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The New Morena District Certified Farmers’ Market

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The new Morena District Certified Farmers’ Market opened Tuesday, June 19, 2012, from 3 – 7pm with 75 booths exhibiting the wares of 45 vendors to the delight of a crowd estimated by Brian Beevers, Market Manager, to be approximately 3,000 people! Among those attending were Lori Zapf, Republican, Member of San Diego City Council representing the Sixth District.

Vendors included local merchants of coffee, fruits, vegetables, baskets, nuts, berries, prepared foods, including BBQ, fresh drinks, flowers, clothing, fish, roasted corn, cupcakes, pasta, jams, object d’art, honey, plants, olives and bread. Two musicians played guitar and a percussion instrument.   [Read more…]

Helping Jazz 88.3 Cop a Plea

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The other day
I was kind of lowriding down the street,
feeling about as cool as a 74 year old
could ever hope to be,
listening to some sounds
on Radio Jazz 88.3.
Ramsey Lewis, more specifically,
running his fingers over a keyboard,
as per usual,
ever so funkily,
with a spacey
other world type vibe…   [Read more…]

Election of Birther to the Bench Proves Voters Unworthy of the Responsibility of Selecting Jurists

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Asking voters who know nothing about judicial candidates, and usually fail to do any research of their own is a recipe for disaster.

Well, looks like we’ve done it, San Diego. The electorate has spoken, and the electorate has chosen a completely unqualified individual to serve as a Superior Court judge in San Diego County.

Gary Kreep is a lawyer who decided he wanted to be a judge. Relatively harmless in and of itself, until you find out a little more about him. First, he is the founder of the United States Justice Foundation, an innocuous sounding name (aren’t they always?) for an organization that is dedicated to TEA Party causes and the advancement of right wing religious causes. They are anti-abortion, anti-gay, all conspiracy theory all the time whack jobs.   [Read more…]

Controversy Surrounds Wrong Guy Named to San Diego Oversight Board

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The Public Should Be Eying Mark Nelson – Not Michael Zucchet

A mild controversy swirled around Michael Zucchet from Point Loma the other day because he was one of two people appointed to the San Diego Oversight Board.

Those who still are not convinced of Zucchet’s innocence in San Diego’s “stripper-gate” scandal of 2003 to 2005, and those who are bothered because he is currently the general manager of the the City’s largest public-employee union, the San Diego Municipal Employees Association, opposed his nomination and selection by Mayor Sanders and the City Council.

Yet, the real controversy should have swirled around the other appointee, Mark Nelson, but more on that in a moment.

Zucchet and Nelson were both nominated by our “strong” mayor, Jerry Sanders to serve on the San Diego Oversight Board, which will oversee and supervise the deconstruction of San Diego’s fourteen redevelopment projects, as mandated by State law.
  [Read more…]

How Carl DeMaio helped hide the San Diego hotelier’s tax vote

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By Dirty DeMaio / April 9, 2012

There’s been considerable attention paid recently to the secrecy around the hotelier vote to impose a new tax on the public. Those looking for the origin of the secret hotelier vote that apparently can’t be shared with the public can look back to October 10th last year, when the city council voted to make it secret. Thanks to a motion by Carl DeMaio, the city’s municipal code was altered specifically for this purpose:

61.2710(e) Since the Landowner-voters are entitled to a secret ballot, and since ballots are required to contain the names of each Landowner and the number of votes each Landowner is entitled to cast, and since the number of votes assigned to each Hotel may be considered to contain proprietary commercial information, the City Clerk shall protect the confidentiality of the ballots. No persons, other than the staff and consultants of the City who require access for the purposes of counting and canvassing the ballots, may have access to the ballots at any time unless by order of a court of competent jurisdiction.

So of course the public doesn’t get to know.   [Read more…]

First Cuppa Coffee – April 11, 2012: San Diego Drag Queens and Fat Cats Edition

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The University of San Diego has a real-life controversy on its hands… It’s not like the fake manufactured crises that its well-heeled financial backers like to generate… In better times they call them debates, institutes or forums, and spend copious amounts of cash on them hoping that the great policy conclusions that emerge will reflect positively on the University. This time around USD’s marvelously wealthy groupies are throwing cash at stopping something from happening at the school.

It seems as though USD Pride, a student organization, has organized a Drag Show on campus, wherein boys will dress up as girls and vice versa. It started out as a bit of harmless fun designed to heighten awareness, yada, yada, yada. Now thanks to an article on the California Catholic Daily website (owned by the Reader’s Jim Holman), the angry alumni are circling the wagons, passing out petitions and yearning for the good old days when men were men except when they dressed up as women to sneak into the San Diego College for Women (true fact). The minions at the Daily website are screaming about “Perversion at its highest level” and saying mean things like “USD stands for Undeniable Satanic Destruction”. The drag show will take place at the University Center, Forums B/C. 7 – 9 p.m. There is no cover charge.
  [Read more…]

SeaWorld Had Banner Year With Record Earnings in 2011 But Paid No Taxes

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Editor: If you’re asking yourself how could SeaWorld have a banner year in 2011 with record earnings for the company, and yet pay not one nickle in taxes, you’re on the right track. Doug Porter’s First Cuppa this morning turned us on to what article most newspapers in this country ran about the SeaWorld financial saga, which is reposted below. The U-T San Diego ran a similar but different article. Can you find the differences?

For SeaWorld, record earnings and no income tax

McClatchy/Tribune / Originally published April 4, 2012

ORLANDO, Fla. _ SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment had a banner year in 2011. Attendance and guest spending rose across its U.S. theme parks. Earnings set a company record.

But SeaWorld won’t have to pay a dime in federal income tax. It will not have to pay any Florida corporate income tax, either.

Thanks to big tax deductions for capital investment and interest payments, SeaWorld’s record 2011 will actually go down as a loss for tax purposes.   [Read more…]

The Crowd at the Ball Game

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Having emerged from the season opening series against the hated Dodgers with no beer or blood stains on my jersey, I thought a few observations on the nature of watching baseball were in order as we amble toward the sweet days of summer, win or lose.

In William Carlos Williams’s fine poem “The Crowd at the Ball Game” he notes the beauty, love, and menace of the crowd:

The crowd at the ball game
is moved uniformly
by a spirit of uselessness
which delights them —
all the exciting detail
of the chase
and the escape, the error
the flash of genius —
all to no end save beauty
the eternal –

So in detail they, the crowd,
are beautiful
for this
to be warned against
saluted and defied —
It is alive, venomous
it smiles grimly
its words cut —
The flashy female with
her mother, gets it —
The Jew gets it straight –
it is deadly, terrifying —

It is the Inquisition, the
Revolution   [Read more…]

Scott Peters’ case for election to Congress comes across as weak kneed

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Former City Council member and current Port Commissioner Scott Peters tries to sell his candidacy, but his argument leaves behind more doubts than assurances.

When our intrepid Editordude asked if I would cover the Ocean Beach Planning Board meeting last Wednesday night and I found out that Scott Peters was coming to speak, I have to admit that I was pretty excited. (Yeah, I know…..I’m pathetic, but whatever.) I really didn’t know much of anything about Peters, and this was my first chance to form some sort of impression of him heading into the June primary.   [Read more…]

Silencing the Drums – Continued attacks by Balboa Parks and Recreation threaten World Beat Center

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San Diego’s best known cultural center with a history of celebrating the cultural diversity of the region and the people who work there have become the targets of discrimination.

The World Beat Center needs our support. This prized venue of music, art, and creativity is at the center of San Diego’s Black, Hispanic, and Native American cultures. Located on the fringe of Balboa Park, the World Beat Center (WBC) is under increasing attack that has been described as systematic, “institutionalized racism”.   [Read more…]

Friday press conference at San Onofre Nuclear Plant in response to “visit” by NRC Chairman

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Apparently, the Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Gregory Jaczko, is coming to check out the troubled San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station tomorrow, Friday, April 6th.

In response, leaders of local community groups are holding a press conference near the facility on Friday, April 6th at 10am. The location of the press conference will be near the San Onofre State Beach guard shack on Beach Club Road.

These activists are asking supporters to join them   [Read more…]

Come On Down to PUC Hearing and Protect Your Wallet and Purse From SDG&E

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San Diego CPUC Meeting

Al Bahr Shriners Memorial Auditorium

April 5th

2:00 pm and 6:00 pm

5440 Kearny Mesa Road

San Diego, CA 92111

By Diane Conklin / Ramona Sentinel / Originally published March 24, 2012

What will it take for the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to deny San Diego Gas & Electric’s request that you and I pay for their fires? I have thought a lot about this question and have come to this conclusion: It will take the people of San Diego County, thousands of them, to email, call, write, and participate in the process.

And one of the most important and most accessible ways to participate is to join with neighbors and friends and “Come on down” to the April 5th public hearing and tell the commission yourself what you think of this plan.
  [Read more…]

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