November 22 – 28, 2023
\
Bratton… Chris Strachwitz’s and Arhoolie’s new book, Santa Cruz Chorale concert, Espressivo Orchestra concert, movie critiques. Greensite…last chance for the wharf. Steinbruner…Assemblywoman Dawn Addis, County Supes and housing, 14 year old paid commissioners, Railtrail, Damian’s ladder. Hayes…Surrounding sounds. Patton…Facts and hope. Matlock…lighting the fires of integrity and loyalty. Eagan …Subconscious Comics and Deep Cover. Webmistress…pick of the week. Quotes…”Saint Swithin’s Day”

|
DATELINE November 20
CHRIS STRACHWITZ (1931-2023) Chris Strachwitz was a good friend back in our UC Berkeley days. (1957-1970). We went to many of the Black nightclubs around the Oakland/ San Francisco area for decades. We also collected and swapped 78 rpm records. He turned all that interest and drive into creating and operating Arhoolie Records (now owned and mostly operated by the Smithsonian Institute. Arhoolie has just released a new book that Chris put together. Check it out here… Arhoolie has a few Santa Cruz connections such as Davia Nelson is on their board of directors, and former County Supervisor John Leopold is their managing director. Arhoolie has collected what is defined as all of America’s folk music. Chris died (age 91) on May 5, 2023. One statement about Chris states…The Arhoolie Foundation stems from the work of founder Chris Strachwitz and his seminal independent record label Arhoolie Records. In 1960, Strachwitz recorded Texas songster Mance Lipscomb for what was to become Arhoolie Records’ first album. Since then, he has devoted his life to recording and sharing regional music with a special emphasis on the genres of Blues, Cajun/Zydeco, and Tejano/Norteño. In 2016, Smithsonian Folkways acquired Arhoolie Records and continues to distribute the Arhoolie catalog worldwide.
THE SANTA CRUZ CHORALE’S MUSIC OF CHRISTMAS. On Dec.16 at 8pm & 17 at 4pm the Santa Cruz Chorale will feature works by renowned composers such as Byrd, Scheidt, Elgar, Britten, Tavener, and Biebl, and beloved carols from around the world. The power and beauty of this music will resonate with traditionalists and contemporary music enthusiasts alike. This year, the centerpiece of our program is the Magnificat for orchestra and choir by Austrian composer Heinrich Biber. Born in the 17th century, Biber was known for his innovative and expressive compositions. His Magnificat is a masterful piece that beautifully captures the essence of the festive season. Once again, we are honored to be joined by the Monterey Bay Sinfonietta, whose exceptional musicianship enriches our performances.
Holy Cross Church, 123 High Street, Santa Cruz
Tickets: General $30, Seniors $25, Students $5
For Saturday concert only, 4 or more tickets: $20 each Tickets can be purchased here
santacruzchorale.org or (831) 427-8023
X (Twitter): @SantaCruzChoral
ESPRESSIVO an all intense orchestra. Welcome to Espressivo’s Eighth Season. It happens on December 3rd, 2023 and is titled JAMES PYTKO PLAYS COPLAND. You’ll hear Mozart — Adagio and Fugue K. 546 (1788), Copland — Clarinet Concerto (1949), Mozart — Serenata Notturna K. 239 (1776) and Foote — Suite for Strings (1907-) Soloist: James Pytko. In winter we give our brass players too rare a chance to shine. Too rare as well are chances to hear Leoš Janácek’s quasi-piano concerto, a work by a great composer that alternates wrenching lyricism and folksy quirkiness. Again, we feature our own Vlada Volkova-Moran as soloist. We’ve raised the ticket prices on you a bit. You may have heard about inflation….The best deal is still a subscription. Purchase one at www.espressorch.org or at the concert, 411 Roxas St., Santa Cruz. They play at 4pm on Sundays.
I search and critique a variety of movies only from those that are newly released. Choosing from the thousands of classics and older releases would take way too long. And be sure to tune in to those very newest movie reviews live on KZSC 88.1 fm every Friday from about 8:10 – 8:30 am. on the Bushwhackers Breakfast Club program hosted by Dangerous Dan Orange.
SEBASTIAN FITZEK’S THERAPY- DIE THERAPIE”). (PRIME SERIES) (7.1 IMDB).There’s a psychiatrist who has lost his 13 year old daughter many years ago. How he deals with that and trying to find out what happened to her makes this a deep and twisted movie. There’s another 13 year old girl who enters his life and adds to his (and our) confusion. Thought provoking doesn’t go deep enough to describe this one…go for it.
THE RAILWAY MEN (NETFLIX SERIES) (8.9 IMDB). Bhopal in India was the site of a horrible explosion at their Union Carbide factory in 1984. 15, 000 local citizens died from the poisons in the air. Union knew of the gas leak problem and did almost nothing to avert the catastrophe. The movie is from India and is extra dramatic, overly hammy, but reveals the then corporate attitude back in the 1980’s.
TILL MURDER DO US PART. (NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY SERIES) (7.0 IMDB).Maybe the girl and/or her boyfriend killed her parents back in 1985 in Virginia. This documentary digs up the known facts of Soering vs. Haysom. Many of the actual people in the historical case are in this documentary including the main male suspect who decides to speak only German for the movie makers. Go for it.
A THOUSAND LITTLE CUTS. (PRIME SERIES) (5.1 IMDB). A twisted, complex plot that leads us to question whether the girl is telling the truth about breaking her ankle or is it a deep conflict involving her and her therapist and the prescription drug companies? Acting is fine, the story will make you think about your own meds and it’s worth seeing.
CIGARETTE GIRL. (NETFLIX SERIES) (8.3 IMDB). A movie from Indonesia where they actually hand make cigarettes from spices and not tobacco. They are called Kretek and contain herbs, cloves, sandalwood and secret flavors to compete and the competition is fierce, and real. Don’t watch this if you have a smoking problem! There’s love, family issues, and just enough of a plot to keep it interesting.
THE KILLER. (NETFLIX MOVIE) (7.4 IMDB). Michael Fassbender does a fine job as a paid assassin. We get to watch him plot, plan and carry out numerous killings…strictly for hire. One killing goes wrong and he becomes a target himself. Tilda Swinton has a small but meaningful role. It’s not easy to like, but I did.
LOCKED IN. (NETFLIX MOVIE) (5.1 IMDB). A confusing drama centering on a formerly famous woman who has been seriously injured and unable to talk. Was she in an accident or an attempted murder? Her doctor becomes her lover and her daughter focuses the plot on many unconnected possibilities. Yes, confusing, not the greatest acting and we’ve seen it many times from Hollywood in the last 100 years.
SPECIAL NOTE….Don’t forget that when you’re not too sure of a plot or need any info on a movie to go to Wikipedia. It lays out the straight/non hype story plus all the details you’ll need including which server (Netflix, Hulu, or PBS) you can find it on. You can also go to Brattononline.com and punch in the movie title and read my take on the much more than 100 movies.
WINGWOMEN. (NETFLIX MOVIE) (5.7 IMDB) This French movie flips and mostly flops between telling us about the relationship between two women art thieves and their plots and plans to steal a painting. It sidetracks into pregnancies, gay sex, snipers and gorgeous scenes of Paris. The ending is infuriating…forget it.
THE BURIAL. (PRIME MOVIE) (7.5 IMDB).Jamie Foxx is over the top as an attorney and Black preacher. This covers the huge and almost secret funeral business in the USA and the financial dealings that control it. There’s much courtroom stuff, juries, attorneys, plus Tommy Lee Jones. Some laughs but it will make you think about your own arrangements!!.
FOR ALL MANKIND. (APPLE SERIES) (8.1 IMDB). A clever, well thought out pseudo-documentary about our landing on the moon AFTER Russia beat us to it in 1969. SIDE NOTE: our 95 year old Santa Cruzan Tom Lehrer is in it and sings “Werner von Braun”. It’s a clever movie and will keep you attached.
THE KILLER. (NETFLIX MOVIE) (7.4 IMDB). Michael Fassbender does a fine job as a paid assassin. We get to watch him plot, plan and carry out numerous killings…strictly for hire. One killing goes wrong and he becomes a target himself. Tilda Swinton has a small but meaningful role. It’s not easy to like, but I did.
ESCAPING TWIN FLAMES. (NETFLIX SERIES) (7.5 IMDB). I thought this would be a slam against awareness groups like EST but it’s about cults, sex and sex traffic and finding and keeping your current sex target. Twin Flames exists and has a membership of 67,000 members.
HURRICANE SEASON. (NETFLIX MOVIE) (5.6 IMDB). It starts with a girl’s corpse being found in a river by a bunch of teen age boys. The movie is from Mexico and switches scenes from witches to straight and gay sex. There’s too many plot holes and dream sequences to describe here…Think twice before renting it.
THE BILLIONAIRE, THE BUTLER AND THE BOYFRIEND. (NETFLIX SERIES) (5.1 IMDB). This is an excellent French documentary covering Liliane Bettencourt the wealthiest woman in the world. She was the owner/heiress of L’Oréal cosmetics and you’ll see the conflicts she has with her daughter all through their lives together and her semi-secret long time affair/relationship with a celebrity photographer. Many of the actual friends and enemies in her life are very much part of this documentary.

November 20
YOUR LAST CHANCE TO SAVE THE SANTA CRUZ MUNICIPAL WHARF FROM GENTRIFICATION.

By the end of Tuesday November 28th, the city council will have decided the fate of the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf. History will judge whether the council respected its Historic Preservation Commission’s recommendation to preserve the visual character and historic design of the Wharf by removing the eyesore of a proposed below deck, twelve feet wide, eight hundred feet long walkway on the pictured west side of the Wharf. Such appendage, stretching below the restaurants, to be made of fiberglass and steel railings will impact views of the Wharf and views from the Wharf restaurants. If council does not remove the walkway from the Wharf Master plan, the common sight seen below of a Snowy Egret perched on the wooden railing outside Riva’s will exist only in memory. People, walking and talking back and forth on the lowered walkway will be its replacement.
You either have a deep love for the Wharf in its current form, or you see it merely as a money-making platform for all variety of new activities. The sentiment of the community is overwhelmingly for the former. The latter is strongly pushed by city staff despite the lack of an economic analysis.

The westside walkway is being promoted as though the very structural survival of the Wharf and its restaurants depends on it. The facts do not support such hyperbole. The Court in its 2022 ruling did not support the city’s claim of infeasibility for Alternative 2 which removed the westside walkway from the Plan and was determined by the city to be the environmentally superior alternative that met or advanced all project objectives. The city’s updated Findings add nothing new to change the Court’s ruling. With a deep pocket of public monies to spend on consulting attorneys, city staff appear prepared for a protracted legal fight. It’s up to city council, our representatives, to be the adults in the room.
If the city council votes to remove the Landmark Building, one of the three, forty- feet- tall new buildings proposed for the Wharf, that is a step in the right direction. Another critical step is to remove the lowered westside walkway. That would satisfy the Court, respect the Historic Preservation Commission’s recommendation and most importantly, give the public an indication that their opinions and feelings are respected at City Hall.
Send an email by Monday (11/27) to citycouncil@santacruzcity.gov
Gillian Greensite is a long time local activist, a member of Save Our Big Trees and the Santa Cruz chapter of IDA, International Dark Sky Association http://darksky.org Plus she’s an avid ocean swimmer, hiker and lover of all things wild. |

November 20
THE CROWD TO SEE ASSEMBLYWOMAN DAWN ADDIS
On November 7, 10am-noon, 30th Assembly District representative Ms. Dawn Addis held a rare town hall meeting in Aptos at the MidCounty Safety Center. It should have been held in a much larger venue to allow a group-format, but instead was a one-to-one session that was so crowded, many left.
I attended, and was surprised to see County Administrative Officer Carlos Palacios standing outside the door. It became more and more apparent that this rare personal appearance of Assemblywoman Addis was a political opportunity for many running for various elected positions. Those people seemed to be called first even if arriving later than the common folk, of which there were many. If one were lucky enough to get called in to go speak with Ms. Addis, eight minutes was allotted.
However, for the many commoners like myself who waited nearly two hours to have a moment with Ms. Addis, our time was reduced to five minutes, because she had “another place to go.”
What does one say in an elevator-speech discussion with your newly-elected State Assembly representative? I suggested that a group meeting in a larger venue would have been interesting to many, especially those who had to leave without getting to speak with her, and that everyone could have benefited by hearing the answers to all types of questions.
That was a mistake.
Ms. Addis used up over half of my allotted five minutes to tell me about her other town halls, and her visits to the area shortly after the storms last winter. My time was short, so I focused on asking her to help get money for rural fire evacuation route safety improvements and vegetation clearance, having attended the Resource Conservation District’s “Living on Rural Properties” gathering the night before and hearing the need for local funding.
Ms. Addis responded that I should talk with the County Emergency Response Dept. I was shocked. Didn’t she know Santa Cruz County no longer has such a Department since CAO Palacios disbanded it in 2020, and replaced it with the vague “Office of Response, Recovery and Resilience (OR3)”? I mentioned this to her and asked if she had talked with Mr. David Reid, the OR3 Director, thinking to myself that of course she had, if she visited the flood areas with other local photo-op officials with Governor Newsom and President Biden.
She paused, and replied, “I think I have heard of him.” Then she went on to say that if I felt the County needs to get more money that would be a larger legislative action.
The five-minute timer went off.
Quickly, as I was rising to my feet, I blurted out that the Sixth Cycle RHNA mandates were unrealistic and a burden causing local jurisdictions to focus on meeting deadlines rather than promoting good planning. Was she aware of the 2021 Dept. of Finance Audit that determined the data used to create the RHNA mandate was flawed and the results should be examined?
Her assistant showed me to the door as Ms. Addis thanked me for coming and mentioned she would look into it.
The end.
If you live in the 30th Assembly area, try writing Ms. Addis and request she return more often than twice a year for constituent meetings, maybe hold them in the evening, as a larger Town Hall gathering that would be hybrid access format. Official Website – Assemblymember Dawn Addis Representing the 30th California Assembly District
Somehow, I just don’t have much confidence that she is in touch with her constituents in Santa Cruz County.
WHAT THE COUNTY SUPES DID AT THE HOUSING ELEMENT PUBLIC HEARING
What happened among the Supervisors at the Housing Element public hearing on November 14 is really worth watching on the video.
For once, there was true discussion, compromise and insistence by Supervisor Justin Cummings that he be allowed to offer amendments since Supervisor Zach Friend made some, even though they had been instructed not to do so.
The County Board of Supervisors held the final public hearing for the updated County Draft Housing Element that will truly change the quality of life in the County Unincorporated areas, just to feverishly abide by the State mandate to build, build, and build, regardless of whether or not there is infrastructure to support it.
Of course, it was the last item on the agenda for the long meeting agenda, forcing many who may have attended the 9am Tuesday meeting to give up and leave. Indeed, the Supervisor Chambers were all but empty when the public hearing was called to order. Even though there was a scant few people, many being staff, the public was held to two minutes for speaking.
The rub came when Chair Zach Friend posed an amendment to the staff recommendation to rubber stamp their work, scheduled to be shipped off to Sacramento the next day. Chair Friend insisted that the two parcels totaling 13 acres at 2600 Mar Vista Drive in Aptos, proposed to have 430 new units (that number was higher than the 402 told to the Planning Commission a few days earlier) have 4 acres of open space, rather than 2-4 acres suggested.
At that point, Supervisor Justin Cummings wanted to know why he could not also add something he wanted, namely the recommendation to increase the percentage of inclusionary affordable housing, make rental projects also subject to the requirement, and to not allow replacement housing for demolished affordable units to be counted as new numbers of affordable units for the RHNA mandated goals.
Amazingly, there had been no mention in the Planning Staff presentation to the Board of Planning Commissioner Andy Schiffrin’s insistence that the Commission send a recommendation to the Board for those exact issues.
Staff’s reply was that it would risk delay of the State Dept. of Housing and Community Development (HCD) approval, and thereby risk State funding to the County.
Chair Friend persisted in his ask. Supervisor Cummings also insisted he be given such favor, mentioning that he was under the impression from staff that there would be no opportunity to make any changes, but it seemed that Chair Friend was not worried by doing so and, it seemed, would be allowed to do so.
The discussion was rich and ultimately, negotiated such that both did get to add amendments, but with a caution that basically stated if it was going to anger the almighty HCD, staff could back down. Watch for yourself here, by clicking on Item #11 on the agenda to go directly to the time of the Housing Element public hearing
What a disaster this whipped puppy attitude of Staff and the Supervisors will play out for our County. Please contact Supervisor Cummings to thank him for standing up to improve things for affordable housing needs, but ask about the infrastructure that has to support it. All of the County Planners need to be held accountable for this poor planning that does not include the large parcel where Kaiser Medical Clinic was to go but backed out, or the 38-acre parcel the County owned at 7th & Brommer that was recently declared “excess property” and put up for sale, or the traffic impacts of the more than 35 new units destined for the existing parking lot at the Seascape Golf Course. And shouldn’t some cumulative impacts of the proposed 600+ Cabrillo College student housing be included when adding 430 units to the 2600 Mar Vista Drive parcel just down Soquel Drive?
Contact your District Supervisor and request a meeting to discuss your thoughts on all this.
Call 831-454-2200
The new e-mail template for them individually is
Firstname.Lastname@santacruzcountyca.gov
Definitely go with your neighbors if you can, and make sure you get allotted more than five minutes.
Do investigate Catalysts for Local Control, a statewide grassroots group that is gathering mighty steam to hold our State and local planners accountable for the unrealistic mandates flogging the jurisdictions into making bad planning policies. Home – Catalysts for Local Control
ABOUT THOSE YOUTH COMMISSIONERS…
The County Board of Supervisors will now be allowed to appoint 14 year olds to serve on Advisory Commissions? Yes, and pay all Commissioners a $75/meeting stipend to attend.
The Board approved this on November 14, with a consent agenda #16 unanimous nod of a second reading to change the County Code, allowing this idea “in concept”.
While I applaud including youth in our local government, I really wonder how it would work if a 14-year-old served on the Fire Dept. Advisory Commission, Housing Advisory Commission, the Planning Commission, the Water Commission, or others that often get conscripted by the Staff to stamp approval on matters to make them more palatable for the Board of Supervisor’s rubberstamp of approval?
I was shocked to read this when I finally had time to do so.
Think about that and go talk with your County District Supervisor. (831)-454-2200 or email him. Even if two of the five are not running for re-election next year, they still need to be held accountable.
I think appointing Youth Commissioners to sit in on these Advisory Commissions would be a wise thing to do, and have them meet with their District Supervisor regularly, as all other Commissioners are supposed to do.
COUNTY PUBLIC HEARING ON RAIL TRAIL BETWEEN 17TH AVENUE AND STATE PARK WAS LIVELY
Last week, the County Staff held a public hearing for comment on the Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the portion of the Rail Trail between 17th Avenue and State Park Drive during the evening in the Board of Supervisors chambers last week. The room was packed.
The presentation was led by County Park Planner Robert Tidmore and the Harris Associates Consultant who created the Draft EIR.
Although there was a brief Q&A opportunity, it was cut short to allow for the public to enter comment on the Draft EIR.
That portion of the hearing quickly evolved into pro vs. con on rail banking, and very few comments addressed direct issues on the EIR.
However, what shocked me is that a number of mobile homes will have to be removed, affecting many people who have relied on the affordable living space. One such mobile home owner testified that everything he has worked for to have the unit will be lost.
Try to look at this document and send your written comment to Mr. Tidmore by December 15, 2023. Coastal Rail Trail
What do you think about not including the Capitola Trestle area in the plan now, but keeping it as an addendum to the trail and rail when funding to repair or replace the Trestle is available? What do you think about the lighting along the trail for safety at night? What do you think about having raised viaducts in some areas of the trail?
What do you think about forcing several residential families and seniors to lose their mobile home and affordable community?
Here is some good news:
The California Transportation Commission (CTC) approved $67.6 million in competitive grant funding through its Active Transportation Program (ATP) for Coastal Rail Trail Segments 10 and 11 yesterday, and the project is now fully funded for construction. The $67.6 million in funding that the County received for Segments 10 and 11 is the largest ATP grant ever awarded. The CTC also approved $35.8 million for construction of Segments 8 and 9 (Pacific Ave to 17th Ave). This nearly $105 million in ATP funding is sufficient to build nearly 7 miles of trail through the heart of Santa Cruz County. A total of 18 miles of the Coastal Rail Trail are now fully funded for construction between Davenport and State Park Drive.
I still don’t understand why County Parks is the lead agency in this EIR for the Rail Trail, and not the RTC, owner of the rail corridor? I keep asking that question, but no one provides an answer.
RTC WANTS TO KNOW ABOUT AESTHETIC ISSUES IN APTOS
Please write December 5 on your calendar as an opportunity to meet with the Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) staff to comment about what you think of the aesthetic design elements on the segment between State Park Drive and Freedom Boulevard.
The community open house will provide an opportunity for public input on concepts for aesthetic design elements for the Highway 1 Auxiliary Lanes, Bus-on-Shoulder Facility (State Park Drive to Freedom Boulevard) & Coastal Rail Trail Segment 12 project. The open house is on Dec. 5, 2023, from 6:00 – 7:30 p.m. at the Rio Sands Hotel, 116 Aptos Beach Drive in Aptos.
When the RTC held the Draft EIR Comment on this project last June, it was very chaotic, so it is too bad they have chosen to repeat the format at the same location. Write and ask that it be a formal presentation with Q&A, rather than the chaotic open house style last time.
WHY IS THERE SMOKE IN THE AIR?
Here is a good opportunity to learn more about how notices for local Prescribed Burns by CalFire and other agencies can be improved.
December 6, at 6pm Beauregard Winery Bonny Doon FireSafe Council.
DAMIAN’S LADDER HELPS SENIORS IN SAN LORENZO VALLEY AND SCOTTS VALLEY
A new non-profit is off and running in the San Lorenzo Valley to help low and fixed income seniors.
Scotts Valley Fire Dept. recently received a $3,100 donation from a fire survivor to establish a similar service there.
SANTA CRUZ CITY HALL HAS INTERESTING TREES AND PLANTS
When I am in the Santa Cruz downtown area, I always enjoy a stroll in the City Hall gardens because the plants and trees are interesting, unusual and well-maintained. A tree there now in pink blossom only a few weeks ago sported enormous white puffballs the size of basketballs. This is the Kapok Tree (Ceiba sp.).
Not only is it interesting, this species played a large role in life saving equipment in the early 1900’s for military sailors and the general public onboard sailing vessels and large passenger ships.
Buoyant Materials for Navy Life Preservers in World War II
Four of the 20 life boats on the Titanic were made with kapok and cork.
Lifeboats of the Titanic – Wikipedia
Maybe it is significant that a Kapok Tree grows in front of the City government building, symbolic of the need for “Staying afloat in times of disaster”? The thorns on the trunk are also impressive. This site was originally the mansion of Frederick A. Hihn, a well-known local millionaire.
“The 1937 Monterey-Colonial Santa Cruz City Hall was the garden estate of the millionaire Frederick Augustus Hihn, who built a magnificent 1871 Italian Villa mansion where the 1965 City Hall Annex is today…The Gardens were world famous, containing rare plants from around the globe. It also boasted the world’s largest rose bush. These lush gardens were often shown in brochures promoting California as a year-round garden spot.
After the city purchased the mansion from the Hihn heirs in 1920, the gardens became a public park, named “Hihn Park” in honor of its creator. Though the name Civic Gardens seems to have been the popular name, Ross Eric Gibson writes “these gardens covered the entire block from Chestnut Street to Cedar Street (before Center Street was cut through it).”
In the 1930’s, the gardens and the unique history of the area determined the architect chosen and the style of the City Hall replacement. The replacement was built in front of the old Hihn Mansion. Deemed to no longer “fit in” Hihn Mansion was sold to a wrecker for $1. The community learned the gardens would be removed. The plants in the botanical gardens were salvaged by the SC community and donated to the 1939 San Francisco World’s Fair Treasure Island Site. Golden Gate Park Botanical Gardens was the recipient of the plants after the Fair.
The current gardens at the City Hall are a change from the famous gardens at the F.A. Hihn Home on-site previously, yet the spirit of place remains.”
City Hall Gardens | City of Santa Cruz
Take time to explore this lovely public garden, complete with an inner courtyard fountain, whenever you have time.

Pink hibiscus-like flowers adorn the Kapok Tree now.
A few months ago, basketball-sized fluffs of kapok fiber adorned the same tree as the seed pods opened.
WRITE ONE LETTER. MAKE ONE CALL. TAKE A WALK AROUND THE CITY HALL PARK OR YOUR FAVORITE GARDEN TO CALM YOUR SOUL IN THESE TROUBLED TIMES.
JUST DO SOMETHING THIS WEEK AND MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE.
Happy Thanksgiving,
Becky
Becky Steinbruner is a 30+ year resident of Aptos. She has fought for water, fire, emergency preparedness, and for road repair. She ran for Second District County Supervisor in 2016 on a shoestring and got nearly 20% of the votes. She ran again in 2020 on a slightly bigger shoestring and got 1/3 of the votes.
Email Becky at KI6TKB@yahoo.com |

November 18
SURROUNDING SOUNDS
As the Great Marvel occurs, the sounds so change also. The Great Marvel is the onset of winter rains. As citizens of a Mediterranean climate, this should be as monumental as it is for the other living beings around us. Simultaneously, the sounds of winter set in. Are you listening?
Humans are very visual, but we have other senses that would be good to emphasize. Let’s call this next week “Sound Awareness Week.” This will have particular meaning for those who can’t hear at all or hear well: for those of you, perhaps your gift this next week is to help more people describe what they are hearing, a two-for-one kind of experience. For those of you who are already acutely aware of sound…there is always more to explore!
Background, Seasonless Sounds: Rural and Urban
Everywhere you go, there are always a few noises no matter what season. Airplanes: more so on weekends with recreational aircraft. Roaring motorcycles: replete with accentuating noise apparatus, illegal, but unenforced! Barking domestic dogs, a seemingly Universal human mishap: some dog owners can’t seem to hear their own hounds (or don’t care)!
Seasonless Urban Noises
As many readers are situated in urban or near-urban areas, let’s first sift through the background sounds that a realtor once told me (mistakenly) that I would ‘get used to’ so that one day I ‘won’t even notice.’ Traffic: the hum or revving of engines, the squealing of tires. Car stereos played so loudly as to accelerate deafness. Sirens. Fighting domestic cats. Crows, hundreds of crows cawing. Pigeons cooing. The mechanical noises of Boardwalk rides and the accompanying screaming.
Uniquely Rural Noises, All Year Round
A few birds and coyotes sing the same all year round. Dark eyed junco, spotted towhee, Stellars and California scrub jay, and great horned owl…all birds that seem to go on and on with similar calls all year round. Many other birds clearly vary their songs more seasonally. Coyotes yap and chortle-howl most any time during the year.
Winter Noises
Think about those prior non-seasonal noises, review them and visit them in your mental soundscape…then think about what you are hearing these days that’s different than say a month ago.
The three big noises that mean winter most to me: rainfall, wind, and waves.
Rain
The many sounds of rain make me smile whenever I stop long enough to enjoy them. The sound of urban rain – on pavement, bouncing off cars, pouring off of roofs, rushing down storm drains. In the City, it’s like you are part of a giant cement fountain where all of the water is guided this way and that, popping out here and there by design.
In the country, you can enjoy the very varied sound of rain hitting different plant communities. Grassland rain is very quiet as millions of grass blades expertly catch and lower raindrops, springing back for the next one, dancing on and on, up and down. Conifer forest rain is quiet at first, too: needles delicately capture the oncoming rains. After a bit, the sound changes as the needles let loose big droplets that clamor as they pass down through the canopy and onto the ground. Waxy leaved plant communities, oak and madrone forests and chaparral have particularly rattly-noisy rain sounds. Raindrops pop when they hit those leaves, spattering and spraying with more noise still. Rain on the ocean, in lagoons and estuaries, and on ponds has the most soothing sound, where you can really get a sense of the minute changes in rainfall intensity and duration.
Wind
City and country wind sounds are different, too; either way, the wind noise is significantly heightened with the onset of winter storms. Tuning into wind noises in either place, you can visualize zephyrs and gust fronts as they pass by, come towards you, or after they retreat.
In the City, wind makes varied and unique high whistling noises as it passes through wires; there are wires everywhere in the City. If you live near a tree that catches the wind, you come to know its song. Palm trees rattle and bark. Conifers roar with different pitches. Bare branches of the many street trees also sing songs.
In the Country, the ridge top forests are often talking through the winter. Depending on the wind direction, each ridge and forest type has its own distant hum-roar-swoosh. If you are in the forest when it’s windy, you get to hear the groan and sometimes pop of trees swaying. Leafy evergreen live oaks make a noise in the wind that makes you wonder if it’s raining.
Waves
Big wave events are common around the Bay through the winter, and those waves make big noises. Besides bird song, listening for the waves is what most frequently brings me back to the moment. When I catch the wave noise and pause, I try to pick out individual waves even from far away. I try to follow that wave as its crashing progresses directionally. Then, I listen for the crescendo or the lulls of the varying sets. I pay attention to my breath to compare the tempo. Sometimes, I think I can feel the waves through the ground, perhaps the big noise reverberating into the ridges and terraces. After a particularly long lull, I pick up the spray off of the first big wave before the subsequent waves drown out that higher note. I’m thinking of late that long sets of big waves make tones like singing: listen for the notes, am I right?
Other Winter Noises
There are a few other winter noises that are unique to the city or countryside.
In the City, the sound of traffic changes as rolling tires are louder, making wet and splashing noises. The Boardwalk makes less noise.
In the Country, the ephemeral streams start their chorus. Post-storm waterfalls sing. Under the redwoods in the mountains, you can hear the flute-like call of the varied thrush, a winter denizen. In orchards and in riparian forests, you might hear the distinct whiney ‘weeent’ of the red-bellied sapsucker, another species only around in the rainy season.
Now Listen!
Its over to you…check it out…report back on the onset of uniquely winter sounds. Tell me, tell your family, tell your friends what all that noise about us is? Compare notes.
Grey Hayes is a fervent speaker for all things wild, and his occupations have included land stewardship with UC Natural Reserves, large-scale monitoring and strategic planning with The Nature Conservancy, professional education with the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, and teaching undergraduates at UC Santa Cruz. Visit his website at: www.greyhayes.net
Email Grey at coastalprairie@aol.com |

November 20

Zeke Hausfather is the climate research lead at the payments company Stripe. He is also a research scientist at Berkeley Earth, an independent organization that analyzes environmental data. On October 18, 2023, Hausfather wrote a “Guest Essay,” published by The New York Times. The essay was headlined, “I Study Climate Change. The Data Is Telling Us Something New.” The Times classified Hausfather’s essay as “Opinion.”
Mostly, Hausfather’s column presented “facts,” not “opinion.” Hausfather tells Times’ readers the following:
[The] world [is] warming more quickly than before. First, the rate of warming we’ve measured over the world’s land and oceans over the past 15 years has been 40 percent higher than the rate since the 1970s, with the past nine years being the nine warmest years on record. Second, there has been acceleration over the past few decades in the total heat content of Earth’s oceans, where over 90 percent of the energy trapped by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is accumulating. Third, satellite measurements of Earth’s energy imbalance — the difference between energy entering the atmosphere from the sun and the amount of heat leaving — show a strong increase in the amount of heat trapped over the past two decades.
Here’s the “Opinion” part of Hausfather’s column:
It’s now clear that we can control how warm the planet gets over the coming decades. Climate models have consistently found that once we get emissions down to net zero, the world will largely stop warming; there is no warming that is inevitable or in the pipeline after that point. Of course, the world will not cool back down for many centuries, unless world powers join in major efforts to remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than we add. But that is the brutal math of climate change and the reason we need to speed up efforts to reduce emissions significantly.
On that front, there is some reason for cautious hope. The world is on the brink of a clean energy transition. The International Energy Agency recently estimated that a whopping $1.8 trillion will be invested in clean energy technologies like renewables, electric cars and heat pumps in 2023, up from roughly $300 billion a decade ago. Prices of solar, wind and batteries have plummeted over the past 15 years, and for much of the world, solar power is now the cheapest form of electricity. If we reduce emissions quickly, we can switch from a world in which warming is accelerating to one in which its slowing. Eventually, we can stop it entirely.
Reducing emissions quickly: that’s where we can find “cautious hope.”
But that “hope” will be realized only if the “facts” conform themselves to the reality of what we need to do.
What we need to do, quite clearly, is to carry out a complete restructuring of our lives on the most urgent basis possible. Specifically:
Stop Burning Fossil Fuels!
That’s our only basis for “hope.”
And that’s a fact.
To Subscribe Just Click This Link
Gary Patton is a former Santa Cruz County Supervisor (20 years) and an attorney for individuals and community groups on land use and environmental issues. The opinions expressed are Mr. Patton’s. You can read and subscribe to his daily blog at www.gapatton.net
Email Gary at gapatton@mac.com |

LIGHTING THE FIRES OF INTEGRITY AND LOYALTY
Former Trump White House Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, now governor of Arkansas can’t seem to keep her hands out of the kitty belonging to the taxpayers of the state of Arkansas. Several week ago it was revealed that she had spent $20K of state money on a wooden podium that has yet to show up, but the coverup was…and is…on. As the scandal grew the Arkansas GOP came to her rescue with money to cover the expense, whereupon she immediately got a law passed that blocks the public from commenting on the money she spends. However, this only spurred a Republican to demand a Legislative audit of Podiumgate and every other purchase made during her time in office. Sari-o is now being accused of using the $20K to fly a friend to Paris for a purloined vacation, along with governor H-S of course. The friend, coincidentally, is one of the organizers of the Trump-inspired J6 insurrection in DC. If one can’t get the needed funds with a Deutsche Bank loan, the Arkansas cash box serves just as well.
Not feeling the heat from this June escapade, Governor Sarah on September 1 held a bash at the governor’s mansion for the University of Arkansas Razorbacks football team on the eve of their season’s first game. The tally for this, funded by the Governor’s Mansion Commission, a publicly funded state department, came to at least $13,081.36 if we’re counting pennies. About $4,500 went for food, including the soft pretzels, but no alcohol was purchased if we believe the receipts provided…though it may have been served to head coach, Sam Pittman, three full-costumed mascots, team cheerleaders, or the dance team…heaven forfend that any football team members imbibed. The additional help hired for the occasion may have sneaked a nip or two, to offset what is probably minimum wage pay of $760 in toto. Sounds as if the DJ did okay with a $600 fee, as did Brooksie Balloons who charged $500. As we might suspect, Amazon.com got over $1400 for gingham-checked tablecloths, and likely over $800 for bamboo plates and various sizes of pompoms. The florist charged almost $800 for flowers, candles and tablescapes, with a photo booth rental earning over $700…oh, and $435 for a lighted sign spelling out ‘GO HOGS.’ What would it be for a football party not having giant footballs along with junior-size footballs sailing through the mansion…$335 worth, thanks to the taxpayers who couldn’t attend the invitation-only soirée. Ordained Southern Baptist Pastor Mike Huckabee sure knows how to raise a daughter, huh?
Sarah’s old White House boss continues to cast unpleasantries as he roams around the country spewing his vitriol. The sad thing is that we are becoming inured, desensitized, to his dehumanizing marginalization of segments of the population as he continues his campaign to unravel our democracy on his path to regaining power. His now infamous Veterans Day speech, claiming the 2020 election was stolen, saying, “We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections…They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American dream.” Nazis used the term ‘vermin’ to describe Jews, and we can only presume that Trump intends inclusion of brown-skin immigrants, and political opponents, especially those of a darker cast. MSNBC’s Jen Psaki said, “If elected to a second term, Trump would prosecute anyone he deems an enemy, unleash troops on protestors, and essentially unravel the rule of law as we know it. And this time, he plans to line his administration with people who actually will help him do it.” Trump was caught unawares by actually winning his first presidential election, stumbling through it in complete stupidity; but now that he has done the dress rehearsal, has won over the unsavory MAGAts who will do his bidding, get ready for Vice President Tucker Carlson and Attorney General Mike Johnson.
Stephen Miller, who served as senior advisor for policy in Trump’s White House, is still in the mix as he works on plans to install loyalist attorneys across the federal bureaucracy in a Trump II Administration. Miller worked as communications director for Jeff Sessions, before Sessions was dumped by Trump, with emphasis on anti-immigration policies. In Trump’s fold he helped to implement the family separation policy for migrants, and is now working for John McEntee, former Director of the White House Personnel Office, who is now running a right-wing dating site…picture that! It’s comforting to know that neither Miller nor McEntee are attorneys…the blind leading the blind, so we can only imagine what lies ahead with these two advising Trump. Joyce Vance points out a sentence in Vanity Fair story which she calls “chilling” that warns, “imagine a future in which Bill Barr seems moderate.” The goal is to replace lawyers across the executive branch with Trump loyalists…the supreme qualification. Competence, good judgement, or a commitment to the Constitution be damned. The power to prosecute will be a political tool to be used at Trump’s discretion! Trump, in his book, The Art of the Deal, draws a distinction between integrity and loyalty, saying he prefers the latter. He compared attorney Roy Cohn to “all the hundreds of ‘respectable’ guys who make careers out of boasting about their uncompromising integrity but have absolutely no loyalty.” Cohn was Trump’s ‘other guy.’
A recently released audio of a Trump interview with ABC’s Jonathan Karl, recorded a couple of months after the J6 Insurrection, finds the former prez saying he would have accompanied the MAGA rioters to the Capitol building if not for the Secret Service fearing for his safety. “I was thinking about going back during the problem to stop the problem, doing it myself. Secret Service didn’t like that idea too much. And I could have done that. And you know what? I would have been very well received. Don’t forget, the people that went to Washington that day, in my opinion, they went because they thought the election was rigged. That’s why they went,” he said. The claim that he could have been the peacemaker contradicts the testimonies given by over a thousand witnesses during the J6 Committee hearings, prominently, that of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson. Hutchinson testified that Trump angrily tried to overpower the driver of the presidential limo to force his entourage to join the protesters who were headed to the Capitol building, and that he acknowledged that some carried weapons, saying, “They’re not here to hurt me.” They were only there to “hang Mike Pence.” The committee’s 814-page report concludes that Trump “lit that fire” in fueling the raid on the Capitol.
A Colorado judge ruled last week that Donald Trump, as president, “engaged in an insurrection” on January 6, 2021, but ruled against an attempt to remove him from that state’s 2024 primary ballot, saying that the 14th Amendment’s “insurrectionist ban” doesn’t apply to presidents. Judge Sarah Wallace found Trump’s conduct “actively primed the anger of his extremist supporters” and “acted with the specific intent to incite political violence and direct it at the Capitol.” So, even with these conclusions she hesitated because the Constitution fails to detail enforcement of the ban on running for office and was persuaded that the mention of “officers of the United States” did not include the office of President. This case and those similar cases in Minnesota and Michigan are likely to end up with the US Supreme Court making the final ruling on enforcement of the 14th Amendment since we are in such unfamiliar territory with Trump.
The late writer and author, David Foster Wallace, was often asked existential questions and explored what it means to relate to others. Of note is a well-distributed commencement address he gave to graduates of Kenyon College in 2005, entitled ‘This is Water,’ wherein he tells of a parable of a young fish who doesn’t know what water is, just as many of us go about our lives on autopilot, not fully aware of our environment or our actions. “If your total freedom of choice regarding what to think about seems too obvious to waste time discussing, I’d ask you to think about fish and water, and to bracket for just a few minutes your skepticism about the value of the totally obvious,” he concludes. Perfect words for considering our ballot choices heading into an election year!
And speaking of one who is eternally unaware, Marjorie Taylor Greene says, “You know nothing is built in America these days! I just bought a TV with a label that says ‘Built in Antenna.’ I don’t even know where that is!”
Dale Matlock, a Santa Cruz County resident since 1968, is the former owner of The Print Gallery, a screenprinting establishment. He is an adherent of The George Vermosky school of journalism, and a follower of too many news shows, newspapers, and political publications, and a some-time resident of Moloka’i, Hawaii, U.S.A., serving on the Board of Directors of Kepuhi Beach Resort. Email: cornerspot14@yahoo.com. |


EAGAN’S SUBCONSCIOUS COMICS. View classic inner-view ideas and thoughts with Subconscious Comics a few flips down.
EAGAN’S DEEP COVER. See Eagan’s “Deep Cover” down a few pages. As always, at TimEagan.com you will find his most recent Deep Cover, the latest installment from the archives of Subconscious Comics, and the ever entertaining Eaganblog.
“Saint Swithin’s Day” (weather)
“St Swithun’s day if thou dost rain
For forty days it will remain
St Swithun’s day if thou be fair
For forty days ’twill rain nae mare”.
~Bishop Ethelwold
“Don’t knock the weather; nine-tenths of the people couldn’t start a conversation if it didn’t change once in a while”.
~Kin Hubbard
“Suddenly all the sky is hid As with the shutting of a lid, One by one great drops are falling Doubtful and slow, Down the pane they are crookedly crawling, And the wind breathes low; Slowly the circles widen on the river, Widen and mingle, one and all; Here and there the slenderer flowers shiver, Struck by an icy rain-drop’s fall”
~James Russell Lowell

Bailey Sarian is one of my favorite Youtubers. She does the Murder, Mystery and Makeup true crime videos, and she has a podcast called Dark History. This is an episode of that podcast. |
Snail Mail: Bratton Online
82 Blackburn Street, Suite 216
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
Direct email: Bratton@Cruzio.com
Direct phone: 831 423-2468
Cell phone: 831 212-3273
All Technical & Web details: Gunilla Leavitt @ godmoma@gmail.com

November 15 – 21, 2023
Bratton…district vs. at large voting districts, Munching with Mozart concert. Greensite…why the city needs to drop the ill-conceived plan for a lowered walkway on the weather side of the Wharf. Steinbruner…Soquel Water rates hiked, Aptos WW1 monument. Hayes…good roach stewards: shifting baselines. Patton…why we’re so mean. Matlock…banking on a fast car to be someone-maybe we make a deal. Eagan…Subconscious Comics and Deep Cover. Webmistress…literacy test… Quotes…”Thanksgiving”

|
DATELINE November 13
ELECTION TIME JUST AHEAD!!! It seems like election time is always just around the corner and we’re getting so much election campaigning even now it makes many of us shiver. Having replaced at large voting with district voting is causing enormous changes in our representation. It’s going to change even more as a short time flies by. Will our elected reps really represent us with such a diminished neighborhood to draw from? Will we see and hear what our neighbors that are just out of political reach district wise really are caring and concerned about? Watch closely and count wisely. Check online (I just did) and see what affects that district voting vs. at large voting has caused.
TECHNICAL ISSUES AND THEN SOME. Many, many BrattonOnline readers noted last week that I wrote about The Santa Cruz Sentinel not giving attention/tribute to Glen Schaller’s passing. But there it was, a nice spread on Glen in The Sentinel!!! Please note that BrattonOnline is, was, and hopefully always will be, completely assembled every Monday (all day long). I then post the assembled date as the DATELINE in the upper right hand corner of the opening page. Then I send it to Gunilla Leavitt (“Webwoman”) Monday nights and she does whatever she does to it from Monday night to usually around Fridays or Saturdays to put it online. That gap in days is what causes those occasional goofs.
MUNCHING WITH MOZART. On the third Friday of every month at noon there’s a free concert upstairs in the main Santa Cruz Library. Carol Panofsky the lead and organizer told me that this Friday (Nov.17) they’ll be playing some Mozart and some Bach. There’ll be twin pianos. I had some inquiries from readers and no, there’s no lunch noises or even munching sounds just a very appreciative audience and fine music.
I search and critique a variety of movies only from those that are newly released. Choosing from the thousands of classics and older releases would take way too long. And be sure to tune in to those very newest movie reviews live on KZSC 88.1 fm every Friday from about 8:10 – 8:30 am. on the Bushwhackers Breakfast Club program hosted by Dangerous Dan Orange.
WINGWOMEN. (NETFLIX MOVIE) (5.7 IMDB) This French movie flips and mostly flops between telling us about the relationship between two women art thieves and their plots and plans to steal a painting. It sidetracks into pregnancies, gay sex, snipers and gorgeous scenes of Paris. The ending is infuriating…forget it.
THE BURIAL. (PRIME MOVIE) (7.5 IMDB). Jamie Foxx is over the top as an attorney and Black preacher. This covers the huge and almost secret funeral business in the USA and the financial dealings that control it. There’s much courtroom stuff, juries, attorneys, plus Tommy Lee Jones. Some laughs but it will make you think about your own arrangements!!.
FOR ALL MANKIND. (APPLE MOVIE) (8.1 IMDB). A clever, well thought out pseudo-documentary about our landing on the moon AFTER Russia beat us to it in 1969. SIDE NOTE: our 95 year old Santa Cruzan Tom Lehrer is in it and sings “Werner von Braun”. It’s a clever movie and will keep you attached.
THE KILLER. (NETFLIX MOVIE) (7.4 IMDB). Michael Fassbender does a fine job as a paid assassin. We get to watch him plot, plan and carry out numerous killings…strictly for hire. One killing goes wrong and he becomes a target himself. Tilda Swinton has a small but meaningful role. It’s not easy to like, but I did.
ESCAPING TWIN FLAMES. (NETFLIX SERIES) (7.5 IMDB). I thought this would be a slam against awareness groups like EST but it’s about cults, sex and sex traffic and finding and keeping your current sex target. Twin Flames exists and has a membership of 67,000 members.
HURRICANE SEASON. (NETFLIX MOVIE) (5.6 IMDB). It starts with a girl’s corpse being found in a river by a bunch of teen age boys. The movie is from Mexico and switches scenes from witches to straight and gay sex. There’s too many plot holes and dream sequences to describe here…Think twice before renting it.
THE BILLIONAIRE, THE BUTLER AND THE BOYFRIEND. (NETFLIX SERIES) (5.1 IMDB). This is an excellent French documentary covering Liliane Bettencourt the wealthiest woman in the world. She was the owner/heiress of L’Oréal cosmetics and you’ll see the conflicts she has with her daughter all through their lives together and her semi-secret long time affair/relationship with a celebrity photographer. Many of the actual friends and enemies in her life are very much part of this documentary.
SPECIAL NOTE….Don’t forget that when you’re not too sure of a plot or need any info on a movie to go to Wikipedia. It lays out the straight/non hype story plus all the details you’ll need including which server (Netflix, Hulu, or PBS) you can find it on. You can also go to Brattononline.com and punch in the movie title and read my take on the much more than 100 movies.
NYAD. (NETFLIX MOVIE) (7.1 IMDB). A must watch movie. No critique here, I loved it and became a total supporter of Diana Nyad (played by Annette Bening) the 64 year old who made four attempts at swimming from Cuba to Florida (110 miles!) She co-stars with Jodie Foster in this near documentary. The swim took her four tries over the decades before she succeeded and you’ll hang on to each attempt. Don’t miss this one. Try to get a copy of the New Yorker online from their piece in 2012 on Nyad herself.
FINGERNAILS. (APPLE TV MOVIE) (6.2 IMDB). This bizarre and foolish movie is based on some research saying that if you rip off a fingernail from a couple who wonder about their love being true and strong and fry the nails on a machine, a percentage flashes up showing if the couple is good to go. It takes place in a large group of offices called The Love Training Institute.
ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE. (NETFLIX SERIES) (7.9 IMDB). Mark Ruffalo is back onscreen this time with a French accent. It takes place in 1944 with Nazi Germany occupying a small French town full of resisters and a blind girl using a hidden radio to broadcast pro-France encouragements. The relationship between the girl and a German soldier holds our interest…to a point. Go warned.
THE AFTER. (NETFLIX SHORT) (6.4 IMDB). This short film seems to be a new idea on the movie internet…it’s only 18 minutes long. David Oyelow shows us the inside reactions to a tragic accident and how it affects his life. It’s touching, disturbing, and very deep into tragedy. It’s almost a silent film and we go so heartfelt into dealing with life’s surprises.
SISTER DEATH. (NETFLIX MOVIE) (5.8 IMDB). Almost entirely filmed and centered in a nunnery this movie from Spain covers it all. Ghosts, visions, dreams, memories, nightmares and even a rape by the nunnery gardener. It’s set during the Spanish Civil war and keeps us all guessing and hoping that the new nun comes to her senses. Watch it.
COLD PURSUIT. (NETFLIX MOVIE) (6.2 IMDB). 71 year old Liam Neeson drives a snow plow for a living and some drug dealers kill his son by planting drugs on him. It’s just one more Hollywood take and lacks any and all believability. Laura Dern is back onscreen too, and plays her usual mugging self. Not recommended.
KAALA PAANI. (NETFLIX SERIES) (8.1 IMDB). This movie from India takes us right through the covid epidemic and what it did and does to the citizens who live on two islands. Many authorities look for a cure as death hits on several islanders. What’s unusual is that it takes place not now but in December 2027. Go for it.

November 13
WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD

The photo above, taken by a friend who worked at Gilda’s restaurant, clearly shows that the city’s proposal to construct a lowered walkway, eight feet below deck level, extending for over eight hundred feet below the restaurants, is not well-thought out. The wave in the photo flowed easily beneath the Wharf without incident, as have hundreds of thousands of other waves since 1914, by design.
There is a reason the Wharf pilings are at this height. Master Engineer Brunnier‘s year-long study of the wave and wind conditions prior to designing and constructing the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf in 1914 has gifted us with a historic Wharf that has withstood the test of time. Whether it can withstand the test of a city bureaucracy intent on morphing it into a Pier 39 is another question.
Sometimes a design on paper, in this case, the Wharf Master Plan, designed by the SF design firm ROMA needs to be changed when real world conditions are better understood and considered. For example, the Wharf Master Plan includes an entrance gate, 500 feet into the Wharf, topped by a sign announcing you are on the Wharf. However, when the tall crane was recently needed to replace pilings under the demolished Miramar, it was noted that such an entrance gate would not allow a crane to enter the Wharf. So that entrance gate plan will be scrapped, fortunately before not after its construction.
Similarly, the so-called Westside Walkway on paper does not stand up to real world conditions. The pilings for the walkway will be at least eight feet lower than the current pilings. I can imagine Mr. Brunnier’s angst at such ignorant departure from his design. Rather than flowing under the current pilings, a wave such as in the photo will crash into the walkway. I’ll leave it to your imagination to ponder the impact, on the walkway, on the restaurant windows and on anyone who happens to be on the walkway, including people in wheelchairs.
The planners claim they will close the walkway in stormy weather or when conditions require such closure. That reveals an unfortunate ignorance of wave conditions. A friend and I on a calm sunny summer’s day decided to Stand Up Paddle from Natural Bridges to Cowell Beach. The ocean was calm with no waves. As we approached Seal Rock, we heard a whooping and a hollering from people on the cliffs at Steamer Lane. To our surprise and fear, we saw huge breaking waves approaching Cowell’s, stretching the full width from Steamer Lane to the Wharf. There were three of them; rogue waves and by sheer luck they dissipated by the time we ventured beyond Seal Rock. There is no way such waves could have been anticipated. Anyone on a lowered walkway on the west side would likely have been injured. It seems the city has not considered such liability.
When first proposed, the lowered west walkway was touted as a fun recreation aspect of the Wharf Master Plan: the impact on migratory nesting birds’ access to nests under the Wharf was ignored. As people pushed back, the story changed, and the walkway became “needed” for the lateral stability of the Wharf. However, during the 2020 hearings for the Wharf Master Plan and its EIR, at the Planning Commission meeting, a commissioner asked the project manager about this apparent need. The manager deferred the question to the then Wharf Supervisor who said, “it’s not there particularly to protect the wharf, it’s just often to bring a walkway down closer to the water, but generally we like to look for the twofers and threefers when it comes to do a structure, and this accomplishes several things.”
The Court determined that the city failed to provide compelling evidence that the westside walkway was the only choice for Wharf structural stability and cited alternatives from the Engineering Report. Now the planners say the lowered walkway pilings are needed to take the brunt of debris damage and protect the pilings under the restaurants. Fair enough, but there are alternatives for that protection too and they don’t involve low pilings and vulnerable public walkways.
Removing the westside walkway means the adoption of EIR Alternative 2 which is the environmentally superior alternative, meeting all project objectives. The Historic Preservation Commission last month voted to recommend to council the removal of the westside walkway “as degrading the visual character of the Wharf…and incompatible with its historic design.” One suspects that Master Engineer Brunnier would agree and would add a bit about why he chose 4,450 pilings at their current height. Councilmembers and commissioners who have asked the Wharf crew their thoughts on a lowered westside walkway on the weather side of the Wharf have received a loud and clear message that it should be scrapped.
Besides dropping the unpopular plan for three forty- foot-tall buildings on the Wharf, there are compelling reasons to drop the ill-conceived westside walkway from the Wharf Master Plan. If you agree, you need to let city council know prior to its November 28th meeting when final decisions will be made determining our Municipal’ Wharf’s future.
Gillian Greensite is a long time local activist, a member of Save Our Big Trees and the Santa Cruz chapter of IDA, International Dark Sky Association http://darksky.org Plus she’s an avid ocean swimmer, hiker and lover of all things wild. |

November 13
SPEAK UP NOW ABOUT YET ANOTHER ROUND OF STEEP SOQUEL CREEK WATER DISTRICT RATE HIKES
If you or someone you know have to buy water from Soquel Creek Water District, please take action now to let the Board know you want to see what the District is doing to cut out-of-control spending habits and expensive consultants doing work that should be done in-house.
This Sunday, November 19, ratepayers will gather at 1pm at the Capitola Library Ow Community Meeting Room to organize resistance to the impending 10%-12.5% compounded annual rate increase for the next four years that the District Board has indicated it will approve at their Special Meeting the next evening, Monday, November 20. That’s when the Board will hear the Raftelis Consultant explain the justification for yet another series of steep rate increases but likely will not examine what costs the District could reduce in order to be more fiscally-accountable to the rate payers.
Ratepayers are footing the $161,410 bill for this Raftelis Consultant study.
It might be helpful to look back on what the last five years in 9% annual rate increases did. Here is the Prop 218 mailer people received, showing the increases and tier adjustments
Some District customers have wondered how much the Raftelis Consultant is charging for the Rate Study and 10-year Financial Plan. The Board approved the Raftelis contract on May 2, 2023, with a price tag of $161,410, then Staff recommended Raftelis, even though a second consultant, Bartle Wells, submitted a lower bid of $95,150 and has worked well with the District before.
CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION AT APTOS WWI MONUMENT
On Veteran’s Day, local leaders of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Scouts, and Cabrillo Host Lions Club were joined by Second District County Supervisor Zach Friend and Second District Historic Resources Commissioner Kevin Newhouse to commemorate the installation of the WWI Monument 100 years ago.
The Monument was originally located further west on what is now Soquel Drive, but was known as the main Santa Cruz -Watsonville Road at the time, to recognize the 60 Santa Cruz County residents who perished in The War. When the modern Highway One was built in the 1950’s, the Monument was partially buried and destined to be covered in brush and forgotten.
However, in 2002, a young Scott Evans decided that should not be allowed to happen, and made it his Eagle Scout project to work with local residents and businesses, which included Granite Construction Co., to move the Monument to its present-day location to be more visible and ensure that the significance of the Christmas, 1923 Daughters of the American Revolution action was not forgotten.
Scott received many awards for his initiative and citizenship before going off to college. Another young fellow by the name of Matt Marani noticed in about 2010 that the Monument was pretty overgrown, and took it upon himself to work with his family and friends to clean the area and keep the Monument visible.
Matt went off to college in 2016, and this time, it was the Cabrillo Host Lions Club leadership that noticed the Monument was getting overgrown. Since 2018, the Club members have maintained the site, thanks to Lion Aumao Toalepaialii instituting the last Saturday morning of every month a workday at the site.
Many hands make important work possible and preserves the original purpose of the Monument and all those who perished in the “War to End All Wars”.

DAR Chapter President Ann Lauten Fay, DAR Past President Priscilla Partridge and Past District Governor Cabrillo Host Lion Barbara Chamberlain discuss the transition of care for the Monument over the 100 years it has existed.

Rob Marani (an Eagle Scout) and Lion Charlie Ukestad (former member of Scout Troop 599) raise the flag and new flag pole donated by Matt Marani.

Second District Historic Resources Commissioner Kevin Newhouse discussed the historic significance of the location, and the former Santa Cruz – Watsonville Road at Rob Roy Junction.

Second District County Supervisor Zach Friend welcomed those who were gathered, and remarked upon the significance of the DAR to install the Monument 100 years ago, honoring those who perished in The War. (Behind him on the Monument is a WWI militiaman’s service cap, brought for the occasion by Lion Tui Aiono.)
It was a somber closing with “Taps”.
Thank a Veteran and light a candle for peace in the world.
MAKE ONE CALL. WRITE ONE LETTER. ATTEND A WEBINAR OR PUBLIC MEETING AND ASK QUESTIONS.
TAKE A WALK IN NATURE AND CALM YOUR SOUL.
MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE BY JUST DOING SOMETHING.
Cheers, Becky
Becky Steinbruner is a 30+ year resident of Aptos. She has fought for water, fire, emergency preparedness, and for road repair. She ran for Second District County Supervisor in 2016 on a shoestring and got nearly 20% of the votes. She ran again in 2020 on a slightly bigger shoestring and got 1/3 of the votes.
Email Becky at KI6TKB@yahoo.com |

November 13
GOOD ROACH STEWARDS: SHIFTING BASELINES

Good Roach Stewards: Shifting Baselines
“Shifting baselines” is a term used to illustrate how humans acculturate to reduced wildlife, thinking that what they experience is normal and good. “Good enough” is perhaps a better term. Too many people measure success by saying ‘good enough!’ With species diversity in general and wildlife population health specifically, ‘good enough’ for some people is probably not what most people deserve and ‘shifting baselines’ is the problem at hand for large areas of Santa Cruz County.
Current Baseline: Shift Happened
Fifteen thousand years ago, a combination of poor human stewardship and climate change created a mass extinction event in California. Dire wolf, mastodon, mammoth, lion and other big cats, camel and horse relatives, the California turkey, a flightless duck in the lagoon at Laguna Creek, ground sloth, short-faced bear, and a host of other critters disappeared in a very short period of time. We don’t miss those species – they aren’t part of our cultural memory. But, we do seem to reminisce about beaver, gray wolf, tule elk, the California grizzly, badger and pronghorn…species that disappeared from the Central Coast more recently. Well, I’m not sure how many people really think about those species and ‘miss’ them. I do. The miracle recovery of some whale species seems to excite people, but those same people generally don’t consider the vastly reduced numbers of those species. In sum, our current wildlife situation is what is known as ‘depauperate’ – much reduced from historical numbers. And yet, most people think that what occurs today is ‘normal’ and they don’t much think about the opportunities to recover wildlife to more healthy populations on at least public lands in the Central Coast. Our experience of our “biological baseline” is greatly different than humans 15,000 years ago.
What will future generations of humans come to think of as normal? Will they one day realize that California is down to three species of wildlife, all cockroaches, and form some sort of cultural pride to recover the last remaining wild species? This is the trajectory we are moving towards because no one seems to care about the situation with the Central Coast’s wildlife, right now. If they did, local parks managers would hear about it and politicians would hold them accountable.
Parks Manager Responsibility
Whether we are thinking about State Parks or land managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the officials in charge of more than 20% of Santa Cruz County have a responsibility to monitor the impact of their management choices and to maintain wildlife populations for future generations. Specifically, all State Parks are required to have a General Plan and, in those plans, to outline how they will manage responsibly to maintain healthy wildlife populations. Similarly, the BLM is required to manage Cotoni Coast Dairies first and foremost for conservation, which requires wildlife surveys be conducted that can inform the agency’s management of livestock, ecosystems, and recreation.
Cotoni Coast Dairies: A Singularly Special Opportunity
What makes BLM’s management of Cotoni Coast Dairies a grandly special opportunity is that the property has not yet been opened to the public, so BLM can collect wildlife data before recreational activities begin to impact species. The wildlife of all other parks has already been negatively impacted by recreational use and so we can’t as easily understand how to improve the management of recreation in those places. Perhaps trail use on the trails BLM has already built will have no impact on wildlife – that would be extremely unusual! Chances are good that recreational use will negatively affect wildlife even hundreds of feet away from the trails. We won’t know how significant those effects will be unless data are collected before recreational use of the trails. And, we won’t learn which species are impacted by what numbers, timing and types of recreational use: those things would be very relevant to BLM and other regional parks managers in order to accomplish their mandates.
On the Other Hand: ‘Good Enough!’
Here’s some of the things I’ve heard about biological baselines to inform land management in Santa Cruz County. Mostly, land managers say that they have enough information to make good decisions. This is important for them to say because they are required to use the best available science. If they say that they don’t have sufficient science, they are admitting fault and might be held liable, so they can’t say anything but that they have enough science already.
When pressed, they say something akin to “Just look! Habitat!” You dare not suggest species are a better measure of management success because they have a world of arguments against that approach. Their argument goes…if you have a grassland, you have done all you can to protect grassland species…a redwood forest! Violà! Redwood forest species all taken care of! If the species aren’t there, they say something like “well, that’s beyond our control” or “they’ll show up some day.” In short…some vague habitat description and a map of the presence of said habitat is ‘good enough.’ The fact is that species are much more sensitive to management of those habitats than manager’s broad brush would suggest. The problem is…any more refined monitoring might be either expensive and/or could hold managers accountable.
Accountability
What if you had rare wildlife species on the land you managed, what would you do? Might you consult with the agency that is responsible for recovering those species? The California Department of Fish and Wildlife has good wildlife biologists, and they have survey protocols that are useful in documenting a species’ presence/abundance. Same with the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service.
Would you want to make the public aware of the conservation work you are performing, and how successful it has been? Would you be worried about negative publicity?
Do you think lands managers feel accountable about more than their conservation mandates? Do you think that they feel accountable to certain recreational user groups? How would you know which type of accountability they feel more concerned about?
Your Role
I hope that you have joined a pro-wildlife advocacy group. Working together, we can make sure that the wildlife our children’s children experience is more diverse, and more plentiful, than what we experience now. The alternative is bleak: children fascinated by the last species, raising cockroaches in cages and hoping that their offspring might live in the impoverished ecology resulting from a world of shifting baselines. I don’t think that is good enough.
Grey Hayes is a fervent speaker for all things wild, and his occupations have included land stewardship with UC Natural Reserves, large-scale monitoring and strategic planning with The Nature Conservancy, professional education with the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, and teaching undergraduates at UC Santa Cruz. Visit his website at: www.greyhayes.net
Email Grey at coastalprairie@aol.com |

November 13

David Brooks, who writes, most usually, for The New York Times, is a not a pundit who limits his pontifications to one venue alone. Recently, Brooks has written a long essay for The Atlantic, “HOW AMERICA GOT MEAN.”
You pretty much need to subscribe to The Atlantic to read its articles, I think, though non-subscribers are certainly invited to click the link that I have provided, and to test out how stringently The Atlantic is committed to maintaining a robust system of paywall protection. Presuming that The Atlantic is definitely feeling that a robust defense against non-subscriber intellectual interlopers is important, let me quickly summarize what Brooks has to say in “HOW AMERICA GOT MEAN.”
First, Brooks indicates that he is “obsessed” with the question of how Americans have become so “mean.” Brooks is also “obsessed,” he confesses, with another question, “how Americans became so sad.”
With respect to the “mean” thing, Brooks cites to various indicator statistics, including murder rates, the level of charitable giving within the overall population, and hate crimes. He is pretty clear, looking at the numbers, that there really is something happening on the “we’re getting mean” front. “We’re enmeshed in some sort of emotional, relational, and spiritual crisis,” Brooks says, “and it undergirds our political dysfunction and the general crisis of our democracy.”
Brooks offers a number of alternative theories as possible explanations:
The technology story: Social media is driving us all crazy.
The sociology story: We’ve stopped participating in community organizations and are more isolated.
The demography story: America, long a white-dominated nation, is becoming a much more diverse country, a change that has millions of white Americans in a panic.
The economy story: High levels of economic inequality and insecurity have left people afraid, alienated, and pessimistic.
While Brooks thinks all these “stories” are worth pondering, and have some relevance, Brooks doesn’t really believe that any one of them actually (or at least fully) explains what’s going on:
The most important story about why Americans have become sad and alienated and rude [Brooks says] is also the simplest: We inhabit a society in which people are no longer trained in how to treat others with kindness and consideration. Our society has become one in which people feel licensed to give their selfishness free rein. The story I’m going to tell is about morals. In a healthy society, a web of institutions—families, schools, religious groups, community organizations, and workplaces—helps form people into kind and responsible citizens, the sort of people who show up for one another. We live in a society that’s terrible at moral formation (emphasis added).
What we need, in sum, is better “moral training.” That’s what Brooks is telling us.
As anyone who has read my daily blog postings with any regularity knows, I am not really convinced that spending a lot of time acting as an “observer” of life is the best way to utilize one’s time. I am more interested in what to do. “Acting,” in other words, not “observing,” is what I think should be our major focus.
In order to be effective as “actors,” of course, we do need to have a sense of where we are, and what’s going on. Paying attention to sociology, technology, economics, and our political situation is clearly important. As a public intellectual and pundit, Brooks provides us with important assistance as he puzzles through important questions, including the question of why Americans have become so “mean.”
Personally, though, I tend to think that there is a problem when we start “seeing” the world as if the discrete encounters and experiences we have are best understood by deploying a “theory” that might appropriately explain them. To use Brooks’ article as an example of what I am talking about, if we are operating on the basis that Americans have become “mean,” we can start interpreting most of our encounters with others in the framework of “mean” / “not mean,” which I think can have the effect of radically diminishing our willingness simply to meet others where they are, and deal with them there.
While my experience is admittedly based on a very small sample, my own encounter with a bonafide “troll,” previously reported here, seems to illustrate the disadvantage of going out into our world with a preformed idea that we are likely going to encounter lots of “mean” people. I have, very recently, had an online encounter with someone who wrote me, “out of the blue,” from my perspective, to call me “ridiculous,” and to tell me that he “heckled” me during a speech I apparently gave in San Lorenzo Park, in Santa Cruz. I don’t remember any such incident, which must have occurred many years ago, but I replied to the person who emailed me, and our correspondence ended up with him thanking me for my years of public service.
Let’s try to avoid the “mean” / “not mean” construct as we encounter the other persons with whom we share the world. I continue to think that “talking to strangers” is an activity to be encouraged. Small groups, working on issues of mutual importance – “doing politics,” I am tempted to call it – are also likely to be productive, and to end up connecting us, as individuals, with other persons who turn out to be the opposite of “mean.”
Smiling at everyone helps, too.
If you have never thought about that “smile” idea, try it. I bet you’ll like it!
To Subscribe Just Click This Link
Gary Patton is a former Santa Cruz County Supervisor (20 years) and an attorney for individuals and community groups on land use and environmental issues. The opinions expressed are Mr. Patton’s. You can read and subscribe to his daily blog at www.gapatton.net
Email Gary at gapatton@mac.com |

November 13
BANKING ON A FAST CAR TO BE SOMEONE – MAYBE WE MAKE A DEAL
Surprise, surprise…Judge Aileen Cannon has decided that for the present, our former president’s trial for charges of mishandling classified documents, scheduled for March 2024, will not be changed for now. Trump’s whining to get the dates rescheduled for all his trials until after the 2024 election has been dead-ended in all cases. He and his attorneys have been saying they are simply too busy with the complexities of preparation, while being tied to the demands of a grifting campaign which they term “the presidential nomination campaign.” Gotta keep that ‘basket of deplorables’ fat and happy to insure that the money keeps rolling in to keep the attorneys fat and happy! Judge Cannon indicates she will revisit other deadlines as the time draws closer, but by March many of the issues in the case may have been decided and Trump may be attending that trial in his custom-fitted orange jumpsuit by Brioni.
Special Counsel Jack Smith responded sans gloves with the Trump team when they attempted to get the federal election subversion case trial dismissed as being “meritless.” Smith’s team wrote in their rebuttal, “The defendant stands alone in American history for his alleged crimes. No other president has engaged in conspiracy and obstruction to overturn valid election results and illegitimately retain power.” The Trump claim that there was no crime since the election wasn’t successfully stolen, which was countered by Smith’s team saying that robbers are still charged with a crime even if they are “captured en route to a bank robbery.” “A conspiracy can be committed even if the object of the conspiracy is unattainable,” they added. The Trump team now has ten days to respond before US District Judge Chutkan makes a ruling on their motion to dismiss. Keep an eye open for the getaway car!
In the New York court last week, Ivanka Trump, the Don’s “wonderful and beautiful daughter,” took the stand as a witness in daddy Trump’s $250M fraud trial for questioning about past deals as prosecutors attempt to prove the family organization knowingly lied to lenders. Following the leads of her brothers who testified the week before, she was “unable to recall” any details, saying, “I’m not an accountant,” in her calm and disciplined manner. Of course, she was undoubtedly fretting over her poor kids that she had to leave outside, begging for bread on the streets. She admitted that “there were many emails, many conversations” and she was treated to examination of copies of emails and other documents relating to a Deutsche Bank private wealth management division loan which had her fingerprints all over, so to speak. That loan, for purchase of the Doral Golf Club in Miami, was contingent upon the Trump organization maintaining a value in excess of $3B, which raised some concern with a Trump lawyer. Ivanka then renegotiated the contingency to get the net worth covenant reduced to $2.5B…not bad for a beautiful daughter who can’t afford a babysitter! Her comment via an email in 2011 was, “It doesn’t get any better than this. Let’s discuss ASAP.” The same year Daddy Donny would claim that he was worth $4.2B, though the prosecution alleges that he was not worth $2B at that time. Ivanka the Beautiful was originally listed as a co-defendant for the family case, but an appeals court tossed that designation, ruling that her involvement with the Trump Organization as a top executive had passed the statutes of limitations after she stepped down to serve in the Trump Administration following the election; therefore, she is only a witness.
Deutsche Bank, for its part, started severing ties with Trump after the embarrassment of the 2020 election due to the negative publicity. The threat to seize Trump’s assets as he spirals downward is real, as he would be unable to pay off the loans should they be called for payment in full. It is assumed Trump has only been paying interest on the loans, so the bank would declare him in default as they started the foreclosure on the properties he put up as collateral. Selling the loans on the secondary market is a non-starter, because no buyer would care to join the line of creditors who have been stiffed, especially if considering the added $1B debt that Trump is rumored to have. But then, misery loves company, and who would be more deserving than Deutsche, an enterprise noted for its money laundering schemes over the years, so criminality among criminals should get its just rewards…it’s every rat for himself.
A post on Quora reads, “My son is taking part in a social experiment. He has to wear a ‘Trump 2024’ t-shirt for two weeks to see how people react. So far, he’s been spit on, punched and had a bottle thrown at him! I’m curious to see what happens when he goes outside.”
Even though his kids were of no help to him after their court appearances, Spraytan Donny is hanging in there to salvage his ‘reputation’ as a legit businessman, placing a great burden on his legal team who now weave in and out of his fantasy world to earn their keep. As Aldous J. Pennyfarthing writes on Daily Kos, “If you ever find yourself in legal peril, you might want to consider hiring Alina Habba as your attorney. But only if you’re on trial for dropping a house on a witch, because if you hire her for committing crimes in the real world, you’ll likely be in for a rude awakening. Trump is facing loads of legal peril, and Habba’s job is to go on teevee to convince millions of people who are already sure he’s innocent that the Brobdingnagian heap of criminal and civil accusations against him were all meticulously curated by a sitting president who’s nothing but a listless amalgam of advanced dementia symptoms. If, during sentencing, she somehow manages to score him a hard-bristled toothbrush for his weekly prison urinal cleanings, that’ll be just gravy.” On a recent appearance with Newsmax’s Carl Higbie, Habba claimed Trump isn’t worried about going to jail because he “did nothing wrong” and the Secret Service will keep that from happening anyway. Pennyfarthing asks, “What does that mean? Who knows, really? The Rosetta Stone for translating MAGA-speak into the King’s English is likely more fermented psychedelic toad venom than any of our snowflake liberal bodies could possibly handle.” Aldous J. suggests it may translate into an OK Corral-style shootout between the Secret Service and the court bailiff working the fraud trial should Judge Engoron attempt to throw Trump into the cooler for violating the gag order. Or that possibly Trump has a stay-out-of-jail-free card because he has an armed Praetorian Guard paid for by the federal government, a snag they can surely work out if he is indeed sentenced.
Trump’s hand-picked Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, was still trying to prove his worth in bringing the two parties together as the deadline approached for the budget vote. Along with that countdown Mikey is drawing attention in many quarters as well…the most prominent eyebrow raiser being a year-old clip where he says he and his son use Covenant Eyes, which bills itself as a tool that “helps you live porn-free with confidence,” an app which weans people from porn by monitoring online activity of phones or computers. “Covenant Eyes is the software we’ve been using a long time in our household,” Johnson says in the clip, which was filmed at a ‘War on Technology’ event, hosted by Cypress Baptist Church in Louisiana in October 1922. Covenant Eyes’ site says, “Porn is a human problem, we provide a human solution. Covenant Eyes helps you and the ones you love live porn-free through transformative accountability relationships.” News doesn’t suggest that Johnson has a pornography addiction, only that the site sends a report to the ‘accountability partner’ who in this case is his son, Jack. Father and son receive a report on one another’s internet use once weekly, and if “anything objectionable comes up,” Mike or Jack will receive an immediate notification. Johnson said his son has “got a clean slate so far,”….no word from Jack on his father’s slate, nor from Johnson’s office after inquiries.
Speaker Johnson, noted for his socially conservative views, has made his Christian faith a cornerstone of his career, both politically and professionally. He once worked for Alliance Defending Freedom, a rightwing Christian legal organization which aims to overturn same-sex unions, enact a total ban on abortion, and strip away the standing minimal rights of the transsexual community. As far as raising questions about what Johnson does, or doesn’t do, on Covenant Eyes through his internet connections, it should raise security concerns since Google once determined the site violated its policies after a Wired investigation, though it has since been reinstated. Johnson’s office has been contacted for comment on donations to his 2018 campaign from Russian nationals through a Texas-based company, American Ethane, which donated thousands of dollars to Louisiana Republican candidates. American Ethane was run by American John Houghtaling, but 88 percent of the firm was owned by three Russian nationals. One of the men, Konstantin Nikolaev, an oligarch with close ties to Vladimir Putin, has financially backed Maria Butina, a Russian citizen who live in Washington, DC, and who served 18 months in prison after being convicted of being an unregistered foreign agent, after infiltrating conservative political groups and influencing foreign policy to benefit Russia before and after the 2016 election. Jason Hebert, former campaign manager for Johnson, claims the $37,000 was returned once they were “made aware of the situation,” being a violation of federal law to ‘knowingly accept donations from a foreign-owned corporation, a foreign national, or any company owned or controlled by foreign nationals,’ The Federal Elections Commission fined American Ethane $9500 for their transgression, resulting in a scathing condemnation by two FEC commissioners who said, “Though American Ethane did pay a civil penalty, it was a slap on the wrist that failed to account for a violation of one of the most fundamental provisions entrusted to this commission to enforce. One can only hope that in future cases, the commission will once again muster the political will to wall off our elections from the malign influence of foreign money.”
Steve Schmidt on his The Warning blog says, ” The new Speaker has no bank accounts of any kind, believes people and dinosaurs lived together 6,000 years ago, and is second in line to the American presidency; he is a fanatic, a true believer, the extremist in our midst, and is indeed the ‘Handmaid’s speaker.’ Mike Johnson of Louisiana shouldn’t be where he is. Now that he is, be warned.” Those who have looked into his personal financial disclosures found that he lists zero assets, and while he may be observing the rules on what he lists, it’s clear he doesn’t have much money…a red flag?
His wife, Kelly, has sponsored a seminar entitled ‘Answers for Our Times: Government, Culture, and Christianity,’ announcing herself as a Christian counselor and anti-abortion activist, claiming to be a “leader in the pro-family movement.” The two have followed the evangelical circuit giving their seminars, with Mike talking about how he thinks mandatory religious exams should be given to American political candidates. “I want to know what you think about the Christian heritage of this country. I want to know what you think about God’s design for this society. Have you even thought about that?” he queries. “We have too many people in government who haven’t even thought about this stuff.” Maybe he doesn’t know about Article VI Clause 3 of the US Constitution which says, “No religious Test shall be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” Or, maybe like most Republicans, he just doesn’t care? Robert Harrington on The Palmer Report calls Johnson “a deadly dangerous christofascist looney, and people like him are infiltrating the Republican Party…they are becoming the Republican Party.” Harrington writes as one who has experienced first-hand the evangelical movement, the followers of which believe that more evangelicals should be in public office who can run government according to their intolerant biblical strictures. He says, “They are scary. There is always something deeply wrong with them. Always. None of them are ever normal. It’s a symptom of how the moral void of the MAGA Republicanism is being filled up by evangelical lunatics. And they’re coming for your country today.”
Posted on the Quora website: After seeing a protestor’s sign which read, “GOD WILL JUDGE AMERICA OVER ABORTION AND GAY MARRIAGE.” I need to get this straight…God didn’t judge America over the millions of natives that were raped and murdered and had their land stolen. God didn’t judge America over the millions of Africans that were raped, murdered and enslaved for centuries. And God didn’t judge America over not taking care of the homeless, hungry, sick and dying poor. But now God will judge America over abortion and gay marriage? Rrrrright!”
“Hey, you idiots! You think if Donald Trump was my Chosen One, don’t you think I could have gotten him reelected?” – God
“Do you think that God gets stoned once in a while? Look at the platypus. I think so.” – Robin Williams
Dale Matlock, a Santa Cruz County resident since 1968, is the former owner of The Print Gallery, a screenprinting establishment. He is an adherent of The George Vermosky school of journalism, and a follower of too many news shows, newspapers, and political publications, and a some-time resident of Moloka’i, Hawaii, U.S.A., serving on the Board of Directors of Kepuhi Beach Resort. Email: cornerspot14@yahoo.com. |


EAGAN’S SUBCONSCIOUS COMICS. View classic inner-view ideas and thoughts with Subconscious Comics a few flips down.
EAGAN’S DEEP COVER. See Eagan’s “Deep Cover” down a few pages. As always, at TimEagan.com you will find his most recent Deep Cover, the latest installment from the archives of Subconscious Comics, and the ever entertaining Eaganblog.
“THANKSGIVING”
“I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
“If you think Independence Day is America’s defining holiday, think again. Thanksgiving deserves that title, hands down.”
~Tony Snow
“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.”
~John F. Kennedy.

This week’s video is someone taking an actual 1960 literacy test from Louisiana. Fascinating and horrifying… |
Snail Mail: Bratton Online
82 Blackburn Street, Suite 216
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
Direct email: Bratton@Cruzio.com
Direct phone: 831 423-2468
Cell phone: 831 212-3273
All Technical & Web details: Gunilla Leavitt @ godmoma@gmail.com
