I HAVE THE 1953 PLAYBOY magazine with Marilyn Monroe's famous nude centerfold. I purchased this copy new in the 1950s. What is its value today? A.R. Evans Billings, Mont. The price of your Playboy, which …
August 16, 2021
Latest News & Stories
San Diego in books - Cross-border escape, Jedediah Smith, Charles Bukowski
Why would Talmadge neighbor fire BBs at a small dog?
Beth Smith noticed her terrier-and-chihuahua mix, Pebbles, barking and yelping more than usual last week. On August 12, she reached out to us on our mid-city neighborhood online forum: "My neighbors have been shooting my …
August 16, 2021
San Diego lobbyists got record $5.5 million in 2020
The year of the big Covid-19 shutdown was San Diego city hall's most lucrative year for behind-the-scenes influence peddling. "In 2020, a total of 57 lobbying firms and 61 organization lobbyists registered a total of …
August 16, 2021
Thunderstorms can make ocotillos crazy
Thunderstorms have visited the Imperial Valley and parts of eastern San Diego County over the past several weeks. The seasonal arrival of moisture from the east and south, more or less typical for late summer, …
August 16, 2021
All San Diegans now: Koreans on Convoy Street, Africans driving cabs, Saddam Hussein's bodyguard
Happy Endings on Convoy Street In all the years I lived in and visited Korea, almost always staying in some relative’s household, I went to countless parties. When they were outside the household, they were …
August 16, 2021
Conditions Point to Great Fall Fishing in the San Diego Area
Dock Totals 8/8 – 8/14: 5,585 anglers aboard 256 trips out of San Diego landings this past week caught 78 barracuda, 4,133 bluefin tuna (up to 80 pounds), 13 bocaccio, 517 bonito, 2,134 calico bass …
August 15, 2021
Tijuana through white eyes: the bus from Mexico City, where margaritas came from, the La Mesa prison
Destination Tijuana “Don’t let them tell me the bus is new. Of course, we always get there on time; it’s just on the way there are, well, complications. It’s in the nature of the route. …
August 15, 2021
San Diego's weasels, squirrels, worms, rats
I Wanted to Own Him Until He Opened His Mouth Six days later, on a morning when the air was light blue, the weasel left his kill on the driveway, a young opossum so dead …
August 14, 2021
Chicago Not Dogs, not for purists
Plant-based eateries aren’t as tough a sell as they used to be in San Diego, but they’re still part of the volatile restaurant business, so even some of the good ones close before their time. …
August 13, 2021
The grand opening of the Rady Shell
I came to San Diego in the fall of 1990. All through the decade, I took advantage of the chance to buy student tickets for the San Diego Symphony and the San Diego Opera. However, …
August 13, 2021
Battle of the Bartenders, Tiki Style
San Diego’s Tiki Oasis festival celebrated its 20th anniversary this year after postponing the celebration and being forced to go virtual in 2020. This year also marked the first Tiki Oasis in its new home, …
August 13, 2021
Three of Jean Arthur’s Columbia comedies
Many performers lost their careers during Hollywood’s transition to sound, but Jean Arthur literally found her voice in talkies. And don’t let the pink and squishy sounds it radiates fool you: Ms. Arthur was a …
August 13, 2021
In previously unheard-of crime, some unvaccinated Californians are dealing in so-called “Fake IDs”
Yesterday, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria spoke out against a plague of faked vaccination cards that seems to be spreading among the unvaccinated community in San Diego even faster than covid-19. “Even as San Diego’s …
August 13, 2021
The Falcon Can Hear the Faulconer
Last week, a SurveyUSA poll revealed that more than half of likely voters would vote to recall Governor Gavin Newsom from office, a clear sign that many Californians are unhappy with Toothsome Newsom’s handling of …
August 13, 2021
Once-dismissed “Lin-Leak Theory” gains traction following covid outbreak among Zoo’s big cats
“When I first suggested that China’s decision to share its pandas with the San Diego Zoo might be a fur-op, everybody said I was crazy,” says local conspiracy theorist Saul Openmind. “That was what, 27 …
August 13, 2021