I’ve had lots of “Hey, this is a pretty cool place to work moments” at VOSD but one of the most striking came back in 2013, when we hosted a policy discussion on craft beer.
I was enthralled by the conversation, which is pretty remarkable when you consider that I don’t care at all about beer (#sorrynotsorry). I was excited by the fact that the panel we’d assembled and the crowd that came that night were so awesomely diverse.
So this week when Slate published a piece condemning the craft beer world’s sexist tendencies — it pointed out marketing ploys like beers named “Raging Bitch” and labels filled with gratuitous photos of boobs and butts — I wasn’t sure whether I’d just caught a slice of San Diego’s scene on its best behavior, or if we’re far enough ahead of the curve to mostly avoid this stuff.
I don’t have a definitive answer, but I talked with Denise Ratfield, who organizes the International Women’s Collaboration Brew Day. Ratifeld believes San Diego’s craft beer scene is far more like that inclusive crowd I saw back in 2013.
“The good news is that we in the San Diego beer community rarely have to deal with this hot-button issue,” she told me in an email. “We have a savvy community of breweries as well as consumers. I would venture to say that, for the most part, people know better than to go down that road. With all of the world-renowned beers produced here in San Diego, a gimmick in the form of sexist labeling or beer naming isn’t necessary.”
What VOSD Learned This Week
The freeway’s packed and my Trader Joe’s snacks were rung up by Wonder Woman, which means The Con is upon us.
Comic-Con has snowballed to become the center of the pop culture universe when it sets up shop downtown. But it’s no longer the only show around – there are now a lot of other comic conventions, some that even call themselves by that same eponymous shorthand, Comic-Con. Lisa Halverstadt got some details to figure out just what the deal is with all those other conventions. Basically, some have Comic-Con’s blessing to use the name, but at least one is being sued for co-opting it. Some have dwarfed San Diego Comic-Con in size, but ours still makes the biggest splash with Hollywood types – as evidenced by Jennifer Lawrence belting out a Cher tune from the Spreckels stage, after being goaded by temporary San Diegan Conan O’Brien.
Then there’s Comic-Con’s long-term future in San Diego. It says it wants a contiguous Convention Center expansion, but organizers would not go as far as to tell us it would leave town without one. After all, it’s managed to flourish by expanding into other event spaces downtown.
Planes, Growing Pains and Automobiles
RIP, legroom.
In examining how the San Diego Airport has fared almost 10 years since voters weighed in on a potential move across town, Ashly McGlone found that take-offs and landings are way down from their peak, but the airport is nonetheless handling more passengers than ever thanks to bigger planes. Other things that have changed: The airport’s budget and operating costs have ballooned.
• Down on the ground, there’s a lot that needs fixing – roads (no, the mayor’s big street repair photo op this week won’t fix the problem), sidewalks, etc. City leaders have long dreamed of tackling infrastructure with a big 2016 megabond, but with no progress on the measure, they’re turning their attention to a potential countywide effort by SANDAG that would repair infrastructure in the city and beyond.
Why K-Faulc and the GOP Are Sitting Pretty
As we’ve discussed, 2016 is going to be nuts. It’s going to be bananas. It’s going to be multiple kinds of crazy foods.
And yet one of the marquee races in town – the mayorship – is so far just a one-sided affair. That’s because, as Scott Lewis laid out, Dems don’t just need one candidate to challenge Mayor Kevin Faulconer – they need two. This race only speaks to a bigger challenge for Dems: Local Republicans have had lots of success fending off challenges in June primaries, thus avoiding bigger crowds of Democratic voters in November. Unsurprisingly, Democrats would like to change this.
Odds and Ends
• New court filings reveal even more connections between District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis and accused campaign finance scandal mastermind Susumo Azano.
• Mario Koran figured out where those school ratings you see on real estate websites like Trulia and Zillow come from.
What I’m Reading
It’s Hard Out There for Both Sexes
The deck is stacked against fathers who want to parent their children when the mother wants to choose adoption. (The Atlantic)
There are very few women governors, and there could be even fewer come 2016. (National Journal)
Life and Death
• Our Mario Koran does a beautiful job trying to articulate the impossible: what it’s really like to be a parent. (Medium)
This horrifying account of how the death penalty works in Louisiana is hard to read, but necessary. (New Yorker)
A reporter reflects on the suicide of an entrepreneur he covered critically. (Inc)
Family Matters
Two sets of Colombian twins were mixed up and switched at birth. (New York Times Magazine)
Ta-Nehisi Coates’ letter to his son. (The Atlantic)
Line of the Week
“Maybe women are undermining themselves a bit when they, like, speak in a way they find more natural. But only in the sense that they are seeking to articulate their thoughts more authentically and connect more directly with the people listening to them.” – Ann Friedman, on the glut of advice on how women should or shouldn’t sound when they speak.