San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

You are here: Home / Archives for Culture

Thoughts Rising from the Darkness of My Grief

by

Folks say to you, when you’ve lost a child: “I can’t imagine your pain.”

And they’ve got something there because the pain wrestling my emotions to the ground is unimaginable. Losing a child is in a category all by itself. It’s surreal.

I looked for a photo to go with the mood I’m in and I saw one that matched just how I am feeling, how I seem to be trudging through a burnt out forest on an LSD trip gone horribly awry with bees stinging the very fabric of my soul.

I’m reeling from the very thought that my daughter Debbie’s death was against the natural order of things: she was supposed to some day mourn me — not the other way around.   [Read more…]

Geo-Poetic Spaces: Inside The Box

by

Before object permanence
awakened memory
the cardboard box
gathered dust in a cupboard
inside our family home

Blunt scissors
were the only tool required
to cut through through
layers of masking tape
and unify parallel universes   [Read more…]

Weedinol – Ask Your Doctor If It’s Right for You | Video Worth Watching

by

I’ve been exposed to so many medical prescription drug advertisements now that I routinely tune out all of the incredibly nasty and life-threatening side effects as they’re enumerated. “Ask your doctor” is about the only element that cuts through now, and I just can’t imagine actually doing that. Except maybe for Weedinol. The side effects for this one sound so much less hazardous …   [Read more…]

Televangelist Extremist Morris Cerullo Got His Disneyland Park in Mission Valley

by

In October, San Diego City Council Approved 18-Acre Christian-Themed Center

In our continuing saga to track developments in Mission Valley, we have to note that just about one month ago, on October 17, the San Diego City Council approved televangelist Morris Cerullo’s $130 – 160 million Legacy International Center project. The Center will replace the former Mission Valley Resort at 875 South Hotel Circle Drive on an 18-acre site at the west end of Mission Valley.

That’s the main headline.

But what the Council also did was approve a mini Disneyland-type of religious theme park that will promote controversial religious tourism. This project will be owned by the head of an extremist Evangelical empire who is outspoken in his opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage; who was expelled from India for religious disturbances; who is criticized by rabbis for trying to convert Jews; and whose disputed claims of being a faith healer and miracle worker have led to at least one documented death.   [Read more…]

Accolades for Maria Garcia, ‘La Neighbor’

by

“I always knew that knowledge could not be taken away.”

Over the course of one extraordinary week Maria Garcia was recognized for her work in historical preservation and documentation in Sacramento and as a Latino Champion and as Citizen of the Year here in San Diego. Maria is well known to San Diego Free Press readers for her award winning weekly series “The History of Neighborhood House in San Diego.”

Maria turned that series of stories about the lives of a forgotten and overlooked community into the book “La Neighbor: A Settlement House in Logan Heights.” By showing how residents lived their lives — worked, voted, raised their families — she firmly established them, Neighborhood House and Logan Heights in the history of San Diego.

Maria’s contributions have not gone unnoticed. The San Diego Union-Tribune selected the retired school-principal and longtime Chicana activist as a Latino Champion. She received a prestigious Governor’s Historic Preservation Award for “La Neighbor.” On the same day that she received the Governor’s Award in Sacramento, she flew back to San Diego just in time to receive the Citizen of the Year Award from the San Diego Chapter of Phi Delta Kappa, the professional educational honor association.   [Read more…]

The Deadly Link Between Domestic Violence and Mass Shootings

by

By Sher Watts Spooner / Daily Kos

The fight for rational gun safety laws is frustrating. But the information that the perpetrator of the latest mass shooting also was guilty of domestic abuse—a conviction that should have kept him from buying a gun—seems to be opening some eyes.

Devin Patrick Kelley, who opened fire with an assault rifle to kill 26 people at a church service in Sutherland Springs, Texas, had been court-martialed for trying to strangle his wife and for fracturing his stepson’s skull. Kelley is just the latest in a series of mass shooters who also have committed domestic violence. Of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in recent U.S. history, nine were committed by domestic abusers.

According to research by Everytown for Gun Safety, which has analyzed all mass shootings since 2009, more than half of all mass shootings in the United States are related to domestic or family violence.   [Read more…]

Remembering Debbie

by

Debbie, my first born,
is gone, and now
is but a sweet memory for me
as I mourn.
With tears in my eyes
I reflect on our journey in life together
since she arrived,
seemingly out of the rich blue
of the Tucson skies
on January 4th, 1957,
a wonderful clear and cool
sunny winter day –
when I was but an
eighteen-year-old freshman …   [Read more…]

Geo-Poetic Spaces: White Lies

by

Before
we throw
the white elephant
out of our white house
we should ask ourselves
why we’ve listened to white trash
for so long?

Did we use the white noise
to whiteout
black eyes?   [Read more…]

Sam Bee on Mass Shootings and the Boyfriend Loophole | Video Worth Watching

by

Samantha Bee released this segment about the relationship between mass shootings and domestic violence four days before the latest mass shooting at a Texas church which left 26 people dead and another 20 wounded.

She didn’t know that the shooter, 26 year old Devin Kelley “beat his wife, cracked his toddler stepson’s skull and was kicked out of the military. He drove away friends, drew attention from the police and abused his dog.”   [Read more…]

The Ballad of DJT

by

By P. Staley

A tweeter named Donnie was mad.
He ended each message with “sad.”
When asked who he hated
he huffed and berated:
“If you dare question me then you’re bad.”

A golfer named Donnie did tweet,
“Another tough round I won – sweet!”   [Read more…]

The Human Voice as Instrument – ‘Roomful of Teeth’ Brings It On | Video Worth Watching

by

The human voice as instrument …

The second selection of this NPR Tiny Desk Concert performance is Rinde Eckert’s “Cesca’s View” which incorporates yodeling as a vocal technique. This a capella performance by the women of “Roomful of Teeth” expands the limited association of that technique from strictly Alpen herders to the vocal repertoire in general.
  [Read more…]

Geo-Poetic Spaces : Betrayal

by

The emperor
golfs
while Puerto Rico drowns

Behind democracy’s locked door
senators write off tyranny with silence
in order to inflate the pockets
of power brokers
by breaking the working poor   [Read more…]

©2010-2017 SanDiegoFreePress.org

Code is Poetry