Sitemap - 2025 - The Jumping-Off Place

Memento Mori: We Are the Stories We Tell Ourselves

Ghazal for The Dharma Bum Temple 05/01/24

PRIDE, Kehlani, Mamdani, and Democratic Party Leader Boycotts

July 17-26: Good Trouble in San Diego

Contingency and Transient America: Fight Contingency Now!

Reflections Inspired by a Few Days at Lake Tahoe

What California Labor History Has to Say About the New York City Mayor’s Race

The American Federation of Teachers National Drinks the Kool-Aid

Red States Encouraged to Build More Concentration Camps

Under the Black Flag: On Pirates, A Romance

A Few Words About Numbers

Las Jergas: Rosa Hernandez Performance at Bread and Salt by Claudia Cano

Déjà Vu Telling Me We Still Have a Lot of Work to Do

Ralphs, Albertsons, Vons, and Pavilions Workers Reach Tentative Agreement on New Contract

Anatomy of a Decertification Drive, Part Three

You Don’t Need a Weatherman to Explain the Texas Flooding

Hypernormalization Blues or How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Fascism

What Paloma Aguirre’s Win Means for the San Diego Board of Supervisors and the Region

Looking for Ghosts

Trump vs the 3.5%

This Dumpster Fire of a Reichstag Fire

Jesus and Andina Doing the Small Things for the Resistance

Anatomy of a Decertification Drive, Part Two

Gathering Mass (ZOH-MENTUM edition)

Zohran Mamdani and the Populist Poetry of Hope

A World Informed by Grace

Mask On, Mask Off, Mask On Again: A Coronavirus Quiz

The (Vainglorious) Beneficence of Lady Bountiful? The Contradictory Life of Lillian Wald

May Sly Stone’s Love Live On

Anatomy of a Decertification Drive

A Ceasefire Band Aid for the Middle East

And Now, War with Iran: Another Week, Another Crisis

I Have Never Met a Man Who Was Quite Awake

Alla Prima

Now That No Kings Protests Are Past…

Contingency and Transient America: Proper Protest Nonsense

From in a Funk to Life Feeling Funky

Justice for Janitors: Organizing Immigrant Workers (Part Two)

Dems Dilemmas Deepen for 2026

Union Grocery Workers Vote YES to Authorize ULP Strike

Notes from the Road: No Kings (Except Kamehameha) Day in Hawaii

Rasquache Style: How Mexicans Make Art Out of Anything

My Homies Doing the Right Thing

The Union or Bust Podcast: Dr. Bruce Ware, Green Candidate for CA Governor

Voting for Paloma Aguirre in the July 1st Special Election Is the Most Important Thing You Can Do in San Diego to Push Back Against Trump

Say It Ain’t So, Mayor Gloria!

Unfair Labor Practice Strike Authorization Vote for Union Grocery Workers

From Buona Forchetta in San Diego to Los Angeles: Trump Targets California with a Manufactured Crisis

Sobre Heroes y Hamburguesas

A Speech for Our Times

Not On Our Watch: Updates on the ICE Raid in San Diego

Fascism Came to Our Neighborhood

Neither Here Nor There: San Diego and the Noir of Nowhere

Countdown to No Kings Day ~ San Diego Resistance Calendar May 29 - June 8, 2025

So Glad to Have Tavian, a Dear Friend’s Grandson, as a Fellow Hall of Famer

The Union Saves a Good Man

Immigration Trumpstapo Defiling Due Process with Courthouse Arrests

It’s Top-Down Class War, Stupid

Futility

Resistance Calendar May 22- 31, 2025 + San Diego 'No Kings' June 14 Events

My Loved Ones Were the Highlight of My 87th Birthday

AI is Evil and Should Never Be Used by Anyone Ever

The Circle of Life in Places with Unknowable Answers

May Gray in San Diego and Big Budget Blues in California: Will We Rise to the Challenge?

Mothers

May 15 - 25 San Diego Resistance Calendar

Contingency and Transient America: 525

Gathering Mass (An Electoral Campaign for Us)

87, and So Glad to Still be Around

On Entering My Seventh Decade in a Strange Land: Some Thoughts of Turning Sixty Under Emerging Fascism

"Running" by Alessandra Moctezuma in Sunshine/Noir III: Writing from San Diego and Tijuana

Gathering Mass (Or: how I learned to stop worrying and love the cringe)

Justice for Janitors: Organizing immigrant workers

A Comment the UT Chose Not to Publish

"Red Kate": Prison Reform, Socialism, and Race in the Life of Kate O'Hare

What Would We Do Without Beauty?

President's Mental Health Questioned Amid a Sea of Stupidity

Last Sunshine/Noir III: Writing from San Diego and Tijuana Reading...For Now!

The San Diego Free Speech Fight by Gus Blanco, Who Went Through the Fight from Start to Finish

Celebrate the Release of Sunshine/Noir III and Twenty Years of City Works Press

Happy May Day!

Fighting for a First Contract, Part Three

Basking in the Warmth of Eric Allen’s Smile

San Diegans, Take the Streets on MayDay!

A TALE OF THREE EVENTS: Democrats, Labor, and Street Demonstrations in San Diego

A Little Hallmark ‘Holiday” of Horrors on Day 100

Unite for Climate March

The Perpetual Limbo of Literary San Diego

San Diego City Works Press Proudly Announces the Release of "Sunshine/Noir III: Writing from San Diego and Tijuana

Do the Work to Save Democracy

Little Jackson is Now One

Fighting for a First Contract, Part Two

Due Process and First Amendment Rights Support Harvard’s Defense

Hands Off Earth Day! Join us to stand up to Lee Zeldin and Trump!

Fighting Oligarchy and “End Times Fascism”

"More Danger" by Stephen-Paul Martin in Sunshine/Noir II: Writing from San Diego and Tijuana

Our President Commits Treason All Day Everyday

History By Dummies, or, Why Labor History Matters

April 19 Rallies Pop Up All Over

Fighting for a First Contract

We Can Not Be Silent About Due Process

While You Were Watching Trump’s Tariff War, He Took Two More Decisive Steps Toward Climate Catastrophe

Join San Diego Labor for a Day of Resistance on the National Day of Action on April 19th!

"Walking and Working on the Boulevard" and "Confessions of a Runaway" from Sunshine/Noir II: Writing from San Diego and Tijuana

San Diego Resist Calendar

Notions of Keeping Our Planet Safe for Human Life

Contingency and Transient America: "A New Day in Otay: An Adjunct Poem"

May Day, General Strikes, and Labor Ramping Up

A Would-be Emperor's Stupid Set of Tariffs

Paloma Aguirre Is the Kind of Change San Diego Needs

"Eastern Lights" by Justin Hudnall from Sunshine/Noir II: Writing from San Diego and Tijuana

Linda McMahon Trump’s Education Hatchet Woman in San Diego

Remembering Leon Williams

America's Labor Unions Are Joining the April 5 Hands Off Mobilization

Solidarity Is the Only Way to Win the Future

Jimmy Santiago Baca and Michael Wickert From Sunshine/Noir II: Writing from San Diego and Tijuana

An Incomplete, Episodic, and Still Evolving Timeline of U.S. Gender and Sexuality History

My Show Has Left Me All Aglow

They’re Coming for OUR Social Security Benefits

Killing Free Speech to Silence Environmental Activism and Public Protest

From Vanishing Acts: A Tragedy by Forrest Hylton

How Do We Defeat the Fascists?

Some Hope-Inspiring Young Folks have Become Heroes of Mine

Local 2500 and the Ku Klux Klan

Protesting the Present to Build a Future

Trump’s Threat to Our Basic Civil Liberties is a Real and Present Danger

"Woman with Starch" by Wayne Lee

Feeling Good Vibes from a Trip to Austin

Special Election Voter Guide: San Diego County Supervisor District 1

Canada: ‘Elbows Up’ to Trump the Bully

A New Lost Generation in the Age of Trump?

"Washing Clothes: A Brief History" by Jackie Bartley

A Death and Taxes Government

“Voces Rurales,” a Program for Latinas that Models what Reaching Out Is All About

The Sorry State of Trump-o-nomics

Will San Diego Raise the Wage for Tourism Workers?

Baby Classes: Mommy and Me Yoga, Loneliness, and the Growth of the Infant Brain by Sam Apple

Why the Chula Vista School Board Mess Matters

Contingency and Transient America Part Four: The March We Need

Double-Crossed at the Bargaining Table, Part Two

The War on Drugs Is Back, Baby!

Jim Miller of The Jumping-Off Place reads for San Diego State’s Living Writers Series

Rolling Back the Twentieth Century: The Endgame of the Trump Tax Cuts

"Strapping" and "'Tis Morning Makes Mother a Killer" by Wanda Coleman

Freedom, Democracy, and Student Rights: Mario Savio's Legacy

I Hope Kendrick Got His Message Across

Double-Crossed at the Bargaining Table

An Era of Empires, Maybe

The Climate Crisis and Mass Migration: Trump is Marching Us Towards a Dystopian Final Solution

From "Dynamite and Dreams," a Novel by Robert V. Hine

Southern California Grocery Workers Are Rising for Fair Wages and Better Working Conditions

Contingency and Transient America Part Three: Student Precarity

An Old Skyscraper, unlike our President, Promotes Uniting Us

An Interview with Ernie McCray

The Conditions for Teaching and Learning to Happen

The True Cost of Musk's Madness

San Diego Labor Endorses Paloma Aguirre for County Board of Supervisors, District 1

The Cleaving by Li-Young Lee

Photo Essay:"50 Protests, 50 States, 1 Day" Rallies Across the Country

“A Complete Unknown:” a Review

Trump Stalls North American Trade War

Nightmare in a Hall Before the MLK Celebration

Union Density Blues: Trump Guts the National Labor Relations Board, Fires Federal Workers, and Attacks Collective Bargaining as National Union Density Hits Single Digits

Nurturing the Heart by Edward Espe Brown

ACTWU vs. The Great Pension Rip-off

Count to a Billion

A Crypto Bubble Ready to Burst

A Memorable MLK Day Celebration

How Did Trump’s First Week Help Working People?

The Blessings of Dirty Work by Barbara Kingsolver

No One Will Save Us but Ourselves

A Short List of Essential Readings on Fascism

Teams playing a Role in Helping a City That’s Aflame

ANALYSIS OF EXECUTIVE ORDERS ISSUED ON JAN 20, 2025

Words From Sane People About What Happened on January 20, 2025

Martin Luther King Jr.’s Class Politics Might Just Be the Antidote to Trump

The Union or Bust Podcast: Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre, Candidate for San Diego Board of Supervisors, D1

Teachers on Strike: The First Time

On Hallucinations

Memories of Nancy Rising Out of the Ashes of the Fires

The Democratic Party Needs a Better Plan

Los Angeles and the Truth Burns Out of Control as the Rich Prepare to Get Ever Richer

Still Me, After All These Years

Recent Acts of Terrorism May Contribute to Strong Man Rule

Optimism of the Will: How Labor Can Survive and Ultimately Thrive in the Trump Era