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Avo’s ‘I Love a Piano’ a treat for fans of Irving Berlin

If you enjoy Irving Berlin’s music, you will not want to miss “I Love a Piano” at the Avo Playhouse in Vista, running through March 13.

The two-hour musical revue, part of Moonlight’s winter season, spans the past century by highlighting 51 of Berlin’s more than 1,500 songs written during his 60-year career for the stage and screen.

The six-person ensemble cast shows amazing energy and endurance since for most of the show they are on the stage together, singing and dancing their hearts out. There are comedic and poignant moments and minimal dialog.

The decades are tied together through the show’s seventh cast member — an upright piano that survives and therefore witnesses Berlin’s music (and America’s history) despite its one sour note from a defective key discovered soon after it arrives at Alexander’s Music Shop in 1910.

Huge pot seizure near Poway

(CNS) – Authorities today were investigating who was responsible for
growing 350 marijuana plants worth as much as $1.4 million in a North
County grove near Poway owned by the City of San Diego.

Members
of the San Diego County Narcotics Task Force, which includes federal and
local law enforcement agents, seized the plants from an area off
Highland Valley Road near Pomerado Road early Wednesday.

Editorial: Decision time on school busing

It is decision time for the families of approximately 3,300 Poway Unified School District bus riders.

The district has set a deadline of this coming Monday to see whether
85 percent of those families feel that keeping school buses on the road
is worth $575 out of their pockets.

If 2,800 passes are sold by Monday, bus service will not be
eliminated. Otherwise, the 3,300 elementary and middle school students
will have to find other ways to get to and from classes when school
resumes Aug. 25. Loss of the service will also mean that 35 bus drivers
and five other transportation employees will lose their jobs.

Letters to the Editor: July 29, 2010

Firl’s stance ‘fantasy’

In columnist Gerold Firl’s July 22 column where he suggests that no
member of the military is financially responsible, his assumptions about
what Admiral Mullin and the Pentagon “recognizes” are pure, unfounded
fantasy.

Firl’s attempt to label the military as an “Evil Empire” shows his true
colors. His bigoted statement, “Anybody who has ever been in the
military . . .” is a pathetic attempt at denigration of the military to
rationalize his failure to serve.

About Duke Cunningham: Unlike Firl, Duke Cunningham served his country
as a career naval officer. Unlike Firl, Duke Cunningham is a combat
veteran, a fighter ace and a genuine hero. Unlike Firl’s suggestion,
Duke Cunningham never made it into the higher echelons of the naval
service.

After his retirement from the Navy, Cunningham was elected as a U.S.
Congressman and while serving in that capacity, he transgressed and is
now in prison where he rightfully belongs. Cunningham’s behavior,
however, does not validate Firl’s assertion that all or any members of
the military are inherently corrupt.

In Firl’s myopic view, the military is the only problem, and he is
profoundly silent about the other 76 percent of the national budget.

Firl reminds me of a fine, upstanding liberal who, while I was on active
duty, told me, “Anyone stupid enough to join the military deserves to
be killed.” I’m sure Firl concurs.

Perhaps in Firl’s rabidly anti-military attitude, he believes we would
be better served to dissolve the military and turn the country over to
the Taliban/al-Qaida.
Carl Dotson
Poway

Viewpoint: ‘Refreshing’ the RB business district

With professional design, the desires of both the business community and
residents of Rancho Bernardo can be fulfilled to revitalize the
appearance of our downtown business district.

A skilled architectural designer will honor the original
architectural design vocabulary consisting of tile roofs, stucco/brick
walls and heavy timber rafter details. By introducing more color,
water-saving landscaping, graphic signs or banners and other design
elements, the appearance of our business district will be more
attractive to residents and draw outsiders to do business here.

As the design process begins, it is critical to gain input from business
owners and residents alike. Thanks to the efforts of project organizer
and City Councilman Carl DeMaio and the volunteer committee, an
illustrative photo album can be assembled showing good ideas from other
communities. Newer developments like Santaluz and Del Sur may be
inspiration for natural, water-saving landscape design, which will
replace our existing lawns with colorful, native, attractive plants,
gravel, rocks and other interesting features. Older communities such as
Rancho Santa Fe might provide direction for adding more of the old
California charm to Rancho Bernardo’s business district.

Au Contraire: The (Lockstep) Wedding March

Recently, I decided to move in with my boyfriend of three years. Friends and family:

A) congratulated me on the big move;

B) questioned why I’d give up independence;

C) prayed for my salvation, or

D) asked “when’s the wedding?”

Let’s just say that making a home with the person you love leaves
people wanting and waiting for you to take the “real” big step:
marriage.

San Diego Council rejects sale tax measure

SAN DIEGO (CNS) – A proposal for a temporary
half-cent sales tax increase failed Monday to secure the required six
votes by the San Diego
City Council to put it on the November ballot.

The City Council voted 5-3 to direct the City Attorney’s Office to
draft ballot language for consideration Tuesday. While that motion
technically passed, it was clear that the six votes needed to put the
sales tax
increase on the Nov. 2 ballot were not there, and the entire effort was
abandoned.

SDPD: Crime rate continues downward trend

SAN DIEGO (CNS)— The most severe types of lawbreaking — including
murder, rape, robbery and assault — decreased in San Diego over the
first half of this year, continuing recent positive crime trends in the
city, authorities announced Monday.

Overall, serious crime dropped by 3.8 percent between January and
July as compared with the comparable period in 2009, and the number of
violent offenses went down by 4.6 percent, according to the San Diego
Police Department.

The homicide tally fell by 33 percent during the six-month span;
robberies dipped by about 11 percent; and auto thefts decreased by
nearly 16 percent, SDPD officials reported.

Poway man arrested in federal drug sweep

SAN DIEGO (CNS) – Thirty-one of 43 suspects named in a
federal drug trafficking conspiracy, including a 20-year-old Poway man, are behind bars,
most of them in San Diego
County.

Federal agents arrested 27 people around San
Diego County, and
four were
arrested in Mexico
on conspiracy and racketeering charges that include murder, kidnapping, drug smuggling and money laundering. Among the
arrested is
Mikael Daniel Blaser, 20, of Poway, who the
FBI said uses the street name “Troubles.”

Published reports said prosecutors believe Blaser ran the cartel’s drug and weapons stash house,
distributed drugs and was the enforcer who attempted murders and
robberies. Authorities said the price of a hit was about $3,000.

According
to prosecutors, the man at the center of one attempted killing was
Blaser. He had been assigned to kill a cartel member who had
disrespected leadership.

The defendants are associated with the Fernando Sanchez
Organization, an
offshoot of the notorious but now largely dismantled Arellano-Felix
cartel.
At least five suspects believed to be in the United States were being sought, U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy said.