Mike, the proprietor of a used magazine store in Hillcrest, is one of the silent bunch: people who don’t have computers and don’t use the internet.
“I used to do pretty good here but there’s fewer and fewer. Because you can download all this,” he says in a store full of old GQs, Vogues, National Geographics and adult magazines. Lots and lots of adult magazines.
In this week’s Q&A, the curmudgeonly store owner talks about his disdain for the digital era (“there’s too much information”) and for the idea of a new downtown library (digital is here, and the current one is “a homeless center anyway”). But he’s still got a sweet spot for all that ink on paper: “You’re learning. The whole thing about life is learning. If you’re not curious, why be alive?”
Judge Rejects Redistricting Suit
A judge has thrown out a lawsuit by the county GOP chairman challenging the city’s redistricting commission, the U-T reports. The suit alleged that the city needed to restart its attempts to redraw its council districts.
Local GOP Reps Split on Libya
Reps. Duncan D. Hunter and Brian Bilbray voted yesterday to support removing some of the funding for the military action in Libya, while fellow local GOPer Darrell Issa voted no, as did the two local Democrats. The measure failed.
But Issa flipped when it came to another bill to support the Libyan mission: he voted no on that one — against the mission — as did fellow GOPers. In other words: he doesn’t like the mission, but he won’t stop paying for it.
The local Dems voted yes, going with the president, although lots of their colleagues couldn’t bring themselves to do so.
Republican Dumanis Gets Some Dem Support
There’s one high-profile Democrat in the race for mayor so far, and guess what: some local Democratic veterans of public office aren’t supporting him. Instead, they’ve endorsed District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, a Republican. We asked them to ask them why they’re not with Rep. Bob Filner. “I don’t think he has the qualities of temperament, leadership and trustworthiness to run the city,” said former Congresswoman Lynn Schenk.
It sounds like these Dems aren’t pro-Republican, necessarily, as much as anti-Filner. Notoriously prickly, he’s made plenty of enemies. If another Democrat steps into the race, though, things may change.
Issa Targets Saturday Mail Delivery
Rep. Darrell Issa, who represents part of North County, wants to kill off Saturday mail service in the entire country and allow the Postal Service to more easily shut post offices, the Washington Post reports. He submitted legislation Thursday to “prevent another taxpayer bailout.“
Local Hospitals May Be Overusing CT Scans
Many hospitals around the nation needlessly (and potentially dangerously) perform two CT chest scans on single patients in a day, the NYT reports. Escondido’s Palomar Medical Center and Poway’s Pomerado Hospital are the only two local hospitals that have unusually high rates of double-daily CT scans: more than 30 percent of patients who got the scans were scanned twice in a day at those facilities.
The national average is 5.4 percent. The NYT reports that “the rate is typically less than 1 percent, or in some cases zero, at major university teaching hospitals.”
Interview with U-T’s Editor
The latest edition of VOSD Radio features Jeff Light, the editor of the U-T, talking about topics like the paper’s never-ending rounds of newsroom layoffs and his attempts to turn it around.
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What We Learned This Week
• Cop’s Near Miss with Charges There’s something unusual about the case of the San Diego cop who stands accused of several incidents of serious misconduct with women: police asked the district attorney’s office to pursue charges against him earlier, but prosecutors declined so he was sent back to work.
There questions that authorities won’t answer about the cop.
• SDG&E’s Solar Failure: Our local power company made a lot of hoopla out of its plans to embrace solar energy when it was trying to get support for a giant power line in the backcountry. Now, the power line plan remains but the solar project is history.
• Schools Keep the Music: The San Diego school board voted this week to preserve instrumental music programs at its elementary schools, the U-T reports.
• The Non-Profit/For-Profit Tango: A non-profit arts colony created for-profit entities, resulting in a tax tangle. Now we’ve got a look at how two tenants at the former Naval Training Center are dealing with some surprise bills.
Also in arts, our photographer dropped by the Stuart Collection at UCSD — it’s a lot of quirky artwork — and put together a photo gallery.
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The Coffee Collection (engaging stories to savor over a cup of joe):
• From Hungry to Harvard: Meet the Madison High valedictorian and prom queen who’s heading to Harvard. Her story has a twist: she used to be homeless and hungry, but now is on the road to success. “You can choose to just give up and rot into yourself, have this horrible feeling and let it fester,” she says of her life’s struggles. “Or use school as an outlet or just find something else.”
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Clarification of the Week
“Just to clarify, the piece referred specifically to angry lovers of classical music on KPBS as ‘the snoozing, blue-haired, pledge-making La Jolla dragon that guarded the treasure,’ not ‘the La Jolla dragon lady.’” — a CityBeat note on a letter to the editor regarding KPBS’s decision to abandon on-air classical music.
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Quote of the Week
“I think there’s something wrong with that system. I didn’t create that system and I’m going to fix that system.” — District Attorney and mayoral candidate Bonnie Dumanis on pension systems. We estimate she’ll be eligible for almost $250,000 a year in pension proceeds, and more if she becomes mayor, although she says she won’t take a city pension.
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Please contact Randy Dotinga directly at randydotinga@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter: twitter.com/rdotinga.