t to John Lamb for coining the term ‘Echos for DeMaio’)

The event was catered for fifty. (Crackers, chips and salsa) Candidate DeMaio muttered a few words about his campaign for ‘reform’ winning one voter at a time and left. The protesters moved in and helped themselves to the candidate’s ‘spread’. This venture into the world of voters south of Interstate 8 comes on the heels of much ballyhooed moves by the DeMaio campaign to appeal to voters in San Diego’s less white-bread neighborhoods.

The City Councilman’s campaign kicked off the month with the announcement that former ‘Democratic’ chair Art Castañares had signed on with the campaign as a consultant. Castañares was quoted as saying “I look forward to helping Carl deliver that message to communities throughout San Diego who may not have heard his message before.”  Although the local mainstream media jumped on the news of a former Democrat joining a GOP campaign, word soon leaked out that his association with local dem party efforts had ended more than a decade earlier.

This move the was followed a few days later by the announcement that ‘Latino advocate’ K.B. Forbes had signed on as Communications Director for the DeMaio campaign. The press release announcing his arrival quoted candidate DeMaio saying: “Besides his work in public policy, K.B. has been a leading consumer advocate helping Latinos fight fraud and abuse. I am pleased to have a seasoned communications strategist and accomplished Latino activist on our team.” Forbes made the news earlier this week for having a meltdown in front of the media during which he accused opponent Bob Filner of being a “bold (sic) faced liar”.
  [Read more…]

Field of View: OB Farmers Market

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I arrived at the Farmers Market in Ocean Beach a little late, but there was still plenty to see and taste. The sinking sun set Newport Avenue aglow, and there was quite the bustling of activity even as vendors slowly began to close up shop.

The Farmers Market runs from 4 to 8 p.m. during the summer and 4 to 7 p.m. during the winter every Wednesday. It takes place on Newport Avenue between Cable and Bacon streets.

All photos by Annie Lane.   [Read more…]

The San Diego Public Market – A Force for Good (Food) Rising in Barrio Logan

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It’s a project that many would say, for a city of San Diego’s size and agricultural abundance, is one long overdue.

By John P Anderson

UDATE: 10:15AM- The San Diego Public Market has surpassed its fundraising goal.

The Barrio Logan neighborhood, just on the south side of Downtown San Diego, has a history similar to Little Italy, just on the north side of downtown. Both communities were severely damaged by the construction of Interstate 5 in the early 1970s. In the case of Barrio Logan, the Interstate construction lead to the creation of Chicano Park as a protest response to the development of the highway and damage done to the community as a result.   [Read more…]

The Big Little Fire That Never Was

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Returning from my much-ballyhooed drive out to El Centro on Tuesday – August 14th – I saw a wild fire that concerned me, but what I found out about it the next day disturbed me even more.

Driving out of downtown El Centro and hitting the freeway, I saw what looked like a tan plume of dust near Ocotillo – the tiny town on the edge of the desert. Oh, great, I thought, I might have to drive through a desert dust storm.

But as my rental car hurtled west on the Kumeyaay Highway with the a.c. nearly at full-blast, I could see that the dust storm was really smoke coming out of an area south of I-8 up in the mountains – not that near Ocotillo at all.

As I approached the mountains and began the climb up the steep incline, it was obvious that the brown-gray-white smoke was a wild fire up in the very rugged mountains, the eastern side of the terrain – south of the freeway – .
  [Read more…]

The Starting Line — Ecuador Grants Assange Asylum; British May Arrest Him Anyway

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A showdown is developing in London at the embassy of Equador, which this morning granted asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The British government has told Ecuador that its orders to extradite Assange to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning in a sexual assualt case, would override any asylum order. Police gathered outside the embassy in London last night, and there was rampant speculation that they were preparing to enter the building and seize him. A videographer live streaming the event was hit with a sudden Denial of Service (DDoS) attack over the internet, shutting down coverage and fueling the rumors.

WikiLeaks supporters point out that Assange has not been charged with any offense and  Sweden has a bilateral agreement with the United States which would allow it to surrender Julian Assange without going through the traditional tests and standards of regular, lengthy ’extradition’ procedures. Emails hacked from the Stratfor security firm reveal that a sealed indictment against the WikiLeaks founder was issued by a secret grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia last year.   [Read more…]

Bad Boys With Terrible Judgment

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By Norma Damashek / NumbersRunner

Dog days of summer — they’re scorchers.

Not quite like the old days when sweaty families uncapped the corner fire hydrants to cool off with communal dousings.

If you haven’t seen it on TV news you can read about last Saturday night’s ‘happening’ in Balboa Park here.  This was no spontaneous event.  Rather, it was a vigorously-publicized invitational extravaganza to entice thousands of unchaperoned, unsupervised, unpermitted revelers to come on out and wreak some mindless havoc on a landmark piece of public property.  “Load your guns,” broadcasts a Facebook page (now expunged) “and join us for the 2nd Annual Midnight Water Gun Fight in Balboa Park!”   [Read more…]

Our Poetry Place – WMD

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WMD

In countries

where people read

 

A writer

would rot in prison

for burning his president in prose

in the land that manufactured Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

remote-controlled drones   [Read more…]

Sex In San Diego: The War on Pubic Hair Must End

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KevinMD.com / Emily Gibson

I must have missed the declaration of war on pubic hair.

It must have happened sometime in the last decade because the amount of time, energy, money and emotion both genders spend on abolishing every hair from their genitals is astronomical. The genital hair removal industry, including medical professionals who advertise their specialty services to those seeking the “clean and bare” look, is exponentially growing.

But why pick on the lowly pubic hair? A few sociological theories suggest it has to do with cultural trends spawned by bikinis and thongs, certain hairless actors and actresses, a desire to return to childhood, a misguided attempt at hygiene or being more attractive to a partner. Surely human beings are not so naïve as to be susceptible to fashion trends and biases.   [Read more…]

San Diego For Free – The New Children’s Museum

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SD For Free- 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.

 
The New Children’s Museum is a great place to take young children and thanks to sponsorship from Target, the museum is free to all the second Sunday of every month.  The free day for August was during the past weekend, August 12th, but mark your calendars in advance for September 9th to take advantage of this great free family outing.   [Read more…]

COURTS: Lawsuit says press credentials issued by SDPD violate First Amendment

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Ramona Videographer Thinks As Himself As a Watchdog – Police Think Otherwise But They Issue Press Passes

By Brandon Lowrey / North County Times / August 14, 2012

A Connecticut-based news agency is suing San Diego city and county officials in federal court, claiming that press credentials issued by the San Diego Police Department violate the First Amendment.   [Read more…]

Has President Obama Lost the Black Women’s Vote?

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By Carolyn Zellander

Recently, I had an interesting conversation with an acquaintance; she asked me if I would join a group called “Black Women for Obama“. I said “Why black women, why not ‘Women for Obama?’ What is the distinction?”

She said “Obama lost black women with that gay marriage endorsement, and they will not be voting for him in this election.”

About this time, I am really becoming intrigued with that statement, as I personally thought it was about time he stepped up to the plate and acknowledged that constitutional rights are not just for the heterosexual. Nevertheless, she felt it was a slip-up on his part. I said that was no slip-up on the part of the President. You see Mr. Obama knows on which side to butter his political bread. The LBGT community is a growing and important constituency and besides it was just the right thing to do.

She continued, “You know homosexuality is a sin don’t you? It is in the Bible.”   [Read more…]

The Starting Line — Veterans Group to Start Weekly Vigil on Domestic Predator Drone Use Outside General Atomics Poway Location

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Say ‘no’ to Predators overhead… Tomorrow, Thursday, August 16th, San Diego Veterans for Peace will begin a weekly vigil at the General Atomics plant in Poway, where the Predator Drone is built. The goal of this series of demonstrations is to get people thinking about the threat drones present to American liberties.  Congress has passed legislation mandating that the Federal Aviation Administration create a comprehensive program for the integration of drone technology into the national air space by 2015. The agency is predicting that there will be 30,000 drones crisscrossing the skies of America by 2020.

San Diego Veterans for Peace is concerned that the melding of law enforcement with Homeland Security is producing the basis for a big brother state. Certainly there has been little to no public discourse about the implications of the ability of local law enforcement agencies sending drones to look in our back yards or bedroom windows, streaming the video to people unknown, without our permission. What could be a powerful tool for crime fighting could easily become an easily abused loophole that negates the Fourth Amendment. Sadly, the track record of law enforcement agencies utilizing technologies developed for combat use in domestic situations is very poor.   [Read more…]

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