Volume 3, Issue 18, Oct. 28, 2022 View as Webpage

And On The Fifteenth Day…

By LARRY BENSKY


And so they have ended. Maybe. And on the first day after the fourteen of the House Select Committee “Investigating” January 6, the airwaves, print pages and cyber-spaces are zinging with words and thoughts about it all.


The final session ended with the Committee voting, 9-0, to subpoena the missing point of the mess, former (according to everyone but him) President Donald Trump.


Anyone following the final session, or any of the previous six meetings, would have to agree that Trump’s got a lot to answer for. Including death and destruction not seen in Washington since 1814, when the British re-landed on what was once their colony and burned the Capitol building.

     

So if Trump agrees to appear, following what may be weeks of stalling via legal gyrations, and if the Committee continues to exist beyond what may be a Republican takeover of the House in this November’s election, and if the then reigning Republicans don’t succeed in re-orienting the “questioning” of Trump onto marginal matters like Hunter Biden’s alleged transgressions rather than Trump’s spurious victory claims. And if /trump is named as responsible for his followers shockingly violent and illegal behavior.  Then, maybe…what?


Trump and Trumpism will not go away. He has reached the rare distinction of conferring his name upon an era. The few others who managed to do so – Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Nixon - had nothing in common with him other than their titles of office.  But he isn’t finished yet, and neither has the Trump era ended.


“History” has yet to reach a stopping point. It never does. And numerous profiteers, be they authors or fund-raisers or consultants who cling like rancid barnacles on the ship of state. Their books remain to be completed and published, their quasi-legal multi-billion dollar stashes of blatantly political money don’t yet need to be  re-directed.


And, no matter what happens to him in courtrooms or before Congress, Trump won’t much care. He’ll still live more luxuriantly than all but a few people on earth. He’ll still have acolytes running for state and local offices who are free of all but the most minimal laws and regulations on their wealth and how they use it.  Entities most of us have never heard of  like the BH Trust, the Judicial Crisis Network, the Concord Fund and CRC will continue buying ads, contributing to campaigns, issuing statements whose net effect is meant to be the preservation of of their immense fortunes.  


The few principal bandits whose names are known named may not even bother to live in the country they’ve helped ruin. Peter Thiel is reportedly headed for Malta, a notoriously corrupt backwater. Musk has his choice of European castle homes.


Not content (far from it) from buying power and influence on supposedly democratically elected officials, the “dark money” mob wants to stop any opposing forces from arising. Meaning they will continue to try to prohibit corporations from spending their money in support of ideals at variance from the right-wing norm.


Collectively known as E.S.G. (Environmental, Social, and Generational) causes, these mild and totally inadequate palliatives on the cruel and destructive fabric of our country are nevertheless too much for so-called conservatives and their secretive cabals.


“Restricting or eliminating right to abortions, ending affirmative action, supporting religious groups that oppose L.G.B.T. rights, opposing “liberal” school curricula, opposing efforts to increase transparency of money in politics and supporting efforts to restrict voting rights” are some of the right-wing “Dark Money” gangs’  goals.  For a thorough discussion, see the 10/13/2022 N.Y. Times,  “The Hidden Hand Guiding Conservative Causes,” profiling Leonard A. Leo, who has personally benefitted, a la Trump, from “conservative” machinations. 


You and me?  


However wearily, and without all but the most paltry hope that it will matter, we now can vote.  As anyone with a postal or e-mail address or telephone can tell you, there’s a whole lot of stuff coming at us these days about voting.


Even the most mindless, distant distraction from the November election – a baseball game – isn’t a safe harbor.  At least not on TV. The other day I was startled out of my gazing at ecstatic athletes and ridiculous screaming spectators, by a stark ad. Its message was bludgeoned at viewers:  Immigrants, it seems, have been flooding our fair land and mass murdering our people!  And who  lets them in?  Joe Biden, says the ad!


But Biden isn’t running for re-election next month. So the casual sports fan gets to have a TV fright moment, in the Republicans hope that baseball viewers will be  inspired to vote against Biden’s political party as a way to stop murderous maniacs like him!


Makes no sense? Not factually based? Racist? Avoids mention of guns and gun laws? Fails to account for the fact that Democratic and Republican leadership, interventionist or isolationist, keeps the military-industrial death and fear circus performing?  


Non-Fox, non-denialist media is, finally trembling at what’s been wrought. “We can’t divide our psychological state from the forces that dictate our lives,” concludes the NY Times, after devoting its entire Sunday “Opinion” section to Mental Health.  Of course the Times then goes back to mostly ignoring those “forces”, focusing instead on a safe subject, like election polls. With its total reliance on unreliable statistics meant to keep us viewing, reading, ignoring content.


The result won’t be the worst outcome the country has ever had; Lincoln’s 1860 victory seems to have retired that trophy for all time.  But it will be painful enough to get into mention for second place.

      

Measures L M, N, in the City of Berkeley. Confusing and impenetrably complex. Seem to be part of a continuing effort by the non-representative permanent City Council and Mayor, who have transformed Downtown Berkeley into an unaffordable high-rise ghetto and destroyed small businesses, homes, and theaters.  Now they want to spread the blight, which benefits only property speculators. LB Sez: Vote NO, NO, NO.


Don’t forget to mail your ballot, someplace where it will be postmarked by November 8. 


And don’t forget to write with praise and/or condemnation: LBensky@igc.org  Feel free to approach me if you see me on a south Berkeley street, an old guy using a walker. The large dog sometimes with me is us usually friendly.


Editor's note: Larry Bensky, American journalist known by many of us for his work with Pacifica Radio KPFA-FM out of Berkeley, the Anderson Valley Advertiser, the Nation magazine and more, has graciously allowed Serf City Times to print his knowledgeable and insightful commentaries in order to give all of us better understanding of what in the hell is happening. 

Vote No on Measure O.

Russell Brutsché Presents "May Lot 4 Be with You."

On Nov. 8, Santa Cruzans will vote on Measure O. Yes means that both the Farmers Market and a renovated library will remain at their time-honored sites, and affordable housing will happen on a number of city lots. No on O means that the only open space in downtown Santa Cruz will be subject to an 8-story garage/library/housing complex, pushed through by the city and developer backing.See the video below. 

The model of downtown Santa Cruz is sporting a new color coding.

In the video above, by polymath Russell Brutsché, watch the transformation of Santa Cruz that will occur if the Santa Cruz City government and its developer friends get what they want.

Nine Hundred Days of Love

By FOOD NOT BOMBS CO-FOUNDER KEITH MCHENRY 

August 28, 2022


Day one of the pandemic restrictions here in Santa Cruz was a misty March 14, 2020. The indoor meals for the poor were ordered closed and access to water and toilets for those who lived outside locked.


The volunteers of Santa Cruz Food Not Bombs met at LuLu Carpenters that morning to sketch out a plan on how to respond. A health professional walked us through the COVID safety protocol she had been taught at Good Samaritan Hospital the day before. We outlined our plan. Move to the Town Clock so the usual line of 40 people would not be standing next to the people living in tents up against the Post Office fence. We planned to pass the plates down the row from gloved server to gloved server asking each person what they wanted added to their plate.


We were ready for a month long lockdown to slow the spread. Saint Francis, the senior meal at Louden Nelson and the Monday night coffee house at the Little Red Church would resume soon. We could fill the void of shuttered meal programs for a month or so at least.


It's now 900 days later and the indoor meals are still closed or restricted; no Monday night coffee house. Who would have imagined in those first days that we would have to navigate so many twists and turns in our journey to meet the needs of our community?


Preparing for the unknown is our speciality. We moved to the Town Clock and placed a distancing barrier of large yellow Trader Joe’s lugs and yellow caution tape between the serving tables and those joining us for a meal. The bleach stains on my seven black Food Not Bombs t-shirts attest to the hours spent disinfecting tables and van surfaces. The faint ghost six-foot-apart spray painted dashes marching towards our service areas are a sad reminder of those days of fear.


The only people outside were those without housing, our volunteers and the police. Traffic had vanished. I waved at drivers passing by and they waved back.


The city erected COVID triage cages on downtown parking lots to quarantine the unhoused. That cruel plan was abandoned in short order as the optics and our lack of cooperation with their plan to have Food Not Bombs lure the homeless into their inhumane scheme failed.


We unloaded dozens of pallets of dry goods donated by Second Harvest Food Bank, storing thousands of pounds of rice, beans and canned food first at Barrios Unidos and our first shipping container. We would buy two more 20 foot conex boxes in the first year of the crisis. They are also filled to the ceiling. We are getting ready for the food shortages.


We helped organize a weekly grocery distribution for the Live Oak School District even as the city was evicting us into the flooded grounds of the Benchlands, kicking us out of the Town Clock to Garage 10 on River St., then out into the rain. Our equipment was swamped in nearly two feet deep water so we returned to the garage. They wouldn’t end their campaign of evictions until we returned to the Town Clock and ignored their efforts to drive us out of sight to the margins of our community. After all we have wars and poverty to protest and the Collateral Damage statue is the traditional public space for free speech and assembly. Our protest is daily from noon to 3pm and includes a hot full course meal, coffee, water, groceries and clothing. It's the theater of what is possible.


When the holidays came we helped organize that year’s Community Thanksgiving and Christmas hosting the well attended feast at Lot 27. The Vets Hall was a shelter and indoors at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History was out of the question according to government restrictions. We collaborated with Lee Brokaw and the Veterans for Peace, the crew at India Joze and Steve Pleich. A few dozen people from the community volunteered to help. We had piles of pies. These were beautiful days of love and joy.


We also participated in blocking the city’s 2020 Holiday Evictions of the over 100 campers trying to survive at San Lorenzo Park. We joined the Santa Cruz Homeless Union in filing a Federal Lawsuit that stopped the sweep, protecting them from facing arrest if driven to the doorways and levee banks of downtown.


A year later we provided another Thanksgiving dinner at the corner of Laurel and Front Streets and overcame huge obstacles to share the Community Christmas Dinner under the parking garage at 24 River St. during the driving rain.


Desperate fire evacuees joined us at Lot 27 under the eerie red skies, seeking food and clothing as they fled the CZU Lightning Complex Fires, many with only the clothes on their back.


We had to adjust to ever changing conditions. We scrambled for a kitchen when the Vets Hall was turned into a shelter. India Joze kitchen bridged the gap. We secured the Little Red Church until they needed to reclaim their kitchen and had to move to a commercial space in Scotts Valley.


The daily packing and unpacking of our food, hand washing station, tables and canopies requiring skill and several trips a day in our van to and from the meal. This seemed unsustainable so we bought our second shipping container and placed it at our meal site. A month later a luxury condominium developer surprised us one afternoon saying he would seize our equipment and shipping container. They had escrow in the morning he pleaded. We had to call a flatbed to move it across the street from the abandoned Taco Bell to Lot 27 reclaiming the parking lot for a second time.


A late Friday afternoon call from the city manager’s office threatening to take our conex box to make room for more construction forced us to make another hasty move to the parking lots down Front Street when yet another threat by another luxury condominium developer from Sandy, Utah forced us to move to the Ron Swenson’s land near the Homeless Garden Project. But it didn’t take long for the city to kick us off his private property so we moved it and the tons of food it stores to a location out side the city limits.


In the early days the emotional stress of the unknown sparked outbursts and fights among some of the more fragile people attending our meal. There were times when it seemed someone might get beaten to death if we didn’t intervene. Just like our friends who joined us for food we never quarantined. But our shared days of misery in those first months helped strengthen our relationships and the tension and violence started to calm as people became relaxed about the pandemic’s threat.


We hosted Johnny’s free solar powered concerts at every holiday and celebrated the 40th anniversary of the founding of Food Not Bombs in Lot 27 with Keith Greeninger. Live music filled the perfect May afternoon during Soupstock 2022 at the San Lorenzo Duck Pond.


The people of Santa Cruz have been generous, delivering food, clothing, survival gear and money. A group has set up an herbal tea stand at the meal. The UCSC farm drops off their fresh produce. Random student groups pass by with vegan burgers. Curtis Reliford donated bundles of clothing to the music of Ray Charles. We have been touched by so many the list would fill pages.


Our meal is often the first place that people who were just evicted come to find services. Since the shelters are always full we try to provide them with a pup tent and offer suggestions on where to hide. To see their expression of terror at the prospects of a cold night alone on the levee is almost more than one can bear.


We are Santa Cruz intertwined with those drifting homeless on our streets and struggling to stave off eviction. We help repair vehicular homes in an attempt to keep them from being seized and junked by the city. We’ve helped connect family members. We’ve embraced those in their times of crisis and danced together in defiance of the lockdown fear that once threatened to smother hope. We fought and struggled. We laughed and loved.


We claimed our freedom from the dystopian corporate state and their celluloid avatars in local government. Predatory vultures disinterested in making necessities of life accessible to those who share our seaside community, blind to the reality of the food riots that our meals have stopped.


Our crew of volunteers have provided healthy hot meals with about 200 people every day for 900 days. The logistics can be challenging. We developed patterns of food collection, meal preparation and service.


One team would recover food from groceries, farmers markets and bakeries. They would order two or three pallets of food from Second Harvest, storing some in our secure shipping containers, some at our kitchen and at least one pallet was delivered every week to the pantry and kitchens of the Benchlands.


Our logistics included securing pallets of donated compostable paper products from WorldCentric and buying coffee, oils and sugar from Costco. We bought propane tanks and stoves, extra canopies, kitchen equipment and a third shipping container, packing it to the ceiling with more dry goods in preparation for the expected food shortages. Volunteers work to raise money for the monthly rent of $4,100 for our commercial kitchen and hundreds of dollars in gas for our delivery vehicles. There is always the hours of paperwork and reports for insurance, Second Harvest and the Internal Revenue Service.


A sea of other essential workers kept our vehicles in working order, printed our literature and supplied us with cooking and cleaning supplies. Security guards and cashiers at New Leaf helped me load and unload our many five gallon jugs of filtered water.


Another team washed and chopped vegetables and fruit while volunteer chefs staffed the cook pots and grill. Another team set up our three canopies, eight folding tables, looped yellow caution tape around the serving area, set out our hand washing station, signs and banners and bleached the tables clean.


Scotts Valley, Harbor and Santa Cruz High, UCSC and Cabrillo students joined those doing court ordered community service and our unhoused and housed volunteers in dishing out plates of our tasty hot meals.


After packing away all our equipment it was off to wash the seven or eight five gallon hotel trays, remaining pots and pans and serving supplies.


Then we did it all again the next day over and over again for 900 days.


And we will repeat this daily ritual for another 100 days and another after that, welcoming an ever increasing number gracing our dining area of the streets.


A total of 8.5 million Americans were behind on their rent at the end of August 2022, according to the US Census Bureau. And 3.8 million of those renters say they’re somewhat or very likely to be evicted in the next two months.


More requests for pup tents, more deliveries of paper products and more five gallon hotel trays of lovingly prepared hot dishes. More evictions, more billions sent to Ukraine, more of those frightened eyes on that first night of terror on the streets of Santa Cruz.


Another 100 days of opportunity for love.

Come on out to our Halloween Happy Hour Fundraiser

By DENISE ELERICK AND HRCSCC


We are happy to invite folks to a festive fall fundraiser. As huge fans of Greater Purpose Brewing Company, we are so grateful that they have welcomed us to their loving space to hang out, sell some merchandise and raise a glass. They serve both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks

.

We will have merch, our sweet smiles, and Narcan. We hope you can bring yourselves and an early holiday gift to help us fund our work going into another rainy and chilly winter. We hope to share some highlights of our work and maybe toast each other and some of you a few too many times. Simply good drinks, good vibes, and beautiful pumpkins for new monthly donors.


Every dollar we raise is matched 100% by our amazing donor who has always stayed anonymous. Become a monthly sustainer and support our permanent low barrier life-saving services. Monthly sustainers receive a fall succulent pumpkin and new monthly donors between now and Halloween get a pumpkin.

Make a One-Time or Monthly Donation Here.

Voices of the Pogonip

By ELBINA BATALA RAFIZADEH


Just twenty minutes after turning right

on the Spring trail, towards the 

narrower path as voices of other 

hikers recede, I am alone again 

 

Nagging voices that disturb the air

Insistent voices that refuse to subside

And sometimes the calming voices

But voices of persistent memories

 

Step after step, the trail with wild fern 

Interspersed with the poison ivy, like the voices 

that I avoid, reaching as if to touch me

 

The redwood treetops create an atrium

allowing slivers of light pass through

to touch the majestic oak standing by

sycamore, still standing centuries before

 

Melodic voices, bird twitters

of sparrow, vireo, and wren that flutter

singing as if their job was to lift any burdened

heart that comes their way within

the shelter of the old redwoods

 

The air is also laden with voices of

the Amah Mutsun ancestors, who once

walked on this same ground I now 

carefully stride, whose voices asking

to be careful of our land, take care,

they say, for our children and their 

offspring. We will, I answer silently.

 

A creek, and a new voice

in the Silence, the voice of flowing

water that drowns out all other voices,

invites a pause amid the old redwoods

and their living stream companion.

Time moves forward and

so must I, knowing these voices

of the Pogonip will remain

ready to welcome others who

come after me.

                 

September 2022

Photo by TARMO HANNULA 

A brown pelican flies above a kelp bed at Cowell's Beach. 

Santa Cruz County Covid-19 Report 

By SARAH RINGLER


The Santa Cruz County Health Department regularly releases data on the current status of Covid-19 and monkeypox in the county. Bivalent Covid-19 boosters are now available. Go HERE for details. 


There was one new death in the county over the last three weeks, a vaccinated, white male between the ages of 75-84. Click to view a graph of hospitalizations here.


Because of the availability of home testing, I will no longer report on changes in the active cases in the county. The Health Department is now collecting data for Covid and monkeypox from wastewater at the City Influent for the city of Santa Cruz, and from the Lode Street pump stations for the county. See webpage HERE. The first chart below shows the latest county data.



Here are details on the county's vaccination data. Vaccination data has not changed much and doesn't include the boosters. Bivalent Boosters are now available for children 5 and up. 


This webpage also has a link where you can get a digital copy and scannable QR code of your vaccination record. Keep track of your four-digit code because that is your access to the site.


The county's Effective Reproductive Number is at one. See the second chart below. Numbers above one show the spread of the virus is increasing. Below one means the spread is decreasing. The chart, released from the California Department of Public Health below shows several predictions from different agencies. For information, click here.


The government is issuing free Antigen Rapid Tests here. If you have not ordered tests or have only ordered one set, you are entitled to a full 12 boxes. Order now while supplies last. To get information of COVID-19 testing locations around the county visit this site. You can make an appointment for a Rapid Antigen Test here.


Any Californian, ages six months and older can get vaccinated for free. For information on getting vaccinated, click here.

10/27/22 

Deaths by age/274:

25-34 - 5/274

35-44 - 8/274

45-54 - 10/274

55-59 - 4/274

60-64 - 15/274

65-74 - 49/274

75-84 - 63/274

85+ - 120/274


Deaths by gender:

Female - 135/274 

Male - 139/274 

Deaths by vaccination status: 

vaccinated - 37/274

unvaccinated - 237/274


Deaths by ethnicity:

White - 161/274 

Latinx - 90/274

Black - 3/274

Asian - 16/274

American Native - 1/274

Unknown - 0

Photo by TARMO HANNULA

Fashion Street -  More photos of the 2022 Watsonville Fourth of July Parade on Main Street in front of St. Patrick's Church. 

Labor History Calendar - Oct. 28 - Nov. 3, 2022

a.k.a Know Your History Lest We Forget


Oct. 28, 1879: Puerto Rican labor organizer and anarcho-feminist Luisa Capetillo, pictured at right, was born.

Oct.29, 1918: German fleet at Wilhelmshaven mutinies. Government fall Nov. 10.

Oct. 30, 1916: Everett, Washington IWW's forced to run gauntlet. 

Oct. 31, 1919: Judge Anderson enjoins miners from striking by blaming war. 

Nov. 1, 1916: Australian miners strike for shorter hours.

Nov. 1, 1918: Malbone tunnel disaster in NYC; scab motorman crashes train during strike with 97 killed and 255 injured. 

Nov. 1, 2018: Thousands of Google workers walk out around the world to protest sexual harassment. 

Nov. 2, 1811: Weavers and knitters smash machines at Sutton and Ashfield in England. 

Nov. 2, 1909: 150 arrested in IWW free speech fight in Spokane, WA.

Nov. 2, 2011: General Strike in solidarity with Occupy Oakland – port is closed. 


Labor History Calendar has been published yearly by the Hungarian Literature Fund since 1985.


"She’s a woman, not only when she’s powdered and wearing lace and ribbons, just like a man doesn’t stop being a man when he learns to cook, mend, sweep and sew."


Luisa Capetillo


Photo by TARMO HANNULA

Little Romanian Cheese Breads 

By SARAH RINGLER


Warm bread with melted cheese is a popular treat as you can see from all the pizza places. These little disks, baked on a griddle, contain a simple filling: feta cheese, dill and green onions. Creamy and salty feta are calmed by the dill and subtly kicked up by what onions do best, adding a distinct bite. For all you Moldovans out there, the recipe is called Moldavian placinta cu branza and is from Adina Beck at her website wheresimyspoon.com.


Choose a feta that is not too dry. It should squish between your fingers, not crumble. If it is too dry, it won’t melt. I love the French Feta from Staff of Life.


There are many ways to make a yeast dough. Below, I gave my favorite method that takes longer but allows for differences in flours. As I have discovered since I bought a small battery-operated scale, measurements vary vastly. I have used recipes that have weights and volume measurements and my cup measure didn’t reflect the weight. I have made these cheese pies several times because I like them but also, I was trying to get the perfect volume measurements. Unfortunately, I never found it.


I use unbleached white flour which can be heavier. So, if you follow my method, you use the amount of flour that gives you the texture and moistness that you need. You want a dough that is soft and flexible, not stiff. You are going to bake the bread on a griddle so it needs to be thinly rolled out. 


But, once you get the dough right, everything else is easy. Using a stand mixer with a dough hook makes everything easier but kneading dough can have its own zen pleasure.

            

Placinta cu branza


3 cups all-purpose flour more or less

1 teaspoon salt

2 ½ teaspoons or one package of dry yeast

1 teaspoon sugar

1 ¼ cup lukewarm water

¾ pound feta cheese

3 finely chopped green onions

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh or dry dill 

Salt and pepper 

Oil for frying


Stir the yeast into ¼ cup of warm water that has a pinch of sugar added to it. Set aside until it bubbles. In a medium sized bread bowl, put in 1 cup of warm water, the sugar and the bubbly yeast mixture. Stir. Beat in a cup of flour. The dough will be like a batter. Cover and let sit for 20 minutes or longer. 


Stir down the dough and add more flour, stirring at first and then kneading until flour is incorporated and the dough is smooth, soft, but doesn’t stick to the bowl or the floured board. Cover and set in a warm place for an hour.


Make the filling by breaking the feta into a small bowl. Finely chop green onions and fresh dill together and mix into the feta. Add a little salt and pepper to taste.


Divide dough into 10 parts and form into little balls. Cover with a cloth. On a floured board, roll each ball into thin 6-inch diameter circles. 


Divide the filling into 10 quantities and put into the center of each circle. Fold the edges of the dough overlapping them to keep the round shape. Set aside.


Heat cast iron frying pan to medium to medium low heat. Add a teaspoon oil and fry on both sides for about 4 minutes each checking to make sure the disks don’t burn. Serve hot or freeze and reheat. 

Send your story, poetry or art here: Please submit a story, poem or photo of your art that you think would be of interest to the people of Santa Cruz County. Try and keep the word count to around 400. Also, there should be suggested actions if this is a political issue. Submit to coluyaki@gmail.com

Send comments to coluyaki@gmail.com

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Thanks, Sarah Ringler

Welcome to Serf City Times Our county has problems and many people feel left out. Housing affordability, racism and low wages are the most obvious factors. However, many groups and individuals in Santa Cruz County work tirelessly to make our county a better place for everyone. These people work on the environment, housing, economic justice, health, criminal justice, disability rights, immigrant rights, racial justice, transportation, workers’ rights, education reform, gender issues, equity issues, electoral politics and more. Often, one group doesn’t know what another is doing. The Serf City Times is dedicated to serving as a clearinghouse for those issues by letting you know what is going on, what actions you can take and how you can support these groups.This is a self-funded enterprise and all work is volunteer. 

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