Astro Jump: DJ Pound and Nick Leng bring fresh beats to Whistle Stop
Chad Deal 9:26 p.m., June 19
Stories for November 2000
Thursday, November 30
Code Trauma
“If you want compelling drama, we’ve got it here every single night,” says Dr. Michael Sise, director of Mercy’s trauma center since 1994. Sise is a walking encyclopedia of trauma medicine. A New York native, ...
State Testing Program's
The expression "high stakes" is a favorite idiom among San Diego educators these days. It doesn't matter if you're talking to people at the local, district, county, or state level -- if the subject is ...
County's Critters Breathe Easier
You say you'd like to buy 5000 acres of San Diego County backcountry land, preferably with a perennial stream and rare oak woodland habitat. The Santa Ysabel Ranch has all that and more. The problem ...
Lobbyist in the house
The election of Republican Darrell Issa to North County's 48th District congressional seat is setting off rapture among car-alarm lobbyists. Until recently, Issa was president of Vista's Directed Electronics, maker of the famous "Viper" anti-theft ...
Why is it that when I scratch my cat on the end of his spine, he enters cat ecstasy?
Hey, Matt: Why is it when I scratch my cat on the very end of his spine, where the tail connects, he seems to enter throes of cat ecstasy? And why does it only seem ...
Hike Chatsworth's Old Stagecoach Road, a crucial link in a 19th-Century stage route linking L.A. and San Francisco.
Sunrises are as spectacular as they come when viewed on clear, late fall or winter mornings from the Old Stagecoach Road -- now a hiking trail rising into the foothills outside Chatsworth in the San ...
Thursday, November 23
Discover desert fan palms in their native, oasis-like habitats at Anza-Borrego's Mountain Palm Springs.
The area called Mountain Palm Springs in southern Anza-Borrego Desert State Park cannot lay claim to the largest palm oases in our local desert, but it does feature some of the most charming ones. The ...
Wednesday, November 22
Cornucopia
“You’re eating bug excrement.” Stephen Facciola and I are standing in the parking lot of a Middle Eastern grocery in disheartening Anaheim. The streets are eight lanes wide. The blocks, a mile long. The air ...
Big-Money Boys
Back in the late 1970s, Larry Remer and Tom Shepard were idealistic liberal activists. Shepard worked for a young county supervisor named Roger Hedgecock, who advocated controlled growth, favored the coastal commission, and enjoyed the ...
What Do I Have to Be Thankful for?
On a warm autumn afternoon, a homeless man lies against a wall on First Avenue just south of Ash Street. He's sharing a bottle of cheap vodka with an older homeless man in a wheelchair. ...
Golding's meaty send-off
As Susan Golding leaves the public payroll for the first time in her more than 19 years as city councilwoman, state bureaucrat, county supervisor, and San Diego mayor, friends are bidding her adieu. Next Wednesday, ...
Why does 86'd mean getting thrown out?
Hey, Matt: Why no column in the October 26 Reader? No questions worth answering? Maybe this will fit the bill. Why does 86’d mean getting tossed out or ejected? I’m not leaving until I find ...
What is the deal with the much vaunted "World Class" city's Third World streets?
Hey, Matt: What gives with the much vaunted "World Class" city's Third World streets? It seems that every project the city manages to poop out winds up in short order looking like the hallway runner ...
The power lines along the park corridor are incredibly noisy. Is this normal?
Hey, Matt: The power lines along the park corridor are incredibly noisy. As a physics major in school, I know that noise requires energy, and this means these high-tension lines are losing a lot of ...
What does the slang term, "86'd" mean?
Matt: About 40+ years ago, the Uniform Code of Military Justice had Article 86 as the absence without permission. I remember asking where someone was and getting the answer, "He 86'd over the weekend." I ...
Thursday, November 16
A House and a Tree Spell Contenment to Me
Olive Street came into its name around 1906, when streets between A and Sacramento were named after trees. One portion of Olive, a quiet cul-de-sac in North Park, has just 15 homes — 22 counting ...
Stadium Compassion
The outer circle of the parking lot at Qualcomm Stadium is rocking. Tens of thousands of fans dressed in black jerseys howl and strut their macho best as barbecue and cigarette smoke fills the air. ...
Editorial obituaries
Union-Tribune editorial writers, their credibility shredded by years of unquestioning support for the Chargers' ticket guarantee and the downtown Padres stadium deal, took some major hits on election day. Unlike the days of yore, when ...
School for Dinosaurs
If the San Diego Unified School District were graded for bolstering mathematics and reading skills, the district might garner above-average marks. During the past two years, students in San Diego's public schools have significantly improved ...
Follow the meandering Sunset Trail along the forested west rim of the Laguna Mountains.
Big Sycamore and Serrano Canyons in Point Mugu State Park are a study in contrasts. As its name suggests, shallow and wide Big Sycamore Canyon harbors stately California sycamores, set at spacious intervals. Serrano Canyon ...
Thursday, November 9
A Quiet Cul-De-Sac in North Park
Good neighborhoods require the right mix of place, time, and things, and the right people. But neighborhoods are not good simply because they are not bad, because rape and pillage are not going on at ...
Is there a smell that repels bears?
Howdy, Matt and the Elves: I'm planning a trip to Yosemite and reading up on safety in bear country. Apparently the main reason bears encounter humans in the first place is because their sense of ...
Why does every juice concentrate, except for grape juice, stay frozen until you get home from the store?
Dear Matt: Grape juice. When you buy frozen juice concentrates at a store they generally stay frozen until you get them home -- except for grape juice. Frozen grape juice concentrate frequently starts getting sloshy ...
Aguardiente
The label shows a factory. A white one-story building with a red-tile roof and brown smokestack stands beside a beige two-story building. In front of the buildings on a green lawn, three barrels and two ...
African Luck
Koffi Kouakou is the first member of his family to read and write. The first to ride in a plane. The first to leave Cote d'Ivoire. The first to leave Africa. The first to drive ...
Hard Town for Activism
On the evening of October 11, George W. Bush and Al Gore were in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, being stupid on TV. Gore: "First of all, let me say that if I'm elected president..." Bush: "If ...
Susan's revenge
Word comes from North Carolina, of all places, that lame-duck San Diego mayor Susan Golding is secretly attempting to fill a key city-hall vacancy before she leaves office at the end of the year. The ...
Cleveland National Forest's Sunset Trail
The Sunset Trail facilitates easy access by foot to the entire west rim of the high Laguna Mountain plateau. Like analogous routes to the east -- Sunrise Highway and the sunrise-facing Pacific Crest Trail -- ...
Thursday, November 2
Third Spud from the Sun: Cameron Crowe Then and Now
In the merry sequence of things, Cameron Crowe was the third of a conspicuous trio of teenage rock-crit wanna-bes, junior spuds from the gitgo, whose paths crossed mine in the early 1970s. The biggest cheesepuff ...
Gore Gave an Answer, Bush Gave a Smile
As the election looms on the horizon, abortion swirls in the cool fall air at San Diego State University, now enshrouding the entire spectacle, now skittering about the edges, now fading from sight, only to ...
Political moola
Cash from that big-money push against school-board member Frances Zimmerman financed by Padres owner John Moores, his downtown real estate partner, Republican Malin Burnham, and Qualcomm mogul Irwin Jacobs, among others, has made its way ...
Visit the distinctive sandstone slabs of Vasquez Rocks outside Los Angeles.
A formerly popular location for filming old West movies and sci-fi extravaganzas, the distinctive Vasquez Rocks outside Los Angeles may be familiar from episodes of Bonanza, Star Trek, and countless old movies. The tilted sandstone ...
