January 14, 2011 (Escondido)--California Center for the Arts, Escondido presents Keyboard Conversations® “The Romantic Music of Robert Schumann: Fantasies Forbidden and Fulfilled” featuring pianist Jeffrey Siegel. 

January 13, 2011 (San Diego’s East County) --The new, permanent northbound State Route 67 (SR-67) off-ramp to Prospect Avenue is scheduled to open Friday at 5 a.m., according to the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans).

January 13, 2011 (San Diego's East County) -- Local educators are invited to join the San Diego East County Chamber of Commerce on a trip to Peru July 11-19.  

Tour highlights will include:

Wounded Congresswoman opens eyes, embraces husband

By Leon Thompson and Miriam Raftery

January 13, 2011 (Tucson) – Speaking to an overflow crowd of more than 30,000 in Tucson yesterday, President Barack Obama memorialized the six people who died when a gunman opened fire January 8th, shooting 19 people including Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. He also called for a new era of civility, healing, and compassion.

January 12, 2011 (Rancho San Diego) -- Friends of the Water Conservation Garden, a new organization of community volunteers, is now governing and operating the Water Conservation Garden.

January 13, 2011 (La Mesa) -- La Mesa Community Services and Center for Community Solutions is offering a personal safety class on Monday January 31st from 6:00 to 9:00 pm.

Personal safety is a set of awareness, assertiveness, verbal confrontational skills, safety strategies, and physical techniques that can enable a person to successfully avoid,  resist, escape, and survive violent assaults.

January 12, 2011 (La Mesa)--The City of La Mesa’s annual Multicultural Festival in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr will be heldr Sunday, Jan. 16th from 2:00 to 3:30 p.m. at the La Mesa Community Center, 4975 Memorial Drive. The 15th annual event, presented by the City of La Mesa Human Relations Advisory Commission, is free and open to the public.

Featured entertainment includes appearances by the Helix Charter High School Bagpipe Band, Moreton Bay Fig Morris, an English Folk Dance Troupe, and Axis Gospel Singers. Dr. James Kitchen, Vice President, Student Affairs, San Diego State University, will serve as guest speaker.

January 11th, 2011 (San Diego’s East County)—More than 167 people have reported feeling a possible sonic boom at 10:28 a.m., the U.S. Geological Survey reports. The majority of reports came from San Diego and San Diego’s East County, though the incident was felt was far away as Los Angeles County and Tijuana, Mexico.

January 1 2011 (El Cajon)--The Miss El Cajon Scholarship Association is looking for contestants for the 2011 Miss El Cajon and Miss Teen Rancho San Diego Scholarship Pageant scheduled for Saturday, March 19. Judges will also be selecting the Miss El Cajon Teen and Miss Rancho San Diego Teen.

By Brian Lafferty

January 11, 2011 (San Diego) – After seeing Undertow, Peru’s submission to the Academy for Best Foreign Language Film, I wondered if director Javier Fuentes-Leon had seen the 1947 classic The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz (who would direct All About Eve three years later) it starred Gene Tierney as a widow who falls in love with the spirit of a crusty sea captain played by Rex Harrison haunting her seaside cottage.

By Billy Ortiz and Miriam Raftery
Photos by Billy Ortiz
Videos by Billy Ortiz and Ron Cook

January 9, 2011 (La Mesa)--For the fourth consecutive year, youths at United Church of Christ of La Mesa (UCCLM) are active participants in the “Souper Bowl of Caring,” a month-long, nation-wide program in which donations of food, goods, and money are solicited to benefit local service agencies.

ALLEGED SHOOTER LISTED MEIN KAMPF AMONG HIS FAVORITE BOOKS

"In San Diego, we stand together today and say that violence has no place in politics, not here, and never again." --  Jess Durfee and Tony Krvaric, chairs of the San Diego Democratic and Republican parties, in a joint statement

Former ECM manager now in Tucson recalls meeting Giffords, says she was outspoken on need to `tone down' rhetoric that could incite violence

 

January 8, 2011 (Tucson) Updated 5:45 p.m. -- Democratic Congersswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Arizona's first Jewish representative,  has been shot through the brain and is in critical condition following surgery, according to a hospital spokesperson. A federal judge and a nine-year-old-baby are among the dead; ten others were wounded when a gunman opened fire in Tucson on a street corner where Giffords was hosting a meeting with constituents.

January 8, 2011 (Santee) – A family with five children seeks the public’s help to find their dog, Zoe, who has not been seen since New Year’s Day. Firefighters opened up the family home on Clifford Heights Road in Santee to save it from flames after a next-door-neighbor, Michael Cour, shot his wife and himself, also setting fire to the couple’s home.

Zoe, a 3-year-old Bichon frise, was recently groomed and had a shorter haircut than a typical Bichon, the Union-Tribune reported. The dog has a friendly personality, has a microchip ID, and was wearing a pink collar with tags when last seen.

By Brian Lafferty

January 7, 2011 (San Diego) – Looking at a few of Blue Valentine’s negative reviews (as of today, the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer stands at 91% with only nine “rotten” reviews against eighty-six positive) I find the film’s unfavorable comparisons to the directorial work of the late John Cassavetes a recurring observation.

Granted, the movie isn’t the first to explore a marriage’s disintegration. Cassavetes’ Faces and Sam Mendes’ Revolutionary Road come to mind. However, I believe this criticism is unfair to Blue Valentine. I don’t mind if a movie doesn’t have an original plot as long as it has unique and strong characters. This movie is populated with two of them.