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MONDAY • JUNE 11, 2012
B2 Local reports
B4 Obituaries
B5 Editorial & Opinion
B6 Weather
HERE’S MUD IN YOUR EYE
ODDS OF
EL NIÑO’S
ARRIVAL
PEGGED
AT 50/50
LOGAN
JENKINS
Turn to the right,
turn to the left,
but there’s no
turn for a write-in
You’re familiar with moot
points and moot courts.
Call this a moot column.
Early Wednesday morning, I
hauled myself out of bed to check
the returns.
Fletcher and Dumanis — out of
the mayoral money.
My first thought, shot through
with déjà vu: Donna Frye.
Nathan Fletcher could win as
a lone write-in candidate against
Carl DeMaio and Bob Filner. Bonnie Dumanis could, too.
Fairly or not, DeMaio and Filner are framed by their parties.
Their greatest strength in a fourway primary is also their greatest
weakness as general candidates
in November.
Filner’s TV ad repeated the
word “Democrat” like a flashing
neon sign. DeMaio’s endorsement
by the local GOP was a profound
partisan game changer.
In November, there will be a
hole in the political middle big
enough to drive a campaign bus
through.
In 2004, Councilwoman Frye
jumped into the mayoral runoff
between Ron Roberts and Dick
Murphy, two Republicans who
created a huge hole on the left.
Frye received a plurality of
votes, though she was robbed on
a technicality.
The city has a quirky history
with write-ins. In 1984, San Diego
City Clerk Chuck Abdelnour denied a write-in campaign and the
state Supreme Court later ruled
the exclusion unconstitutional,
resulting in a revision of the
municipal code. (Inexplicably, the
charter wasn’t amended).
With that 20-year-old ruling in
mind, Abdelnour allowed Frye
to run her insurgent campaign
despite the conflict between the
code and the charter.
Subsequently, the City Council
shut off this last-ditch expression
of democracy, rewriting the city
code to expressly ban write-in
candidacies in runoffs.
So, barring a surreal legal appeal, my early-morning epiphany
is moot. Fletcher and Dumanis
are deep-Fryed. Mayor Jerry
Sanders will not star in TV ads
instructing voters how to write
in for one of his two favorite
candidates.
However, the fact that a writein campaign could conceivably
succeed suggests how much work
DeMaio and Filner have to do
to win over militantly moderate
households like mine.
In November, my wife and I will
be looking for evidence that the
next mayor won’t be a divisive
extremist, in style or substance.
One of the best arguments
for Fletcher was, as one former
journalist put it, “he’d be good for
the city’s brand.”
Ultimately, we’ll vote for the
candidate who’s best for San
Diego’s brand.
Who’s going to make the city
look good — i.e., smart, attractive, efficient, solvent, safe, morally sound, fun?
The point of that sweeping
question — at least to those who
voted for Fletcher or Dumanis and now are forced to turn
sharply right or left — will be
anything but moot.
[email protected]
(760) 752-6756
Periodic pattern can
result in wet winter,
damaging waves
GARY ROBBINS • U-T
Participants in the World Famous Mud Run at Camp Pendleton got down and dirty going through
the final mud pit of the 10-kilometer race on Sunday. A total of 6,500 runners splashed through
the event. For more photos of the mud run, go to utsandiego.com/mud. HOWARD LIPIN • U-T
Bee champ had his
own way with words
’05 winner has advice for county’s 2nd super speller
KAREN KUCHER • U-T
On the heels of the Scripps National Spelling Bee victory by Snigdha Nandipati of Francis Parker
School in Linda Vista, we caught
up with San Diego County’s only
other national bee champ, Anurag
Kashyap.
Kashyap was an eighth-grader
at Meadowbrook Middle School in
Poway when he correctly spelled
“appoggiatura” to win the competition in 2005. Then as a senior at
Rancho Bernardo High School, he
won $75,000 as champion of the
“Jeopardy! Teen Tournament.”
We asked Kashyap, who is now a
20-year-old computer science and
engineering student at MIT, how
his spelling bee triumph changed
his life and whether he had any advice for Snigdha. This is an edited
version of his email response:
Anurag Kashyap, the county’s
first bee winner, is now 20.
What is the benefit of participating in spelling bees, words in the Scripps Bee are all
and what did the experience that hard (e.g., older individuteach you?
als who’ve taken some French
Some spelling-specific ben- classes or been to France know
efits of bees include an ob- what an arrondissement is; a colvious increase in vocabulary and, lege-level biology class teaches
more importantly, cultural aware- you what Schwann cells are
ness.
[thus giving away the spelling
Some adults have pointed out of schwannoma]). My typical
to me that not all the later-round
SEE BEE WINNER • B4
Q:
A:
The U.S. Climate Prediction Center has issued an
El Niño watch, saying there
is a 50 percent chance the
periodic climate change
phenomenon will develop
during the second half of
this year.
An El Niño can cause
above-average rainfall during the winter months and
generate potentially damaging waves along the coast.
Sea-surface conditions
are currently neutral in the
equatorial Pacific, where El
Niño and the drier weather
change known as La Niña
are born. But the climate
center said in a Thursday
advisory that above-average sea temperatures in
the tropical Pacific indicate
that the ocean will continue
to warm, possibly spurring
El Niño.
Scientists said conditions
should remain neutral during early summer. But the
climate center also said,
“Thereafter, most of the dynamical models predict El
Niño to develop during JulyAugust and September, while
the statistical models tend
to favor the continuation of
(status quo). ... Thus, there
remains uncertainty as to ...
the second half of the year.”
El Niños, which vary in
strength, represent a mixed
message for Southern California.
During the winter, the
phenomenon can reduce
or virtually eliminate the
threat of wildfires. But
heavy rains also cause vegetation to flourish. Some of
that vegetation later dries
out and adds to a region’s
wildfire danger.
An El Niño doesn’t always
lead to significantly aboveaverage rain. And a La Niña
does not always result in below-average precipitation.
Scientists aren’t even sure
how much either system
affects short-term climate
and weather.
A La Niña existed last winter. San Diego’s Lindbergh
Field is expected to finish the
rainfall year on June 30 with
below-average precipitation.
[email protected]
ADOPTABLE DOGS GET THEIR DAY IN OCEAN BEACH
Even a few cats show up
at Doggie Street Festival
R. J. IGNELZI • U-T
OCEAN BEACH
Zoe (left) and Abbie try out their new sunglasses at
Sunday’s Doggie Street Festival. PEGGY PEATTIE • U-T
“This one, Daddy. This is the one
I think we should get,” said Kendra
Farrell, 6, as she pulled her father
toward a lively cockapoo puppy
named Bella at Sunday’s Doggie
Street Festival.
Meanwhile, Kendra’s older sister, Kate, had her eye on a laidback beagle mix named Horseradish. A few minutes before that, she
was set on Carly B., a miniature
poodle.
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“We came here to maybe adopt a
dog, but they’re all so cute, we can’t
decide,” said Brian Farrell of San
Diego, who with his two daughters
walked from cage to cage at Southern California’s largest pet adoption event at Robb Field in Ocean
Beach.
From Pomeranians and pit bulls
to beagles and bichons (along with
a few tabbies this year), hundreds
of adoptable animals sniffed fingers, licked faces and tugged at
hearts.
About 5,000-plus pet lovers,
many accompanied by their fourlegged friends, came out to adopt a
pet and support the Doggie Street
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