Month: January 2020

By Colleen O’Connor

Trying to recover from the flu? Or avoid the wall-to-wall Impeachment imbroglio?

This is a pleasant, fun, and perfect distraction for anyone older than thirty.

Remember all those amazing San Diego gifts once readily available — and mostly free — but, now long gone. Try.

For example, once upon a time, kids could go the publicly-owned pitch and put golf course and learn to swing a club for free. Tap, ballet, and swim classes were also available — for free — from the City’s Park and Recreation Department.

The United States at Present is an Affront to the Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

By Jim Miller

With the election of Barack Obama, many hoped that the United States had finally taken a decisive step away from its racist past and was perhaps on the road to more fully embodying Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of a truly democratic and racially and economically just America.

Sadly, only a few years after the end of Obama’s tenure, it’s clear that nothing could be further from the truth. Rather than bending the arc of history toward justice, it seems that the first black president’s two terms, politically moderate as they turned out to be, ironically did much to fuel the fire of white backlash and emboldened reactionary plutocrats to roll back the clock in a myriad of other ways as well.

by Mary Plummer / inewsource / January 17, 2020

Fire incident calls tied to homelessness are on the rise in San Diego. Last year, they made up nearly 13% of all fire-related calls. “We’re addressing it as best we can,” said Assistant Fire Chief Chris Webber, who added that the growing homeless problem is “no secret.”

While the number of all fire calls has fluctuated over the past five years, fire calls that mentioned the homeless have steadily increased.

By Halle Zander / Aspen Daily News / Jan. 17, 2020

While taking one of my first vacations in sunny San Diego, I popped into the corner bookstore in Ocean Beach [ed: Run for Cover bookstore] to pick out my next “Beach Read,” which apparently is its own genre now. In an effort to read more books by authors different from myself, I picked up “Girl, Woman, Other” by Bernadine Evaristo, a black, British woman with seven brothers and sisters.

The book follows 12 characters, 11 of which are women of color, in their journeys toward something elusive, be it a sense of purpose or the acceptance of a long lost family member. Evaristo sets the tone in her first chapter by exposing the life of the socially conscious, non-monogamous, anti-establishment playwright, Amma. Each of the following characters, I believe, serves as a response to Amma’s unique set of values.

A long-time Point Loma bakery, Con Pane Rustic Breads & Café, just announced it closed its doors for good on Wednesday, January 15 after an immigration audit determined there were undocumented migrants working there.

The bakery had first opened in 1999 at Rosecrans and Canon in Point Loma, then it moved to Liberty Station in 2010. It was supplying breads to a number of San Diego restaurants. Its owners stated they closed down their Dewey Road location at Liberty Station due to what’s called an I-9 audit by immigration authorities, who apparently had found “suspect documents” of an unknown number of their employees.

The Ocean Beach Historical Society Presents: When Tiki Invaded San Diego by Diane Kane, PhD, at Water’s Edge Faith Community, 1984 Sunset Cliffs Blvd., O.B., onThursday, Jan. 16, at 7 pm.

Join the OBHS for a lighthearted romp through the immediate post-war period to explore how the allure of the South Seas became synonymous with San Diego.

All eyes are now trained on Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine who told a local hometown newspaper on Friday that she was working with a small group of Republican Senators to ensure there are witnesses during Trump’s trial in the Senate.

The House just voted today to send the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate and Speaker Nancy Pelosi just named the seven House members who will be “managers” during the Senate trial. The trial is expected to begin next Tuesday, January 21.

According to the Bangor Daily News:

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine told reporters on Friday that she is working with a “fairly small group” of fellow Republican senators toward a goal of ensuring witnesses can be called in the chamber’s impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.

From Surfrider / Coastkeeper Report

The Surfrider Foundation San Diego County and San Diego Coastkeeper partner each year to host volunteer-powered beach cleanups across San Diego County in order to address the issue of trash on our beaches and in our oceans. In addition to hosting approximately six of these community events per month, both organizations host special cleanup events and empower individuals to host their own.

In 2019, our beach cleanups empowered 11,895 volunteers to remove 16,534 pounds of trash from our coastline. Additionally, they collected data on 237,452 separate pieces of trash.

This report, based on data from 196 separate cleanup events, provides a detailed picture of the waste we found on our beaches this year.

4th Annual Women’s March – San Diego
Saturday, January 18, 2020
10:00 AM 2:00 PM
Waterfront Park (West Side)

From WMSD:

Our marchers continue to make a difference.

2020 Elections…a critical time, and Women’s March San Diego marchers are seen, heard, and powerful!

In an Instagram caption, the two wrote, “We put up some #honestsigns at the Army Recruitment Center. Hopefully we aren’t going to war, but if we did, we know one guy who won’t enlist.”

by Ken Stone / Times of San Diego / January 13, 2020

The San Diego City Council Monday approved a ban on marijuana billboards within 1,000 feet of a school, playground, public park, day care center or youth center.

The council voted 9-0 in support of the changes championed by Councilman Chris Cate after hearing from community members, most of them in favor.

Cate said the changes were necessary because state law applied to legitimate cannabis businesses advertising on billboards and is enforceable only by state officials, and not applicable to illegal cannabis businesses.

By Colleen O’Connor

I once taught an upper-division seminar at UC Riverside titled “Strategies of Defense in the Nuclear Age.” The prompt for designing such a course was the simplistic, but serious responses of many undergraduates whenever I asked. “How would you solve this crisis?”

Lots of contemporary crises were available then—just as they are today. The students’ frequent answer: “Nuke ‘em.”

These nonchalant remarks about the devastating power of a nuclear weapon caused me to add a whole section of actual film footage about the human as well as environmental consequences of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.