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
Close to Home — What it’s like on the street where you live
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
Could Stephan surrender Cate investigation?
Stephan's problem is that she's linked and tied to nearly everyone in the local power structure, and cannot be at all impartial or effective at rooting out corruption. If she steps aside on this case, she sets a precedent to step aside in all such cases, and there will or should be many more like it. In other words, she cannot be an effective DA due to her long history of involvement with local pols, and especially with her ethically-challenged predecessor. The only answer is that she not be DA. Maybe she will do the decent thing and withdraw from the race to get a full term of her own. Stranger things have happened, and I don't expect anything like that.— October 13, 2017 9:13 p.m.
Wedding for 619 and 858 area codes imminent
Here in No County a few years ago, we got a "traditional" code overlay involving the new 442 area code. (Has anyone seen a 442 telephone number yet? I haven't.) Supposedly the 760 area was soon to run out of numbers, and the proposal was to take the San Diego County portion (and maybe some other areas) and change them to 442. After having to go through two changes, from 714 to 619, and then from 619 to 760, there was plenty of resistance. The counter proposal was to let No County keep 760 and to change the rest of the area to 442. That would have involved Imperial County and a big swath of the eastern area of the state up as far north as Mono County. The compromise was the overlay, which we've had for a number of years, wherein all numbers must be dialed with the area code, and the access code of "1". It's a pain in the butt, but you get used to it. There must be a better way, but the telephone companies say they can't make it work any other way.— October 13, 2017 2:27 p.m.
Antonia's last words
Quite a story. Seems I read or heard a similar account of what happened. Four meth heads get together for a ride, and one ends up dead, shot three or four times. It would be easy to write them off and forget the tale, but there's more that needs to be observed. After one of them has fired the handgun multiple times and has killed her, what do the others do? Go to a fire station to seek help? Uh, no. Call the cops? Uh, no. Her body is unceremoniously discarded along the road, and then the three dudes head back to Las Vegas in a car with obvious bullet holes. The distraught boyfriend is one of the three. What are they thinking? They aren't thinking. Their fried brains don't react in any way that sane people would recognize. If the defense can make a jury think that one of the meth heads didn't do it, that would mean one of the others did. In any event, dumping the body and beating feet out of state should mean the others are accessories-after-the-fact for the cover up, inept as it was. Good grief, meth is really a huge danger to normal society, but if you choose to use it, good luck.— October 12, 2017 5:11 p.m.
Public relations hiring binge
Kev will look for spinmeisters to solve all his political problems. What he really needs to do is, well, DO something real. But it's all talk, and once in a long while, a half-measure that avails little or nothing. The promises he made in both election campaigns have fallen by the wayside. The city gets progressively worse off, and he smiles.— October 11, 2017 4:38 p.m.
Don’t expect Florida and Caribbean tourists to flock west
While your conclusions are probably true, Don, there is an opportunity for the local tourism cabal to benefit from Caribbean misfortune. Puerto Rico is, we are told, utterly devastated. It will be months until all of the island gets the power back on, and that will likely be done by makeshift measures. (Their power grid was in shambles before the hurricanes hit.) So, it may be a decade or more before that island can resume seriously hosting tourists, and especially those who expect luxury. That story will play out on many other islands in the region. Another top tourist mecca for east coast types in Cancun, and that is now dealing with drug cartel violence, scaring away tourists. Cuba? Fuhgedabouddit. That California might have an earthquake while someone is visiting really should not figure into one's plans. It is a one-in-ten-thousand possibility. A fire is most unlikely to disturb a beach resort area, and there is little personal danger from fires while visiting. (Now if you wanted to stay at a wine country resort hotel, right now that's a different story.) One of the biggest impediments to San Diego tourism is still the one-horse-town airport we have. The local tourism promoters have never managed to put it all together. Too much of the mid-price lodging is old and run down, yet wildly overpriced. The tourist attractions, such as Mission Bay Park are shabby and unattractive. TJ is no longer the day-trip tourist draw it once was, although some folks will unwisely still visit there because of its "exotic" and foreign environment. So, tourism here could benefit from these disruptions. Those in charge of attracting tourists have one play in their playbook now, and will not break out of the box they are in.— October 11, 2017 8:24 a.m.
U-T print circulation continues downward spiral
For a time up until about eight or nine years ago, the North County Times provided the high schools in the area with many bundles of papers on a daily basis. The U-T may have done similar things for some of the schools farther south in the county. But that all seemed to stop when circulation and ad revenue for the papers began itheir inexorable decline. That thing about "donating" your paper was really not what it seemed. It was just a way to keep the revenue stream up while you were not getting your copy. I'm not on campuses very often nowadays, but in more recent years I never saw any use of the newspaper in the classroom.— October 11, 2017 7:45 a.m.
Vista councilman regrets leash-free vote
Maybe a complaint to the Health Department, which I suppose is charged with enforcing such regulations, would get results. You would have to provide the precise time and day, and a detailed description of the person and the dog. There are times when the actual managers of such establishments are in the back, doing their paperwork or ordering, and just don't see violations. I doubt that anyone really thinks that taking a dog into any store is OK. But if they get away with it, they'll do it.— October 10, 2017 8:36 a.m.
U-T print circulation continues downward spiral
This continuing precipitous drop in circulation of the rag means it is steadily less relevant in the county. When I was buying ad circulation, if a paper didn't deliver close to half of the households in its market, it was looked at as weak. Some cities had papers that reached as high as 80% of households. Sunday coverage of only 160K is pathetic, meaning that out of a population of 3.3 million folks, only a small minority of them ever see a copy. The circulation is so low that tronc could on any day announce that it is just going to stop the print version, and go fully on-line. I don't expect that soon, but how many of us, say ten years ago, would have predicted this rapid decline in newspaper circulation? I sure didn't see it coming so fast. In the case of the U-T, all the changes of ownership and the changes in direction that go along with that have weakened it. From month to month you can't rely on anything staying the same in the product that lands in your driveway. Some time back it claimed that at least a million readers saw a copy at least once a week. That was nothing much to brag about, and now they don't even claim that.— October 10, 2017 8:17 a.m.
Vista councilman regrets leash-free vote
Not to quibble unduly, but the name of the park doesn't include the word "Rancho." It's just Buena Vista Park. I walk there at least once a week, and have been doing so for about twenty years. In the farther reaches of the park, especially east of Melrose Drive, at least half of the dogs I encounter are off leash. Most of the time they are no problem, and are under control of their humans. But when two unleashed dogs meet in there, it can get wild, and I've witnessed some tense confrontations. Saying that "there is simply not an issue with unleashed dogs" is Ms. Irwin's opinion. In all the time I've used that park I've never seen any presence of law enforcement, except for one occasion near the pond, and it had nothing to do with dog leash enforcement. At one time the city supposedly had some park rangers, but they are invisible; they come out at night to lock gates and then open them again in the morning. Bottom line: no enforcement. A nastier issue is all the dog poop that ends up on the trails. Yes, bags are provided at entrances and trail heads, and many people use them. But too many of those who bag the stuff also just drop the bags along the trail. Do they think there's a Paw, er Poop, Patrol that cruises around in there picking up the bags of nastiness? I admire Franklin for his willingness to listen and reconsider. The mayor and Councilman Aguilera, both good people, have gone tone deaf on many issues recently. Good luck to Franklin getting Judy Ritter and Green to change their votes.— October 9, 2017 12:45 p.m.
Fast traffic near St. Augustine High chaps neighbors
Just what you were expressing is utterly unclear to me. But never mind that. I'm thinking that the close neighbors of any high school in the county, whether private, parochial, or public will have similar complaints. Sadly, it goes with the territory. Some of the high schools used to have an open campus policy that allowed the kids--all of them--to leave campus for lunch. So, not only did the neighbors have to deal with the start-of-the-day traffic, they also had a free for all at lunchtime, and then the end-of-the-day traffic. Somehow they survived, and the homes in those spots seem to sell for about the same prices as those a block or two away. Personally, I'd avoid "like the plague" a house that faced onto a school, or was within two blocks of a high school. It just isn't worth the grief.— October 7, 2017 7:43 p.m.