Category: California

By Jake Howard / Surfer / January 11, 2025

One of the greatest surf lives ever lived, the legendary Mike Hynson has gracefully kicked out at the age of 82. Born in Crecent City, California, on June 28, 1942, Hynson will forever be tied to the breakout success of “The Endless Summer,” but the hit surf film hardly defined the man. A local hero, a hot-dog performer, a shaping genius, a cosmic adventurer, Hynson altered the sport and culture of surfing in an untold number of ways over his colorful time on this spinning blue orb.

The son of a Navy man, Hynson grew up ping-ponging between Hawaii and California before his family finally settled in Pacific Beach in the mid 1950s. And that’s when and where his life as a surfer began. Indoctrinated into the rebellious surf scene of San Diego in the late ’50s and early ‘60s, his early work with Gordon & Smith and the Red Fin design carved out a name for him as a top-flight board builder, while his antics with the Windansea Surf Club became the stuff of legend. Landing back in Hawaii in 1961, he was among the first class of surfers to begin to crack the code at Pipeline.

Editordude: The following post is close to my heart, for I once was an inmate and as one fought fires for San Diego County back in the early Seventies.(Please see the original for any links.)

By Doug Melville / Forbes / January 9, 2025

As the shock of the Los Angeles fires and their effect on so many communities, businesses and families is still being digested, lots of attention is being turned to those who are on the front lines fighting the flames.

Many people might not be aware that one particular group has long been depended on to battle wildfires: inmates.

While the 13th Amendment ended slavery in the United States, a loophole allows people convicted of crimes to be forced to work for public or private enterprises. In this case, those tasked with firefighting volunteer for those positions and must meet certain criteria. They are not assigned without their consent.

Their pay scale was doubled in 2023, and depending on the skill level and the task assigned, they either receive $0.16 to $0.74 an hour or a maximum day rate of $5.80 to $10.24.

From Mexico News Daily / January 8, 2025

A day after Donald Trump announced his intention to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, President Claudia Sheinbaum proposed calling the United States — or at least the country’s southwest — “Mexican America.”

“Why don’t we call [the United States] Mexican America, it sounds nice, right?” Sheinbaum said at her Wednesday morning press conference. “It does, doesn’t it?” the president added with a smile.

She noted that the Constitution of Apatzingán, which was created during the Mexican War of Independence, referred to territory now known as the United States as Mexican America.

At the time of the document’s creation in 1814, large parts of what is now the southwestern United States were still under Spanish control. Mexico, when it became an independent country in 1821, was much larger than it is today, as its territory included all or part of several modern-day U.S. states.

San Diego County’s population has stayed flat over the last decade, Axios San Diego reports.

For a full analysis, one must take into account the actual population changes and the natural population change — the difference between births and deaths.

San Diego County’s population shrunk by 20,051 people from 2014-2018 to 2019-2023, or a change of 0.6%.

Yet, San Diego’s natural population change — the difference between births and deaths — was positive in 2023, with births outpacing deaths by 12,882.

But more people moved away than moved here during that time, so the region’s overall population shrunk, therefore, the population overall took a hit, because 30,745 more people left the county than moved here.

By Hunter Clauss / Los Angeles Times / Dec. 21, 2024

More than half of cannabis smoking products in California’s legal market contain chemicals that are not being monitored for public safety, my colleague Paige St. John reports in a new Times investigation that looked at hundreds of product tests and industry surveys.

The investigation raises significant questions about health threats to consumers and the state’s ability to monitor cannabis products, issues that have emerged as California’s $5-billion legal cannabis market struggles to overcome a resilient black market and growing competition from other states.

Here are three big findings from Paige’s investigation.

By Wendy Fry and Jeanne Kuang / CalMatters / Dec. 27, 2024

California’s southern border, long ‘ground zero’ in the fight between federal and local officials over immigration policy, is now at the center of renewed controversy over how far local leaders can go to protect people from deportation.

After San Diego County took steps earlier this month to strengthen safeguards for undocumented residents, an organization led by President-elect Donald Trump’s adviser Stephen Miller sent a letter warning that elected leaders and employees of “sanctuary” jurisdictions could be “criminally liable” if they impede federal immigration enforcement.

 AB 2234 goes into effect in 2025.

By M.G. Perez / 7SanDiego/ December 29, 2024

An e-bike rider was hit by a vehicle along Interstate-5 in Oceanside on Saturday evening.

It happened near the I-5 entrance ramp at Mission Avenue in front of Oceanside High School. According to California Highway Patrol investigators, the crash damaged the bike and seriously injured the person who had to be transported to an area hospital.

Officers interviewed the driver of the vehicle. They have not released the exact age of the young bike rider.

From California Environment / December 30, 2024

In the southern parts of San Diego’s Point Loma peninsula, Cabrillo National Monument serves as a symbol for both natural beauty and historical significance. Visitors can enjoy breathtaking ocean views, learn history at the Old Point Loma Lighthouse and explore the tidepools – shallow seawater that forms in the intertidal zone. Now, we have a chance to protect more of this beautiful place as environmental stressors pose threats to kelp forests and marine life that live within.

At the heart of this southern coastal treasure in California lies the Cabrillo State Marine Reserve (SMR), a Marine Protected Area (MPA) that plays a crucial role in preserving the rich marine ecosystem. However, the Cabrillo MPA currently encompasses just under half a square mile in the ocean. While this protection has been vital, it represents only a fraction of the area needed to ensure the long-term health of our marine ecosystems.

Amid all the laudatory and respectful accounts of former President Jimmy Carter in today’s press — he just passed away at the age of 100 — one key thing is missing in all the biographies of the Habitat for Humanity builder of affordable houses that was not covered — or even mentioned. And it was something that turned off an entire generation of college students to the peanut farmer-turned politician.

Carefully reading both the 6 pages of today’s Union-Tribune and the multiple pages at the LA Times tributes to Carter, there was not one mention, not one word of this Carter move that ruined his reputation among the young.

During late 1979, Carter called for the re-instituting of the military draft for all young Americans — during an era where relations with the Soviet Union were tearing thin and there was much saber-rattling in our country. The draft for the Vietnam war had ended in 1973 — and now, a mere 6 years later, Carter wanted it back. And in doing so, he caused the creation of a nation-wide and militant anti-draft movement that formed as a direct result of his fomenting another round of US militarism.

Immediately, anti-draft groups formed and held demonstrations against Carter and his draft amid calls to resist.

San Diego was no different. College and university students were the first group to mobilize in the new movement, other than longtime peaceniks who had paused their activism after the Vietnam war had ended.

By Trudy Grundland

YIMBY, NIMBY, RIMBY. The name calling started when the City of San Diego (YIMBY, yes in my backyard) eliminated single family home zoning in an attempt to create affordable housing.

AB1287 (YIMBY) made it possible for developers to buy lots in residential neighborhoods and build ADU apartment complexes, 91-units on a residential street of historical homes and get plans quickly approved for massive apartment buildings in Pacific Beach and a 100+ year-old Mission Hills neighborhood. If this rapid and intense building makes you break out in a cold sweat, you could be a NIMBY, no in my backyard.

Now there’s the grassroots effort by Neighbors For A Better California.org, to tell our mayor and governor, we need responsible zoning and planning to prevent overdevelopment (that ruins a person’s ability to enjoy the sanctuary of their home). If you like this, call yourself a RIMBY, responsible in my backyard. You want to preserve the charm of California communities.

By Chas Smith / Beach Grit / December 30, 2024

Pier pressure to become a thing of the past?

Everyone knows, I think, that California’s coolest surfers generally congregate around the Golden State’s many piers. Bobbing below the fisherpeople in Pismo, shooting the pilings in Huntington, getting all rad in Ocean Beach etc. Pier Rats, as they are reverentially called, thrive off the high stakes of visibility. One thing to bog a top turn whilst out at a local beachbreak. Quite another thing to do whilst under the discerning eyes of tens, if not hundreds, of inland tourists.

By Miranda Ceja / Patch / Dec 24 — 26, 2024

Heads up, Golden State drivers: a handful of new laws come into effect starting Jan. 1, 2025 that will impact the way you drive your vehicle.

From insurance claims to car break-ins — to parking restrictions and license requirements, here’s the run-down on new driving laws impacting Californians for the New Year.

Locked Door Loophole Gets Squashed

This year, a loophole in California criminal code — which defined burglary to include “entering a vehicle when the doors are locked with the intent to commit grand or petit larceny or a felony.”