Talking about abortion is my least favorite topic for political discussion.  The subject is so divisive, and opinions are so deeply rooted in each person's belief system, that meaningful debate is practically impossible in the U.S.  While I fully understand that rhetoric will not normally sway another person from their opinion, there still exists some room for discussion.

Enter California Proposition 4, the "Waiting Period and Parental Notification Before Termination of Minor's Pregnancy," or "Sarah's Law."  If passed, the proposition will change procedures for parental notification when an unemancipated minor seeks an abortion.  As the law stands, minors and adults have the same rights to end their pregnancies.  In addition, doctors would have the burden of both informing the minor's guardian and of waiting 48 hours before admitting an underage patient. 

Still, Prop 4 isn't about endorsing a pro-life or pro-choice agenda.  This proposition speaks to how voters think about how families operate.  Prop 4 tests the boundaries of what voters consider acceptable behavior by female children and their parents.  But do the changes merit a yes vote to appease parents left out of the loop of their daughter's sexual activity? 

Photo: Charles Hartley

While checking out the cows and sheep and other farm animals at the San Diego County Fair on Tuesday, I got to thinking about a ballot initiative I'd seen. So when I got back to work I promptly looked it up: Proposition 2 on the November ballot, would prohibit "cruel confinement of farm animals in a manner that does not allow them to turn around freely, lie down, stand up, and fully extend their limbs" after January 1, 2015.

This doesn't directly apply to the fair, both because nothing like that seemed to be happening there, but also the initiative, Proposition 2, would exempt rodeos, state and county fairs, and 4-H programs from its provisions.

But in my mind, as with all the initiatives I'm asked to vote on, the question became 'why.'  Why is this necessary? Assuming the cause is just, how has the current law failed, and will this proposed change lead to a better something-or-other?

"Poll shows California voters want budget cuts somewhere, just not to things they like."  That headline from the June 10 Press-Enterprise seems to sum up the problems California is facing in balancing its budget.

There's been much finger pointing on this issue, mostly at the legislature. They have a difficult job, trying to close a gap of about $17 billion between planned expenses and scheduled revenue. The difference is significant: more than 10 percent of the governor's proposed $141 billion budget.

Seeing that Election Day has once again arrived, I found my ballot on the coffee table this morning and diligently fulfilled my civic responsibility. It's been sitting there for a couple of weeks, but even given my participation with Citizen Voices, there's been nothing to really draw my interest this time. So I sat down with some coffee and the pamphlet and the internet and I voted.

Photo: Candace Suerstedt

This week marks the 38th Earth Day. It seems impossible that nearly four decades have passed since the first one in 1970. Though I had grown up reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring , I don't think I realized the full significance of that first Earth Day. I do remember that a number of folks dismissed it as yet another "hippie commie" activity and even the news magazines were unsure of how to portray the event.

The Uppity Wisconsin recalled that Newsweek was bemused, and somewhat dismissive, calling Earth Day "a bizarre nationwide rain dance" and the nation's "biggest street festival since the Japanese surrendered in 1945." Time said the day "had aspects of a secular, almost pagan holiday..." Newsweek asked,  "whether the whole uprising represented a giant step forward for contaminated Earthmen or just a springtime skipalong."

At any rate, here we are 38 years later and the worst environmental predictions from those early years seem optimistic in relation to what has actually happened to our environment.

Photo: Candace Suerstedt

When I heard this week that the Bush administration will use its authority to bypass more than 30 laws and regulations in order to complete the “Border Fence” by the end of 2008, I could hardly believe the idiotic arrogance, and complete disregard for due process.

Construction on the Great Wall between the United States and Mexico will go into overdrive so we (the taxpaying public) can watch $8 to $10 billion of our dollars get spent building a fence along select areas of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. This has to be one of the worst ideas the federal government has ever perpetrated.

Well, ok, at least one of the 100 worst… let's see, what other tragic moments in American history did our government tell us was “for our own good”, and, we, as a nation, were complicit in their actions.

As I write this, my partner in the unraveling of America's moral fabric is in Hillcrest inputting names into a database. He's spending part of his spring break to volunteer with Equality For All as they gear up to fight proposed initiatives that might make it on to the November ballot.

Among the 47 proposed initiatives currently in circulation are several that would attempt to limit marriage equality efforts, including one that would amend the state constitution to protect the "essence of marriage" and eliminate domestic partnerships.

Interesting to me that this comes up while the issue of the constitutionality of marriage equality is still pending before the California's Supreme Court, with the oral arguments having just been heard on March 4. Someone might want to wait and see how the court rules on what the constitution currently says before proposing to change the constitution. Regardless of their stance on the issue of marriage equality, someone might think that acting prematurely would be a complete and utter waste of taxpayers' money.

Unfortunately, there is a very real threat that this could, in fact, happen.    

I just read an amazing book called Smart Mobs “The Next Social Revolution” by Howard Rheingold. Until two weeks ago, I would have described myself as “computer literate”. Now, after reading Rheingold, I feel as if I have been walking around with half a brain for the last two decades.

Rheingold describes the social, psychological, and philosophical transformations our culture is undergoing in this age of instant wireless access. Heck, I was just trying to stay current with my software and upgrade my computers as they became obsolete. 

Now it’s obvious that we are deep in this renaissance, and the prevailing question is: how do we, as human beings, experience it? It’s not enough just to realize that we have the technical capabilities; the most pressing concern is what we do with them, and what kind of society we will become.    

California's role in the presidential primaries may be complete, and the surviving presidential candidates have moved on to fresher hunting grounds for voters as they attempt to secure their parties' nominations, but the 2008 election cycle is far from over: one down, two elections to go.

According to the California Secretary of State's Web site two initiatives have qualified for California's June election.

The two qualified initiatives, Propositions 98 and 99, would both amend California's constitution to change state and local government power to acquire property for private uses.  The issues are similar to those that would have been addressed by passage of Proposition 90 in 2006, an initiative that was defeated with 52.3 percent of the voters voting against amending the state constitution.

But government acquisition of private property, for whatever use, is in the news. The federal government is taking property to survey and build a border fence.  Downtown redevelopment is back in the limelight as San Diego and the Centre City Development Corportation, no strangers to using the power of eminent domain for private use, celebrate the restoration of the Balboa Theatre funded by downtown redevelopment tax dollars.  

Having been working at the polling station at Escondido's Pioneer Elementary School from 5:30 a.m. until we left to turn in our ballots at 9:30 p.m., I can attest that yesterday was certainly an Election Day. On the other hand, the exhaustion and soreness this morning all point to a highly successful Mardi Gras celebration.

Mind-numbing paper counts and the stickers, stickers, stickers attitude lead to morning-after effects very similar to the more traditional Mardi Gras activities.

The worst part of the day was putting this news junkie into a news blackout zone for most of Super Tuesday. The TV was turned off. There were no publications around that might politicize the environment. The occasional news update message to the Blackberry served as more of a tease than to satisfy any actual cravings for good, hard news, and small doses of KPBS coverage over the car radio while running errands on my breaks were all I had to keep from going into complete withdrawal. 

From my standpoint, Touchscreen Inspector for a precinct that only had one electronic ballot cast, the election went smooth.