Here’s a bunch of seemingly unrelated articles that have been sitting in my “in-basket” for a while — some for months. Yet, they deserve attention –so here they are:
It was supposed to be a California utopia. It turned into a ghost town.
By Tessa McLean, California Editor – SFGate / June 17, 2024
Just off the Pearblossom Highway, 75 miles northeast of Los Angeles, six crumbling stone columns rise from patches of dusty brown weeds. Two of the wider set pillars contain capacious brick fireplaces, the blocks deteriorating inside. The foundation of a once-grand building stretches out into the flat plain, carpeted with shards of glass and rusty beer cans. At its northern end, a short staircase leads to nowhere.
From 1914 to 1918, an actual building stood here — a bustling gathering place for California’s most important utopian commune-turned-doomed desert experiment. When wandering the site today, close your eyes and you might be able to imagine happy residents dancing or talking politics on a cool California desert evening, the snow-capped San Gabriel Mountains in the distance.
The remains of a grand hotel and social hall are the only recognizable infrastructure left of the failed town, which is visible even from the highway — if you don’t blink. The foundations of other nearby buildings sink into the ground, faded blue and purple graffiti covering the splintering stone, the lettering disappearing into low concrete walls. From the middle of the ruins, trailers and warehouse structures under the power lines jolt you back to the modern day from any dreams of early 1900s life.
Iron posts frame a now nonexistent fence, a feeble attempt at once protecting this historic landmark. There are no highway signs and no bronze plaques — the only monument was swiftly stolen back in the early 1980s — to mark the former site of the Llano del Rio settlement in the Antelope Valley. No one seems to care much about California Historical Landmark No. 933.
An early utopia
For Job Harriman, this desert land represented both his wide-eyed idealism and failed ambition. Born in 1861 and raised in Indiana, the religious youngster became a minister and eventually made his way out to California. He quickly became disenchanted with his faith, and later the Democratic Party, studying to become a lawyer while gravitating toward socialist ideals.
Harriman’s popularity rose, particularly among pro-labor and union activists, eventually spurring him to run for governor of California in 1898 and vice president of the U.S. in 1900. These failed bids for office didn’t stop his political ambitions, though — he almost became mayor of Los Angeles in 1911, earning 35% of the vote. But Harriman was the assistant attorney in the Los Angeles Times bombing case at the time, and when lead attorney Clarence Darrow announced the accused would plead guilty, it dealt a big enough blow to his pro-labor ticket that he lost the election. He ran again, and lost, two years later.
For the balance of this article, please go here.
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The Charlie Kirk Purge: How 600 Americans Were Punished in a Pro-Trump Crackdown
Raphael Satter and A.J. Vicens / Reuters / Nov. 19, 2025
Two months after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, a government-backed campaign has led to firings, suspensions, investigations and other action against more than 600 people. Republican officials have endorsed the punishments, saying that those who glorify violence should be removed from positions of trust.
When Lauren Vaughn, a kindergarten assistant in South Carolina, saw reports that right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk had been shot at an event in Utah, she opened Facebook and typed out a quote from Kirk himself.
Gun deaths, Kirk said in 2023, were unfortunate but “worth it” if they preserved “the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given Rights.” Following the quote, Vaughn added: “Thoughts and prayers.”
Vaughn, a 37-year-old Christian who has taken missionary trips to Guatemala, said her call for prayer was sincere. She said she hoped reading Kirk’s words in the context of the shooting might prompt her friends to rethink their opposition to gun control.
“Maybe now they’ll listen,” she recalled thinking.
A few days later, Vaughn lost her job. She was one of more than 600 Americans fired, suspended, placed under investigation or disciplined by employers for comments about Kirk’s September 10 assassination, according to a Reuters review of court records, public statements, local media reports and interviews with two dozen people who were fired or otherwise disciplined.
For the balance, go here.
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Are San Diego Beaches ‘Bouncing Back’?
By Kate Murphy / Axios San Diego / Dec. 1, 2025
San Diego County beaches are growing again, signaling they’ve entered the recovery phase after El Nino last year, a new report shows.
Why it matters: It’s good news for the health of our coasts, as wide, sandy beaches help protect against erosion and flooding while making beaches safer and more enjoyable for recreation.Driving the news: UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography researchers released their annual beach report in November, which found most of the nine state beaches in the region grew in width last year.
Scripps researchers also led a related and recently published study that found the width of beaches statewide has remained stable over nearly four decades despite significant erosion. Together, they show San Diego is not an anomaly, and what researchers are learning about beaches’ resilience and behavior here could be applied across California, Scripps oceanographer William O’Reilly told Axios.
The big picture: El Niño amplifies extreme weather events, bringing storms and strong waves that pound and erode beaches.
What they’re saying: “The sense that the system isn’t necessarily losing sand as fast as we might have predicted was surprising,” Scripps researcher and report co-author Mark Merrifield said. “It brings a slightly different perspective on long-term planning.”
“When you’re in a bad El Niño winter and things look pretty grim, this is pointing to one or two years later, you might be on a pretty strong rebound,” he said.
Zoom in: This past year’s winter waves were milder than usual, which helped beaches’ recovery, but some still need intervention, according to the researchers.
San Elijo State Beach saw the most growth after being fed by recent sand replenishment projects.
Carlsbad and southern Oceanside beaches struggled to recover because they’re starved for sand. Those cities are tackling that problem with their own replenishment efforts that could be a model for other coastal cities. The intrigue: Scripps researchers use LiDAR-equipped drones, trucks, ATVs and Jet Skis to survey local beaches, and they analyzed satellite images to track the changes at beaches across California.
The data pulled from the satellites was surprising and encouraging, researchers said, as the tech will allow monitoring of California beaches in ways they’ve never been able to before. What we’re watching: San Diego County is planning its largest regional beach restoration project to date, which would pump three times as much sand onto the coastline as previous projects, with a $260 million price tag.
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How San Diego cleared the way for Midway Rising to crack the coastal height limit
by Andrew Keatts / Times of San Diego Dec. 10, 2025, 2:22 p.m.
Midway Rising is still alive, and if its developers succeed in pushing the project through despite the latest legal setback, they’ll have San Diego to thank.
California has been expanding the scope and power of its density bonus law for years. Some of the biggest changes to the law came from San Diego elected officials and court cases.
And now those San Diego-driven expansions that are helping bypass a 50-year-old local ballot measure long seen as a sacred cow in San Diego politics.
The Midway Rising project would redevelop the Pechanga Arena area into an urban district with 4,000 homes, a new entertainment venue and acres of parks. It appeared to suffer a legal setback in October when a court overturned a ballot measure eliminating the coastal height limit in Midway.
Quickly, developers said that wasn’t a problem, even though the project includes 85-foot-tall buildings in an area where new buildings are restricted to 30 feet. When they proposed the project, and again when the measure was on the ballot, they had said they needed to get rid of the height limit.
But after the fall court decision, they said they were already prepared to rely on California’s density bonus law, which lets developers waive local development restrictions — like height limits or density requirements — if they reserve units for low-income residents. The initial proposal included 2,000 affordable homes, far above the requirement for the state program.
For the balance, go here.
“Sacred cow?” Calling the 30-foot building height limit to preserve beach access for all San Diegans a “sacred cow” has negative connotations — all unmerited. But it’s what one expects from writer Andrew Keatts who cut his reportorial teeth at the business-backed Voice of San Diego and is now working for a different online outfit. Some laws gain value with age
and the 30-foot height limit, under siege from state and local politicians re4f4indebted to developers, is one of them. Midway Rising is a proposal without legs.