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Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was at a San Diego medical device company, NuVasive Inc., Monday to hammer President Obama on health care.
After health care reform legislation passed, we reported on NuVasive’s reaction to it in this take on how the new laws would affect San Diego companies. That piece is worth a look again as the Supreme Court hears arguments about the reform’s legality.
NuVasive is no stranger to campaigning politicians. It is where Nathan Fletcher launched his mayoral effort.
• Totally unrelated: VOSD member Maren Dougherty reported that there was a Romney spotting at the movie “Hunger Games” in the Cinepolis in Del Mar, Saturday. Insert joke here.
• Also, Romney’s SUV was burglarized, U-T San Diego reports.
How the New Mayor Will Handle Nonprofits
Last night KPBS’ Gloria Penner teamed up with our Scott Lewis to moderate a forum for the mayoral candidates at the packed Old Globe. The focus was nonprofit and philanthropic issues. Here’s the stream of tweets from the event and the U-T San Diego write-up.
All four major candidates were there and all four were touting their support for the sector. They each pledged, for instance, that the arts community could expect the same level of support from the city or more under their leadership. The forum was put on by Nonprofit Management Solutions, the San Diego Association of Nonprofits, San Diego Grantmakers, San Diego Regional Arts and Culture Coalition, The Old Globe and the University of San Diego’s Institute for Nonprofit Education and Research.
• Liam Dillon joined Lewis on VOSD Radio Saturday. They broke down the mayoral race, that multi-part fact check on parking enforcement officers pay (and whether they get extra loot) and the Hero and Goat of the week.
Half the Scruff, All the Truth
A vacation turned the latest Fact Check TV into a solo affair, robbing viewers of the chance to judge the facial hirsuteness of our two hosts.
This time we broke down a claim by Rep. Bob Filner about how many recent war veterans got college assistance thanks to legislation he authored.
Dance-Off, Buckets On
The big day finally came on Sunday for aspiring young choreographers: they got to strut their stuff in front of judges and an audience that had some judging powers of its own. Our story and photos capture the moments and close the curtain on ourlatest Arts Embedded series.
Among the highlights: a conceptual piece about the end-times featuring dancers wielding buckets declaring, ‘END IS NEAR,’” an exploration of death, a piece inspired by bathroom sharing (and featuring near-nude dancers), and a performance with dancers acting out phrases like “bounce balls in the joints,” “screw in a lightbulb” and “puppy anxious to go out.”
Check our story to find out who won the $3,000 top prize.
Quoth the Maven
We’re kicking off The Big Read: Shades of Poe — a month-long celebration of Edgar Allen Poe, including events, appearances and exhibits — with an ode to literature from Walter Ritter, executive director of Write Out Loud.
Reaching Reform and Building for Kids
In opinion, entrepreneur Benjamin Katz writes that city pension reform efforts via Prop. B suffer from “a failure of imagination.” And Jennifer McEntee, a freelance journalist, tells how she and neighbors in Lake Murray worked through bureaucracy to build a playground that’s designed to be more accessible to disabled kids than the law requires.
Quick News Hits
• The South Bay corruption scandal continues with a former Southwestern College administrator and former contractor facing arraignment on felony and misdemeanor charges yesterday, the U-T reports. They pleaded not guilty.
• The shutdown of the San Onofre nuclear power plant, which could last for a while and even cause summer blackouts, has raised the prospect of electric generators on barges, the AP reports. There’s some local people I’d like to put on barges, but we’ll just save that discussion for another time, won’t we?
• As anyone who travels regularly on Amtrak in Southern California knows, trains aren’t the most reliable form of transportation. Trains get cancelled or delayed for all sorts of reasons, from technical problems to accidents to, just last week, earthquake false alarms. Now there’s a new villain: a broken toilet — yes, you read that right — was apparently responsible for one of two Amtrak train outages yesterday in the county, the NC Times reports.
• A small anti-Iran-war demonstration in downtown over the weekend, featuring an odd chant (“No more Jesus kill”), inspired an Atlantic writer who’s with the cause: “the dissenters afford a significantly different impression about Iran than the evening news, which tends to focus on the possibility that Iran will get nukes and attendant sabre-rattling.”
On the other hand, his search for passersby to quote resulted in not much more than responses along the lines of “I’d happily speak with you, but I don’t really know anything about/pay attention to/care at all about politics.”
Who knew so many of us speak with forward slashes?
• The state Department of Fish and Game has spent “$752,139.15 (and counting) to prevent Lindy O’Leary, an occupational health physician, from caring for 11 disabled wild birds at her Poway ranch,” the U-T’s Logan Jenkins writes. It’s a case of “bureaucratic malice” that could lead to the killing of the birds before a state bill can allow her to keep them, he reports.
• A study led by a UCSD professor finds that people who eat lots of chocolate are trimmer than other people, even though they consume more calories and fat. Don’t get too excited, though. The research doesn’t definitely prove that No. 5 on my list of reasons to live is good for you, and “it is not a siren call to go out and eat 20 pounds of chocolate a day,” the study lead author told me.
So Much for a One-Person Kick Line
All our coverage of the choreography contest reminds me that it’s time to perform my annual interpretive dance in honor of spring. Here I go!
A little pirouette here, and then into a plié and… crick!… Um, does anyone know a good chiropractor?
Please contact Randy Dotinga directly at randydotinga@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter: twitter.com/rdotinga.