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The Starting Line – This is What Winning Looks Like

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Yesterday was the day that the seeds planted by a majority of voters just a month ago began to show signs of bearing fruit.  Here in San Diego we saw a changing of the guard at City Hall. In Washington DC, although newly elected representatives have yet to be sworn in, there were significant moves in terms of influential committee assignments that could well portend a less fractious 114th Congress.

Speaking at yesterday’s inauguration, incoming Mayor Bob Filner gave the overflow crowd at the Balboa Club a couple of clear signals that perhaps things will be different in City Hall.

“The day of vilification of city workers is over.”

“Neighborhoods are the heart and soul of the city,” he said. “They define its character.”

Much more inside!   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – North Park Shooting Prompted by Death Wish

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It seemed like a nightmare in the making for residents of North Park on Saturday night. A man in a camouflage suit wandered about near the intersection of Louisiana and University Aves. firing a rifle.

I was headed down University Avenue on my way to get a pizza not long after it happened. The street was completely blocked off; there were enough flashing lights going off so that it was immediately clear this was no traffic stop or disturbing the peace call.

I live in North Park. For all of its ups and downs as a hipster neighborhood (at least that’s what Forbes calls it) it’s a pretty safe place to live. Whatever was going on here was obviously more than the delayed conclusion of a bar fight.

It didn’t take long, via Twitter, to find out the reason for the commotion: a man carrying a rifle had been shot by police.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – The Moral Bankruptcy of Bridgepoint Education/Ashford University

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One of San Diego larger private employers, Ashford University/Bridgepoint Education, announced layoffs for 450 employees yesterday, a move that’s bound to send ripples throughout the region. Employees were told to come in early, shown a video and offered a two-week severance package. Then it was out the door.

The aftermath of past corporate disintegrations brought on by unsustainable business models (or a legal/quasi-legal ponzi scheme, as I like to call it) has been a sort of local amnesia in the news media, followed by admonitions from the UT’s editorial page that “too much regulation” is bad for business. At the bottom of this well of malevolent corporate behavior is the ultimate reality that we citizens will get stuck with the bill for damages while most of its perpetrators will walk away unscathed.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line — Study Paints a Stark Picture of Economic Reality in San Diego

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An analysis released yesterday by the Center for Policy Initiatives based on recently released census data shows more than a third of San Diego County residents are living with economic hardships. The report says that across most industries in San Diego County, the spending power of the average paycheck is dropping, with inflation-adjusted earnings decreasing in 10 of the region’s 15 largest industries, compared to 2007, and more people falling into poverty in last year.
Other Stories in Starting Line Today: The Art of Park(ing) Day, San Diego’s Largest Rally Ever Against WalMart , Lim(p)baugh Blames Shrinking Penis on ‘Feminazis’, Imperial Beach MediPot Supporters Beat the Bushes, Quail Brush Power Plant Foes to Rally, North Park Officially Hip Now and so much more! Come on inside and catch up!   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – Coastal Clean Up Day: We Need Your Help on Saturday, September 15th

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The California shoreline is one of the most beautiful in the country, yet each year thousands of tons of garbage end up on the beaches and in the ocean. Tomorrow, (Saturday) September 15th , thousands of volunteers  will be meeting up at locations throughout the county starting at 9am to give our shoreline and coast areas a god scrubbing. Last year 7,600 volunteers removed 146,000 pounds of trash and recyclables from 201 miles of shoreline. Plus, an additional 2,000 people in Baja California collected 42,000 pounds in Tijuana, Tecate, Rosarito and Ensenada.

Eighty percent of this debris comes from  land-based sources and poses a real danger to wildlife and human health.  California Coastal Cleanup Day (CCD) is a statewide beach and coastal and inland waterway cleanup held throughout California each year, part of the largest such cleanup in the country. CCD is a partnership between the California Coastal Commission, non-profit groups such as I Love A Clean San Diego, and cities and counties throughout the state. It is a major part of International Coastal Cleanup, which is facilitated by The Ocean Conservancy and includes many U.S. states and territories and over 70 countries.

CCD is unique because it also collects information about items found during the cleanup, with volunteers will recording types of marine debris found and reporting their findings on data cards. This information allows agencies and NGOs to compile, analyze and track data year-by-year and make discoveries about the behaviors that cause the debris. The final statewide & international information is used to educate the public, businesses, industries, and government officials about the trash pollution problem.

There are literally dozens of clean up teams at work on Saturday throughout the region.  To find out where and how you can help, go here.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line — Occupy goes after Monsanto, GMOs; San Diego demonstration slated for Monday

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Yesterday a dozen activists calling themselves the Genetic Crimes Unit (GCU) shut down shipping and receiving access points at Monsanto’s Oxnard, California seed distribution center. Although nine members of the group were arrested in the non-violent protest, the protesters effectively shut down the distribution of genetically engineered (GMO) seeds for a day.

The group blocked all three shipping and receiving entrances to the Monsanto facility, using flashy theatrics including a car with a giant “fish-corn” on top of it and a 6-foot high jail cell holding an individual dressed as Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant.

Monsanto is the largest producer of GMO seeds and is being called out for their genetic crimes by a network called Occupy Monsanto. Wednesday’s protest, according to a statement released by the group, is the beginning of a series of over 65 different autonomous actions that officially start on September 17, commemorating the anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Supporters of Proposition 37, led by Women of Occupy San Diego, have announced a rally and demonstration in support of the initiative, which would require that labeling of foods containing genetically modified organisms (GMO’s). The group will meet up at the offices of Canvass for a Cause, located at 3705 10th Avenue, at 4 pm on Monday, September 17th   [Read more…]

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

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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…]

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…]

The Starting Line — A Much Grander Vision for San Diego; Public Market Project Underway

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At no cost to taxpayers!… Unlike other visions for San Diego (a football stadium and Convention Center expansion come to mind), Dale Steele and Catt White are making their plans for a City Public Market along the lines of Seattle’s Pike’s Place, San Francisco’s Ferry Building and Barcelona’s La Boqueria into a reality via crowd source funding on the internet’s KickStarter. As of July 2012, KickStarter has 4,048 projects funded and has raised a total of $241 million in start-up capital.

Both Steele and White are long time players on the San Diego market scene; White currently manages neighborhood farmers’ markets in Little Italy, North Park and Pacific Beach. They have already leased a 92,000 square foot property near Petco Park and are renovating more than two acres of warehouse space. Plans for the market include two days a week with farmers’ stalls, booths with local crafters and artists, music festivals, movie nights and quinceañeras, chef’s tasting events and art exhibits, along with the occasional Chaldean Festival, Chinese New Year’s parade, Filipino fiesta or charity fundraiser.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line — Three Things the UT-San Diego Doesn’t Want You to Know

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Welcome to August, San Diego. Let’s start the month off right by cutting through the crap that publisher UT-San Diego Doug Manchester and his motley crews of spinmeisters are trying to pass off as reality. Sometimes they simply ignore news that has importance to wide swaths of the population, sometimes they simply twist the truth, and sometimes they simply lie. We’ve got great examples of all these ‘truth bending’ techniques, and hope you’ll come along for the ride. There are “lie-sickness’ bags available for those of you who feel may feel ill as we proceed along on our journey, please feel free to use them….

If you read today’s daily newspaper for our fair city you wouldn’t know that today is a momentous day for an estimated 47 million women in the United States. If you merely browsed the front page (or heard Carl DeMaio doing his ‘victory lap’ on the local electronic media), you might be under the impression that all systems were “go” for an overhaul of the City’s pension system. And if you were a regular reader, you might be under the impression that our region’s economic security was endangered by looming cuts in the defense budget, cuts that certainly must be the fault of our current Commander in Chief. Let’s start with the biggie…

August 1st marks the roll-out of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) provisions that affect women in this country over the course of the coming year. Every health insurance policy provided by employers must now include a package of preventive and diagnostic care for women without co-pays or deductibles.   [Read more…]

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