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
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
David Alvarez gets National City gig
David was a rising star locally and then fell by the wayside. Has anyone else wondered how things would have gone in San Diego if he, and not Kev-boy, was elected? Could anyone have done worse? Just about everything that the incumbent has touched has turned to sh__. Could anyone have done a worse job for these past seven years? Yeah, someone could have, but it is hard for me to imagine it. The misguided voters who decided to adopt the "strong mayor" concept got just what they deserved: a string to three or four--depending upon how you count them--incompetents with no professional accomplishments, and no skills other than smiling and getting votes. Yet the beat goes on, and the $ millions go out on things like an office building that can't be used. Wanna know what to do San Diegans? VOTE THE BUMS OUT, ALL OF THEM.— October 15, 2020 7:49 p.m.
National City clerk’s job up for grabs in big money campaign
Having read through the article more than once, it isn't obvious just why this minor elective position in a minor city should be a big, expensive fight. Anyone care to make it clear? I'm not disputing Matt's (this was Potter's reporting, wasn't it?) description: it's just the motivation that I can't discern. My suspicion is that it involves somehow the usual sort of So County politics and corruption that we've seen and read so much about in the past few years. Just why three laborers unions should care who is the National City clerk I can't discern. And why those same three union entities care who is elected San Diego mayor is a mystery, too. But what I do detect is some "musical chairs" between the unions and city government. But again, why is that? Should we walk away assuming that the laborers union want to see crooks elected in any office that's up for grabs? Looks that way.— October 15, 2020 7:37 p.m.
Gerry Braun gives to boss Mara Elliott
Mara and Gerry are part of the usual establishment. Of late, they all seem to be Dems, whereas a few years ago they all seemed to be GOP types. Has anything changed? Or should I ask, has the city improved? Not that I can see. In fact the incompetence and corruption have gotten worse. Was that possible? Sure, no matter how bad it is, it could be worse. That's the city of SD today.— October 6, 2020 8:36 p.m.
Cyclops Farms pulls up stakes in Oceanside
Huh?— October 3, 2020 7:48 p.m.
Gerry Braun gives to boss Mara Elliott
Gerry Braun has a background in newspaper reporting and editing. He was well-thought-of at the You-Tee. Then a few years back he abruptly left that rag and went to work for the then-city attorney, Jan Goldsmith as his media mouthpiece. More than one former U-T types, including one who was a columnist for the Reader for a long time, regarded that as Braun's going "over to the dark side." As far as I know Braun has no legal education or training. Howcum he's now the chief of staff to dear Mara? We laypersons have always assumed that legal work requires legal training. And yet is seems that a flack is now running the office of the city attorney. Then there's the matter of subordinates donating to the political campaigns of their bosses/employers. If that isn't illegal it should be. Ahh, but that would stifle free speech. I guess. If you are a SD resident and still wondering if Mara deserves reelection, this might help you to decide.— October 1, 2020 5:39 p.m.
Cyclops Farms pulls up stakes in Oceanside
I think I know who wrote this, but identifying it by "Author" doesn't cut it. How about letting us know?— September 30, 2020 7:49 p.m.
Good-bye, easy walking to Del Mar beach
Hi, 1DelMartian. Very clever of you to make your comment a reply to a removed comment, and put it ahead of mine. My comment (below) is accurate. Nobody has "been lying" about the hazards of railroad trespassing. And the NCTD does have the right to fence off its tracks, i.e. right of way. It is, like all rail lines in the nation, private property. You may have been scampering across the tracks and walking the bluffs for 40 years, and it's likely that you have never been even close to a train. Unfortunately, some 13-14-15 year old with a new board will try the same thing and, after hours on the water and very tired could, heading for home, walk out just when a train comes through. Result: tragedy. There have been a number of such incidents along the line, although none of them were necessarily on the Del Mar bluffs. Does it take a fatality to make a case for safety measures? Get it into your surfer head that the railroad isn't going anywhere else in my lifetime (or yours) and that trains are most unforgiving when a pedestrian tangles with one. (Three paragraphs are "long winded?")— September 29, 2020 8:24 p.m.
New Tijuana traffic fines: $232 for drunk driving, $388 for speeding
All nonsense. The fine for drunk driving is LESS than the fine for speeding? Ya' gotta be kidding. So the TJ cops spent a million gabacho bucks for handheld card scanners that allow the cop to collect the fine on the spot. How does that prevent the shakedown stops of US registered cars? If I were driving in TJ--something I no longer do--and were stopped by a two-bit cop for an imaginary infraction, I'd be happy to pull plastic and charge the fine on my US Visa card. As soon as I got home, I'd dispute the whole thing as having been paid under duress and fraudulent. Who will my bank believe, me or the TJ cops? More TJ BS aimed at someone, but not at tourists, except those who don't know any better.— September 29, 2020 7:48 p.m.
Good-bye, easy walking to Del Mar beach
This piece does a good job of summing up the picture of the rails, the eroding bluffs, and the situation that Del Mar residents have in wanting to get down to the beach. The present conditions are most unsafe, but in recent years the city has excoriated NCTD from enforcing the no trespassing laws. Seems that those uber-affluent Del Martians just want to risk life and limb to access the beach with no repercussions. Never mind that Del Mar sprang up from a station stop on the Santa Fe "surf line" into San Diego from the north. That came around 1880-90, and since then the rails have been atop the unstable and rapidly eroding bluffs. To let that area collapse and block the line would be utterly unacceptable. That single track accommodates 12 Amtrak trains a day in each direction, a large number of Coaster runs, and several freights that serve the port and Tijuana. Something has gotta give for sure, but that doesn't mean that a $5 billion tunnel can appear overnight and enable track relocation. (Nobody has the means to finance that sort of public works project.) Del Mar has for years decided to treat the track as some sort of illegitimate occupant of its coastline. (Never mind that the rails were there first.) And so, it refuses to do anything to coexist with the railroad. Over the years since about 1970, when the traffic really started to grow, Del Mar had the ability and opportunity to construct pedestrian overpasses. In the early days those could have been built cheaply and could still serve well. But the deep-pockets crowd in Del Mar didn't want to spend anything that "helped" the railroad, and they didn't lift a finger to make pedestrian crossings safer. No, it was 'way more fun to allow the surf rats to play chicken with the many high-speed trains. And so, there are the many fatalities cited.— September 28, 2020 7:57 p.m.
Audit hits lack of athletic admissions integrity at UC San Diego
Agreed. What do they have to use now? High school grades are notoriously inflated ( I can testify as a former high school teacher) and reflect little real information. Unfortunately the SAT and ACT have failed to make their respective cases, which were that they measured academic readiness without any bias. It will get far worse until it gets better, and in the interim college admissions will turn into a free-for-all brawl. So sad.— September 25, 2020 7:23 p.m.