Author: Source

by Jon Christensen / Originally posted Union-Tribune / August 1, 2010

Why is selling the Miramar Landfill a good idea? Like a used car with 150,000 miles, it’s mostly used up, at least according to the campaign for a new landfill in Gregory Canyon in the North County. Miramar’s life as a landfill can be measured in months rather than years. So it must be a good idea to sell it now. Once filled up, there’s limited commercial value; you can’t build on a landfill. Parks, playgrounds, parking lots or just open space is their destiny.

By Susan Wormsley / Comment to Sign On San Diego / Originally published July 23, 2010

I read with extreme consternation the article last week in the Union-Tribune regarding the unanimous decision by a San Diego City Council committee to move forward with a plan to raise revenue by expanding corporate sponsorships to lifeguard towers, beaches, benches and walkways at city beaches.

Over the last 20-plus years, I have been able to stop the illegal use of corporate signage in and around San Diego’s beaches and bays.

ALL LINKS AND DETAILS INSIDE:

Federal Judge blocks parts of Arizona’s new immigration law
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Antiwar Left Grows in Congress With Latest War-Funding Vote
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Michael Moore Is Right About Obama
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Bernie Sanders: No to Oligarchy

On July 22nd, a meeting of the Dusty Rhodes park board was held and numerous locals attended with complaints of the recent rash of small dog mauling and deaths from larger dogs (see here for our earlier coverage). Monica Honoré 0f the City of San Diego Park and Recreation Department was in attendance.

Finally, the local board voted to approve a separate fenced area for small dogs. The city has obtained bids for the fencing. Enough money is available in the dog park reserve fund plus a recent allocation of $3,000 from Councilmember Faulconer’s office for fencing, a fountain, labor and the associated requirements of ADA compliance. ….

by Amanda Van West

I’m a 24 year old filmmaker from Santa Clara, California, currently finishing my MA degree in International Broadcast Journalism at Westminster University in London. I’ve worked on short documentaries in California, Mexico, Nicaragua, and London.

“California’s Cannabis Culture” is a short documentary that was created for my final MA project. I filmed everything around Northern California between May and June, and finished the documentary in London. It’s an exploration of the marijuana scene in California, in light of the upcoming possibility of Proposition 19 passing in November. California has long had a reputation of being marijuana-friendly, so I wanted to showcase a bit of the culture and investigate what changes might happen, if any, should it become fully legalized in November.

The Revolution will be televised — or, rather, streaming live online.

Antiwar demonstrations in the Vietnam era were a regular feature of the nightly network news on NBC, CBS and ABC.

Today, protests against the war in Afghanistan are just as likely to be online as on TV, and in the form of damning documents or videos shown on WikiLeaks.

And lacking a Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck — figures that have rallied the nation’s Tea Party movement — peace activists are taking a different tack. They are connecting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and our sagging economy and poor jobs outlook.

For one day, the Heathens took over Ocean Beach. Here is a photo gallery of their day with all photos by Jim Grant. Check back real soon for a more complete accounting of the Heathen party and procession.

Melisa Shafer’s deal with her three children was pretty simple: spend 20 minutes Saturday morning helping restore a fragile coastal dune and marsh area in Ocean Beach and they could go to the beach. The kids didn’t know it, but the point of their work had little to do with the physical labor involved.

The natural world is important to us,” said Shafer, 36, as she and the children lined rocks along a footpath through sensitive native vegetation. “If we don’t teach the next generation about it, we’ll lose it.”

I went to see the doctor the other day because I’ve been so tired lately. “Are you depressed?” he asked me.

After weeks of seeing photos of the devastation in the Gulf of Mexico; watching YouTube videos of pelicans suffocating in an oily sarcophagus, marshes saturated in putrid, brown slime and what appears to be oily rain and a surf belching noxious gases; reading reports of outright incompetence in dealing with the situation, the application of millions of gallons of a chemical dispersant that no one seems to understand the environmental ramifications of using, news of a judge with a vested interest in the oil industry rescinding a ban on deepwater drilling” Good God, who wouldn’t be depressed!

On Saturday, June 26th, I took the bus to Ocean Beach with my husband and a friend, to participate in one of the “Hands Across the Sand” events. There was a hundred or so of us lined up on the beach.

Across the country, an unprecedented operation is developing at an accelerating clip, unseen and unknown by most Americans.

Until now, that is.

On Monday (7/19/10) The Washington Post launched “Top Secret America,” an ongoing report of the private intelligence operations—which the report calls “our 4th branch of government– that have surfaced in America since September 11, 2001. The project has been in the making for two years now.

“The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work,” reads the report’s introduction, spearheaded by long-time reporters Dana Priest and William M. Arkin.

by Jim Bell

We humans are something special and rare.

In spite of there being an estimated 5 to 100 million species of life on our planet, our species is the only one sufficiently conscious to become conscious of existence and our place in it on all levels.

On the most foundational level, this means that if enough of us become conscious enough, soon enough, we will be able to pass the birthright of a peaceful and life-supporting world to our children and future generations.

Legislation to extend unemployment benefits overcame a Republican filibuster in the Senate yesterday, putting more than 400,000 Californians a step closer to having their benefits checks reinstated.

But suspended checks are only part of the state’s unemployment woes: 34.5 percent of teen workers in the state were out of a job in June. That’s compared to 25.7 percent of teens nationwide and is nearly three times higher than the state’s overall unemployment rate.

Workers 16 to 19 years old face the highest rates of unemployment of any age group. Teen unemployment in California is more than double what it was in 2000, according to the state Employment Development Department.