Month: July 2011

Funeral services have been set for James Cummins, 77, the Ocean Beach physicist killed July 8th when his car collided with an SUV driven by a 15-year-old traveling the wrong way. Cummins, known to some as “the hoarder” as he kept piles of newspapers and magazines in his 1979 Mercury, worked for SPAWAR for 54 years.

Editor: A former SDSU running back who played for the Bengals was shot and killed over the weekend by Kern County Sheriff deputies during an suspicious altercation that raises a number of questions.

David “Deacon” Turner was a star running back at Shafter High School, Bakersfield College and the San Diego State University before he played three seasons with the Cincinnati Bengals from 1978 to 1980.

GRIM number of the week: 14,087,000.

Fourteen million, in round numbers — that is how many Americans are now officially out of work.

Word came Friday from the Labor Department that, despite all the optimistic talk of an economic recovery, unemployment is going up, not down. The jobless rate rose to 9.2 percent in June.

What gives? And where, if anywhere, is the outrage?

The United States is in the grips of its gravest jobs crisis since Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the White House. Lose your job, and it will take roughly nine months to find a new one. That is off the charts. Many Americans have simply given up.

But unless you’re one of those unhappy 14 million, you might not even notice the problem.

An initiative that would have asked voters to approve adding four appointed members to the five-member San Diego school board failed to gather enough valid signatures to put the measure on the ballot, San Diego officials said Monday.

San Diegans 4 Great Schools, a group supporting the proposed ballot measure, had submitted more than 133,000 signatures in April as they sought to qualify the measure for a future election.

However, the county Registrar of Voters found an insufficient number of valid signatures had been collected.

UPDATE: County to delay vote on re-redistricting maps; no vote on Tuesday – July 12th – see SignOnSanDiego here.

The County Board of Supervisors is poised to approve an illegal redistricting plan that squashes the Voting Rights of non-white voters in this County. We have seen what incumbent-friendly districts has done to our County Board. It is time to make a stand for the unrepresented in San Diego.

What began as a hunger strike among inmates of the isolation wing of California’s Pelican Bay prison has turned into a statewide display of solidarity. A number of prisoners in Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Unit, California’s highest-security complex, refused their state-provided morning meal on Friday to protest the inhumane conditions of their confinement. Inmates in the Security Housing Unit spend 23 hours per day in soundproofed, windowless cells. Their daily hour of exercise is walking around a small, walled space. The intent is to keep prison-gang members and those considered dangerous to others separated from fellow inmates.

Editor: The Casadys of People’s Food Co-op are in the news. Derek and Nancy Casady are suing some of the world’s largest financial institutions alleging fraud and misrepresentation around the federal government bail-outs. They have hired former San Diego City Attorney Mike Aguirre. The Casadys filed their suit as taxpayers. Nancy is the executive director of People’s.

By John Lawrence / Will Blog for Food

While the nation is close to a catastrophe of global proportions, the mass media treats us to one spectacle after another. Instead of discussing the jobs crisis or the debt crisis or the worst recession since the Great Depression, we are treated first to the saga of Anthony Weiner’s weiner followed closely by a 24/7 immersion in the Casey Anthony case.

By Gail Pérez / La Prensa San Diego

In 1970 when the Chicano community took over the land under the Coronado Bridge and demanded that a long-promised park finally be constructed in the Logan Heights neighborhood, park activist José Gómez announced to the world that anyone attempting to take the land from the community would have to “wade through our blood.”

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt / Excuse Me, Im Writing / July 9, 2011

He arrives after morning service, having thanked God for another day in an upright position. He stops at the nurse’s station, not to check in, but rather to greet whomever is on duty by first name, applaud the glorious weather, ask about the family, chuckle over the latest joke and say something as sweet and charming as his tousled white hair and proper bow tie.

San Diego breweries took home 19 medals at the 2011 San Diego International Beer Festival last week at the San Diego County Fair. Here’s a list of local winners, so you know what local microbrews to keep an eye out for. The contest included licensed microbreweries, small and large, and was based on guidelines published by the Brewers Association. There were 43 divisions/classes and many other sub-classes, plus mead and cider competitions.

Of note, Pizza Port, with breweries in Carlsbad and Ocean Beach, came out with the Best of Show for its Poor Man’s IPA and earned six medals, including three gold. And, Mission Brewery ranked high in the German-style ale contest, second only to Sunner, brewed in Koln, Germany!

For those that are interested…

Faulconer and the Mighty, Mighty FAR

Fresh Funds for Farmer’s Markets

Variances for Chickens

SANDAG’s 2050 Regional Transportation Plan

Ocean Beach qualifies under SANDAG as a ‘Smart Growth’ community

Details inside…