By Walter Davis

Editor’s note: This memoir, submitted this week, provides eyewitness insights into turbulent times in our nation's history as well as the strength of a remarkable woman and her son.

July 1, 2010 (Birmingham, Alabama)--In 1915 when Mrs. Davis was a little girl, she could not go into the front door of most restaurants and public places like bus terminals. When traveling her family was not allowed to use the public restrooms in gas stations along the way because of the pigment in their skin. Finding a hotel was a challenge and crooked police could stop, search, rape, and kill as they pleased.

By Brian Lafferty

August 27, 2010 (San Diego)--Jean-Luc Godard, that great French filmmaker, once said, “The best way to criticize a movie is to make another movie.” When I first saw Mesrine: Killer Instinct, which is the first in a two part series (Mesrine: Public Enemy No. 1 will be released next week) I wasn’t very impressed. I felt like I had seen it all before and that the movie wasn’t anything special. That was until I saw Takers a while later.

By Nancy Clement & Dawn Clement

Share creative ideas to assist people of all ages on tips to save money and improve their lifestyle!

August 28, 2010 (San Diego’s East County) —Want to save money on your college textbooks? Why buy when you can rent? Now you can rent textbooks from Bookrenter for a semester. Check their website to see if the book you are interested in is available--with 3 million titles, chances are good that it will be. They offer free shipping to your door and at the end of the semester, UPS comes and picks it up so you do not have the hassle of re-selling a textbook you no longer need.

By Brian Lafferty

August 27, 2010 (San Diego)--The movie may be called Takers but “Sharp Dressed Men” would be a more apt title. The Takers in this movie are a group of men who get their kicks robbing banks but there is very little of it. Instead, we see only a group of men dressed in expensive suits strutting around, acting cool, and emitting a subtext that says, “Look how much money we have to afford these coats and ties!” At some point I wished ZZ Top’s hit song, “Sharp Dressed Man” would blare to lighten things up a little.

The Kid: Chamaco, which he produced, opens Friday for a one-week engagement

By Brian Lafferty

August 26, 2010 (El Cajon)--“The quality of writing will get you through the door,” says East County film producer Vernon Mortensen. His newest film, The Kid: Chamaco, opens Friday for a one-week showing at the Reading Gaslamp.  “To get to the door, half the time you need to know somebody," he told me over lunch in El Cajon.

By Brian Lafferty

August 22, 2010 (San Diego)--Patrik, Age 1.5 is formulaic, super-sweet, and very sentimental but I liked it. The movie opened on Friday and is playing at the Ken Cinema until Thursday. I found the structure to be overly predictable and some of the song choices questionable and gag-inducing but it was to me a worthwhile cinematic experience.

By Brian Lafferty

August 22, 2010 (San Diego)--Cairo Time is a film best appreciated as art. Forget the simplistic, nearly nonexistent plot involving a budding affair between an American woman and her husband’s Egyptian friend. I admired this film for it’s cinematography and it’s visual style which included such lyrical imagery as the Pyramids, the mosques, the streets, the desert, and the Nile. The script, not unlike the characters, wanders almost aimlessly but I liked where it took the characters and I enjoyed where it took me.

By Buck Shott

August 19, 2010 (San Diego's East County) – The races are on for mayor and council positions in East Couny. Two local mayors’ seats are up for reelection in November. Both face challengers vying for the leadership spots in El Cajon and La Mesa. In addition, a pack of contenders is vying to run for council seats in East County’s cities of El Cajon, La Mesa, Lemon Grove, and Santee. Here's the lineup: 

 

 
 
 
 
By Dawn Celapino
 
August 12, 2010 (San Diego's East County) -- Do you want to take a vacation this summer, but can't make plans because you don't know what to do with your dog? There are many cool, pet-friendly accommodations to save you from your unrealized vacation plans! It might be really hard to leave your dog behind, but many vacation destinations don't allow dogs, or have strict policies regarding our furry friends.
 

Nothing but the Truth!
 

By Will Power

August 13, 2010 (San Diego)--Gerontologists have come up with startling news. The length of your life is dependant not on genetics, but on income. The richer you are, the longer you live.

While this seems like a self-fulfilling prophesy, it is also an indictment of a US system of health care that rewards the rich at the expense of the poor.

Share creative ideas to assist people of all ages with tips to save money and improve their lifestyle!

By Nancy and Dawn Clement

August 13, 2010 (San Diego’s East County) – Free is cool! For a short time Cali Comfort  Restaurant in Spring Valley is offering a special deal: Kids eat free every Friday for breakfast, lunch or dinner. This special will only be available until August 21, so mark your calendar to be sure you do not miss out. Some other restaurants that offer Kid’s Eat Free meals are in the list written below; many of them are located in East County.

By Brian Lafferty

August 8, 2010 (San Diego)—Don’t go into Agora, which was released to theaters on July 30, expecting something along the lines of 300. It is more intellectual and philosophical than that. I like to think of it as a smart person’s epic. There is bloodshed but not as soaked and certainly not as fake. There is love and lust but there is no sex. Alejandro Amenabar has shied away from the obligatory scenes associated with these movies and replaced them with scenes that contain intelligence, relying on the solid writing and great performances.

By Brian Lafferty

August 8, 2010 (San Diego)--Felix Booth (Robert DuVall) is an older, grouchier Boo Radley. It’s fitting, given that DuVall’s first movie role was the enigmatic recluse in the 1962 classic To Kill a Mockingbird. He is always the subject of gossip, which may or may not be true. Kids often trespass on his isolated property deep in the woods to see if the old man is there, only to be chased away with a shotgun.

By Brian Lafferty

August 7, 2010 (San Diego)--The Other Guys works best when it focuses on Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg. I found their scenes droll because of the way the two played off each other. The Other Guys could have benefitted tremendously from a slight trim job and a comprehensible, less-than-convoluted plot but it in the end, it really doesn’t matter. The movie has enough laughs for me to recommend it, although it is not without its flaws.

By Buck Shott

August 4, 2010 (San Diego’s East County) – This week, our Political Wrangler brings you the lastest from those smoke-filled rooms in Washington and San Diego.  Amid pressing world issues, which of your U.S. legislators has a bill to ban marijuana brownies?   Who is drawing fire for cozy ties to tobacco lobbyists after backing a cigar club for legislators? Which Congressman is fighting to make it easier to send cigarettes to our troops?  Did a certain Supervisor break the law in doling out $80,000 in taxpayer money to a special interest group?

 
Petition calls on City to help residents start community gardens

By Sylvia Hampton
 
August 3, 2010 (San Diego) -- I remember the Victory Gardens promoted by the government during WWII. Foods like sugar, butter, milk, cheese, eggs, coffee, meat and canned goods were rationed to assure enough supplies for the soldiers. Labor and transportation shortages made it hard to harvest and move fruits and vegetables to market. So the government asked citizens to plant "Victory Gardens."

By Brian Lafferty

July 30, 2010 (San Diego)--Intelligently dumb may sound like an oxymoron but it is the best phrase I could use to accurately describe Dinner for Schmucks. It is at times goofy and stupid but there is always a certain astuteness that permeates throughout the material without coming off as pretentious. The “dinner” doesn’t arrive until the second to last reel and it is a little bit of a letdown but that doesn’t mean the lead-up isn’t hilarious at times.

Share creative ideas to assist people of all ages with tips to save money and improve their lifestyle!
 
By Nancy Clement

July 30, 2010 (San Diego’s East County) What are your summer plans? Do they include travel or is there no budget for taking a trip this summer? Fortunately, our beautiful San Diego and East County offer wonderful places to have a stay at home vacation, to play tourist while sleeping each night in your own bed. A staycation is an inexpensive way to play and not spend a lot of money on travel, lodging, meals and souvenirs.

By Brian Lafferty

July 30, 2010 (San Diego)--Charlie St. Cloud is one of those movies that made me wonder if it should have even been made. The two major themes in this picture are death and letting go. These by no means rank the highest on the controversy meter when it comes to sensitive subjects. Charlie St. Cloud doesn’t handle these themes in a competent manner but that’s only one symptom of an even larger problem: the plot, the characters, and their actions are built on such a shaky foundation that the movie is doomed to begin with.

 
All aboard for the most scenic and relaxing train rides in North America--and beyond…

 
By Kelly Wieboldt
 
Are you ready for a unique experience? A great train ride might be exactly what you are looking for! Once you're snug in your window seat, you've already begun.
 
The joy is in the journey itself. There is a feeling of old-fashioned civility that saturates the experience, while the thrills likewise seem to hearken back to another era--a leisurely conversation with a friendly stranger, sipping cocktails in the lounge car, being lulled to sleep by the comforting hum of clickety-clacking.

 
 
GARDEN FRESH GRILL & SMOOTHIE

6165 El Cajon Blvd., Suite F, San Diego 92115
(corner of College Ave. and El Cajon Blvd.)
(619)287-2373
www.gardenfreshsd.com  
 
Review by the East County Eater
 
 
July 23, 2010 (San Diego) – If you’re looking to savor a Middle East feast without leaving San Diego County, stop by Garden Fresh Grill & Smoothie. As the name implies, owner Sammy Elasad, a Lebanese immigrant, takes pride in serving up flavorful foods home-made with the freshest possible ingredients.

By Brian Lafferty

I will admit going into Ramona and Beezus fearing the filmmakers would somehow screw it up. I remember reading all the Beverly Cleary books in third grade and loving every one of them. Fortunately, the director and screenwriters not only have crafted a good, sweet and entertaining movie but as an added bonus they have captured the spirit of the books.

By Brian Lafferty

July 23, 2010 (San Diego)--The scenario of Salt is gleefully implausible, with twist after twist and sequences of events that go way beyond the valley of the absurd. The film knows this. These would not be criticisms if the movie was any good, but Salt is a surprisingly boring action movie, completely devoid of suspense as if the filmmakers made a conscious effort to avoid it.

 
 
TIPS AND TRICKS FOR BUSINESS SUCCESS AND GROWTH
 
By Rama Beerfas
 
July 23, 2010 (San Diego’s East County) – Social networking seems to be the newest big thing in the marketing world. People are spending several hours per week (or day) updating their profiles, looking for connections,  tweeting, and more in the hopes of building their businesses.

By Brian Lafferty

"This is one of the best movies of the year." -- Brian Lafferty

July 22, 2010 (San Diego's East County)--Dreams have always been part of  cinema. A common film use is the “it was only a dream” stunt applied to generate cheap thrills and groans (Jaws: The Revenge) or to foment laughter (A Serious Man, An American Werewolf in London).  Dreams have also acted as visually expressive tools to reveal character or relay exposition (Salvador Dali’s dream sequence in Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound). Sometimes, dreams have been used to shock the audience (the movies of Luis Bunuel, particularly Un Chien Andalou, which opens with an eyeball being slashed).

Dreams may be old subjects in motion pictures, but with Inception Christopher Nolan has delivered one of--if not the most--original movie of the year, taking the concept in many new directions I never thought possible.

 
In short, Google U.S. alone is emitting the same quantity of CO2 every year as 28,823 average U.S. homes.

“Your guide to financial planning & socially responsible investing”

By: Judith L. Seid, CFP ®
President, Blue Summit Wealth Management
 
 
July 23, 2010 (La Mesa) -- You may never have given it much thought, but the amount of energy needed to maintain the billions of web pages on the internet is rising, with an increasing carbon emissions footprint of around 10-percent each year - on track to soon surpass the air travel industry!

 

By Dawn Celapino
 
July 18, 2010 (San Diego) -- Most dogs don't get enough mental stimulation to be satisfied or happy, and behavior problems are often a result. Dogs need mental stimulation just as much as they need physical stimulation, so simply taking them for a walk isn't going to cut it! Your dog might be tired after the walk, but will end up bored with even more stamina in the long run to fuel that boredom in the long run.

By Brian Lafferty

July 14, 2010 (San Diego’s East County)--The Sorcerer's Apprentice takes a ten-minute animated segment and stretches it out to a nearly two hour live-action film but it works. It is visually dark yet lit up by the energetic performance of Dave by Jay Baruchel and Nicolas Cage’s dry, deadpan, and humorous portrayal of Balthazar. Some of the humor is predictable but I still laughed throughout. The film teems with special effects but they have a decent story to put them to use.

 
Share creative ideas to assist people of all ages with tips to save money and improve their lifestyle!
 
 
“A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken.” - James Dent.
 
By Nancy and Dawn Clement
 
July 15, 2010 (San Diego’s East County) -- While you enjoy summer, keep in mind some items you can purchase now that enable you to stretch your dollar and save money. Here is a list of non-food bargains: appliances, furniture, gym memberships, men’s suits and paint.