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Christmas Festival Death Match of White People
Really enjoyed the headline here. And the observation that caroling now is not participatory. I remember caroling on snowy nights -- not here, back East -- with school friends, standing on porches of houses in random neighborhoods -- unannounced, impromptu, always welcomed, very fun. In retrospect, amazing.— December 24, 2016 11:58 a.m.
Councilwoman Cole's cop committee picks panned
Myrtle Cole is a disgrace. She should never have been made president of City Council. Shortly after taking that office, Cole was interviewed on KPBS by Alison St. John. Cole's answers were vague and vapid, substanceless, without a single concrete plan for the future. Glittering generalities are Myrtle Cole's verbal specialty, but political damage is her practical forte, as in her outrageous appointments to the all-white Public Safety and Livable Communities Committee. What a travesty. Public safety is lacking in southeast San Diego and livable communities are all north of I-8.— December 23, 2016 5:35 p.m.
City's pension liability zooms up by $937 million
San Diego Mayor Faulconer is stuck with four full years of office-holfding ahead of him, a situation he probably would probably like to turn into a run for cover -- even a run for Governor of California -- to avoid the fallout from a Chargers' exit and another public employee pension crisis. Happy talk from Mayor Sunny will not suffice: maybe he will actually have to do something about the city's problems.— December 21, 2016 10:46 p.m.
It’s always the season of giving
Employees of the privatized prison industry, architects and developers seem to understand something about Mayor Faulconer's City Hall that the rest of us schleppers have missed. We just hear the feel-good language of his Porter-Novelli Christmas greeting and think everything is fine, which it is not.— December 21, 2016 6:47 p.m.
Even drought-tolerant trees die in San Diego
Thanks for this important story. The new City Council should pay attention to our tree deficit. Olive trees thrive in San Diego's climate, just as they do in Spain, and they are attractive singly and in groups. The new Broad museum in downtown Los Angeles has a small adjacent garden filled with olive trees and low benches made from tree stumps. (For all we know, they may have come from San Diego!) Jacarandas also do well here and should be promoted as street trees downtown, to join those others which turn entire blocks blue in mid-June. The City is right to take down deadly eucalyptus, but it has been overzealous with pepper tree removal, and in either case trees that have been eliminated always should be promptly replaced. I also recently noticed that many pine trees have disappeared from the west side of Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery and no seedlings now stand in their place. I cannot imagine a single good argument for such shortsightedness.— December 21, 2016 6:22 p.m.
Winter Solstice triggers poinsettias
Totally noticed the sun's struggle: at mid-day it looked to be due South over Pacific and Mission Beach. By 3 p.m. it's clear that daytime is seriously waning. It's amazing.— December 18, 2016 9:37 p.m.
The Goring of Detroit
Thanks to SportFan0000 for a concise history of present-day De-troit. I know a handful of proud-as-punch white Detroit natives living in comfortable San Diego exile. Whatever happened to beautiful and talented former Democratic Governor of Michigan Jennifer Granholm? She's also gone AWOL— December 18, 2016 9:33 p.m.
We are all Scrooge
And by the way, folks, he forgot to mention that this wonderful play at the Cygnet Theatre with music, puppetry, Victorian costumes, singing and dancing actors, humor and pathos is worth the price of admission. Go, take kids, and discuss afterward what you saw and heard. Scrooge had a dark childhood, lives "solitary as an oyster" as an adult, and finally discovers a capacity for joy by being kind to others.— December 16, 2016 7 a.m.
The Goring of Detroit
SportsFan accurately portrays the astonishing difference between Detroit's ritzy and middle-class white suburbs that ring the impoverished and now mostly black inner-city. A few years ago, before a recent fashionably hip made-in-Detroit "Shinola" renaissance, Detroit was distinguished for having more vacant lots than any other major American city. And huge swaths of its main drag downtown were lined by buildings burned out by arson. Presumably this is where "redevelopment" is happening. But I had no idea that Detroit had become home to THREE new sports stadiums financed by tax dollars. As a strategy to draw white-flight exurbanites back downtown, it makes some sense, but I wonder if the Detroit metropolitan region is financing these enterprises or if the battered people of Detroit proper are being stuck with the bill. It sounds both cynical and desperate.— December 15, 2016 4:13 p.m.
Will GOP's Sherman play his stadium card for Alvarez?
Well, I guess we starry-eyed hope-springs-eternal dopes can just fuggedaboudit: Barbara Bry cast her first Council vote for Myrtle Cole for Council president today. So did Scott Sherman. Termed-out DINO Council president Sherri Lightner was on NPR at midday and had the gall to state her personal preference for Myrtle Cole over David Alvarez, and she added personal insults about Alvarez's (incontrovertible) political professionalism -- something about having to be on time and doing one's homework. I'm looking for a bright side: at least today means charmless robotic Sherri Lightner is elective history.— December 12, 2016 6:10 p.m.