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Checkmate

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Mr Trump
This is for Rosie O’Donnell and Megyn Kelly and all the women verbally abused by Donald Trump and other bullies like him.

Mr. Trump
We used to call people like you, “Know-it-alls”.
You know, those teenagers who just heard something on TV
and repeat it,
as if they personally did the lab experiment to prove it.
Or worse,
the ones who tell you this is the way it is,
and then quote chapter and verse from a book
written by men whose perspective of reality
was that the earth is flat. …   [Read more…]

Lazy Fare in the Garden: Just Let It Be

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By Jeeni Criscenzo

Ever since I read the book Noah’s Garden by Sara Stein, I’ve taken a more laissez-faire attitude toward gardening. While I haven’t let my garden return back to its pre-human-intervention state, I’ve stopped being so controlling about what gets to grow where.

One of the best features of the home we rent is the big flat, unshaded yard overlooking the Tecolote Canyon. While the soil needed a lot of amending, it’s otherwise a perfect place for a vegetable garden. The 5-foot cinder block wall isn’t pretty, but it’s kept the coyotes out (so far)–the other critters – not so much.

I noticed this morning that something (most likely a squirrel) had polished off every leaf on my zucchinis, cucumbers and sweet potatoes. All of that in one night! They must have had a helluva full-moon bash! Just the day before, those plants were thriving in big plastic gopher-proof containers. But apparently they were just a tub-o-fun for squirrels.   [Read more…]

Dreams and Nightmares on Medi-Cal

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It has been my dream, since my husband and I first started dating, to go with him to visit the ancient Maya sites that I wrote about 25 years ago in my novel, Place of Mirrors. Though we planned the trip several times, including for our honeymoon, one thing after another has caused us to postpone it.

A few months ago I got an email about an upcoming rafting expedition down the Usumacinta River that would stop at all of the sites I wanted to visit. We had met the guide for that trip, Rocky Contos, two years earlier, before I broke my leg.

He had suggested that we could get a reduced rate if we would work the trip – I could do cooking and my husband could do translating and assist with various chores. If we got some others to join us, it would cost almost nothing.   [Read more…]

The Swarm

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By Jeeni Criscenzo

How about something lighter this week? Any analogies in this story to present day issues are purely coincidental and of your own making.

This morning (Sunday) I was browsing through Facebook, delighted to see that while Saturday’s unusual thunderstorms may have literally dampened the Pride Parade, they certainly did not dampen the spirit of an event makes me very proud to be a San Diegan.

Scrolling down, one of the posts about the rain was from a good friend who lives in El Cajon who wondered about the flying insects that were in her pool and seemed to attack her as soon as she went out the door. I imagined that the rain had caught some passing swarm by surprise and brought the whole mass down into her yard.   [Read more…]

It’s Not Socialism, It’s Democratic Capitalism

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In a recent interview about the groundswell of popularity for Bernie Sanders, Richard Wolff, author of “Democracy at Work, a Cure for Capitalism,” opined that we are seeing a new form of socialism that doesn’t give the power to the government, but rather focuses on “changing the way we organize enterprises, so they stop being top-down, hierarchical, where the board of directors makes all the decisions, and we move to this idea which is now catching on: cooperation, workers owning and operating collectively and democratically their economy and their enterprise.”

Instead of looking at this as a new kind of socialism, I like to think of it as a new kind of capitalism—democratic capitalism, where workers are actually free.   [Read more…]

Welcome to My Niche

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By Jeeni Criscenzo

Wow! I passed muster with the editors of San Diego Free Press and this marks my inaugural weekly column. I’ve been told I can write about whatever I want, so expect the unexpected, because I like to poke my brain cells into all sorts of ideas and places.

I’ll be alternating between prose and poetry depending on what muse is biting. While my focus will often be on homelessness, I’ll be writing about feminism, equality, gardening, politics and anything else that I think needs to see the light of day.

…”My Niche” was the name of the weekly column my mother wrote forty years ago for the Hawthorne Press, the local newspaper for the small New Jersey town where I grew up. I do this to take up the torch she was forced to lay down too soon.   [Read more…]

For Hundreds of Families, There’s No Place Like Home in San Diego

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By Jeeni Criscenzo del Rio

I had just returned from a 3-hour forum on options for housing homeless people. The Amikas phone was ringing and I rushed to answer it while flinging the handouts and brochures from the event onto my desk. The hopeful but timid voice on the other end of the call sounded all too familiar. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t make out her name, I already knew her story and why she was calling Amikas.

Although our agency closed the last of our residential programs last month, there are still listings for us throughout the county and I’m still getting calls like this one. This woman found our card tacked on the bulletin board at the LGBT Community Center and thought we would be the answer to her prayers. She is seven months pregnant and has two kids, 6 and 7 years old. She’s been homeless for six months.   [Read more…]

A Homeless Food Fight in San Diego

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By Jeeni Criscenzo del Rio

A recent post on the Facebook page for Homeless News San Diego showed a letter from the Rock Church regarding a change in policy for feeding homeless people. Part of one sentence was highlighted: refrain from feeding homeless people on the streets, as well as distributing items such as clothing and blankets. The post indicates there were 107 shares and 206 comments!

I can’t recall ever seeing an issue evoke such passionate responses from so many people with opposing, yet reasonable points of view. I read all of them, looking for something to convince me one way or the other, because this is something that has been troubling me since I attended at Downtown Fellowship of Churches and Ministries meeting about it two years ago. Not being a church-goer, I felt a little out of my element at the meeting, but I appreciated their plans for what would become Doing It Better Together  to coordinate services provided to homeless people on the streets.   [Read more…]

Lessons to Be Learned from The Maya: Hidden Worlds Revealed at San Diego Natural History Museum

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By Jeeni Criscenzo

I spent a recent Sunday afternoon exploring the new exhibit at the San Diego Natural History Museum, Maya: Hidden Worlds Revealed. Being somewhat of an aficionado of Maya studies, due to the considerable research I did while writing the novel, Place of Mirrors I had tacked the announcement for this event to my calendar with great anticipation. I wasn’t disappointed! This exhibit was thorough, interesting and respectful of the Maya culture, both past and present.

Our understanding of this ancient culture, that had a written language, accurate calendrics, a numeric system that included zero, and impressive architectural feats, has progressed significantly in the 20 years since I dug through archaeological texts looking for the humanity in the artifacts. I highly recommend this exhibit and suggest you allow a few hours to savor it.   [Read more…]

Only a Bully Kicks the Poor

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By Jeeni Criscenzo

A few weeks back Rep. Darrell Issa (CA 49) tried to defend his statement made during a CNN interview, that “we’ve been able to make our poor somewhat the envy of the world.”

As someone who has dedicated my life to helping our poor, I am compelled to offer an opposing perspective. To be clear, this is not a debate between the left and the right, or liberals vs conservatives, or Democrats vs Republicans. Those are all labels designed to keep us divided and distracted when the issue is actually who we are, as a nation and a community: people who share a connection with all of humanity and are capable of feeling compassion for others; or people who only see others as a means to their personal acquisition of power and wealth.

This is a debate between those who believe our best chance for survival is through cooperation and justice, and those who believe in the survival of the fittest.   [Read more…]

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