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San Diego Unified scores mine-resistant Army truck
You could not be more wrong. San Diego Unified School Police have a superb record of helping school communities -- kids, parents, teachers, principals, nurses, office staff. It's the cops' presence as authorities, role models, advisors and observers that keeps the schools safe. The reason there IS an in-house police force is that they personally know students and bring eyes, ears, hearts and minds to their jobs -- uniquely different from detached off-campus city police. I hope San Diego Unified will send back this inappropriate white elephant armored vehicle and save on maintenance costs. It would be a great statement about how public education marches to a different drummer on the anniversary of 9/11.— September 10, 2014 12:39 p.m.
Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation from filmmaking
Didn't Maureen O'Hara have a speaking part? You scarcely mention her. Care to explain? I've never seen this movie so I guess I'll rent it when six-year-olds come over. If it's okay, we'll call it the Babe and Larry film festival. It beats "Rich Hill."— September 9, 2014 9:33 p.m.
San Diego Unified scores mine-resistant Army truck
Visduh, our time together on the same wavelength is over. You are caught up in some rescue fantasy, just like Captain Joe Florentino, now that school cops have acquired this ridiculous military apparatus. You both engage in wishful thinking, but that armored truck meant to carry soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan will never serve a good purpose in San Diego public schools. More weaponry is not necessarily better defense when it comes to education. Logistics alone, noted by Captain Obvious, make the armored behemoth a useless dinosaur. And yes, I do remember long-ago shooter Brenda Spencer who "hated Mondays" and killed a school principal. The new armored vehicle would not have changed a thing about that tragedy. You have forgotten that only last month a fully-militarized Ferguson Mo. police force turned a single incident into a total disaster. The issue is the message. Do responsible educators succumb to the national post-9/11 terror narrative by laying in supplies of excess military equipment at schools? How fragile is the peace that's envisioned when this is what they do? It falsely frightens and worries children and parents about daily school life. Thoughtful educators establish reasonable security at school sites with a helpful school police presence. And then they pay close attention, listen and respond to kids in their classes and around campus, with counselors and nurses and principals who know everyone in the school community personally. They communicate the timeless values of what school at its best is supposed to be. If somebody offered your school a free B-1 bomber, would you take it? I doubt that you would. Somebody ought to send the school district's Mine Resistant Ambush Protection Vehicle back to Texas where it belongs.— September 9, 2014 9:02 p.m.
Hidden agenda in Hillcrest?
Alleged felon, felon-in-the making, convicted felon, former felon: in my view, this highly qualifies him to be chairman of a San Diego business improvement district, if not on the Planning Commission or the Tourism Management District. (Someone will write in, I'm sure, to say that Jonathan Hale, Congressional candidate Carl de Maio's partner, has paid his debt to society. I sincerely hope that's true.)— September 9, 2014 2:38 p.m.
San Diego Unified scores mine-resistant Army truck
Matt Potter never leaves us in peace. This story is so terrible it makes San Diego Mayors Faulconer, Filner and Sanders look like choir boys. Ditto for drunk State Senator Ben Hueso recently i-exposed in his frailty by his Assembly colleague Lorena Gonzalez. Weird Nathan Fletcher's past political campaign ads using testimonials from a murdered teenager's parents come close to this -- but no, this story is worse. A spare $733,000 Mine Resistant Ambush Protection Vehicle from the U.S. Army has been provided for a $5000 transport-fee to San Diego City Schools? No better use for that money? Just because an armored truck is offered, does that mean you take it? What does procuring this war machine say to our community of parents and children? What are we teaching here? What are we learning? Will this vehicle be brought to high school campuses for display on career days when the military and the cops come out to impress and recruit the kids? Will it be painted yellow? Are school police running the schools? What is the matter with our Board of Education and the goody-two-shoes elementary school principal-turned-Superintendent? It's been thirteen years since 9/11 and it's been trending for a while, but now it's clear: everyone's running scared and the inmates are running the asylum.— September 9, 2014 1:11 p.m.
Middle-finger bird deemed free
Love major league sports. Pay too much money for a ticket and get jumped in the parking lot and rendered a vegetable for life. Or get beer thrown on you. Or get the finger, a fistfight and a court case finding in favor of free speech. Just incredible.— September 9, 2014 11:38 a.m.
Hidden agenda in Hillcrest?
By-laws' tweaking is a sticky wicket and sometimes defies common sense. In this one, Hillcrest businesses with postal boxes but no storefronts can be members of the Improvement Association, but they can't serve on the board. That sounds like an okay rule, but why would postal box-only people have a right to participate in local business doings? (Maybe it's the money they pay.) Also, arguably, there could come a time when postal box members outnumbered storefront members. Then what? More likely, the old guard does want to hang onto power and not share it with newbies. That's a virus that seems to be going around. La Jolla Community Planning Association's several controversial spring elections are being challenged by a hater-with-an-agenda who has enlisted City opinion in favor of new blood to overturn the delicate balance of codgers to outliers.— September 9, 2014 11:10 a.m.
New David Lynch film opens (and closes) Wednesday, September 10
Obviously, your depression has lifted. You are a funny guy and we appreciate that.— September 9, 2014 10:45 a.m.
Bitter split at San Diego Opera
Just curious where all this grandeur will occur. I had read that SD Opera has left the Civic Theater and will stage music at Copley/Jacobs Symphony Hall. That space is a remodeled movie theater and has no wings and no orchestra pit.— September 8, 2014 6:17 p.m.
It’ll cost almost $13 million to live next to Mitt
We're talking real money here and I forgot the last three zeros: house with tacky carport-like covered patio for $12,980,000.— September 8, 2014 6:07 p.m.