The more things change the more they stay they same eerily reflects the appointment of a new Escondido police chief. That would be Ed Varso, announced Tuesday as new police chief come Dec. 27. Varso was Escondido police chief from January 2020 before leaving in June of this year to become Menifee’s second police chief. Varso served in the Escondido Police Department from 2002 until…

I’ve reached the breaking point on the ideological crusade built around self-victimization over attempts to slow or stem the coronavirus. Yes, I’m a high risk individual, but that’s not the reason why I’m ranting today. I’m just one part of a much bigger picture, namely the portion of the population certain politicians think is expendable in the name of profit. The nation is in the…

(Editor’s Note: After getting blowback from people who didn’t get it, let me explain this is complete satire aimed at showing Issa and other sedition party creeps that it’s oh so easy to turn their disingenuous lies and false arguments against them in the same way. Live by the lie and die by the lie.) We believe we did not have a fair and legitimate…

Consider the California Republican Party. Or, what’s left of it. Not long ago, California Republicans slugged it out with Democrats in competitive statewide campaigns and threw considerable weight into legislative policy debates. But today, after a quarter-century slide into irrelevancy and dogma, it’s reasonable to consider if the state party still has a pulse and if its future includes a revival. The California party faces…

I was outraged when I read a Thanksgiving column by my 2020 election opponent for California’s 75th Assembly District, Marie Waldron, titled “Does California Owe You Money.” It was another reminder for me why I decided to run to bring change to our district.   The article begins: ”The holiday season is fast approaching and many are suffering from severe economic distress resulting from the COVID 19…

A widely advertised dance performance this week (Feb. 8-14) at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido — tickets are $90 to $200 — and San Diego Civic Center (April 21-23) is actually part of an international right wing propaganda effort. Images of a beautiful dancer in a midair leap grace the web and billboard ads for local performances of Shen Yun, one of eight touring…

Dateline Rancho Santa Fe. March 26, 1997. A 911 call came into the San Diego Sheriff’s Communications Center. It was treated as a prank call at first. From what turned out to be a nearby payphone, the caller said something so preposterous that dispatchers took their time in relaying the information to central command. “This is regarding a mass suicide. I can give you the address,” the…

The ghost of Richard Lee “Dick” Stuart was alive and well that warm, languid evening at Angel Stadium of Anaheim on Gene Autrey Way. Many of you weren’t born when Stuart, infamously known as Dr. Strangeglove following the Stanley Kubrick 1964 classic of the same name, held court and, oopsy-daisy, drop-kicked balls from 1958 to 1969. Stuart didn’t just butcher the rawhide. He stewed, filleted,…

In “an extremely rare occurrence,” a pregnant male seadragon made history at a La Jolla aquarium. The weedy seadragon’s pregnancy marks “the first successful transfer of eggs from a female seadragon to a male” at the Seadragons & Seahorses habitat at the Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, a Jan. 9 news release from the aquarium said. “We’re elated to…

Is Jennifer Lopez moving to Escondido? Only The Shadow knows. However, local radio stations and the Internet were buzzing about the possibility that Jenny on the block was moving to this block. While it might be true — who knows, Donald Trump might have been president; the Cubs might have won the World Series — the rumor blasting across several local radio stations and celebrity…