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Clan linked to yesterday's Mexico slayings once rocked San Diego
Mexican "bargains" may be reason for first-timers or students with loans or retirees trying to stretch their retirement dollars to cross the border. But people who return to Mexico repeatedly go because it is dramatically different from the USA in a million ways -- not least because of Mexico's layers of indiigenous languages, ruins, arts, handcrafts, music, cuisine, alcohol and pre-Columbian pre-Christian cultures. Plus Mexico has gorgeous mountains, jungles and seashores and the Mexican people are uniquely memorably social and warm, even to gringos.— November 8, 2019 2:06 p.m.
Clan linked to yesterday's Mexico slayings once rocked San Diego
OMG. In contrast to these dark views of our neighbor to the South, I can only say I know Kiwanians who mentor youth groups from the US of A who regularly go into the hills east of TJ to build Habitat for Humanity houses for very poor people. I know Americans who go down to TJ for regular visits to the dentist. I know surfers who drive their families in caravans to Baja Sur to catch long waves. I have relatives who spend Easter in a tiny town on the Sea of Cortez, shelling and swimming with those little near-extinct porpoises. I know American retirees who live happily in Oaxaca and Guadalajara and San Miguel de Allende and Mexico City. Mexico is a fabulous place and we are lucky to live nearby. Just stay out of Culiacan.— November 7, 2019 11:15 p.m.
Clan linked to yesterday's Mexico slayings once rocked San Diego
There is a whole subset of weird Mormon stories that occasionally come to light and make me wonder about this busy-bee straight-arrow American-as-apple-pie religion. It's not all Senator Mitt and Starchy Ann out there, as we learned this week. Polygamous refugee caravans heading INTO Mexico? Forgetaboutrump. This is strange enough.— November 6, 2019 5:41 p.m.
Journalism: Going, Going, Gonzalez
You are amusing, W. Mencken, and remarkably have not missed a single item from the long and checkered resume of our new Democratic Supervisor Nathan Fletcher. We should credit Lorena: she has shaped-up her new-ish husband into a credible facsimile of an articulate pro-active humanitarian and public leader. She may be a taskmaster, but he is a quick study and looking better every day, even to me.— November 1, 2019 8:57 p.m.
Matt Potter and the Reader
The bio says this marks 30 years of Matt Potter at the Reader, a long time since he covered water hyacinths at the Mission Valley experimental water treatment plant. Time flies when you're doing good work. How come San Diego hasn't changed one iota even though Democrats, gays and Latinos have taken the reins of political power? Even though there's a building height limit at the beach and a giant convention center at the Harbor? Since the Price Club turned into Costco? Since the football team left town? How many more people live here now than then? Will they ride the ever-expanding trolley and ditch their cars for scooters from the station to the office? Will 40,000-student UCSD (with 20% foreign enrollment) continue to rise in the high-fakes standing of U.S.News & World Report? So many questions. All fodder for Potter. Thanks.— October 31, 2019 8:21 p.m.
San Diego retirement system man on the go
Under the weather indeed. Running radical-extreme District Attorney candidates like Chesa Boudin and Genevieve Jones-Wright are classic examples of Democratic overreach that may cost them the 2020 presidential election. DAs are supposed to be prosecutors. In shortsighted reaction, centrist moderates in the Democratic Party may seek out a wussy "electable" presidential nominee who will be unable to stand up to Donald Trump's abuse and lies. We know by now what candidates have the principles, plans, intellect, moxie and stamina to defeat Trump, but it will be impossible with this kind of nutso baggage.— October 30, 2019 6:33 p.m.
Convention center group refunds GEO money
Wow, is "disgorge" common parlance for re-routing tainted political campaign contributions?The image is disgusting, but not more terrible than the report of GEO private-prison guards taunting suicidal inmates as "failures" after they were cut down from their nooses of braided sheets. It reminds me of Trump's grotesque speech last Sunday describing the death-by-commando of the world's most wanted ISIS leader.— October 29, 2019 9:55 p.m.
The fight over San Diego High School
Richard Barrera is a master at covering his tracks. Barrera makes Joe Biden's son Hunter look good when it comes to operating with conflicts of interest. For years Barrera was (paid) head of local San Diego-Imperial Counties AFL-CIO Labor Council while serving as one of five (paid) members of San Diego Unified School District Board of Education. Never mind that San Diego Education Association teachers' union is a member of the Labor Council and that Board of Education members vote to approve or reject teachers' union labor contracts. (San Diego teachers always get raises from this Labor-friendly Board.) After years, Barrera stepped away from the Labor Council post for a lesser one. But he remains on the Board of Education where he is inexplicably unopposed as a candidate, is responsible for having hired and continuing to protect Superintendent Cindy Marten (recently extended by one year her six-figure annual salary) even though she refuses to take action to seriously educate students at scandal-plagued chronically low-achieving Lincoln High School or to allow the school Choice program to operate as it was intended.— October 23, 2019 5:15 p.m.
Jacobs versus Gomez: all about family valuations
An amusing headline, riffing on "family valuations" instead of "family values." I hope Georgette Gomez prevails in this big-money race. She is tested and well-qualified -- which Ms. Jacobs is not -- and will better represent the District, better even than Rep. Susan Davis ever did. It doesn't seem right for the granddaughter of a very rich man to waltz into a seat in Congress based on his willingness to spend and spend. Sara Jacobs needs to pay her dues.— October 22, 2019 5:11 p.m.
Irwin Jacobs' $9.9 million drives granddaughter’s House hopes
What a chronicle. Gone are the days when rich grandfathers just gave their granddaughters pianos or trips to Europe. Following the breadcrumbs in the forest, children, we discover why Democratic Rep. Susan Davis suddenly decided to step away after 20+ years in D.C. and say she favors a woman replacement. Davis was an early favorite of the late Sol Price, another very rich San Diego businessman, even before Irwin Jacobs. But young unqualified Sara Jacobs must have lost her job at the United Nations or wherever it was she said she'd worked before the last time she ran for public office, because now -- time's up -- and Sara will be getting Davis' safe seat in Congress.— September 10, 2019 11:31 p.m.