All my friends have settled down/ Become theirmothers and their fathers without a sound…— Cowboy Junkies, “A Horse in the Country”I saved the audiobook of Michael Brendan Daugherty’s memoir My Father Left Me Ireland: An American …
June 12, 2019
Latest News & Stories
Reader writer concludes he is his father's son
Abortion wars at UCSD
Fallaciously balanced ARE YOU KIDDING??? I know you’re not a first-line journalistic organization, but how on earth could you consider publishing anything whose main source is The Center for Medical Progress (“UCSD researchers use organs …
June 12, 2019
Whether to kill San Diego mountain lions
At approximately 2:30 pm on May 27 (Memorial Day), a 4-year-old boy was attacked by a mountain lion in Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve. The child survived the attack and was transported to Rady Children’s Hospital …
June 12, 2019
Melvin Parker: making “The Block” TV show for “ourselves”
“I want to start my own network.” Melvin Parker reckons it was these words that won him a scholarship to study broadcasting. But that turned out to be just the beginning of a two-decade struggle …
June 12, 2019
Mitigating climate change with more than #NODAPL protests
Dear Hipster: How do we make mitigating climate change hip in the sense of people actually doing something about it? Yeah, they may post a few things on Insta or RT, but how do we …
June 12, 2019
LA politician Manchester Boddy dug five ponds, built greenhouses, to create Wilderness Gardens Preserve
For a brief time in the 20th century, the Wilderness Gardens property was owned and named by Manchester Boddy, a Los Angeles politician, publisher, and horticulturist. For his “wilderness,” he dug five ponds, built greenhouses …
June 12, 2019
Going beyond bratwurst at Veg'n Out
The term meatless has got to be one of the biggest words of 2019. Every other time I check a news feed, or turn on the radio, there’s more news about the rise of meatless …
June 11, 2019
Suspect in quadruple murder of Fallbrook family convicted
After the mysterious 2010 disappearance of the McStay family of Fallbrook, Charles Ray Merritt, 62, was convicted of the quadruple murder on June 10 in a San Bernardino County court Joseph McStay, his wife Summer, …
June 11, 2019
Mayor O'Connor, Union-Tribune owner, McDonald's heiress on Today show
The following comes from a Reader story published on June 1, 1989. It's ten minutes before one o'clock, Thursday afternoon. The crew of the Today show is in Seaport Village about to begin taping a …
June 10, 2019
Your new favorite cookies are Caked
The bakery is called Caked, but most of the glass case is filled with cookies. Large, soft cookies, individually wrapped. There are brownies too, but we’ll get to that. First we’re going to be overwhelmed …
June 10, 2019
Campland gives big to Campbell
News that Campland on The Bay, the legacy recreational vehicle park on the northeast corner of Mission Bay, is rapidly closing in on a five-year lease extension from city hall is casting a spotlight on …
June 10, 2019
Leucadia – funky no more
La Costa Ave. missing time capsule found In the 1970s, Encinitas sheriff’s deputies would make the Leucadia rest area one of their first stops in their morning patrols, to kick out squatting hippies and camping …
June 10, 2019
Stephen Meyer and the Reader
Stephen Meyer wrote for the Reader from 1984 through 1987. Editor's picks of stories Meyer wrote: You can run but you cannot hide (at least not in Tijuana) When two Mexican police officers and two …
June 9, 2019
Tom Larson and the Reader
How Larson came to write for the Reader: I have written before about how the brilliant literary editor, Judith Moore, who died in 2006, encouraged my submissions to the Reader and brought me into the …
June 8, 2019
What Santa Anita horse deaths mean for Del Mar
Is Del Mar’s world-famous attraction headed for extinction? “I grew up watching races with my dad, but maybe it’s time we end all this,” said a lifelong horse racing fan at the Santa Anita Racetrack …
June 7, 2019