San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

Still Only a Halfpipe Dream – Skate Parks for City Heights

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“I am here to reiterate to you the importance of investing in our youth, who are our future. Youth in the Mid-City area face many challenges of public safety, broken infrastructure, and inadequate services. They should not have to deal with cars, pedestrians, and cyclists when they are out skateboarding. They should be provided with a skate park to be active freely and safely. This is a commitment to them as individuals and citizens of our fair city. Recreation facilities and services need to be a priority and skate parks need to be made a reality for our communities…” Mark Tran, Mid-City CAN Youth Council, addressing the City City Council budget meeting 5/14/12

Mark Tran and the other speakers from Mid-City CAN left an impression on the council members. They also left an impression on those of us in the audience from all over the city who were advocating for the restoration of meaningful public services that have been cut over the past six years. The issue of a skate park immediately went onto my “worth fighting for and doable list.”   [Read more…]

San Diego Planning Commission to Vote July 19th on Power Plant Near Mission Trails Park

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The folks at the Save Mission Trails applaud the San Diego Planning Commissioners for their diligence and the votes which opposed initiation of regulation changes to site the Quail Brush power plant. One more vote is needed on July 19th, 9 AM at the Planning Commission (PC) Hearing to finalize their opposition.

County residents are asked to immediately step-up written notes of opposition by sending each a message to the San Dieog Planning Commission, San Diego City Council and the California Energy Commission (CEC). (See this sample message). Residents are asked to their thoughts about why open space in the Mission Trails Design District of East Elliot is too valuable to convert to industrial uses. The Mission Trails Task Force will also be considering this issue on July 19th at 1 PM.   [Read more…]

How Wall Street and London Bank Scandal Are Bankrupting California Cities

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Wall Street got bailed out. Cities got sold out. Federal policies keeping interest rates low are resulting in extracting wealth from cities and transferring it to Wall Street.

We blogged earlier about how traders from JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs descended on European cities such as Casino, Italy and even nunneries selling them interest rate swaps. Interest rate swaps were also responsible for bankrupting Jefferson County, the county seat of Birmingham, Alabama. Now the same big banks are bankrupting California cities. Stockton, San Bernadino and Mammoth Lakes have already gone down. Oakland is fighting Goldman for its very life.

But what does this have to do with the LIBOR scandal, you say? A lot, it turns out. LIBOR stands for the London Interbank Offered Rate, a benchmark that most other interest rates are tied to including interest rate swaps, the very derivative financial instruments that are now bankrupting California cities. The LIBOR scandal has failed to attract the interest of many Americans because it’s so “over there” in London. What does that have to do with us here in the US? The same interest rate swaps that JP Morgan Chase sold to nunneries in Europe, they’ve sold to Stockton and San Bernadino and Oakland and many other US cities, school districts, hospitals and perhaps even to a few US nunneries.
  [Read more…]

Immigration, Racism, and the Supreme Court

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By Marjorie Cohn
The issue of immigration has been tossed about like a political football for some time. Democrats argue that migrants who have spent many years in the United States should be permitted to apply for lawful status. Republicans criticize these proposals as “amnesty.” But Congress has been unable to agree on comprehensive immigration reform.

Three and one-half years into his term, President Obama announced on June 15 a policy to halt deportations for many undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children. They must be under age 30, have come to the United States when they were under age 16, have lived in the U.S. for at least five years, be either an honorably discharged veteran or a high school graduate, and have suffered no felony or “significant” misdemeanor convictions.

Ten days after Obama revealed his new program, the Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision on Arizona’s SB 1070. Arizona had enacted a repressive law aimed at “attrition [of undocumented immigrants] through enforcement.” Five other states followed suit and waited as the high court considered the constitutionality of Arizona’s law.

In a victory for those who support a humane immigration policy, the Court overturned three sections of SB 1070: Arizona cannot criminalize unlawful presence in the United States, or working without papers; and the decision to arrest someone for unlawful presence in the U.S. is solely a federal issue.  The Court made clear that the enforcement of immigration law is reserved to the federal government.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Sparked by Highway Deaths, Bike Riders Gathering in Balboa Park to Press City on Safety Issues

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July 17, 2012 – In the wake of seven cycling deaths during the past week in Southern California, including two San Diegans, local bikers are gathering on July 25th in Balboa Park to call attention to local conditions that make biking hazardous. Cyclists Theodore Jones and Angel Bojorquez, who were killed in collisions with vehicles in La Jolla and Rancho Santa Fe respectively, will be remembered at the 4pm gathering by the Balboa Park fountain. Cyclists will chalk outlines of bodies on adjacent sidewalks until 4:30 p.m. and then ride to City Hall.

This protest comes after an earlier event back in April, triggered by the deaths of cyclists David Ortiz and Chuck Gilbreth. Organizers want the city to answer and be held accountable for what they say are flawed roadway design and high speed limits. A Facebook page announcing the protest says the message is: “The people who are dying on our streets are not inexperienced or reckless bicyclists, they are careful, experienced riders who are dying from no fault of their own and we demand immediate action toward to goal of safer roads for all users”.  Cyclists are being encouraged to bring bells & whistles “so the City knows we are there”.
  [Read more…]

Is awareness of HIV enough?

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

July is National HIV Awareness Month. Increasing awareness is one of those concepts that has a nice noncontroversial quality, and there are all manner of things happening to that end. There’s the International AIDS Conference coming up July 22-27 in Washington, D.C., the paraders and booths that will populate PRIDE San Diego (July 20-22), even the sociable North County Connection ad in San Diego Gay & Lesbian News, which links to lots of HIV information.

But is awareness enough?

If you’re approaching 45 years or more, you might remember the discovery of AIDS in 1981 and its cause, HIV, shortly thereafter. Remember the controversies? Remember the panic? Remember the prejudice? Remember the deaths?

A lot of us lost loved ones — gay and straight — in the early days of HIV/AIDS awareness.

Then testing and treatment progressed, we learned more about the virus and its transmission — most commonly through anal or vaginal sex or sharing needles with an infected person — and a whole lot of us were more careful. We got tested regularly, we practiced safe sex, we insisted our partners get tested before we bedded them down.

Now a lot of us have loved ones — gay and straight — who are living long lives with HIV treatment, having families even.

So, is awareness enough?   [Read more…]

You Can’t Outsource the Real Work – Living Simply

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Recently, I had the great pleasure of visiting a Buddhist monastery to do a walking meditation on a luminous summer morning. It was a beautiful experience but what struck me afterward was how quickly even many of those bent on being here now reached for their cell phones to check their text messages or play Angry Birds. As charmingly ironic as this is, it is also a perfect manifestation of what most ails us. We just can’t stop working/amusing ourselves to death.

Not too long after my encounter with the texting Buddhists, I came upon an illustrative article in the Travel section of the New York Times entitled “Call Waiting: ‘It’s Me, Vacation’: Can’t Let Go? Eight Rules for Getting the Most Out of Your Time Off” by Matt Richtel. Richtel’s article starts with the story of a failed vacation that left him “exhausted, defeated, and irritable” rather than refreshed and at peace. He then turns to the wisdom of neuroscientists, behavior experts, and business executives to learn that “letting go” is something you have to “practice on a daily basis.”   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Food Fight! Farm Bill Leaves People Hungry, Animals Hurting

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July 16, 2012 –The House Agriculture Committee approved legislation late last week that will cut $35 billion from the federal food and nutrition budget, about $16.5 billion of which come from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — more commonly known as SNAP or food stamps. The cuts work by eliminating “categorical eligibility,” which provides assistance to families whose assets or income put them slightly above the technical line for SNAP eligibility. Repealing categorical eligibility means that between two and three million Americans will lose access to food stamps and roughly 280,000 children will drop out of their automatic enrollment in the free lunch program at school. SNAP assistance saved five million American from poverty in 2010 and halved the number of children in poverty in 2011.

Bowing to pressure from agribusiness combines, the House Agriculture Committee also approved an amendment that will deny states the ability to regulate any farm product, overturning animal welfare, food safety and environmental laws related to any farm product in all 50 states. The midnight vote, at the end of a marathon debate on the five year agriculture measure, would block California’s ban on the sale and production of foie gras, and a voter approved measure requiring that caged veal calves, breeding sows and laying chickens should be able to stand up, lie down, turn around and freely extend their limbs. Also gone will be state laws that limit pesticide use on fruits and vegetables.   [Read more…]

Nuclear Dread on Both Sides of the Pacific – Japan and San Onofre

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By Michael Steinberg

For those of an apocalyptic bent, the beginning of the final half of 2012 was near perfect.

True, the walls didn’t all come tumbling down, though those retaining the spent nuclear fuel pool atop Fukushima Unit 4 were bulging. But the signs seemed to be everywhere, from the eastern shores of Japan to the west coast of California.

The most widely reported such event was the July 1 restart of a Japanese commercial nuclear power reactor at the Ohi nuclear plant. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda pushed for this restart, despite a massive protest in front of his office in Tokyo only days before. Digital Journal reported that 200,000 protested there on June 29   [Read more…]

San Diego’s Mayoral Race, Part Three: Sex, Lies and Video Tape

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By Norma Damashek / NumbersRunner
Political suicide is not an acceptable option. There are billionaire puppeteers on the national scene who groomed Carl DeMaio to be their “vehicle,” their instrument for a right-wing takeover ofSan Diego. The Koch brothers are alter egos of Te and Do…Bo and Peep…The Two…. As they say in my birthplace, fuggedaboudit.

There are big-business/ downtownSan Diegointerests who believe they can keep Carl DeMaio in check… reined in… serving their interests… doing their bidding. It’s a delusional fantasy. He’s got richer, more powerful masters to please.

There are sincere and good people in San Diego who cry out for meaningful pension reform and mistakenly believe that Carl DeMaio can take them to the “next level.” His message is untrue. His true agenda is not reforming but dismantling public institutions of government. It’s a new-age form of anarchy.   [Read more…]

Deporting the Hand That Feeds Us: How Anti-Immigrant Laws Are Causing a Farm Labor Shortage

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If Americans won’t do the work, and the U.S. successfully keeps undocumented immigrants out of the country, then who will do it?

AlterNet / By Jill Richardson 
While researching her 2012 book The American Way of Eating, journalist Tracie McMillan decided to try her hand at picking grapes, sorting peaches and cutting garlic. The experience resulted in heatstroke, tendonitis and long-term damage to her right arm. In only one job – sorting peaches – was she paid minimum wage. That was also the only job where her employer was aware she was an undercover journalist. She left two jobs rather quickly, but stuck with the garlic job for six weeks until she literally could not use her right arm for anything and she became worried she might permanently damage it.

The harsh conditions and poor pay for farmwork are nothing new in American history. Before Mexicans worked on America’s large farms, the U.S. used a different group of immigrants: slaves from Africa and their descendants.
  [Read more…]

San Diego’s Mayoral Race, Part Two: Sex, Lies, and Videotape

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By Norma Damashek / NumbersRunner

For the past few years the man who would be San Diego’s highest elected official has been leading a bifurcated life.

In public, Carl DeMaio remains a populist avatar of fiscal rectitude and righteous tea-party values.   In private, DeMaio is now the live-in mate of the publisher of San Diego Gay and Lesbian News and SD Pix magazine.  This partner is a controversial and successful videographer and photo cataloguer of social and party events in the gay community, a go-to man.

This is not a casual relationship.  Carl DeMaio and his partner have shared ‘promise rings.’  They share DeMaio’s home in Rancho Bernardo.   [Read more…]

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