Soupstock 2023

43rd Anniversary Free Concert

June 4 Duck Pond Stage, Santa Cruz

noon-6pm

By KEITH MCHENRY - FOUNDER OF FOODS NOT BOMBS

Food Not Bombs is celebrating 43 years of sharing food and protesting war and poverty. Eight college-aged activists started the first chapter in Boston in the spring of 1980. We held a theatrical soup line outside the Federal Reserve Bank to warn the public that the policies of investing in weapons instead of funding housing, healthcare and other social services would lead to a country where people would need to seek meals at soup kitchens just to survive.

Four decades after that first sharing, this has become a tragic reality for a growing number of people. Food Not Bombs is needed today more than at any time in our 43 history with the threat of a global war growing and many economists warning that we are slipping into an economic depression that looks to be more severe than that of the 1930’s.

The pandemic era was the biggest money transfer scheme to the rich in history. Billionaires became richer by $3.9 trillion while we workers lost a total of $3.7 trillion. We are already experiencing the second-largest percentage drop in real disposable income ever, behind only 1932, the worst year of the Great Depression.

Food Not Bombs has grown from that little collective delivering cases of recovered produce and baked goods to local public housing projects and sharing vegan meals every afternoon under a scraggly pine on a traffic island in Harvard Square, to a global movement with groups sharing meals in over 1,000 cities in at least 65 countries.

Food Not Bombs has a rich history from helping build the June 12, 1982 rally for nuclear disarmament in New York City with over one million people, to being the principle source of food for the survivors of Katrina in New Orleans. Our volunteers provided food in Myanmar to the hungry while evading detection from the military dictatorship. The group in Beirut, Lebanon provided hundreds of meals to the families who lost their homes in the port explosion.

The local Santa Cruz chapter filled the void left by the closing of the other food programs by sharing seven to ten course meals everyday for three years. The volunteers also provided pup tents, blankets and clothing, held free concerts and fostered a sense of community. We also provided pallets of food to the Benchlands camp and helped the Live Oak School District set up a weekly grocery distribution. We are preparing for a huge increase in the number of people seeking food as the people living along Highway 9 are driven back downtown at the same time hundreds are joining the ranks of the homeless.

The three principles of Food Not Bombs unites the global movement:

1. The food is vegan or vegetarian and free to anyone, rich or poor, stoned or sober.

2. We are not a charity and dedicated to taking nonviolent direct action to change society so no one has to live on the streets or eat at a soup kitchen

3. There are no headquarters, presidents or directors and each group makes decisions by consensus and include those relying on the food to help guide the local chapter.

The first Soupstock was held at the Bandshell in Golden Gate Park and featured the group Clan Dyken; we are honored that they have agreed to perform at this year's celebration. We encourage community groups and artists to set up a booth at the concert for free.

We hope you will join us on the lawn at the the Duck Pond Stage, enjoy a free meal and will be moved to dance to our revolution.

For more information and to donate, go to Food Not Bombs.

One More Week to Comment on Racist 1,3-D Policy

By MARK WELLER OF SAFE AG SAFE SCHOOLS

We need your comments now to push the Department of Pesticide Regulation to stop California’s weak and racist regulation of cancer-causing pesticide 1,3-D.

The DPR has proposed new regulation on the use of cancer-causing 1,3-dichloropropene (1,3-D) that would allow Californians to breathe 14 times more 1,3-D than the official State cancer risk warning level. 1,3-D is applied disproportionately in regions with majority Latino and Indigenous populations.

We have until May 31, 5pm, to demand that DPR create a policy that follows science to reduce 1,3-D use, so that nobody breathes in more 1,3-D than the lifetime cancer warning level that was officially established by scientists at the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) last June. All six pesticide air monitors in California have measured 1,3-D air concentrations far above OEHHA’s cancer warning level, including the one on the grounds of Ohlone Elementary School in the Pajaro Valley.

1,3-D is the third most heavily used pesticide in California agriculture. It is used in fields where strawberries, almonds, grapes, and sweet potatoes are grown. It is also known to drift for miles. We believe state policy should be driven by science and public health. In 2021, 89% of all 1,3-D applications by pounds occurred in the 14 Latino-majority Monterey and Santa Cruz County zip codes. In those 14 zip codes -- accounting for 45% of land area and 47% of the overall population of our region – is where more than three-quarters (77%) of Latinos and two-thirds (66%) of Indigenous people live, but only 18% of White (“Not Hispanic”) people live.

To get DPR to change its racist proposal, we need many hundreds to tell DPR to rewrite its 1,3-D policy to reduce the amounts of 1,3-D we breathe to levels our state toxicologists at OEHHA say is not hazardous.

Organizations can sign-on to the Californians for Pesticide Reform letter here. Individuals and organizations can write in your own words here.

Photo by SARAH RINGLER

1) GROUNDSWELLS & GATHERINGS

 By WOODY REHANEK

 They say living in California is living 

in the future. What's not to love:

wildfires, droughts, floods, earth- 

quakes, mudslides, heatwaves,

windstorms, tsunamis...

This is our climate change future.

************

Now the sky is torn, hemorrhaging,

its waters returning/determined

in floodplains to the aboriginal sea.

An Asian elder at the YMCA pool said,

"Water outside, water inside."

The whole kit-&-caboodle went south,

dissolving, something fierce 

like fudge in a school kid's mouth:

creeks, culverts, canals, catchments, 

conduits, channels, stormdrains, swales, 

gutters, arroyos, ditches, troughs, dikes,

levees, embankments: water, toxic mud,

& sewage sweeping through our streets.

When atmospheric rivers 

wallop & whiplash the land,

our learning curve steepens,

our empathy strengthens:

Ike & Manny (wrapt

in supernatural clouds) 

clear stormdrains, staunch

wounds & soothe souls.

 Judy, Lupe, & Jovita pound

 a hundred village doors.

Horacio & kind-hearted 

salt-of-the-earth grassroots 

campesinos carve drainages

a mano in mud.

 Streets turn to hyperactive creeks,

opaque & mudcaked with contaminated 

topsoil, plastering watermarks

on walls & doors: the fierce & fear-

some calling cards of water ghosts.



************

We gather & converse, palaver 

& disperse, in grit & gumption, commit-

ment & resilience, to regenerate & rebuild.

Neighbors converge on the village green,

where sandbags are the new currency.

Families pitch in, working together

while elders nap thru stormy weather. 

Volunteer teens with abs of steel

shape sandbag brigades like sudden angels, 

waterproofing homes & making it real.

So it is, we work elbow-to-elbow 

with our neighbors, one-on-one

& door-to-door, plus CHP,

city workers, & fire trucks galore.

If it takes a gully-washer

to connect us with our inner core,

maybe it's worth it--like finding pearls 

in the river mud right outside your door.

*****************************

Join Medicare for All in the 48th Annual Santa Cruz Pride Parade, June 4

By GINNY SCHWINGEL

Medicare for All-Santa Cruz will be walking in the Pride Parade June 4. Come walk with us to show your support for the national MFA and for CalCare, a California state-level single-payer universal healthcare system. 

We will be lining up on Pacific Ave. toward Elm Street, after the vehicles and between Hospice of SC and SC Community Health. Look for the waving CalCare placards. All walkers must be in place by 10:45.

The Pride Parade is always a lot of fun. We're close enough to the front that after we walk we can watch the rest.

Stay for the Festival. MFA-SC will have an information booth after the parade until 4pm. Stop in to say hello and if you'd like, stay for a while to help out inform folks about the advantages of single-payer universal healthcare, whether on the national or state level. Canada got its system province by province; if California enacts CalCare, you know the other states will follow.

The parade starts at 11am at Pacific and Cathcart, Santa Cruz. For information text Ginny.

Photo by TARMO HANNULA 

An osprey brings home dinner to the family roost at a slough in Watsonville in early May.

Santa Cruz County Covid-19 Report

By SARAH RINGLER

The California Department of Public Health now 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. There have been no new deaths in the county since Dec. 15. Since cases are still appearing, and there are still vulnerable people, I will continue reporting the graphs below.

The three graphs below give a picture of what is happening currently. 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.

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.

Photo by TARMO HANNULA

Fashion Street - Maybe the bedroom got overrun with stuffed toys and the pickup, for some reason, seemed like a good next step.

Labor History Calendar - May 26-June 1, 2023

a.k.a Know Your History Lest We Forget

May 26, 1920: IWW Marine Transport Workers strike in Philadelphia.

May 26, 1937: Battle of the Overpass. Ford thugs beat UAW organizers.

May 26, 1952: AFL-CIO goons oust radical Textile Workers officials in Montreal.

May 27, 1980: 3,000 killed in Kwangju, Korea uprising.

May 27, 2011: Hundreds of police clear Indigadoes from Plaza de Catalunya, Barcelona. It is quickly reoccupied. 

May 28, 1871: Paris Commune crushed – 25,000 massacred.

May 28, 1946: Rochester, NY general strike.

May 29, 1969: Revolt touched off by shooting of striking auto worker shakes dictatorship in Cordoba, Argentina.

May 29, 2002: 30,000 port workers strike against union-busting in Bangladesh.

May 29, 2009: UAW auto workers accept deep concessions at GM because of US Congress demands. 

May 30, 1937: Memorial Day Massacre at Chicago’s Republic Steel plant. Cops kill 10 and wound 30.

May 30, 1868: General strike against police brutality begins in Senegal.

May 30, 2013: Strikes at dozens of Seattle fast food outlets for living wage.

May 31, 1819: Walt Whitman, poet, born. 

May 31, 1921: Sacco and Vanzetti trial begins.

May 31, 1925: Living Theater co-founder and Wobbly Julian Beck born.

June 1, 1903: 3,5000 immigrant miners begin Clifton-Morenci, AZ copper strike.

June 1, 1922: National rail strike.

June 1, 1985: Vancouver unemployed demand free bus service.

“Sunday’s Message: One Clear Thought in the Age of Comic Fascism

The Earth is unhoused; Freedom is the modern version of fear; Jordan Neely has no parade permit; Flowers are aggressive genitalia; The complete absence of a future does not make the evening news; Every country has an empty house for Julian Assange; Meaningful music lyrics are troubling and concerning and grounds for litigation; Reality Winner is a good brand name; Study reveals the Pentagon is actually a traumatized child…"

REVBILLY.COM

The Church of Stop Shopping POB 1556 NY NY 10013

Photo by TARMO HANNULA

Basic Bread and Butter Pudding

By SARAH RINGLER 

Cool weather calls for a simple old fashion English Bread and Butter Pudding. This cuddly hot dessert is from Dec. 30, 1996's issue of the San Francisco Chronicle's "Home Cooking" column by Marion Cunningham. This recipe has been sitting in my old recipe box for 20 years. It is a great way to use up leftover bread and works best if the bread has hardened a bit. 

Marion Cunningham was a columnist and cookbook writer who overcame her agoraphobia to take a cooking class with famous cookbook author and teacher James Beard in Oregon in 1972. They formed a bond and she was his assistant for eleven years by helping him set up cooking classes in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was responsible for her job rewriting "The Fanny Farmer Cookbook." That led to writing cookbooks, a recipe column and her own television show. She was instrumental in promoting Alice Waters of Chez Panisse and had Chuck Williams of Williams-Sonoma as a close friend.

Fannie Farmer's cookbook contributed to modern cooking by introducing the concept of using standardized measurements. Rather than a pinch of this and a drop of that, she advocated the use of uniform cups and spoons to guarantee more consistent results. She was born March 23, 1857 in Boston and began cooking around the house after she had a stroke at sixteen that made it hard to continue going to high school. Later her health improved enough for her to further her studies at Boston Cooking School during the "domestic science movement," also known as Home Economics, a class that some of us took in school in the 50s and 60s. Now it is called family and consumer sciences and deals with issues from nutrition, food preparation, parenting, family economics, textiles, and my least favorite, home cleaning.

This has to be one of the simplest bread pudding recipes ever and could serve as the base for more creative enterprises. Try using different kinds of bread; I like to use sourdough because of its sour taste. Add berries, or other fresh fruit, nuts, spices and create your own invention. Capirotada, a Mexican bread pudding served on Good Friday, is based on some of the same ingredients. 

Bread and butter pudding

4 tablespoons butter, room temperature

6-7 slices sweet French bread with the crusts removed - other yeast breads can be used too

3 whole eggs

2 egg yolks

1/2 cup sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

2 cups milk

1/2 cup heavy cream

2 teaspoons vanilla

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and butter a 1-quart casserole dish. Get out another larger casserole or pan that can hold the 1-quart dish. 

Butter one side of each slice of bread.

Combine the eggs, yolks, sugar and salt in a large bowl and beat until well mixed.

Pour the milk and cream into a heavy bottomed saucepan and heat over medium low to medium heat until scalded with tiny bubbles formed around the edge of the pan. Remove from the heat and slowly add the egg mixture quickly whisking until mixture is thick. Add the vanilla to the custard you just made.

Boil some water. Layer the buttered bread in the buttered casserole dish. Pour the custard through a strainer onto the bread. The bread will probably float. Put the pan with the bread pudding in the large pan and pour boiling water up to about 2-3 inches. 

Bake in the oven for about 35-45 minutes until the custard is just firm or set. It can be shaky in the center; do not over bake. Serve hot or cold with a little cream.

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. 

Copyright © 2023 Sarah Ringler - All rights reserved