The Mayor on the Port, Hoteliers: In the last few days, San Diego Mayor Bob Filner has offered new plans and initiatives and tried to undo some old ones.
He has been sued by the Tourism Marketing District for not releasing funds the district says it needs to market San Diego to summer tourists. The mayor says the district doesn't need the money and anyway, the city itself should get more of those funds.
He has asked the city's Convention Center Corporation to take back authority over sales and marketing of the Convention Center from the private Tourism Authority.
And he offered a new plan to use the Port of San Diego to create jobs, 6,000 of them, and go greener. Oh, and he released guidelines for qualifications for becoming one of San Diego's commissioners for the Unified Port of San Diego.
Looking At U-T TV: Sexist and cringe-worthy or ambitious and bold? Or both?
U-T TV, the cable and radio arm of U-T San Diego, published a story about itself in which a freelancer called the service “a new frontier for news.” To some critics, however, it looks like sports talk-radio sounds. It has filled its anchor slots with white men and young attractive women. And it has crammed its on-air banter with sexual innuendo and sexist put-downs.
According to Voice of San Diego Managing Editor Sara Libby, the cable service is an (expensive) illustration of the recently published Women’s Media Center report, “The Status of Women in the Media 2013,” which finds that things haven't changed much on-air or in corner offices since the 1960s.
To Give -- Or Not Give -- CPR?: When 87-year-old Lorraine Bayless suffered what looked like cardiac arrest in a Bakersfield retirement facility, a woman who identified herself as a nurse called 911.
She then refused the emergency operator’s pleas to give Bayless CPR on the grounds of company policy.
The story, which underwent several adjustments to its “facts” over the week, raised questions on the ethics of such a policy, on appropriate medical care in nursing homes and independent living facilities, and on the importance of advanced directives for medical care.
Ranking a New Combat Medal: The Pentagon’s new Distinguished Warfare Medal honors the performance of drone pilots in combat. So far, so good for most in the military.
But the problem, according to groups such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Military Order of the Purple Heart, is that the medal ranks in status above the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. In other words, it’s a more prestigious medal than some earned during actual combat.
Rep. Duncan Hunter, Jr., as well as Reps. Susan Davis and Darrel Issa, have weighed in on the controversy, as have thousands of others who have signed an online petition to the White House to have the medal lowered in rank.
