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Warm-Weather Christmas | A Photographic Look

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Like many San Diegans, I came from elsewhere. Both other places I had lived are in colder climes, so when I first came here (on a short winter vacation that became permanent) I was fascinated with the way Christmas is celebrated in warm latitudes. Like flocking of Christmas trees to simulate snow. What? I never even heard of that until I got to SoCal.

But what I really like is not ways that cold-weather traditions are mutated, but rather the original ways that a holiday associated with winter and being indoors is celebrated in warm weather.   [Read more…]

The Old Man and the City

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Editor’s Note: Bob wrote this article on October 30 and intended to finish it while in Sant Joan, Mallorca, where he unexpectedly died. Nat Krieger, a dear friend of Bob and SDFP contributor himself, was able to find the article on Bob’s computer and sent it to us, at Deb Dorn’s request. We are publishing it posthumously.

By Bob Dorn

The old man used to ride his wobbly old bike every day up to the market on Park Boulevard where he preferred to shop. On his way north he would dismount as he approached the Georgia Street overpass of University Avenue because the climb was steep enough to make him uncomfortable. In fact, he not very stable on the machine under any conditions, and it looked nearly as old as him and seemed to weigh half as much as he did. On his way back the filled-up basket of the bike rattled loudly, which alerted the few people along the way getting out of or into their cars.

On some days the people recognized him and waved, some pointing their thumbs upward toward the sky because they knew he would pretend to think they meant something was up there and he would look up at the morning clouds as if he were following their directions. They always laughed at that. Others would aim their garden hoses at him so they could share a different laugh.   [Read more…]

Yes! Some Good San Diego Architecture! | A Photographic Look

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This month’s A Photographic Look is dedicated to architect Robert Venturi who died last month at the age of 93. While a vocal proponent for what became known as Post-Modern architecture, he (along with his partner Denise Scott Brown) made good buildings in other styles, too. I just hope he doesn’t try redesigning the pearly gates.

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While I have a definite partiality for Art Deco, I enjoy and appreciate all types or categories of architecture. For me, a structure just has to make design sense no matter what form or style the design might take. (Not being out of place in its location also helps a bunch.)

What I mean is that whatever form the design had in the architect’s mind, must have a reason, a functional basis in reality—not just be something different for its own sake, or something added-on just for the adding of it. I am not fond of Post-Modern architecture for this reason. Go look at The Aventine in La Jolla for an example. The tiny windows I understand (it’s more the perspective of the large wall area), but why are those little adornments there? That doesn’t mean a building can’t have some feature that is intended just for decoration. Just that it should be done well, not simply added-on as if from a catalog.   [Read more…]

Street Scenes of San Diego | A Photographic Look

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As I mentioned last time, and in the great words of lyricist Sammy Kahn: “It very nice to go trav’lin’ … but it’s oh so nice to come home.” That’s especially true when you live in one of the most magnificent and temperate places on the planet.

It’s natural that whenever anyone travels to other places folks who live there always want to know where the traveler is from. When I’m the traveler and I tell them I live in southern California – and in San Diego, no less – the response is often something along the lines of, “It’s so beautiful there; why do you bother to leave?” My answer, by the way, is always: “Just to see how things are different elsewhere.”

Sometimes, I’ll grab my camera and spend some time walking around San Diego as if it were a city I was visiting. I try looking at familiar things and scenes like they were new to me.   [Read more…]

The Sins of Councilwoman Lorie Zapf – Part 2

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Zig-Zags on the 30 Foot Height Limit

These days, it does appear Councilwoman Lorie Zapf is a strong supporter and defender of the sacrosanct 30-foot height limit for San Diego’s coastal and and beach communities. She did come out against a 4-story monstrosity on Emerson Street in the Roseville neighborhood of Point Loma, and along with Mayor Faulconer, issued a joint statement announcing a “stop-work” order for the project :

“Mayor Faulconer and Councilmember Lorie Zapf strongly support the coastal height limit and protecting coastal views. Further review of the Municipal Code has determined that this [Emerson Street] project does not conform to the City’s development regulations. Today the City issued a stop work order on the project to ensure it follows all codes and regulations.”

However, we have to note, as we reported then in June 2016:

The stop work order comes after a community protest by nearly a hundred residents … and after a widely-attended town hall meeting about the huge duplex … after a facebook page was set up and after an online petition to stop the project was begun – … it had close to 550 signatures. It came after the OB Rag and other media shown spotlights on the project.

  [Read more…]

Building Trust With Police is Like Trying to Assemble a Jigsaw Puzzle

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“Trust is the Issue” was one of our rallying cries at the City Council’s Rules Committee meeting Wednesday.

And the committee came through, voting 3-2 to pass the idea of creating a Commission on Police Practices on to the full Council.

That sounds hopeful to me but trying to build trust with the police in San Diego, for communities of color, has been like trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle. One with too many pieces – due to years of bad history.

My own history with the San Diego police goes back to when I arrived in town in 1962, my first Sunday here, shooting hoops with some guys at Mountain View Park until a few cops barge in on our fun: “Looking for some burglars.”   [Read more…]

Blue Whale Mom and Calf Playing with Bottlenose Dolphin | Video Worth Watching

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and Venus among the fishes skips and is a she-dolphin
she is the gay, delighted porpoise sporting with love and the sea

-Whales Weep Not! (D. H. Lawrence)

Time for a break from the recent craziness. Here’s a reminder of some of the wonder here in San Diego. Videographer Domenic Biagini used a drone a few days ago on June 4th to capture this sequence of a blue whale and her calf, along with some playful bottlenose dolphins, cavorting in the waters off the coast. On the YouTube we page he notes that “the whales approached us, and we either had our boat out of gear, or engine completely off when approached by the whales.”   [Read more…]

SDG&E’s Proposed Pipeline at Odds with San Diego’s Climate Action Plan

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SDG&E Seeks to Install Unnecessary Pipeline

San Diego Gas & Electric says San Diego County needs a new gas pipeline. I say that’s bunk, and I’m not the only one.

In May, California Public Utilities Commission administrative law judge Colette E. Kersten concluded that SDG&E and its partner SoCalGas “failed to demonstrate that there is a need for the proposed Line 3602 Project.” If her draft decision to deny certification to the applicants is approved by other commission members, the pipeline project cannot proceed.

SDG&E has set its hopes on installing 47 miles of new pipeline to transport natural gas from the Rainbow Metering Station near Fallbrook, south through Escondido and Poway, and ending at Marine Corps Air Station in Miramar. Most of this pipeline, known as 3602, will travel aside Interstate 15, passing through public, private, and federal land. An alternative route has it going through Mission Trails Regional Park.

The company says Pipeline 3602 will offer San Diegans “greater reliability” because the line will serve as backup in the event that two existing pipelines — 1600 and 3010 — should ever fail. San Diego’s population is growing, the company says, so an additional pipeline is needed to fuel the county’s future energy needs; the economy will benefit and the pipeline will offer safe, clean and affordable energy.

The company’s justifications sound good, but they’re not.   [Read more…]

San Diego Disabled Homeless Who Live in RVs Will Have Their Say in Court – Some Day

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A class-action suit against the City of San Diego by a group of disabled homeless challenging the enforcement of parking laws that prevent homeless people from living and sleeping in recreational vehicles is winding its way through Federal court.

The suit was filed in November 2017 by 9 homeless men and women who say they have no other housing option except to live in their RVs – which forces them to park overnight in city parks or streets. Their disabilities make them unable to afford rent and that homeless shelters are unsuitable for the disabled.

Their lawsuit demands that the city immediately stop citing disabled people under its long-standing vehicle habitation ordinance and its relatively new RV ordinance. The RV ordinance, enforced by the city in 2014, prohibits such vehicles from parking on any San Diego city street or in any public parking lot between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. The suit was written by attorneys from the Sacramento-based nonprofit group Disability Rights California.   [Read more…]

Homelessness and Capitalism: Some Untold Truths

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According to the survey in the 2018 Point-in-Time Count (PITC) of homeless people in San Diego County, the four main reasons for becoming homeless are: Loss of Job; Money Issues; Cost of Housing, and Other. Abuse/Violence ranks lowest. But this survey is missing input from thousands of families, as I explained in my prior column, so in reality, fleeing from domestic violence could be a major cause of homelessness. So too could deportation of the primary breadwinner be a factor, which is not even listed as an option, but is a contributing factor for some homeless families.

Underlying those four highest causes are specific failings in our current economic system, such as: jobs that don’t pay enough to cover the basics; lack of reasonable family planning; unsustainable rent increases; lack of affordable housing for people with extremely low incomes; social safety nets that are cut off as soon as a family starts to get on their feet, leaving them worse off; a broken health care system, and racism that sets young blacks and Latinos up for failure.

I’ve been told, “Don’t go there,” when I suggest that homelessness is a symptom of an economic system struggling to stay alive. But if we can’t be honest about the systemic causes of homelessness, we are doomed to be the archetypal dog chasing its tail. It’s my opinion that homelessness has a symbiotic relationship with unchecked capitalism – both being a result of it, and serving to sustain it. The “tell” in this game is the recent escalation of the criminalization of homelessness.   [Read more…]

Lori Saldaña and the Lincoln Club? Just Say NO

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There’s been a lot of controversy lately about Lori Saldaña’s previously floundering County Board of Supervisors run getting a big money boost in the form of an independent expenditure campaign by the Lincoln Club, and while Doug Porter did a fine job of connecting the dots and explaining why both the Lincoln Club and the Working Families Council would be involved in a dark alliance to attack Nathan Fletcher and promote Saldaña, some folks wandering the barren landscape of social media still don’t seem to grok precisely how troubling these connections are for those inclined to support Saldaña, the self-proclaimed savior of the Democratic Party.

Thus, some history is in order.   [Read more…]

From Police Reform To Playgrounds, San Diego Coalition Seeks A City Budget For The People

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By Susan Duerksen / Center on Policy Initiatives

San Diego’s Community Budget Alliance (CBA) has won approval of environmental, labor, police reform, and pedestrian safety projects this year, and will continue to push for more equitable spending throughout the final month of brewing the 2018-19 City budget.

The City Council has several chances in June to modify the proposed budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1. The CBA coalition advocates for budget equity to benefit low-wage working people and underserved communities…

The CBA’s successes in recent years demonstrate the power of direct community advocacy to make changes that improve daily life in San Diego.   [Read more…]

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