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News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

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News & Politics Neighborhood News News Ticker Under the Radar

Food & Drink Beverage News Booze News Drinks All Around Feast! San Diego Beer Tin Fork

Movies Big Screen Movie Archives Movie Reviews Movies@Home

Happenings Fishing Report Outdoors Reader Travel Roam-O-Rama Surf Diego Theater Your Week

Music Blurt Classical Music The Gonzo Report Live Five Musician Interviews Of Note Upcoming Shows

Comics Famous Former Neighbors Obermeyer Overheard in San Diego

Archives Reader by issue date Today’s stories All of the latest stories

Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news

News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

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Neal Obermeyer

Neal Obermeyer is a Reader contributor. See staff page for published articles.

Farewell to a professional love

Happy retirement, Don! It's been an honor to share a page with you.
— September 21, 2018 5:32 p.m.

Mortgage Mess Could Hit Banks, Housing

Via its specificity, that's a bit of a misrepresentation of quantitative easing. QE is a useful tool toward increasing the money supply and velocity when there is nowhere left to go on interest rates. The barrier of zero is essentially artificial; increasing the supply is still the goal when growth in productivity and wages fails to provide it. I say this with all due respect, as I am a big Don fan, but the theory that QE is all about tricking the public into buying stocks in order to inflate the stock market, with the goal of then subsequently tricking the public to leverage their increased stock value into more consumption, seems like an odd conclusion to draw from what is a pretty straightforward means of increasing money supply. And I'm not sure what purpose is served by presenting QE in this way, particularly when the mortgage mess is what it is regardless.
— October 28, 2010 4:40 p.m.

Union-Tribune to Shrink Width of Paper

Re: #2 Don, while I'm sure there is some institutional wisdom lost in getting rid of older staff in favor of younger and less expensive reporters, I think there is also something to be gained in passion and energy. I know of at least one daily paper that would love to have the luxury of cleaning out the comfortable lazy veterans so they could get some hungry young talent in. (It's admittedly too easy and definitely unfair to categorize all veterans as lazy and comfortable, but at the same time, it's also probably too easy to generalize that the wisdom and passion of all "old-timers" matches their tenure.) But as you allude to, a house cleaning simply for the sake of picking up whoever will work cheapest is probably not the best way to maximize the potential of bringing in a new generation. There is potential there, though.
— May 13, 2010 8:33 p.m.

Local Lead Indicators Inch Up

Re: #7 AT&T's complaints have nothing to do with cost controls in the bill. Medicare Part D, passed during the Bush administration, gave companies tax-free 28% subsidies in order to provide prescription drug benefits for their employees, but it also allowed companies to deduct those subsidies from their taxes, which was absurd. The healthcare bill recently signed into law eliminated the deduction. From Commerce Secretary Gary Locke quoted Donald Marron, acting CBO director for President George W. Bush, in his recent WSJ editorial: "[A]s the Joint Committee on Taxation recently noted, that treatment is highly unusual. In my view, it's right that the recent health legislation closed that loophole." Locke added, "This change has garnered recent headlines because, to comply with accounting laws, companies affected by the provision have taken a one-time charge reflecting the loss of future tax deductions over the decades-long duration of their retiree health-care plans. Critics have seized on this accounting adjustment to suggest these costs—as much as $1 billion in one company's case—are going to place immediate and substantial cost burdens on America's businesses. "This is disingenuous. "The actual cash flow impact of these provisions begins in 2013, and is only a tiny fraction of the accounting charge-offs." And to say the bill "does nothing to contain costs" exposes either dishonesty or ignorance. It includes insurance exchanges, price reductions, delivery reforms, capping the employer-provided tax exclusion, advances malpractice reforms, IT investments, prevention measures and an independent Medicare commission, not to mention what is possibly the most powerful -- bringing another 30 million plus into the ranks of the insured. Harvard health economist David Cutler recently assembled a list of the 10 most potent cost controls in a Wall Street Journal editorial, and the bill includes all but one of the reforms on his wishlist -- a public option.
— April 1, 2010 6:11 p.m.

The San Diego Pot and Coke Connection at work

By JustWondering 7:26 p.m., Apr 26, 2009 "no ones stopping you from moving yourself and your family where you can live in drug laden haze for the rest of your sorry life." By JustWondering 9:47 a.m., Apr 28, 2009 "But your just a coward, your answer is to bring down the standards here." By JustWondering 11:21 a.m., May 1, 2009 "you've been sampling WAY TOO MUCH of the products you want to them to legalize." By JustWondering 9:47 a.m., Apr 28, 2009 "Typical liberal argument... attack the messenger when logic doesn't work."
— May 1, 2009 12:23 p.m.

Next Will Come No-Newspaper Markets, Says New York Times Story

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette was, I think, the only major daily that actually increased circulation last year. It was less affected by the internet changes for a few reasons — the publisher had foreseen what would become craigslist and had been giving away free classifieds for decades, and they also charged for the paper's online content (I'm going off hazy memory, so forgive me if some details are off). But now even they are laying people off.
— March 13, 2009 2:54 p.m.

Letters

It is incorrect in Valerie Sanfilippo's letter to claim Pilgrims did not drink. Beer was a necessity for trans-Atlantic travelers for health reasons.
— November 28, 2008 2:25 p.m.

U-T Continues To Overstate Its Circulation Publicly, but a Potential Buyer Won't Be Fooled

Hi Don, In the story above, when you said "For the week ended July 13, daily circulation was 269,159," was that figure also from the U-T's report to its employees? Thanks, Neal
— August 15, 2008 8:23 p.m.

None

It's an interesting theory, however, but it doesn't hold up in New Hampshire, because the polls matched the outcome in the rural areas. The raw exit polls showed an Obama victory, yet pundits are using the adjusted demographic exit poll data to refute the raw data. Does that not seem a bit absurd? If the whole thing is wrong, how can you use something extracted from it to prove that? Everone's performance matched the polls in the hand-counted precincts. And in the machine-counted precincts, Clinton and Obama's percentages swapped while everyone else still matched the polls. So this makes sense if we choose to believe that the strong female outpouring only happened in machine-counted precincts; if we believe that the independent swing that supposedly benefited Clinton only happened in machine-counted precincts; if we believe that the only people who changed their mind at the last minute were people defecting from Obama to Clinton, and they happened to live exclusively in machine-counted precincts; if we believe the urban-rural distribution from Iowa completely flipped in New Hampshire; and if we believe that it's reasonable to use exit poll demographic data to discredit the raw data from which the demographic data was derived, which many pundits seem fine with in spite of the inherent flaw in logic. New Hampshire uses the same Diebold machines that have been decertified in other states, all of their voting machines are controlled by one private company, and their legislature chose to ignore testimony about the known vulnerabilities in their system. Kucinich's recount request will be interesting, but hardly as interesting if recounts had the same open access and verification requirements that election night vote counts do.
— January 11, 2008 1:40 p.m.

29 Newspeople, Some of Paper's Best, Take U-T Buyout

Don, I'm extremely glad that The Reader has added blogs to supplement the weekly content, largely because I get to read more than one entry per week from you. But I'm not as pessimistic about newspapers in general. Newspapers, even with shrinking circulation and cutbacks, still boast higher profit margins than most businesses. I think a lot of the doom-and-gloom comes from media companies who need immediate profits to pay off debts built through acquisitions and don't see papers as long-term investments. There seems to be such a groupthink mentality when it comes to how to make newspapers more profitable -- add video, run dozens of stories on iPods and celebrities -- essentially mimic those sources that readers can get for free, rather than beefing up the efforts that make newspapers unique and valuable. Furthermore, the causes to which you and other readers attribute the U-T's demise are clearly unrelated to any technological innovations or paradigm shifts. Newspapers may be facing challenges across the country, but I hardly think it's the death of the medium. Blogs may be great for what they're great for, but they struggle to generate near the same amount of revenue and you can't read a blog while eating your cereal.
— December 30, 2007 2:11 p.m.

News & Politics Neighborhood News News Ticker Under the Radar

Food & Drink Beverage News Booze News Drinks All Around Feast! San Diego Beer Tin Fork

Movies Big Screen Movie Archives Movie Reviews Movies@Home

Happenings Fishing Report Outdoors Reader Travel Roam-O-Rama Surf Diego Theater Your Week

Music Blurt Classical Music The Gonzo Report Live Five Musician Interviews Of Note Upcoming Shows

Comics Famous Former Neighbors Obermeyer Overheard in San Diego

Archives Reader by issue date Today’s stories All of the latest stories

Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

See all neighborhoods

February 28, 2024

February 21, 2024

February 14, 2024

February 7, 2024

January 31, 2024

See previous issues