Page 211 – Good Times

Murder Suspect Arrested After Standoff

Breaking News

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August 9, 2023

Watsonville Police on Tuesday arrested a murder suspect after an hours-long standoff in a strawberry field near Trafton and McGowan roads, just outside Pájaro.

Hector Rocha, 44, of Watsonville, has been charged with first-degree murder. He was booked into Santa Cruz County Jail, where he is being held without bail, jail records showed.

At about 8:45pm on Monday, officers responded to the 100 block of West Beach Street for reports of a shooting. They found a 42-year-old man suffering from gunshot wounds. He died at the scene despite lifesaving efforts.

Detectives identified Rocha as the suspect, and his green 1967 Chevrolet single-cab truck, with rust throughout the body and a white roof.

On Tuesday morning, a community member reported that they saw the truck in an agricultural field. Officers responded to the area before noon and found Rocha inside.

He refused to come out of the truck for more than four hours, and during that time, crisis negotiators remained in contact with the suspect and eventually convinced him to surrender.

Watsonville Police were assisted by Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office, Santa Cruz Police Department, Monterey County Sheriff’s Office, California Highway Patrol, Santa Cruz County Anti-Crime Team and Santa Cruz Auto Theft Reduction and Enforcement Task Force.

Schools Grappling With Declining Enrollment, Absenteeism

News

Todd Guild

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August 9, 2023

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Schools Grappling With Declining Enrollment, Absenteeism

As students across the state prepare to return to the classroom from their summer break, school districts are faced with a vexing problem: declining enrollment and chronic absenteeism—both of which have been growing every year—are combining to take a bite out of annual revenues, forcing school officials to adjust their programs and services and look for ways to keep students coming to class.

According to Santa Cruz County Superintendent of Schools, Faris Sabbah, school districts have seen a 2% drop in enrollment every year for the past three years. Last year, that number reached 2.24%.

This has amounted to a loss of roughly 2,000 students countywide, Sabbah says.

“From my point of view that’s a significant drop,” he says. “The impact of these reductions is in the millions of dollars of funding that does not come into our schools.”

When a student is absent, or when they leave a school, it takes a bite out of the per-pupil amount that school districts receive under the state’s average daily attendance (ADA) formula.

This number varies based on grade level and other factors, but in general, districts count on roughly $20,000 per student every year. But state officials reduce this amount they give districts when students are absent.

From 2020-2022, daily attendance in Pajaro Valley Unified School District dropped from 16,657 to 14,664. Santa Cruz City Schools saw their numbers drop from 1,649 to 1,548 during that time, while Scotts Valley School District went from 2,353 to 2,039, Sabbah says.

The declines are part of a national trend that education officials were seeing before the COVID-19 pandemic, and which grew worse after it had receded. The same trend can be seen nationwide, particularly in large urban centers in California, New York and Michigan, according to the California Department of Education.

Students are still reeling from the year of distance-learning mandated under the pandemic, with many facing stress and other mental health challenges. This is impacting the number of students who are coming to school, Sabbah says.

According to Sabbah, the number of students who miss 10% or more of their school days—known as chronically absent—rose from 11% in 2020 to 27% last year.

The best thing families can do, he says, is to send their struggling student to school, where they will have the resources to help them.

“We want to bring awareness to parents and families about this, and we want to put some positive incentives for students to improve their attendance,” he said. “We want to ensure families that if they are struggling with getting their kids to go to school or the students are struggling with mental health challenges, the schools are the places where they are going to get those additional services and resources and support.”

Pajaro Valley Unified School District Director of Student Services Ivan Alcaraz said that a total of 42.6% of students were considered chronically absent in the 2021/22 school year. That number decreased to 32% last year, he said.

Still, PVUSD officials are trying to solve the problem.

The district recently applied for a grant that would help officials address the reasons for the absences.

The more insidious and hard-to-solve problem for school districts throughout California is declining enrollment, which is driven almost entirely by the high cost of living.

“It’s statewide, it’s countywide,” says Santa Cruz City Schools (SCCS) spokesman Sam Rolens. “It’s hard to raise kids in California, and school districts are feeling that crunch.”

The problem has prompted district officials to convene Vision 2030, a task force whose members will talk about the potential funding losses and how to adjust resources accordingly over the next decade.

One of these methods, aimed at boosting teacher retention, is the creation of 80 units of employee housing on Swift Street, which are being funded by Measures K and L, passed by voters in November.

“It’s a drop in the bucket, but it’s a way in which we’re trying to do our part to alleviate the housing stress across the whole district,” Rolens said.

PVUSD Chief Business Officer Clint Rucker has been sounding the alarm bells for several months, warning about the declining number of students and how it might affect the services and programs.

According to Rucker, the state is projecting an 8.2% reduction over the next decade, while in Santa Cruz County—which has some of the highest rental rates in the U.S.—that number is double.

In the last school year, PVUSD saw a $3.3 million loss, Rucker said. Next year that number will grow to an estimated $6 million, and to $9 million in 2024/25.

Rucker says that PVUSD strives to keep any reductions away from staff and the classroom, instead relying on attrition, or not filling certain positions when employees resign or retire.

This has already affected the district’s Visual and Performing Arts program, where a reduced number of art teachers will split their time between two schools.

“That impacts Pajaro Valley and the other schools in Santa Cruz County quite a bit more, because we’re losing more than the average, which impacts us more because we’re going to lose more funding,” he said.

The Santa Cruz County Office of Education has released a community survey to help officials with their efforts to address these issues.

To participate:

• English: sccoe.link/familysurvey• Spanish: sccoe.link/encuestafamiliar

Boardwalk Plans New Ferris Wheel

News

Erik Chalhoub

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August 9, 2023

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The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk plans to bring back an iconic attraction, but it first must seek approval from the city’s planning commission.

Five years after the park removed its Ferris wheel due to age, plans are in the works to construct a new, 68-foot version of the ride.

Manufactured by Kansas-based Chance Rides, the new Ferris wheel will feature 15 gondolas, each able to seat four adults or six children. It will be across from the Giant Dipper and replace Rock & Roll, a spinning ride located in the spot since 2002.

The Boardwalk’s previous Ferris wheel, which opened in 1959, last operated in 2017. In early 2018, as the ride was undergoing its annual winter maintenance, Boardwalk officials determined that the attraction had reached the end of its useful life. The 67-foot-tall ride had spun around four million riders since 1986. It was originally located near the Cocoanut Grove before it was moved in the 1980s.

The Boardwalk’s permit for the new ride was scheduled for consideration by the planning commission on Aug. 3. However, only four of the seven commissioners were present, and Commissioner Timerie Gordon excused herself as her design firm works for the park’s owner, Santa Cruz Seaside Company. Four votes are needed to pass items.

The ride is expected to be considered at the commission’s Aug. 17 meeting.

Students Suffering Writers Strike

News

Ryan Loyola

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August 9, 2023

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With the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild on strike, Hollywood has shut down. As workers demand fair compensation and regulation over the use of artificial intelligence, college students hoping to break into the entertainment industry are caught up in the historic moment.

UC Santa Cruz third-year student Tieran Harvey aspires to be a Writers Guild member working in writers’ rooms in the future. This summer Harvey is interning for an independent film currently in pre-production, a project allowed to continue since the film’s production company doesn’t have a contract with a major film studio impacted by the strike. Although she is not allowed to be in contact with any actors and scriptwriters due to the strike, she is able to continue her work in production.

She said she’s grateful these strikes are happening before she graduates and that the negotiations are giving her inspiration to be a stronger advocate for industry professionals.

“I just want to support and be an ally, because people deserve to be paid their worth,” Harvey said.

She said the strikes made her lose a sense of romance about the industry, seeing how many people are struggling to make a living wage.

“It really made me realize that not everyone is rooting for you,” Harvey said. “We go into acting knowing there’s risks and knowing it’s hard to be successful, but we don’t want to be on the street because we’re pursuing a career.”

When the Writers Guild of America strike started May 2, midway through Teddy Alvarez-Nissen’s internship for a production company in Burbank, fewer scripts started coming in and his work as a reader slowed. As the strike went on, the third-year film student at the University of Southern California became curious about the specific terms that were being negotiated. When he looked at the fine print, he discovered the union was fighting for what was, in his mind, the bare minimum—standards he thought were already in place.

“That does scare me as somebody going into the industry,” said Alvarez-Nissen, who’s graduating in 2025. “I think we’ve all known about the stereotype of the studio that takes advantage of people or the producers that just want to get as much money as possible. It’s an illustration of how much worse the problem is than we thought it was and why it is important to be striking.”

Fighting for increased compensation and regulation over the use of artificial intelligence, both unions representing writers and actors are on strike for the first time in 63 years, effectively shutting down much of the entertainment industry.

Internships and fellowships at major production companies are on pause and current negotiations are exposing wide pay disparities in the cutthroat world of entertainment. But there’s a silver lining for some students, who hope the strikes will lay the foundation for better work conditions in the future.

“Even if the strike makes it more difficult for me to do an internship and find work out of college and start my career, I think that’s very miniscule compared to the benefits of a successful strike and getting those terms met,” Alvarez-Nissen said.

Students expect livable wages once they head into the industry but the rise of streaming services, which often produce shorter seasons and have different compensation structures, already have workers struggling. Unregulated artificial intelligence has writers and actors worried that it will eliminate valued positions from writers rooms and background roles.

Stephen Galloway, Dean of Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, said the strikes come at a time when the industry is already laying off thousands and freezing hiring for recent college graduates.

“It’s not just people who want to write or be actors. It’s all the people who service them—management, marketing, publicity, accounting and catering companies,” Galloway said. “There’s this extraordinary ripple effect for all these companies who hire young people.”

Some of the Writers Guild’s main demands include regulating artificial intelligence in writers rooms. Additionally, part of the Actors Guild’s demands include establishing provisions protecting human-created work and requiring consent and compensation when a performer’s voice, likeness or performance is used or changed using artificial intelligence.

Franz Kurfess, a computer science professor at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, said that while artificial intelligence may be used as a tool for writers, it might also replace them.

“The danger in my view is that the tasks of writers will not be completely eliminated, but the amount of work that is available for writers will be less and the tasks that they are expected to do will also shift to some degree,” said Kurfess. “Given that there most likely will be fewer opportunities, there will be some writers who essentially will lose their job.”

Student Alvarez-Nissen said he’s used artificial intelligence software before with creative projects. In a scene he filmed with a room full of paintings, he plugged a prompt into Midjourney and created the artwork he needed. Previously he would have paid someone to paint it for him, so artificial intelligence eliminated an expense he needed for his small school project.

While it helped him in that case, Alavarez-Nissen says billion-dollar studios also think the same way the broke college filmmaker does: if there’s any possible avenue to save money, they’re going to take it.

“A reason that this strike is so important is because they’re addressing AI so vehemently,” Alvarez-Nissen said. “If they lose this battle, that trickles down to almost everybody who works in the industry.”

This story and other higher education coverage are supported by the College Futures Foundation.

Growing For Your Health Right At Home

Cover Stories

Jillian Steinberger-Foster

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August 9, 2023

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Start getting healthy right outside your door

Plant medicine is no longer just for hippies, and Santa Cruz is a backyard-medicinal-herb-growing heaven. People from every class, culture, political affiliation and neighborhood are seeking out traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, Western Herbalism and other traditions.

Plant medicines can be effective yet gentle, and address all aspects of the human body from developing hair and skin to resolving kidney problems to uplifting the soul.

I came to herbs by a long and winding road—basically, at the end of the day, a lifestyle choice.

I was raised in Beverly Hills and Sherman Oaks. I was a wild child from the start. At 16, I loved zipping around in my Ford Pinto (yikes, they later turned out to explode, and were discontinued) all over L.A., from downtown to the beach—Santa Monica, Malibu, Leo Carrillo and Venice felt like home.

But I got out of L.A. as soon as I could. Although I wore makeup and blow-dried my hair every morning (does anyone remember feathers?), I always felt like beauty came from within. That if you are healthy and vital, you will also be beautiful.

When you garden obsessively, you start bringing things inside. Maybe it’s flowers. I had the instinct to garden ecologically from the outset. If you stick with it, many of us start growing edibles. Then mixing pollinators in with edibles.

At that time I made green juices every day, so I started a juicing garden, growing lots of cucumbers and greens. And always, there was parsley and cilantro around—both are very healthful and medicinal. Calendula was pretty in the garden, and so was chamomile. Then I got into edible weeds. And soon I was into native plants, and ethnobotanical uses of them. And the sage family plants really turned me on. Soon I was bringing in leaves, learning to eat flowers and the rest is history.

Plants give you grace, and people who like plants tend to be awesome. Ethical, kind and connected to nature. I encourage anyone who has an inkling that they’d like to work outside, but were raised to have a desk job, to go for it!

HERBAL CONVERSATIONS

Herbal topics are endless and fascinating. There are drought tolerant native plants for health like white sage and yarrow; common culinary herbs that are also medicinal like rosemary, oregano and thyme; Chinese herbs that grow here such as burdock and plantain; and you can forage (ethically) for local wild herbs for an all-star like nettles.

There are medicinal herbs and herb flowers you can eat fresh in salad mixes, like lemon balm leaves and calendula petals. And there are flowers to add to your cocktail—like violets.

There are also invasive plants we weed out as invasives like the powerhouse, cleavers and plantain. (Put them in a basket, not your green bin!)

You can even design an herbal hedgerow with flowering shrubs like elderberry, vitex and ceanothus. (Enjoy these plants as you walk to the front door.)

Culturally, there are herbs you can plant that are cited in the Bible, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Bhagavad Gita, the Torah and the Koran. Not to mention herbs from Celtic, Yoruban and Andean traditions. And so on. And certainly, the ethnobotany of the First Peoples, who tended the wild.

Ecologically, most of these plants are beneficial for garden pollinators, including a tremendous variety of bees and butterflies.

Some herbs don’t even need cultivation, or even regular water. Maybe that’s the place to start. Some are even ready for harvesting in the greater Santa Cruz area, now.

NOW HERBS

There’s a lot you can say about the herbs that we can grow in our Medicineshed—our part of the Central Coast. But the “low hanging fruit” of our herb world, that takes the least work, are self-seeding herbs and flowers that don’t grow too aggressively and need little to no tending, like chamomile, calendula, lemon balm and catnip. They also have the benefit of adding color and aroma to your garden.

YES, WE CAN—DEVELOPING A HEALTHY HABIT

The easiest way to use your herbs is to clip a handful in the morning, or whenever you have the time, and use them fresh that day. This can be habit forming—and it’s a good habit. It’s also a practice, like Qi Gong or Yoga. It’s effortless to toss a few sprigs of freshly picked lemon balm and put them in your water bottle before running out the door. This will keep you hydrated. Or make an infusion—a fancy word for tea—with fresh or dried lemon balm, calendula, chamomile and a little catnip—and maybe some lavender for color and to round out the aroma.

Besides the health benefits of getting up and outdoors, pulling yourself away from a screen and the physical benefits of the herbs themselves, some people get a feeling of abundance—of being rich or wealthy—when they harvest from the garden and bring it inside. You know it if you feel it. And, feeling a sense of abundance and gratitude is definitely good for you.

CHAMOMILE (Matricaria chamomilla)

Chamomile is a go-to herb for everyone, with a unique aroma. It is often sipped as tea at night, before bed. Blondes can also use it as a hair rinse. For the crafter, witch or budding herbalist, you might have the wherewithal to step it up. For example, one exuberant chamomile plant can produce enough flowers to dry and fill a pint size mason jar. Where there is one chamomile plant, there are more; they are gentle(ish) re-seeders. That means there’s enough for a bigger harvest—enough to share. You can dry them, put them in jars and add them to your home apothecary or give them as gifts. Not to mention that chamomile is lovely and long-lasting in a bouquet.

LEMON BALM (Melissa officinalis)

Lemon Balm is well-loved and for good reason. Its beautiful lemon scent is relaxing yet uplifting. It’s a good herb every day. It’s the kind of herb you can keep dry in a jar on the counter if you can’t use it fresh, and drink it to gently raise your spirits. Leave it on the counter for a couple days on a towel, and there’s your dried tea. As a tea, it is soothing and anti-inflammatory. It cools the thyroid, they say. As a garden plant, it requires no care. It will choose its own spot to grow, popping up where it wants. In the ground, it may never need watering. Harvest the stems any time of year but definitely before they flower.

CALENDULA (Calendula officinalis)

Calendula fights inflammation. You can brew tea with it and drink it; remove the soaked petals, squeeze out the liquid (but save it) and put it as an unblended poultice under tired eyes while you have a short rest. You can use the same preparation on skin afflictions like dermatitis or eczema, sunburn or a tick or mosquito bite. Place a small handful of soaked petals on the inflamed area. It will cool the heat of an infection. It is said to fight against bacteria. This gentle and soothing herb is added to skin care products, such as salves and under eye creams.

Calendula is very easy to harvest. All you do is clip off a few gorgeous flowerheads in all their glory, and pull (yank) off the petals all at once. Toss them fresh over a salad, or add them to a salad mix. Or dry them and make tea—put them in a pretty tea blend with lavender, chamomile, lemon balm and lavender in a glass jar. (Not surprisingly, Calendula—a beautiful and radiant flower—is also used in natural dyes.)

CATNIP (Nepeta cataria)

Other beings benefit from medicinal herbs, too. Your cats will love fresh catnip, of course—but the dried seed heads of the flowers will really drive them crazy. You’ll see their wild animal side. (Kitty psychedelia.) You may get videos of them doing hilarious and entertaining things. So, if there’s catnip in your garden, there is no need to buy dried catnip or toys. It is also one of the topmost bee magnets. And little garden birds will eat the dried seeds in winter, while standing on a flower. It is profuse in the garden and self-seeds, but is easy to pull if it travels too much. Like the other herbs here, it is good to add to your tea mix. It is calming and cheering. It is also in the mint family, and has a fresh, strong, minty aroma that will put a smile on your face. Hang a bouquet upside down in the kitchen to freshen the air and chase away moths.

As the world is increasingly paved over, plants seem more and more precious, and their value stands out in relief. This awareness has spread beyond an inner circle such that now—in the 2020s—echinacea and elderberry are no longer remedies for people on the “fringe,” they’re for everybody.

Power to the plants! Perhaps they will culture us, as we culture them.

LOCAL RESOURCES:

Look for local companies Renee’s Garden Seeds and Green Planet Organics seedlings at local nurseries and natural food grocery stores, especially Staff of Life. The best selection of starts and seeds is at San Lorenzo Garden Center. Other places you’ll find them are Mountain Farm & Feed, The Garden Company, Far West Nursery and Dig Gardens. Also peruse our local farmers markets, where local growers offer fresh and beautiful starts.

A Medicineshed is a place-based concept. It is an area of land, or a bioregion, where useful herbs grow that are suited to that region. Every area on earth has a Medicineshed—except places with no plants, like vast sand dunes! Even the beach has medicinal plants. These plants may be native to the area, or brought in from other lands around the world. They can be found in natural areas, or in home gardens, or in the cracks of sidewalks!

MEDICINAL HERBS THAT ARE REALLY EASY TO GROW & VERY SAFE TO USE:

Calendula

Catnip

Chamomile

Lemon balm

TIPS:

COMPOST YOUR HERBS

After using your tea herbs, don’t throw them out! Your garden soil will love them. Just put them anywhere, anywhere at all, and they will break quickly down rapidly and add their benefits to the soil.

FOR HOMESPUN CRAFTING

Include any of the plants here as aromatherapeutic wreaths, or upside-down bouquets tied with twine and hung on the wall or from the ceiling.

FOR THE SKIN

After your fresh chamomile or calendula tea has cooled, splash your face with it over the sink for a refreshing pick-me-up. Or make a hydrosol to spray on your face to freshen, soothe and moisten the skin when it feels dry. Keep that in your purse.

Jillian Steinberger-Foster co-owns Terra Nova Ecological Landscaping. She has been landscaping and gardening since 2004. She has three rescue dogs—a Schipperke mix, a Catahoula mix and a Chow Chow mix, and loves Its Beach. She enjoys going on botanical field trips to see plants in their natural landscapes, and she lives and gardens on the Westside of Santa Cruz.

The Editor’s Desk

Letters to the Editor

Brad Kava

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August 9, 2023

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Editorial Note

Santa Cruz California editor of good times news media print and web — Brad Kava | Good Times Editor

I’m not sure any article I’ve read this year has had the same effect on me as this week’s cover story about medicinal plants written by Jillian Steinberger-Foster, a plantaholic. I have the opposite of a green thumb. Give me a plant and it’s like an executioner’s song. Green fades to brown in the blink of an eye. Even my beloved Longan Berry tree is moaning a death knell as I look outside my window. Those berries, native to Asia, are my favorite new fruit. It’s either over or under watered, gets too much or too little sun and, like the Joker says in Batman, I weep inside.

But Jillian’s piece gives me some hope. She’s got recommendations for death-defying herbs that not only look and smell good, but can make me healthier. I can do this. I swear, I can, if she says so. I’ve got some new hope. Not to mention that as the climate changes, I want all the healthy things I can grow right outside my door.

So welcome to our health and fitness issue, where you can read about new forms of yoga, some great eats and all kinds of healthy services throughout the county.

Stay cool, stay healthy and enjoy the last trickles of summer. Oh yeah, and you can still get out into the garden.

Good Idea

Fewer homeless in latest survey

A census of Santa Cruz County’s homeless population taken in February shows a 21.5% decline since the last count in 2021.

Still, 1 in every 146 Santa Cruz County residents don’t have access to housing, according to the 2023 Homeless Count and Survey.

“While the numbers show the lowest levels of homelessness since the PIT Count was first conducted and reflects our efforts to prioritize housing, we still have a long way to go,” said housing authority Robert Ratner. For information, visit housingforhealthpartnership.org.

Good Work

Bus stuffed with 2,500 backpacks

Stuff the Bus, held Saturday, filled a school bus with more than 2,500 backpacks to help homeless kids with school supplies.

“We have so many youth experiencing homelessness and other hardships, and they deserve to have something new to start the school year off right,” says United Way director Dawn Bruckel.

“Having school supplies is basic, but it’s so fundamental, and if we’re able to provide that, why not,”said volunteer Juan Castillo. “It’s amazing working with different people. It feels like the community is getting together.”

To contribute: unitedwaysc.org

Photo Contest

HELPING HANDS Emily Maddox and Emily Scioscia of UC Santa Cruz’s Cal Teach program drop off backpacks they filled. Photo: Todd Guild/The Pajaronian

Quote of the Week

“Plants give you grace, and people who like plants tend to be awesome. Ethical, kind and connected to nature.” —Jillian Steinberger-Foster

HOT WEATHER, BIKES, DOGS, SEABIRDS

I am seeing too many people running their dogs on the asphalt while they are held by leash as the owner is biking (sometimes with no leash). I saw a dog on the road by New Leaf in Aptos where there is in and out traffic trying to navigate the cars with two bikers heading to the bike shop outside of Nisene Marks.

The temperature was in the seventies. The dog’s tongue was hanging out and bright red as the rider held the dog on a rope leash and was talking to the other biker as the dog tried to keep pace with the bikes in the humid weather.

The bikers are in all of their regalia but the dog does not have a helmet, likely no sunscreen for pink skin and white fur and no shoes.

Maybe the biker could run barefoot on the hot pavement while being pulled by a leash as the dog pedals instead.

At the beach early in the morning, people ride e-bikes with surfboard racks and scare off all the seabirds and startle dogs on leash that do not hear them coming. It is tough on birds to deal with this or when dogs are allowed to run and chase birds up and down the beach like toys, especially when the birds are resting during migration.

As a concerned resident who has dogs, a bike and for many years done bird counts for Cornell Lab, I would like to see this change.

Nan
La Selva Beach

LISTENING TO EACH OTHER

I appreciate how you posted this letter within your editorial, to kind of post it without posting it. I appreciate your sensibilities. We have to start somewhere and we have to be willing to field eruptions to arrive at nuance and wisdom. The Citizens Wisdom Council in Mauthausen, Austria, was convened to address what to do with the empty building that was a Nazi concentration camp, standing empty in the middle of their community since World War II. Finally they were having a conversation, finally they had a way to move forward. Finally the elders were given a way to open up the pain body so that the youth could begin to see why everybody had remained stuck for a generation. We have that capacity and we owe it to ourselves to use it.

Corrina McFarlane
Santa Cruz

FREE SPEECH WINS

Responding to your invitation to comment on respecting the right to publicly express opinions of people who don’t agree with you or have ideas that you don’t like, I think that the ACLU is an excellent example of why this value in the United States shines a bright light in times of darkness.

In 1978, the ACLU took a controversial stand for free speech by defending a Neo-Nazi group that wanted to march through the Chicago suburb of Skokie, where many Holocaust survivors lived. The notoriety of the case caused some ACLU members to resign, but to many others the case has come to represent the ACLU’s unwavering commitment to principle. In fact, many of the laws the ACLU cited to defend the group’s right to free speech and assembly were the same laws it had invoked during the Civil Rights era, when Southern cities tried to shut down civil rights marches with similar claims about the violence and disruption the protests would cause. Although the ACLU prevailed in its free speech arguments, the neo-Nazi group never marched through Skokie, instead agreeing to stage a rally at Federal Plaza in downtown Chicago.

When I was a teenager in middle school I learned that to find the truth and therefore understanding we have to look at and listen to both sides of an issue.

Cancel Culture, censorship and labeling opinions we don’t like as “Hate Speech” will never serve us to that goal of knowing the truth.

Drew Lewis
Founder of the Sustainable Living Center, Workshop and Farm

Ganja Yoga and the Search for the Perfect High

Wellness

DNA

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August 9, 2023

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Ganja Yoga and the Search for the Perfect High

“Marijuana, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Uhm … one … what’s the question again?” Elizabeth Baked Browning

Co-owners of Ganja Yoga, with a studio at the end of Squid Row in Santa Cruz, Javiera Köstner and Sebastian Beca grew up in Chile and moved to Northern California in 2014. As much a love story as it is a small business, the charismatic couple now run a cannabis friendly spot where you can heal your body and soul in a safe space through the magic pairing of yoga and marijuana. Sometimes there’s live music, sometimes there’s cannabis holotropic breathwork and, in tandem with the Santa Cruz Psychedelic Society, sometimes there’s micro-dosing hikes.

There’s an undeniable romantic spark between Köstner and Beca. They’re young, ambitious, have little desire for corporate structures and bring their passion to every event they host. And like all healthy couples, they have a sense of humor. When asked how they met, they said it was destiny, they both swiped right. Now married, this power duo is raising consciousness and body awareness around the globe, but they call Felton home. “At the beginning of the year we both had COVID and our power kept going out,” says Beca recalling living in the Santa Cruz mountains during the winter of 2023. Luckily, Köstner and Beca have assembled a large community around themselves, and friends stopped by to help out. This turning towards building and sustaining community ethics and ideals is what drives the engine of everything they do.

According to their greenmagicyoga.com website, “Ganja Yoga is a blend of mindfulness, yoga, cannabis, relaxing vibes, grounded spirituality and a touch of Latino spice in a community setting.”

Ganja Yoga was founded in 2009 by Dee Dussault. Dussault is the internationally recognized pioneer of the cannabis-enhanced yoga and wellness movement. She was the first teacher to publicly offer classes and authored the best-selling Harper Collins book Ganja Yoga in 2017. Köstner trained with Dussault, got certified and began teaching her own unique brand of Ganja Yoga in 2018. Köstner is currently leading the Santa Cruz (and San Francisco) Ganga Yoga community, as well as holding monthly Conscious Cannabis Circles. And while Köstner is the expert in stretching the body, her partner Sebastian Beca knows a lot about stretching the mind. In 2014 he became a licensed psychologist in Chile and in 2018 he graduated with an MA in Integral Counseling Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies, in SF. Beca knows a lot about cannabis and how it affects a wide array of people.

“We often get people who have never experimented with cannabis or have never really done it enough to understand its potential. So we make sure to get to know the user and help build their information base. For the cannabis ceremonies, we teach people how to make a blend of combining different strains of cannabis: sativa, indica, hybrids and sometimes some other herbs. Knowing your dosage level and your tolerance level is important. We teach people how to navigate the experience of marijuana in a safe and fun way,” says Beca.

Personally, I still struggle with things like stress and frustration, sometimes daily. And, I don’t stretch, like I never stretch, although I know I should. So, when I heard about Ganja Yoga, I knew I had to try it out. While Ganja Yoga offers in-person classes, I decided to do it online in the comfort of my home on my living room floor.

In anticipation, I headed to The Hook Outlet in Capitola and got some cannabis I thought would be good to stretch out the mind and body. I bought some local sativa from Santa Cruz Canna Farms and some indica from Fuego Family Farms, and blended them up into what I hoped to be the perfect yoga blend.

The online session started with a check in. Köstner calls it the “Yoga of the voice,” with Beca co-leading the conversational tone at the beginning. It’s a time where participants happily showed what they were smoking and talked about how they were feeling. It’s a social exchange, and one person shared that “Cannabis allows you to focus on other things besides the news.”

And then the stretching began. I carry a lot of stress in my body. I feel like I’m always stressed and resistant to letting it go. It’s like I have made being stressed part of my personality. So, it was comforting to have Köstner be so calm in leading the session.

I tried the easy beginning poses, and my body immediately felt better, but my mind started wandering. Yoga has a long history in America, often starting with Swami Vivekananda arriving in 1893. Even America’s favorite transcendentalist, Henry David Thoreau, would kick back around Walden Pond, take a few puffs on Emerson’s pipe, close his eyes and meditate and stretch.

Cannabis has an even longer history. Whether it was the Spanish arriving in the 1500s with hemp, or aliens dropping seeds from space, by 1920, weed was everywhere in America. So it was just a matter of time before cannabis and yoga would catch up with each other.

Fast-forward to the 1950s, when the first yoga studio opened in Hollywood, California. It was the birth of a billion-dollar industry and while early practitioners can be seen at Woodstock in 1969, bending and contorting in the mud, Apple’s five billion dollar campus has a yoga studio.

My body reconnected with my brain, and it had only been a couple of seconds that I was lost in thought, but Köstner’s gentle reminder to breathe, reminded me that, besides not remembering to stretch, I barely remember to breathe. Köstner first came to yoga to help cope with her own fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis. Her movements are slow, deliberate and easy to follow. There’s no pressure. It’s the opposite of pressure.

I found myself trying the yoga postures, unable to extend my body as far as Köstner, but it felt good, I genuinely felt the stress melt away. Köstner has a clear vision to “build spaces to explore your body,” and is also clear on the cannabis part.

“We ask that you bring your own cannabis, and because it is legal to share, please bring plenty to share. Our class is about working on yourself so you can be better in the world. We view marijuana as a psychedelic and if you are not connected to your body it can become risky. We think if used in the right way, marijuana can be very psychedelic,” says Köstner. And as a first-time Ganja Yoga attendee, I can personally attest, it was everything promised and more. Now, if I can just remember to do it again.

Find out more about Ganja Yoga and enroll for classes at greenmagicyoga.com Located at 738 Chestnut Street, Santa Cruz. Upcoming classes include 8/24 Ganja Yoga Live Music Experience 6:15pm, 9/2 Psychedelic Cannabis Breathwork 4pm, and 9/6 Psychedelic Peer Integration Circle 6:30pm.

Things to do in Santa Cruz

Things To Do This Week

GT Staff

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August 8, 2023

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Aug 10: An evening with The Bad Plus at Kuumbwa

The Bad Plus are the perfect band for someone curious about jazz, but not deep into the genre. (They’re also the perfect band for someone deep into jazz!)

They mix avant-garde jazz with rock and pop elements and even play some nifty covers of popular songs like Queen’s “We Are The Champions” and Radiohead’s “Karma Police.”

Having formed in 2000, one key defining trait was how much sound they could create as a stripped-down trio. They revealed a new 4-piece lineup in 2021 (drums, guitar, sax, bass), and still managed to create that simple yet full sound that fans from all over the jazz spectrum have been digging on for over two decades.

The music begins THURSDAY at 7pm at Kuumbwa Jazz Center, 320 Cedar St. Ste 2. Santa Cruz. Tickets are $42 in advance and $47.25 at the door.

Drag shows can be fun, sexy, weird and wild. The Cherry Pit, a monthly party at Blue Lagoon, is usually all of those things at the same time. It’s also a very local event, so you can learn all about the great drag and burlesque talent right here in your own backyard. Hell, if it’s something you love, you can get to know the community in no time.

The heart of Cherry Pit is its hosts Cherry Cola, Franzia Rose and DJ AyumiPlease. The only warning I offer is don’t go if you hate fun. If fun makes you mad, then maybe The Cherry Pit isn’t for you.

The fun starts FRIDAY at 9pm at The Blue Lagoon, 923 Pacific Ave. Santa Cruz. Tickets are $10.

The world of Boulder Creek psych metal band Heavy Blazer is an elaborate one. They sing about zombie strippers, government checks and (as a treat for locals) Highway 9. They also bring huge, sludgy riffs that both groove and bang hard. It’s exactly what you want in a stoner metal band. And fortunate for us, they call Boulder Creek home. Heavy Blazer is the perfect bridge between classic ’70s Sabbath-style metal and the newer evolving sound of metal that gets everyone vibing and head-banging at the same time. The metal starts SATURDAY at 8pm at Crepe Place, 1134 Soquel Ave. Santa Cruz. Tickets are $10.

Comedian Ryan O’Flanagan wins over audiences with his total commitment to enthusiastic absurdity. Whether he’s amping up his excitement to the nth degree on his Funny or Die produced series “Overly Excited Tourist” or when he’s playing the fun-loving emotional basket case in sketches for his troop Dead Kevin, or just telling silly-but-relatable stories on stage about going to church as an adult or failing to succeed at flirting with his next door neighbor, it’s always a good time with Ryan. And it’ll be even more special this week as he performs in Moe’s Alley’s Yard, an underrated but delightful spot for live comedy. The laughs begin SUNDAY at 8pm at Moe’s Alley, 1535 Commercial Way. Santa Cruz, Tickets are $15 in advance and $20 at the door.

At the heart of Lucian Mattison’s poetry are simple, descriptive stories that evoke the essence and beauty of being alive. He uses accessible language that anyone, regardless of their familiarity with poetry, can understand. And if people sit with the poems, the layers of Mattison’s words will unravel in their mind over time. There’s also a restlessness in his work. Having lived all over the US, in Singapore and having family/roots in Argentina, he naturally moves through the world as a visitor with so much insight into the human condition. It shows in his poetry. Mattison performs TUESDAY at 7pm at Abbott Square, 725 Front St. Santa Cruz.

Community

As important as Cesar Chavez is with regards to the labor movement in the US, we can’t forget Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the United Farm Workers Association with Chavez. She also helped organize the Delano grape strike in 1965 and she was the originator of the potent phrase “Sí se puede.” She remains an important and involved figure in the continuing, evolving labor movement and civil rights activism inherently associated with labor rights. This Saturday, Huerta and other presenters will speak in Watsonville about harvesting equity, sustainability, economic justice and organic farming. There will be food and dance as well, so it’ll be fun but also an inspiring and enlightening experience. It all begins SATURDAY at 4pm at Henry J. Mello Center for the Performing Arts, 250 East Beach St. Watsonville. Tickets range between $20-$50.

The Point Kitchen and Bar is celebrating its fourth year under new owners—and surviving COVID—by going back in time to 2020, with an old menu and old prices until Aug. 13. Items include Chicken Tortilla Soup, Spicy Artichokes, Burger & Brew (you get a free local beer with your burger), Creamy Pesto Pasta and Sweet & Spicy BBQ Ribs (old school recipe). 3326 Portola Dr. Santa Cruz.

Ayurveda: What’s Really Bothering You

Wellness

Aiyana Moya

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August 8, 2023

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How the alternative medicine gets to the core problem

Last Wednesday, editor in chief Brad Kava asked me, the news editor, for a health and fitness story.

I thought, how can I use this to my advantage?

So I was determined to make the most of my chance to write something fun on the company dime. As I cycled through ideas and scrolled the web, I found it: a massage offering listed on the Ayurvedic Healing website.

Ayurveda, I came to discover, is an ancient Indian medical system and one of the world’s oldest medical systems. It’s a holistic approach to physical and mental health that promises to address the root causes of sicknesses and boasts a preventative approach.

One day later, I was standing outside a nondescript building on the side of Soquel Drive, prepared to get a massage on the clock. On the phone, the receptionist who scheduled my ashwagandha massage said to wear clothes that could get oil on them—I didn’t give this much thought. I’ve had massages before, I knew the drill, the well-lotioned aftermath.

But as I lay on the massage bed and my masseuse, Kerri Lanzarotto, poured what felt like cups of warm oil on my face and hair, I internally swore about my choice to wear my brand new Lululemon yoga pants. Lanzarotto massaged the cups of oil into my hair, while I also lamented my decision to interview the doctor at the practice, Dr. Manas S. Kshirsagar, after my treatment.

I tried not to bother with these thoughts as I lay face down with oil slipping down my body and willed myself to relax. Lanzarotto rubbed my arms in circular motions, with the intention of clearing out the toxins from my lymphatic system.

“We use a series of strokes and circles to promote lymphatic drainage, and the oil acts as a lubrication to break down the toxins to kind of loosen them up,” Lanzarotto said. “When our digestive system isn’t functioning properly, if we’re not completely digesting the food we take, our body starts storing these toxins when we’re unable to eliminate them properly. [With this type of massage] they can detach and move into the lymphatic system.”

Lanzarotto is a registered nurse with a bachelor’s degree in science. She practiced western medicine for some years before being drawn to Ayurveda. She believes in the philosophy of Ayurveda, which seeks to cure the core issues of an illness or disease and prioritizes preventative methods, over that of Western medicine, which follows the principles of prescribing an antidote to minimize it.

That methodology is also what Dr. Manas S. Kshirsagar found compelling about Ayurveda. Kshirsagar and his parents own the Ayurvedic Healing practice. His parents have been practicing Ayurveda medicine since he was a child.

As a young boy and throughout his early adulthood, Kshirsagar was determined to be a doctor—“but not a hippy doctor, like my parents,” he said.

It was during his residency that this began to shift.

“In an ethics class that they told us students, ‘you should never get too close or too personal with your patients,’” Krshirsagar said. “You should always keep them at a distance. Growing up, that was not at all what I witnessed from my parents with their patients.”

When Kshirsagar and his parents do intakes for new patients, they ask a series of in-depth questions: everything from a client’s close relationships, to their levels of stress and anxiety, to the direction their house faces.

Kshirsagar said this gives the doctors an overall picture of what’s happening in a client’s life, so as to identify areas where an imbalance might be. These sort of detail-oriented intakes also help eliminate the gender and race bias that exists in Western medicine: studies have repeatedly found that doctors minimize women’s pain and are much more likely to link it to an emotional or a psychological cause, rather than a bodily or biological one. Doctors’ minimization of pain is amplified for marginalized people.

“That sort of stigma that’s associated with just the question-answer process is non-existent in Ayurveda,” Dr. Kshirsagar said. “We sit here for an hour, sometimes more during the initial consultation, going over every aspect of your life.”

That’s the edge Ayurveda claims over Western medicine. At least, it’s what I found most appealing. According to Kshirsagar, Ayurveda doctors are curious about how to cure whatever it is that ails clients, rather than simply diagnose it. Ayurveda’s approach also seems intuitive: to do that, it’s important to examine every aspect of life, not just the symptoms of whatever ails you.

“Everybody has stress. Everybody has issues—physical, mental, emotional,” Kshirsagar said. “But how you deal with those is what Ayurveda is all about. And so we give you many different tools, whether it be self-love, massage, herbs, exercise, meditation, prayer, all of these are different modalities that Ayurveda uses to help alleviate somebody’s imbalance.”

As I left the practice, I sat in my car for a moment, trying to determine if I felt fewer toxins in my body after my massage. As I examined my arms and legs, not sure what I was looking for, I caught a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror. My face was shiny and my hair, plastered against my head, looked wet from the oil. I couldn’t help but laugh, and drove off feeling a bit lighter.

To visit Ayurveda Healing, go to www.ayurvedichealing .net or visit in-person at: 541 Soquel Avenue, Santa Cruz

take out for space

STREET TALK

Street Talk

John Koenig

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August 8, 2023

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“Where would be your dream vacation, and, where do you take your real vacation?”

We’ve got sand and surf, hiking and biking,
Redwood trees and the ocean breeze.
When your town is already a year-round vacation,
Where else would you go, in the world or the nation?

“My big dream is Germany and see the War history, then visit Spain, Italy, all Europe. I live in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia’s capital city, so home vacation is seeing the lakes in the countryside.”

“My dream would be Japan, for the food and the culture. My real vacation is in Florida where my grandma has a house. We go to get away from the cold where I live in Switzerland when it’s snowing.”

“Anywhere with my family is a dream, we have so much fun together. I am an Albanian from Kosovo, so our real vacations are there. We have the best beaches on the Adriatic Sea. The water is so blue! My real dream is to visit my student exchange family in Iowa—or go to Hawaii!”

“India would be my dream vacation, to experience the chaos of what life looks like there, and have all of my senses activated. My actual real vacation is coming back here to Santa Cruz, my home town.”

“For a dream vacation, I’ve wanted to go to Morocco for a long time. But for a nearby vacation place, I really love Big Sur.”

Rob Court, 66, Drawing teacher-Illustrator

“Seeing Portugal would be my dream, but for a real vacation, I like Santa Cruz!”

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“Plants give you grace, and people who like plants tend to be awesome. Ethical, kind and connected to nature.” —Jillian Steinberger-Foster

“Marijuana, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Uhm … one … what’s the question again?” Elizabeth Baked Browning

Aug 10: An evening with The Bad Plus at Kuumbwa

How the alternative medicine gets to the core problem

“Where would be your dream vacation, and, where do you take your real vacation?”