Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Change of plans to minister to a laid off friend

People who would ordinarily apply to grad school for an advanced degree should forget it unless one can already afford to do it with savings or will be a teaching grad student. I have seen couples split apart from financial stress while one was in grad school and the other was not. If one has a BA/BS degree, then one should have been exposed to research methods and writing skills. If you have time to sit in class for the next 2-3 years for your MA/MS, then fine; otherwise, start doing your own research and self-publish online, turning yourself into an amateur authority in your chosen field (knowledge being one of those Army FM 22-100 leadership traits). If you don't have that kind of initiative (another of those Army FM 22-100 leadership traits), then suffer the anxiety of traveling from interview to interview with the rest of the résumé-clutching pack. Option that has worked for others in hard times: Pretend to be a business-journalism student and interview business leaders as if you were doing business class research (it helps to actually be a student in ANY college class if challenged). At the end of the interview, DO NOT ask about openings but DO ask about somebody else in the field (but at another firm) to interview. At THAT next interview, somehow drop the names of people you've already spoken to ("Well, according to Ms. X and Mr. Z, ..."). At a certain point, if you appear informed and worthy of it, somebody will hire you just to keep you away from being hired by competition... IF you appear worthy (typically from turning yourself into that amateur self-published authority), and that's up to you.
— October 31, 2010 1:24 a.m.

Change of plans to minister to a laid off friend

There's a lot of us who do things in an underground economy in Encantostan. Lots of family and neighborhood networking here. People here have owned homes for generations and can afford to carry no-cash relatives for household labor... a lot of us have 3-5 part-time "careers"... Free food lines are long, and from the cut of clothes, not all or even most in line are strictly lower class. People will work for cash AND food or other needed extras. I don't own real property, but owner got driveways, room addition, new roof, etc. at low labor costs so workers had something coming in, and everybody likes the cooking. I'm predicting that if Prop. 19 does pass, then some on the low end will actually pay to work in order to get "medicated." In some cases, that's happening already now that small-amount possession is just an infraction. IF people believe they can write, THEN they can write plans and pitch them or go home. People hiring are either looking for top-quality at the lowest price to give a firm an edge or are filling out a roster for somebody's existing plan to get things done. White-collar types need to offer stellar skills or start looking to do their own thing: be creative and aggressive to find out what others need AND will pay for, then meet that need. I don't know anybody who's hiring people who just expect to punch in, punch out and get paid... unless somebody is running a tax-loss scam. The days of expecting others to be nice and offer up what WE want are over. Labor is big in supply and low in demand while consumers have learned that what's being advertised is not necessarily what's needed or even desirable. Lots of nicely dressed people at the 99-cent store, a trend since 2008. Anyone looking for lots of job OFFERS to choose from is... well... somewhat delusional. Things get worse when ALL of the veterans come home. Start thinking about the real economy and how it really works, not just what the career counselors told you back in school. And if you haven't added up-to-date skills by having been in school in the last 2-3 years, then the recent grads who do have those thought-based internet research-and-analysis skills are your competition; you may have to lower your expectations accordingly to be competitive. My new occupation: voluntarily (meaning minimally paid with tips or not paid at all) running a rescue mission for the academically-challenged. I see the need on the street...
— October 31, 2010 12:44 a.m.

Public Records Suggest Southwestern College Used Public Funds Frivolously

It appears that I am in the second century of comments here. RE #98: This only confirms my previous suspicions regarding integrity and credibility of the cited editorial letter. Every community college receives at least some recommendations at some time for improvement over the five years between accreditation self-studies, but comparing Southwestern College's probationary status for decades of stonewalling to the other 45 other colleges receiving recommendations for better WASC compliance is more than minimally disingenuous. It just about crosses the line into fraud by public statement. As far as I can tell, the only California community college that WASC will not grant accreditation to is Compton Community College. As far as I can tell, the only California community college that will no longer be grant accreditation if it does not get itself off of probation by its own efforts in the next five months is Southwestern College. IF Southwestern College does not comply with ALL of the recommendations made by WASC at the end of its two-year probationary period, THEN WASC will not automatically extend that probation period but will instead, at the insistence of the US Department of Education, de-certify Southwestern College as WASC-accredited. Because of its probationary status, SWC has no more second chances left beyond 2011 to get this right, and the clock is running. I repeat: somebody at SWC needs to crack the whip. As Compton College has been to the greater Los Angeles region, so apparently will Southwestern College be to ours. Time will tell.
— October 30, 2010 10:30 a.m.

Would Spelling Lessons Affect the Library?

RE #13: It took me some searching through the leginfo.ca.gov website, but I finally found out that it was SB 863 that got amended ny Fletcher, prompting the blog post below: http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/encanto-gas… The bailout language is not only open-ended for eliminating the tax increment cap altogether, but is also changed without future state legislative votes by incorporating future local amendments to San Diego redevelopment plans. In my view, this goes much farther than any proper legislative grant of mere regulatory power to a state agency that acts as a legislative body to create regulations on its own.
— October 30, 2010 6:41 a.m.

Is Proposition C Just a Green Light for Developers?

RE #19: Thanks for the clarification. I had no idea that the assessment would increase regressively to over $100K by 2015... whether the value of a single family dwelling goes up or down by then. Let's suppose that housing remains fairly flat between now and 2015. What are the odds that people will be flocking to buy up homes where the cost is automatically $100K above the comparable prices in neighborhoods where schools and libraries actually exist? Whoever wrote up the PHR assessment schedule obviously didn't see the Crash of 2008 coming. This is the kind of marginal planning that will be a negative rating factor on all of San Diego's credit rating and individual GO issues, regardless of the legislature's willingness to bail out PHR with the authority to issue bonds or not. With the economic outlook not very good, I'd say by 2015 we could be seeing a political move to allow that kind of PHR bond-issuing authority since it would require another ballot initiative to change that assessment schedule, or I expect to see those future new homes to be auctioned by the developer later, as has been done in many developments in San Diego whether they had access to community facilities or not. It becomes clear what the real agenda in PHR is: lack-of-developer-built-facilities misery enjoys company. No new houses means no new assessment fees on construction, and no GO bond issuance authority now means no new income for facilities that should have been ready and running when residents first started moving in years ago. It doesn't help matters that Prop. C relies on unrevised future estimates of 5% inflation and 4% interest when a current 5-year certificate of deposit investor can expect... 1.5-2.5%?!? I smell a need for PHR bond-issuance. The City Treasurer's holdings for PHR are in no way generating the anticipated interest according to the unrevised overly optimistic developer's projections made before the Crash of 2008. Proposition C does depend on Proposition D, after all. Maybe developer should delay any new construction to get the biggest development bang for the buck until 2021, when the community add-on assessment rises to $135,344 per single dwelling unit. Maybe just building a new stadium there is not such a bad idea after all...
— October 30, 2010 6:26 a.m.

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
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader