Tony Rocco

Lights, Camera…Democracy Dollars!

Represent San Diego is making a video about Democracy Dollars. Are you ready for your closeup? Represent San Diego, in partnership with Common Cause California, will soon be in the video business thanks to a $10,000 grant from the Piper Fund and the…

Volunteer Spotlight: Meet Gil Sery

Gil Sery started out in politics the hard way. He was arrested on the south steps of the nation’s capitol along with four hundred others in a Democracy Spring demonstration to get money out of politics . There were so many people, they had to be…

Recall election: Should Newsom Stay or Should He Go?

A Cheat Sheet for the Undecided September 14, 2021 is the day California voters decide the fate of Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom in a special recall election, only the fourth ever held in the US. Absentee ballots were due out by August 16. If…

CA Recall Election: Should Newsom Stay or Should He Go?

September 14, 2021 is the day California voters decide the fate of Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom in a special recall election, only the fourth ever held in the US. Absentee ballots were due out by August 16. If you’re not sure what this recall…

Volunteer Spotlight: Diane Mosely

VOLUNTEERS OF REPRESENT SAN DIEGO: second in an occasional series After retiring from a long corporate career, Diane Mosely was in search of a new sense of purpose. When she attended a library meeting of Represent San Diego in 2019, she found what…

So, You Want to Know an Introvert

Tony Rocco Jul 18, 2019·3 min read So, you want to know an introvert? Great. Perhaps you’re fascinated by their enigmatic charisma, their reflective, insightful nature or their zen-like calm and serenity. In any case, you can’t approach an introvert…

Open San Diego Offers Aid to Local Governments Using Tech Innovations

Open San Diego is a volunteer organization that helps local government and community groups use technology to solve problems. The ten year-old group is one of over eighty chapters, called brigades, of Code for America, a national organization that…

Open San Diego Offers Tech Aid to Local Government Groups

Open San Diego is a volunteer organization that helps local government and community groups use technology to solve problems. The ten-year-old group is one of over eighty chapters, called brigades, of Code for America, a national organization that…

Propaganda Website Promotes Financial Transparency

Propaganda. We imagine regimes feeding fake news to a subjugated populous via state-controlled media. Even though we have a free press in the U.S., we have our own forms of propaganda, which is why Cynara Velazquez created…

'Propaganda' Website Promotes Financial Transparency

Propaganda. We imagine regimes feeding fake news to a subjugated populous via state-controlled media. Even though we have a free press in the U.S., we have our own forms of propaganda, which is why Cynara Velazquez created…

No Regrets: Memoirs Of A Punk

I was a 70’s punk rocker. Now, in middle-age, I look back and wonder — Who was that skinny kid? The one in the photo taken in girlfriend Tessa’s bedroom, where she dressed him up in a skinny tie and tight-pegged pants tapering to a pair of…

Sex and the Single Introvert

Tony Rocco Jul 11, 2019·2 min read A lot has been written in recent years about introverts. Susan Cain’s best-seller, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, made a big splash and has been followed by numerous books and…

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People on Facebook

People ask me: Are you on Facebook? with a furtive look, as if inquiring whether I surf the ‘net for porn. What do you make of it, they ask? They don’t get it, they say, quizzically. They are suspicious of it, paranoid. Like it’s going to suck their…

On Becoming a Real Man

Mr. Magic’s website photo evinced the brooding essence of a young alpha-male — chiseled, manly and handsome. Beneath it appeared a heart-rending autobiographical missive I recognized as a standard tool of the modern-day dating coach. Mr. Magic…

The Amorist

My teeth were chattering from the icy cold, yet greeting me on this frigid December eve was a 58 year-old Jewish man, richly tanned, wearing a tie-died t-shirt with a large peace symbol on the front. He seemed to have recently returned from a…

What I Learned from My Grandfather, Whom I Never Knew

My paternal grandfather was old and decrepit by the time I was six. I recall him sitting crumpled and cynical in a lawn chair, waving a cane at his grandkids as they ran in circles around him. He muttered under his breath in a mixture of bad English…

To Get the Most Out of Therapy, Be a Pragmatist

A woman once proudly told me that she had overcome her assertiveness issues in group therapy. She spent five years in a group with a member who savaged her, put her down and berated her incessantly, until she learned to stand up and defend herself.…

Searching for the Soul of the West Village

As I stroll the narrow and wandering streets of the West Village, a piece of New York City roughly bound by the Hudson River and Seventh Avenue, extending from 14th down to Houston Street, its character seems intact, much as it has been for decades.…

So, You Think You’re an Introvert

You haven’t had a blood test or peed into a cup, but you’re pretty sure you’ve got it — a serious case of introversion. While there’s no diagnostic test, you may be an introvert if any of the following sounds familiar. Around talkative extroverts,…

Survive and Thrive with COVID-19

You can survive and thrive with COVID-19. I say that fully aware of the crisis upon us. Even though it’s going to wreak havoc on the economy and uproot lives, it is possible to benefit from it. Not materially, but spiritually. To benefit spiritually…