City Lights
Let’s say a man bit your finger so viciously that the flesh was torn away and the bone exposed. Let’s say it happened in a public place in front of dozens of eyewitnesses who prevented …
‘It’s a Barnum and Bailey world, just as phony as it can be.” Those words are from the 1933 song “It’s Only a Paper Moon.” Seventy-five years later, Americans understand that the financial system has …
Hiro Iwamoto loves to sail. Not so unusual — except for one apparent drawback. He is blind. Before moving from Japan to San Diego two years ago, Iwamoto led a Tokyo team to the Blind …
Two elephants entered a special meeting of the City’s Budget and Finance Committee on Wednesday, November 12, and councilmembers donned their blinders to be certain not to see them. The two elephants were very inconvenient …
There is a showdown coming. It might turn into a gunfight. Or at least a fistfight. There is a huge City budget deficit. To close the gap, the current council only wants to talk about …
You’re exhilarated when the stock market zooms 10 percent in a day, right? Think again. Of the ten one-day miracles in investment history, when stocks have soared 9 to 15 percent, seven of those days …
When it comes to crossing the border, Carlos Hermosillo plays it by ear. As he gets close to the San Ysidro crossing, he calls 700-7000 on his cell phone, and a recording gives him the …
Chances are your stockbroker or financial planner is telling you to buy stocks now. Oh, there is a chance they will go down in the short run, he or she will say, but in a …
In the midtown community of Banker's Hill, a convertible Mercedes drives down Olive Street straight through the intersection with Third Avenue and onto a narrow paved driveway. The car coasts past a wooden sign displaying …
What do you get when you cross Little Mary Sunshine with the Abominable Snowman? You get an email newsletter named Wolverine Network, sent to a list of prominent San Diegans, some still powerful. The publisher …
Armando was looking forward to meeting with Lucy that Friday evening, October 26, 2007. A laborer for a tree-trimming company, he borrowed his sister’s ’96 Mustang and drove to where Lucy asked him to meet …
San Diego’s fourth-largest industry, tourism, looks as though it will take a hit in the current (fourth) quarter, and the pain will persist well into next year. This will hurt the ailing economy because the …
A week ago Saturday, as President George W. Bush and other federal officials hastened to bail out the U.S. economy, Democratic San Diego city attorney Mike Aguirre, facing his own uphill battle against his better-financed …
‘I don’t think the American taxpayer needs to be stepping in,” Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson assured the citizenry on February 27 of this year. Half a month later, the Federal Reserve bailed out Wall Street …
At Bernardo Winery, one of the oldest olive oil producers in California, oil flow has come to a standstill. While the Rancho Bernardo company has historically produced 300 to 400 gallons of olive oil per …
In San Diego’s hemorrhaging real estate industry, it’s better to be upside-down and rich than upside-down and poor. That may sound axiomatic — it’s always nicer to be rich than poor — but carriage-trade folks …