Schwarzenegger Can't Fly Into Santa Monica Airport Anymore
(David Dayen)
And his own brother-in-law is among the culprits. This is actually a serious problem: the airport runways are too short for these behemoth private planes like the Governor's, and residential areas abut the runways.
Get ready for "My Celebrity Foreclosure" on VH1. Seriously, this guy had a pretty high-publicity book not too long ago. If HE'S losing his house, there's a problem.
Roger Waters' Pig Flew Away At Coachella
(David Dayen)
It was a big festival weekend in SoCal, between the LA Times Festival of Books, a giant Latino fair downtown, and of course the Coachella Music Festival. Roger Waters was one of the headliners, and he brought out the giant inflatable pig from the Animals tour, complete with an Obama reference on its belly. It flew away and the organizers are offering a $10,000 reward and lifetime passes for its safe return. Somehow I think an Obamaniac got a hold of it.
In an article about the highly questionable success of Rush Limbaugh's "Operation Chaos," she writes:
Already, he notes, both Clinton and Obama have been "weakened - which was the objective," and their negatives are both approaching 50 percent. He cheers the fact that Obama "hasn't won a primary since Feb. 22 ... and he has lost in seven of the 10 most populous states."
I guess Mississippi on March 11 didn't count. Also, for the "7 of the most 10" number to be right you have to count Michigan, where Obama didn't appear on the ballot.
Layoff of SD-area Teacher of the Year
(CarlsbadDem)
Poway school district announced their three Teacher of the Year award recipients yesterday. These teachers will go on to compete at the county and state Teacher of the Year competitions. Unfortunately one of them, Andrew Shean, may be unemployed by the time those competitions roll around. He has already received a notice of possible layoff due to the budget cuts. (h/t SD Union-Tribune)
John Hartley, San Diego city council candidate who pleaded no contest to masturbating into a bush (I loved writing that), sent a mailer to constituents claiming that he "had to take a leak" the day he was arrested.
I know I've gone to the bathroom, obeyed nature's call, thought about it, and figured "Hey, while it's out..."
Celebrilawyer Gloria Allred, who's on cable news approximately every five minutes with some client or other, won election as a Hillary Clinton delegate to the DNC in my home district of CD-30.
Feinstein Leads Resolution Condemning Tibet Violence
(Lucas O'Connor)
"U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) today led a bipartisan group of Senators that introduced a resolution condemning the violence in Tibet. The resolution also calls on China to open substantive dialogue with His Holiness, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet."
SD City Council candidate "admits public masturbation"
(David Dayen)
Good thing I kept my city council blogging to Torrance! Unbelievable. And he's staying in the race, so maybe we should do a campaign slogan contest. "Rub One Out For Hartley on November 4!"
The anonymous website attacking AD-80 candidate Greg Pettis is down. It's caused quite a lot of consternation (apparently), particularly since it may run afoul of campaign finance regulations. Nevertheless, with the Pettis campaign throwing around accusations of support at other candidates, it's just more evidence that this one is likely to remain ugly. Not cool.
"This is not sustainable," is a phrase I have repeated to myself on many an occasion. The article goes on to cite several blogging related maladies with which I am familiar: often missing regular meals, erratic sleep cycles, spending way too much time at home, the constant feeling that you need to produce new content, stretches of low pay, etc. Can I really keep waking up every day and trying to think up ideas for four articles indefinitely? It often doesn't feel very healthy. Even taking a weekend off and produce waves of guilt that can only be overcome with a particularly intense stretch of writing.
At the same time, the lure of full-time blogging is quite strong, and the reasons for it are probably obvious. The ability to set your own schedule, dress however you like, and get paid for writing about content you enjoy, not to mention making a difference in the world, is pretty darn sweet. Whenever I question the long-term sustainability of blogging, I can't think of anything else that I would rather be doing. Whatever the downsides, the carrot of being able to do this full-time indefinitely is always big enough to keep chasing after it.
Conservative U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., joined some of his most liberal colleagues in the House of Representative on a recent trip to Africa. What he saw there changed him, at least a little.
Struck by the unrelenting poverty in a South African slum, Nunes this week joined Democrats in supporting a $50 billion global AIDS relief package. Most of his fellow Republicans opposed the bill.
"It's one thing to hear about a problem," Nunes said Thursday. "It's another thing to see it for yourself. This was horrendous."
Once you step outside that bubble, it's hard to ignore the truth and the suffering.
