Today is a Great Day to Join VOSD!
Have you been thinking about becoming a VOSD member? La Jolla Playhouse, a Voice of San Diego community partner, wants you to support the arts and VOSD. The first six people who join our Raise Your Voice membership program will receive a pair of tickets to the entertaining, fast-talking comedy that exposes the unsavory politics of tabloid journalism His Girl Friday on Wednesday, June 5.
Plus, have a glass of wine and meet VOSD reporter Kelly Bennett and a member of the La Jolla Playhouse artistic team at a private gathering before the show.
Our Raise Your Voice membership program has four benefit levels from which to choose. The higher the level, the more benefits.
Click here to join now. Be sure to let us know your donation is in response to this opportunity so we can hold your tickets! Call or email Summer at 619-325-0525.
If you prefer to join by mail, you may send a check to the address below. Thanks!
Voice of San Diego
2508 Historic Decatur Rd., Ste. 120
San Diego, CA 92106
*Please write “membership” on the memo line.
Her name is Liz Hirsch, but readers of our site may be more familiar with her as the homeless woman who sent us messages about life on the street. Now, she’s a formerly homeless woman — she’s living in housing designed to help transients transition to permanent homes — and getting back on her feet.
Hirsch sends us an update that includes some frank perspectives on her own personal challenges and the difficulties of a privacy-free life under a microscope. “But I will stay in and I do think the people who run my program are wonderful,” she writes. “Really.”
• Drop by The Plaza, on VOSD’s website, to share what you’ve learned about homelessness during our quest and ask any questions you may have.
Filner’s Near Keeping a Promise
We’ve been keeping track of Mayor Bob Filner’s progress on keeping his campaign promises. He gets a “working on it” for nearly fulfilling one of his biggest pledges: Save money by reaching five-year deals with the city’s labor unions.
• More City Hall news: In an editorial, CityBeat bashes newly elected City Councilwoman Myrtle Cole for refusing to distance herself from her sleazy campaign: “What’s done is done. She’s a council member now. We hope she comports herself with a tad more decency than she’s thus far shown. But we’re not holding our breath.”
• San Diego Explained, our video series, examines how folks like you may end up being taxed by mini-agencies. Meanwhile, the local news outfit Inewsource offers an explainer on the property-taxing scheme known as Mello-Roos. Curious if you pay these taxes, which were designed to get around Prop. 13? Check Inewsource’s database.
Blind Call for Sidewalk Survey
The San Diego Center for the Blind is urging the city to survey its sidewalks and fix the broken ones. Our story features excerpts from its letter, which warns of the sidewalk hazards facing those who can’t see.
• The Stumblr visits a block of 36th Street in City Heights (a repeat offender).
Behind VOSD’s New Website
Are you still trying to figure out the new VOSD website? Join the club. Our web staff and tech-savvy volunteers continue to work out the bugs, and we’re all trying to get the hang of a new system.
VOSD CEO Scott Lewis explains what we’re up to in a column for Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab. Knight Digital Media Center also notes our transition.
Native Americans on Stage
VOSD arts blogger Libby Weber writes that many people don’t understand the Native American experience: “It is not wearing feathers and beads as a fashion statement. It does not speak in stoic monosyllables. It bears little to no resemblance to sports mascots or familiar portrayals in television, film or popular art.”
Weber says you can get insight from Native Voices at the Autry, a theater company, which is debuting three new works at La Jolla Playhouse.
Quick News Hits
• CityBeat profiles 69-year-old Ken Cole, noting the “diabetic and cancer sufferer’s journey from the Sydney waterfront to basketball greatness to the front lines in San Diego’s medical-marijuana wars.”
• The county grand jury says the city of Imperial Beach needs “to take strong action to get their financial house in order,” patch.com reports.
• The New York Times and The Atlantic both profile the financial opportunities and challenges facing Gov. Jerry Brown. For more about The Atlantic’s story, click here.
• The headline of the day comes from Fox5: “SDSU team discovers why we need mucous.” Because, it turns out, it boosts our immune systems by attacking germs.
Good to know. And here I thought it just existed so the Garbage Patch Kids could have a gross theme.
Randy Dotinga is a freelance contributor to Voice of San Diego and vice president of the American Society of Journalists & Authors. Please contact him directly at randydotinga@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter: twitter.com/rdotinga.
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