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Photo by TARMO HANULA
This altar, honoring Day of the Dead, features famous writers and stands in the entrance to the downtown Watsonville Public Library.
Indian Summers & Golden Octobers
By WOODY REHANEK
"People don't live or die, people just float..."
--Bob Dylan, "...Long Black Coat"
The day folds into itself
like a fresh warm empanada.
We follow the marigold trail
that leads to the village altar.
The antepasados are swirling around,
moving close, coming in for a landing.
I get it now: they make no sound
& move beyond our understanding.
Antepasados, the ones who passed before,
weathered cycles of redemption & pain,
fashioned lives, gave birth, gave thanks
& moved on with their souls ablaze.
It takes a village to raise the dead
on a warm, sun-drenched November day
when spirits return to earth at last
to bask in gravitas, gratitude & grace.
The grateful dead. We say their names.
Our altar resembles a ramshackle village:
Mom & Pop & Brother Gil in photo frames
Stacey & Tom...lustrous Cousin Mary Ann
perched on the edge of a shiny red Jeep.
Activist Jere & Raging Granny Jean,
cats, frogs & chickens, tchotchkes galore.
Bob Fiorilla's take on the American dream,
clay bowls brimming with native corn.
A rainbow trout, Guadalupe on a chest;
mirrors, buttons, a skeleton key;
knicknacks & keepsakes, ribbons & crests;
wedged among ashes & potpourri.
Rose quartz & turquoise, silver camel bells.
Mayan dolls keeping worries at bay.
Impulse, originality, history, memory
are fueling this altar & kindling its flames.
Papel picado, emeralds & amethyst
crowd the still village, drawing it closer.
This is the day we embrace the drift
of tiles & Catrinas, dreams & dry roses:
Interpreting lives of our ancestors
asking ourselves how it all fits together
on marigold paths in the growing dark
in Indian summers & golden Octobers
in early November's total surrender
breaking our shatterproof hearts.
******
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Support Regeneration Agriculture - Oct. 30
By WOODY REHANEK
On Oct. 21, 450 people attended a Rio Theater showing of the documentary "Common Ground," which "Aims to spark a cultural and political movement," according to Forbes magazine. The movement is called regenerative agriculture, and it has five basic principles: 1) healthy, living, pesticide-free soil; 2) protecting and enriching soil with cover crops, mulch or other techniques; 3) crop diversity and rotation; 4) livestock integration when appropriate; and 5) low-till an no-till methods (such as mowing & crimping, which are particularly adaptable to orchards & vineyards).
The film's major takeaways is that healthy soils are more resilient to drought and floods than chemically treated soils. Healthy soils grow healthy plants and people, build vibrant communities, and decrease greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by storing carbon in the soil as organic matter. The regenerative movement aims to convert 100 million of the 900 million acres of ranch and farm land in the U.S. to regenerative methods by 2025.
This documentary, sponsored by local groups the Center for Farmworker Families, Campaign for Organic and Regenerative Agriculture (CORA), Santa Cruz Permaculture, and Esperanza Farm, delve into both chemical corporate agriculture and the skewed research that it funds at land grant universities. It also covers organic regenerative agriculture, which is being successfully practiced around the country. "Common Ground" won Tribeca's Human/Nature Prize this year, and has been spreading its positive messages across the country.
The film revolves around North Dakota farmer Gabe Brown's 5,000 regenerative acres. Many of the film's key moments take place on the fence line with his neighbor, whose monoculture soybean planting was washed away by a sudden spring storm. As cameras pans to Gabe's ranch, the difference is astonishing. Lush crops, grasslands, shelter-belts, and rich, dark, deep fudge-like soil brimming with plant roots, fungi, and earthworms provide a visual feast, compared to the tragedy of desertification taking place next door.
Using the five principles of regenerative ag, Gabe has sequestered an astonishing 96 tons per acre of carbon, a goldmine for countering climate change. That works out to 480,000 tons of CO2 pulled out of the atmosphere. (To put this in perspective, even with electrification and other emissions-lowering strategies, the city of Watsonville will need to eliminate an additional 100,000 metric tons of carbon in 2030 to achieve net carbon neutrality.)
"Common Ground" convincingly demonstrates that the farm lobby and pesticide companies direct research money toward favorable evaluations of their chemicals. "If you burrow deeply enough, there is a pipeline of money from the pesticide industry into those universities. They're getting the kind of science that money can buy," a blacklisted university professor states.
Although critics claim that regeneration is experimental and untested, it is actually ancient, old-fashioned, and deep-rooted. In a moving scene, an indigenous leader says that we're taught that native peoples followed the game. In reality, many tribes used regenerative techniques, like control burns, to attract wild animals to their homelands.
The film amply documents how regenerative farming was pushed aside by the postwar "Green Revolution" and its mechanized, chemical, corporate farming. As the Rodale Institute states in a white paper, "Regenerative organic agriculture is tried-and-true. Humans have long farmed in this fashion, and there is nothing experimental about it. What is new is the scientific verification of regenerative agricultural practices."
Take action. Come in person to the California Dept. of Pesticide Regulation's hearing in Watsonville, Mon. Oct. 30 from 4-6:30pm at Ramsay Park. This is a rare in-person opportunity to demand pesticide reduction and elimination while increasing organic and regenerative practices in our valley, county, and state.
"Common Ground" is gaining momentum. Contact CORA and/or the Center for Farmworker Families @farmworkerfamily.org.
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A Letter to My Friends in the US
By ADA COCHAVI ROSS - Former Santa Cruzan
Oct. 15, 2023
7 days to the Pogrom in the south.
Since that horrific Saturday, I want to write, to tell, to share, but I can’t. Not able. No words. No words. No words.
I am back on Facebook, after years of absence. I want to write about what we went through, what we are going through, but I can’t. No words. All I can do is share, share, share what others write. Desperate pleas of people to help them find their loved ones who are missing or kidnapped to Gaza, barrage of posts of friends and others who lost friends and family, unbearable stories of survivors which sound like Holocaust stories. No less. Israel was brought to its knees. It is traumatized and broken. Last time I used this image was during the second intifada, when citizens, kids in Purim costumes, were blown up on busses, cafes and restaurants.
But this is worse. Much worse. The numbers are staggering. The stories coming out are horrific. Israel is small. Way less than 6 degrees of separation. Everyone knows everyone, everyone knows someone, many “someones” who were affected by this massacre or the battles to save the people in the south. This is much, much worse than the Yom Kippur war — I was 18 years old then— and I never thought that anything can be worse than that war.
7 days have passed. With every day that passes, we get more and more angry, depressed, depleted, raged, unable to grasp. In the beginning there was numbness, major shock, but some kind of fog. How could that happen? How is it possible? The almost strongest army in the world, with the best Information in the world, how?
As time goes by, the magnitude of this “event” is slowly sinking in. And, it’s very dark.
I am In Tel Aviv. I would have gone mad if I was at home in Sacramento when this came down. I'd much rather be here; it is much easier.
I woke up early that Saturday morning by a siren: “Color Red, missiles flying towards Tel Aviv, take cover.” Since then, every once in a while, the sirens wail and we run to the “safe” room here under the building. Twelve people, including children, live in the building, and all (except for one, but that’s another story) are friends. Sometimes, other people who are caught in the street while the siren is going off, join us. We wait for the booms -– both Iron Dome interceptions and on-ground falls are very loud. We try to guess if it was an interception or ground fall, we wait 10 minutes, and then go back upstairs to continue whatever.
Last night we had several friends over for dinner -- no one wants to be alone-- not due to fear, but at times like this, you seek friends to share the madness with. A siren wailed at 10 pm. We all ran downstairs; I was still holding a glass of wine. But this is really the least of the horrors. It’s nothing. Inconvenience.
And then there is what we know is coming next. A full war, ground war, where soldiers are going to be killed. And when I say soldiers, I mean friends, friends of Lielle, sons, daughters and grandchildren of close friends. Oh, how I wish they didn’t “go in.” But they will, of course. Tragedy on top of tragedy.
Waiting to see what will come from Lebanon in the north.
And then there is the political chaos here. The worst, rotten-to-the-core government, not functioning to say the least, with a complete loss of trust in the people responsible for this tragedy who are sending our friends, sons and daughters to fight. This is beyond unbearable.
And, as always, there is the pro-Hamas, anti-Israel propaganda machine. Those who understand very little about what Israel is facing, those who believe that Hamas is actually the “savers” of the Palestinians, (“Freedom Fighters”? Really?), those who from the comfort of their couches around the world preach about “Peace”, about “proportionality” expecting some “symmetry”, or justifying the massacre.
I watch the pro Pro-Hamas demonstrations and I cringe. I watch Muslim woman in London, wearing Hijabs, tearing off posters with pictures of the kidnapped children that Israeli volunteers prepared and posted on a wall. I listen to Lielle’s frustration about the pro-Hamas demonstrations in her own university. I also see the pictures from this demonstration, and the Israelis standing across from them, crying their eyes out. This is unbearable to watch.
My kibbutz, Matsuva, in the north, has been evacuated. Hizballah from the Lebanon border will most likely join the party and the North is getting ready for the worst. Hizballah is able to inflict way more destruction than Hamas. Although both of them are really Iran, Hizballah is more equipped.
There are too many funerals, every day, as they are still identifying casualties. Many people know multiple people who lost their lives, and they travel from one funeral to the next in one day. Today, Sunday, 100 people from Kibbutz Be’eri will be buried. That’s 100 from one Kibbutz out of roughly 1,100 total population. Many members from Be’eri were kidnaped, either killed later, or hidden in Gaza.
In the Kibbutzim in the south, on the Gaza “envelope,” those, many of whom were peace activists and volunteered helping Palestinians in Gaza, driving people to hospitals in Israel and organizing events of solidarity with the Gazans across the fence, paid a huge, unbearable price. One of the kibbutzim who was hit, their members and children were going to carry out their yearly tradition of flying balloons across the border on that horrific Saturday. Many are now gone; many are kidnapped in Gaza.
We volunteer as much as possible. Hundreds and hundreds of WhatsApp groups, unbelievably well organized, are doing what the government is not. We deliver, we buy, we pack, we drive Shabbat meals and equipment to army bases. We drive reserve soldiers to their bases.
The streets are quite empty, many people are drafted, but some of our neighborhood cafes downstairs are open, even if at a limited capacity. Restaurants are closed; no one has any appetite. Many of them have converted to cooking and packing meals for soldiers; army meals are not exactly gourmet, as you may know. At 9 pm, we go to the windows. People in our small street are on the balconies and at their open windows singing Hatikva. We all join.
We are bracing for what’s coming. Going mad with fear of what might happen to those we know who are drafted. We are seriously hoping that this will not escalate to a world war.
On a positive note, people here fell in love with Biden, and want him to be Israel’s prime minister from now on. I agree. I am willing to share.
That’s it for now.
I finally found some words.
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Trail of Tears for the Useless Eaters, the Human Animals
By KEITH MCHENRY - CO-FOUNDER OF FOOD NOT BOMBS
“If we shot a dog we would be fined 2,000 shekels, but if we killed a Palestinian there wouldn't even be an inquiry since Palestinians aren’t considered human.” Anna and Evan of Tel Aviv Food Not Bombs - Dec. 2003
“We are fighting human animals” Israel's Defense Minister Yoav Gallant Oct. 9, 2023
Tears flow rivers at the carnage. The sociopaths in charge know no shame. Another genocide is necessary and righteous, sing the monsters of Washington, London, Brussels and Tel Aviv. After all, just like the native Americans before them, Putin’s Russians and the homeless in our communities today “aren’t humans like you and I” according to the title of a study on homeless written when Clinton was president. If cutting off all food, water and electricity to one million children hasn’t made it clear enough to everyone, the murder of nearly 500 at the Al-Ahli Baptist hospital in Gaza highlights the official belief of many western leaders that the original people of the Holy Land are less than human.
The five by twenty-five mile Gaza reservation holds over two million Palestinians, half of which are children. Most of these “Human animals” have never been outside the prison walls.
The people of the world know that US President Joe Biden could end this genocide today by threatening to cut off the billions we donate to their military every year. He won’t do it though. Genocide is as American as apple pie.
I resonate with the indigenous people. When I was a child, I was blessed to walk the sacred lands of the Hopi before it was desecrated by US coal interests. I experienced the pounding of the Snake Dancers as boys became men. The stone walls of the ancient village of Old Oraibi shared that timeless spirit of the West Bank villages that I have visited.
Tel Aviv Food Not Bombs was started by local Jews who refused to join the Israel Defense Forces. They were jailed and when released, organized a “Refusenik” conference. Palestinian farmers invited Food Not Bombs to help provide meals for a two-month long Peace Camp on the West Bank. During those weeks they agreed to initiate Anarchists Against the Wall.
I landed at Ben Gurion Airport the same day as the first breach of the wall from the West Bank. The Wikipedia page states, “A member of Anarchists Against the Wall has described the construction of the barrier as part of a strategy of ethnic cleansing," "...one of the greatest threats the Palestinian population has known over the last century... which is to make life so appalling for the Palestinian people that they will be left with one choice: move out.” A former IDF soldier, Gil, was shot in the leg. I found my hosts hunched over a computer in a Jaffa apartment editing a video news report of that day’s historic action.
If you know where to look it is still possible to see videos of the massacres of Gaza but, it may not be the case for long. Governments are implementing laws that will block unofficial information from being shared on social media. The European Union’s Digital Services Act, the U.K. Online Safety Bill (OSB), Ireland’s The Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offenses) Bill 2022, and the Restrict Act pending in the United States could make it illegal to support the Palestinians or the demonized Russians on social media by claiming antisemitism or the inciting of violence. Making comments against government policies or expressing support for officially declared enemies of the state is likely to be silenced on social media as a result of these new laws. Elon Musk’s X is already under attack by the European Union. On Oct. 12, X was given 24 hours to implement the required censorship. So far, he has defied this order.
According to the European Commission, "Today the European Commission services formally sent X a request for information under the Digital Services Act (DSA). This request follows indications received by the Commission services of the alleged spreading of illegal content and disinformation, in particular the spreading of terrorist and violent content and hate speech. The request addresses compliance with other provisions of the DSA as well.
"Following its designation as Very Large Online Platform, X is required to comply with the full set of provisions introduced by the DSA since late August 2023, including the assessment and mitigation of risks related to the dissemination of illegal content, disinformation, gender-based violence, and any negative effects on the exercise of fundamental rights, rights of the child, public security and mental well-being.”
The effort to conceal the horror of the reality of war, poverty and unhelpful ideas from public view includes our local company Google who is busy deleting YouTube accounts critical of the genocide against the Indigenous people of Palestine and the failure in the US regime change war in Ukraine. This shouldn’t be surprising.
Google’s Chief Legal Officer Halimah DeLaine Prado is no friend of the the dispossessed. Her husband Manuel is the treasurer of the anti-homeless hate group “Take Back Santa Cruz.” A public Records Act request obtained a Dec. 18, 2020 email from Manuel Prado to City Manager Martin Bernal, then Santa Cruz Mayor Donna Meyer and Republican Santa Cruz City Councilperson Renee Golder, included calls to terrorize the “human trash” struggling to survive.
In his recap of their weekly meeting he writes, “Update on why some folks such as Keith McHenry (parked on McPherson) and Alicia Kuhl (parked on Delaware) have not been towed despite receiving many tickets.”
Alicia was living with her three little children and her disabled husband in an RV next to a vacant lot in an industrial area of Santa Cruz after having been ticketed off of the block-long Olive Street at the request of the Prados and friends. If towed, her family would have had to move in a tent as the dozens of others have during the Prados successful campaign to have the city tow their only access to shelter. Like many, her family was forced into this stressful condition by an illegal eviction.
I didn’t have any tickets on my car and the only reason I ever drive down McPherson is to pick up bread and pastries at Companion Bakery; it's a relief that their intelligence is not so great.
Halimah DeLaine Prado's salary has been reported to be half a million a year plus stocks. Bloomberg Law noted that the person she replaced had a “$51 Million Pay Package.” Her California Form 700 says she has over 1,000,000,000 shares of stock in Google’s parent company Alphabet. They slept warm in their $2,606,200, 2,500 square foot home on the ocean while they plotted to torment struggling families who were wakened night after night by the Santa Cruz Police Department and ticketed into financial disaster.
That disregard for the suffering of children living on the streets of her community is mirrored in the policies Halimah DeLaine Prado's legal team seems to endorse at Google removing YouTube channels expressing compassion for the indigenous people of Palestine while letting those channels airing calls for their genocide spread like wildfire, stoking hate, hate of the “other,” “the useless eaters,” “the human animals.”
“Eliminate them,” barks presidential candidate and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley on Fox TV. In an interview on Fox News, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said: “We’re in a religious war here. I am with Israel, do whatever the hell you have to do to defend yourself, “level the place.”
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we will act accordingly."
And those are just a few of the more well-known calls for genocide of over two million people of which one million are children.
Supporters of the Israeli Occupation scream “savages”, “bugs”, or “animals” while demanding the last of Palestinian people living on what’s left of their homeland be exterminated. Not one peep condemning these horrific calls for ethnic cleansing from the Biden administration.
Sound familiar? One of the first genocides of Indigenous people executed by Europeans was carried out in the Americas where over 20 million “savages” were slaughtered, poisoned or starved to death. Gaza, the West Bank, the 100,000 Armenians driven from Artsakh in September and the homeless camps of America cleared everyday are just a modern edition of the dehumanization required to justify the clearing of a people off the face of the Earth.
The failure of public figures to denounce the call to exterminate the Palestinian people is chilling.
Our homeless friends are frequently described as less than human by political leaders, members of the media, the Prados and their friends in the local anti-homeless hate groups of Take Back Santa Cruz or Seabright Strong . Ten minutes on Deborah Elston’s moderated Nextdoor.com and you are likely to read some of the ugliest dehumanizing calls to clean out the “trash.” Elston is the principal volunteer police officer who targeted Alicia and her family’s vehicular home with a blizzard of tickets during the 2020 holiday season.
Eric Harris of the Grant Park neighborhood had no fear of social ostracization when he posted this on Nextdoor.com, “Most of Ross Camp parasites are criminals and can’t vote, much like the illegals this town harbors.” In a Facebook thread suggesting the formation of a vigilante group, Mike Julian writes in all caps, “FEMA CAMP” and gets two thumbs up.
The City Council of Santa Cruz takes the dehumanization of those who can’t afford housing to another level passing laws against sleeping outside and banning RV’s from parking overnight. A small army of police and public works employees are draining that $14 million state donation in an unrelenting campaign of “sweeping clean” the sleeping spots of our dear fellow humans. Listen to any city council debate on the “homeless problem” and the hatred flows freely. You won’t hear Mayor Fred Keeley silence those voices as he did during the CACH committee meetings that have been used to justify the city’s terror.
As Alicia’s family was enduring the nightly harassment, a COVID pandemic was announced. The response by the City of Santa Cruz was to erect chain link cages for the homeless in downtown parking lots. In the Sentinel story, “Santa Cruz coronavirus ‘triage centers’ in the works for city's unsheltered population. The city plans to open as many as seven outdoor city triage centers on an as-needed basis, temporarily housing between 10 to 15 people per site for about as long as 72 hours, Susie O’Hara said. The first such site opens Friday in city Lot 17, on Laurel Street across from the Kaiser Permanente Arena. A next intake site is likely on Coral Street near Housing Matters, where the right-of-way soon will be closed to allow for a Homeless Persons Health Project health triage area expansion, O’Hara said.” The same article reports that California Gov. Gavin Newsom set aside $50 million to place the homeless in hotels, but our city took months to do so because the homeless are seen as less than human by those in charge. My dear friend Bob Reese didn’t make it and died with his C-PAP machine in his backpack.
In a miniature version of the starvation policies of Israel on the Gaza Strip based on the same mind set by Santa Cruz City Manager and Second Harvest Treasurer Matt Huffaker, and then Second Harvest Community Liaison and Take Back Santa Cruz officer Richelle Noroyan, cut off their weekly deliveries of food to their second largest agency Food Not Bombs. They justified their intentional severing of relations because the IRS had not posted our 990s on their website during the COVID lockdown even though we provided the Second Harvest staff with proof of our current valid nonprofit status. Huffaker even used this move to contact Lookout Santa Cruz’s Chris Neely to feed him a story about our returning to our weekend schedule because of his successful removal of Food Not Bombs, the one group who provided the only daily meal for hundreds of people for the three years St. Francis Soup Kitchen, was closed and could only offer a bagged sandwich. Instead of thanking Food Not Bombs for protecting downtown from the inevitable looting by hundreds of desperate people, they cut off food to Food Not Bombs with the stated goal of starving the homeless.
Now that everyone is welcome to proudly demand the genocide of people of the Holy Land without concern of being embarrassed, how long will it be before such calls will move from the horror of police sweeps to more Draconian measures against the homeless? The long-feared FEMA camps will seem human compared to the 56 years in the pre-genocide concentration camp of Gaza. Our good liberals will bark that we treat our vermin better here than the Israelis.
It won’t be long before another few thousand people will be forced to move to the doorways, levee banks and parks of Santa Cruz. The Wall Street Journal reported that the number of people who became homeless increased by 11% in the first eight months of 2023 compared with all of 2022. The US Census announced child poverty more than doubled in 2023 from the year before. Here are more children we don’t care about like those who disappeared in the Maui fire, or under the thousands of bombs raining down on Gaza.
Political leaders have no plan to aid the people of the United States letting millions of us to become homeless. I have been flooded with more than a dozen calls a day from desperate seniors living in rural America who have no food. Their health insurance company gave them a $100 debit card that they thought would be refilled each month only to discover it was a trick to have them sign up for their plan. The number on the back of the card directs them to a call center that passes on my number. They often complain that we can send billions to Ukraine but can’t take care of our own people.
How will the Prados and their allies respond as the number of people pitching tents and sleeping in the doorways of Santa Cruz grows by the thousands as it surely will as prices for food, housing and gas skyrocket. President Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen tell us we can afford two wars but our government demands mean’s testing for a useless housing voucher and SNAP food stamps that never pay for a month’s worth of groceries.
The callousness with which the “good” people are cheering on the genocide of the Palestinians suggests that those same “good” people will be fine with locking America’s less than human homeless in concentration camps. The former mayor, who held weekly meetings with Manuel Prado, proposed at a two-by-two meeting with county officials that they should ship our town’s homeless 122 miles south to Camp Roberts in San Miguel. If that happens, will anyone have the courage to stop the authorities?
The inevitable cruelty of a World War fueled by calls for genocide could unleash the unthinkable in this atmosphere.
Many in Canada already support the concept of self-extermination of their unhoused. A headline in the National Post reports on May 16, 2023, that “One third of Canadians fine with prescribing assisted suicide for homelessness” referring to Canada’s program Medical Assistance in Dying - MAiD. Hundreds have already “taken advantage” of this option rather than face the harsh winters of the Canadian streets.
Will this sanctioned hatred of the Palestinians, Armenians and Russians pave the way for removal of America’s homeless into internment camps? By the time you read this, the conflict in Palestine may have erupted into a global war. Access to Persian Gulf oil may have been disrupted, tumbling the economy into chaos. Food shortages could increase. Official hatred of immigrants and homeless may increase as the number of people living on our streets is too much to ignore. Will officials be forced to ration food and those “useless eaters” in the FEMA camps be allowed to starve for “national security” purposes? I fear so.
Thankfully hundreds of thousands of people are on the streets calling for an end to the genocide, demanding western leaders recognize those being slaughtered as flesh and blood humans.
We can only hope fellow Americans will stand against the forced removal of our homeless neighbors into the internment camps and denounce the dehumanizing rhetoric before the tragedy of World War III opens the doors of hell.
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String Quartet Concert at the German Cultural Center in Santa Cruz
By ADAM SCOW
This event is a collaboration featuring Rebecca Jackson-Picht, Eleanor Angel, Kristin Garbeff, and myself, performing the epic Brahms A minor quartet and the beautiful Haydn Lark Quartet. I'm very excited to play with these top notch musicians in a venue designed for an acoustic performance.
Sunday, Nov. 5, 4pm at 230 Plymouth St, Santa Cruz. Wine and light snacks before and after performance.
Tickets are $35. RSVP at adam.scow@gmail.com
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Community Thanksgiving Needs Support
By STEVE PLEICH
For more than 30 years, the Veterans have hosted a Thanksgiving meal at the Veterans Memorial Building in downtown Santa Cruz for those in our community who are houseless or of very modest means. It is a tradition that has continued and endured through the good works of the Veterans themselves and those who support their local mission of serving the less fortunate.
The Veterans for Peace and the Friends of Thanksgiving are thrilled to announce that the Santa Cruz Community Thanksgiving Dinner will once again this year be hosted at the Veterans Memorial Building located at 846 Front Street from 11am-3pm on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 23.
Everyone is invited to attend and enjoy a hot, traditional meal of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and all the trimmings prepared by local chefs. The hall will once again be decorated by our local Girl Scouts and music will be provided by local artists. Join us for a day of true community as we eat, share stories and experiences and celebrate the holiday spirit.
Volunteer opportunities for the dinner will be coming your way shortly in a separate message so hold that thought.
Your generous donation will help us turn a time of want and need into a celebration of joy and generosity. Here’s our donation link: https://gofund.me/af57f069
Happy Holidays to you and yours from the Veterans for Peace and the Friends of Thanksgiving.
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Photo by TARMO HANNULA
The sunset falls at the boat harbor in Moss Landing.
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Santa Cruz County Covid-19 Report - Order Free At-Home Test Kits
By SARAH RINGLER
The California Department of Public Health reports on Covid-19 for The Santa Cruz County Health Department. They regularly release data on the current status of Covid-19 in the county. Since cases are still appearing, and there are still vulnerable people, I will continue reporting the graphs below.
At-home Covid-19 test kits that were sent free from the government earlier are now expiring. The program that started in Jan. 2022 has distributed 600 million test kits. If you still have those tests, before using, check the date on your box or go HERE to get more information. Over a month ago, the Biden administration announced that it will provide four free tests per household that will be delivered by the US Postal Service. Go HERE to order.
The state's website reports that the current total of confirmed Covid deaths in Santa Cruz County is at 337, up from 335 for the last two weeks.
The three graphs below give a picture of what is happening as of Oct. 25. The first graph below shows the Rt Number. Numbers above one show the spread of the virus is increasing. Below one means the spread is decreasing.
The second graph below shows data that the Health Department collects for Covid from wastewater at the City Influent, for the city of Santa Cruz, and from the Lode Street pump stations for the county. This graph shows wastewater level to be below Center for Disease Control's moderate risk threshold.
The third graph below shows hospitalizations. Click to see more information on hospitalizations HERE.
The vaccination data for the county has stayed fairly constant increasing very little over time. Go HERE for new information on vaccination records, treatments, vaccines, tests, safety in the workplace and more.
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Photo by TARMO HANNULA
Fashion Street - Larger than life painted signs stand in the front yard of Artistic HangUps, a 25-year-old picture framing business on John Street in Salinas.
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Labor History Calendar - Oct. 27- Nov. 2, 2023
a.k.a Know Our History Lest We Forget
Oct. 27, 1920: 40,000 Philadelphia textile workers fired to rid factories of “troublemakers.”
Oct. 28, 1879: Puerto Rican labor organizers and anarcho-feminist Luisa Capetillo born.
Oct. 29, 1918: German fleet at Wilhelmshaven mutinies; gov’t falls Nov. 10th.
Oct. 30, 1916: Everett, Washington, IWWs 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, Malbone tunnel disaster in NYC; scab motorman crashes trains during strike: 97 killed, 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, Washington.
Nov. 2, 2011: General Strike in solidarity with Occupy Oakland closes port.
Labor History Calendar has been published yearly by the Hungarian Literature Fund since 1985.
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Photo by TARMO HANNULA
Tris di tarallini - Little Italian Cocktail Crackers
By SARAH RINGLER
These still warm afternoons are a wonderful time to sit outside and socialize with friends. These little crackers, served with wine, are a pleasant accompaniment. I was introduced to them when Watsonville locals, Harry Wiggins and his wife, brought some back for us from their annual trip to Italy a while ago. Called Tris di tarallini, they traditionally are eaten after having been dunked in a glass of wine.
Taralli are common to southern Italy and can be sweet or savory; tarallinis are just a smaller taralli. Shaped like tiny bagels, they are also boiled in water like a bagel, before being baked. This is a basic recipe that I found online after having enjoyed the original gift. You can knead herbs, seeds, onions, garlic, sugar and other flavors into the dough or sprinkle on the top after boiling and before baking. There is a lot of room for creativity here. They keep in a tin for a few weeks.
Tarallis would be fun to make with kids. Of course, you would have to replace the wine with water and be present when the dough is boiled. It is a good opportunity to get them started in the kitchen by teaching them about the importance of being clean, organized, and afterwards, cleaning up. The measurements are forgiving and as long as the dough is smooth and elastic, there shouldn't be a problem.
Tarallinis
1 3/4 cup flour
1/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon white wine
1/2 teaspoon salt
Optional additions: black pepper, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, fennel, garlic, chilis, kosher salt etc.
In a medium bowl, mix the flour, oil and salt with your hands. Mix in any additions that you want in the dough at this time. Add the white wine and continue to blend. The dough should be soft so if it is a bit dry, add a little lukewarm water. Transfer the mixture on to a floured board and knead for 20 minutes until the mixture is smooth and elastic.
Cover the dough with plastic wrap, and let rest for at least half an hour.
After the dough has rested, divide it into small pieces about the size of radishes. With the palm of the hand, roll into sticks about 3-4 inches long. Pinch the ends to form a circle. Place them on a clean cloth and let sit.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. After the water boils, add about 5-10 of the little dough circles to the water. As soon as tarallinis come to the surface, scoop them out with a slotted spoon and place them on a tray lined with a clean cloth. At this point, you can also put them in a pie tin with seeds, herbs or other toppings.
The last step is to put them on a baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes, until crunchy and slightly golden. Makes about 3 dozen.
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