This week’s cover was a little tricky. You see, Denver Riggleman is a quirky character. He is wearing a Bigfoot t-shirt in his freaking cover pic. He even wrote a book about Bigfoot! OK, it was technically about why people continue to believe in Bigfoot, which falls way more into his wheelhouse as a data analytics expert, but whatever. I love everything Bigfoot. Do you know how bad I wanted to put a still from the Patterson-Gimlin film somewhere on this cover? So bad.
Riggleman is also a former Republican Congressman from Virginia who got run over by the GOP’s ultra-right Trump cult and ousted in the 2020 primary, largely because he had officiated a same-sex wedding. Riggleman then left the party, becoming an independent. Do you know how bad I wanted to put a pic of the same-sex wedding he officiated somewhere on the cover? So bad.
To me, those things really epitomize what makes Riggleman such an intriguing political figure. But you won’t find either of them on the cover this week (other than, again, the shirt). That’s because when I readSteve Kettmann’s interview with Riggleman in this week’s cover story, any notion of doing something whimsical on the cover instantly vanished. The author of the new book The Breach: The Untold Story of the Investigation Into January 6th talks about the growing danger our country is facing from far-right extremists like the ones who stormed the Capitol Building last year, and it is sobering stuff. He also discusses how social media and other digital networking has made fringe radicalism even more insidious, and how antisemitism is rising as the manipulators behind these movements seek to streamline their attacks on common sense.
So yeah, it’s a million miles away from Bigfoot kookiness or thinkpiecing about political definitions. But it is an important reality check about the state of our democracy.
“The two-ship Portuguese expedition under the command of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo (João Rodrigues Cabrilho) explored northward from Jalisco in 1542, stopping at San Diego Bay on September 28th, San Pedro on October 6, Santa Monica on the 9th, San Buenaventura on the 10th, Santa Barbara on the 13th and Pt. Concepcion on the 17th. Because of adverse winds, the expedition turned back at about Santa Maria, harboring at San Miguel Island, and did not progress beyond Santa Maria until November 11. With a favorable wind later that day they reach the “Sierra de San Martin,” probably Cape San Martin and the Santa Lucia Mountains in southern Monterey County. Struck by a storm and blown out to sea, the two vessels are separated and do not rejoin until the 15th, probably near Año Nuevo north of Santa Cruz. The next day they drifted southward, discovering “Bahía de los Pinos”and “Cabo de Pinos.” These are most likely Monterey Bay and Point Pinos. On the 18th they turned south, passing snow-capped mountains (the Santa Lucias), and on November 23 returned to their harbor at San Miguel Island, where they remained for nearly three months.” (from mchsmuseum.com) … Cabrillo never landed in the Monterey Bay area. Never met up with, so he could not have “enslaved and brutalized the Amah Mutsun people who lived here.” Don’t let the facts get in your way though and carry on.
— Mark McLaughlin
In response to Mark McLaughlin: Rather narrow view of how this man lived his life. He was a conquistador who gained his wealth through forced labor that destroyed communities, because he’d rake in the bounty of labor that once sustained the egalitarian communities he preyed on. He was part of a distinct system of destruction, a low affect, sensation seeking person who yearned to dominate and centralize power for the sake of personal versus societal benefits. You narrow in on a detail of dispute—just like people dispute where they came from. And that narrow view ignores the bigger issue. It’s not as if there isn’t enough evidence to confirm his abuses, whether they happened in this area or just Guatemala. The bigger point is, why are we remembering this person and honoring him? We are in a time of reflection where there are people in society who are questioning the habit of calling power seekers heroes. There is nothing heroic about hoarding and violence. There is, however, something heroic about taking a stand and calling out these patterns of thinking and how they influence society as a whole.
— Cassie
PHOTO CONTEST WINNER
TWILIGHT ON LOCUST STREET Downtown Santa Cruz at dusk. Photograph by Andrea Greenspan.
Submit to ph****@go*******.sc. Include information (location, etc.) and your name. Photos may be cropped. Preferably, photos should be 4 inches by 4 inches and minimum 250dpi.
GOOD IDEA
SURVEYING THE LAND
South of Davenport, the Coast Dairies Monument is shaped by rugged terrain, mountain ridgelines and six streams that pour into the Pacific. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is now accepting public input on the rules that will determine public access to the lands, public health and safety and protection of natural and cultural resources. Add your two cents by Jan. 30, 2023 at blm.gov/cotoni-coast-dairies.
GOOD WORK
HOMEKEY FOR THE HOLIDAYS
Last week, the state awarded Santa Cruz County $2.2 million in funds that will be used for permanent housing for formerly unhoused people. Santa Cruz County was one of four communities to receive a final round of funding from the state’s program Project Homekey. The money will help convert the former River Street commercial office space into seven units of permanent supportive housing for formerly homeless individuals, with the goal of opening its doors by the end of the year.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“A people inspired by democracy, human rights and economic opportunity will turn their back decisively against extremism.”
At last Wednesday’s downtown farmers market, I saw a classic scene: At the foot of one of the very tall liquid amber trees, the sun shone on a little girl gleefully tossing autumn-gilded leaves in the air. When I remembered that this tree and others are to be axed because of a recent vote, my heart flooded with grief and sorrow for the Santa Cruz citizens willing to pave paradise and put up a parking garage.
Kathleen Tyger Wright
Santa Cruz
These letters do not necessarily reflect the views of Good Times.To submit a letter to the editor of Good Times: Letters should be originals—not copies of letters sent to other publications. Please include your name and email address to help us verify your submission (email address will not be published). Please be brief. Letters may be edited for length, clarity and to correct factual inaccuracies known to us. Send letters to le*****@go*******.sc
Bestselling author Denver Riggleman, whose past jobs include bouncer, Air Force intelligence officer, tech CEO and Republican Congressman, wants people to think more about Jeff Bridges. Not the man himself, not even his Dude character, but the young, freshly scrubbed Jeff Bridges in the 1982 movie Tron, who somehow found himself leaving the flesh-and-blood world to end up inside a mainframe computer.
Imagine if the transfer went the other way, from the virtual world to the real one? And what if this “Reverse Tron” plague, as Riggleman has dubbed it, runs rampant, with digital extremism inciting acts of violence? That, he keeps telling people, is exactly what is happening.
But even when he sat on the New York Times bestseller list recently as co-author (with Hunter Walker) of The Breach: The Untold Story of the Investigation Into January 6th, Riggleman still felt like a man shouting into the wind, with no one heeding his warnings—the same way he did the day before the January 6 riots.
“What’s really scary is when digital violence and memes and fantasies actually become reality,” Riggleman told Good Times. “If you look at the attack on Paul Pelosi, if you look at the attack on January 6th, if you look at attacks like the QAnon father who killed his family because he thought they were possessed somehow. Because of QAnon, this radicalization and push towards hatred to dehumanization of others can actually become real-world violence in a very fast way. That’s a decentralized power of social media that the digital can be made real.”
Riggleman would like to dial back his cable-news spots and book-tour appearances, like the one he’ll make in Santa Cruz this week, where he sounds the alarm on the dangers of weaponized disinformation. He’d rather focus on the family business, Silverback Distillery in Afton, Virginia, where both his wife, Christine, and daughter, Lauren, are award-winning distillers.
But ever since Riggleman performed a gay wedding and became a target of QAnon, he has been on a mission to sound the alarm on the QAnon phenomenon, which in August 2020 he memorably called “the mental gonorrhea of conspiracy theories,” specifically warning of the rise of Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Elected to Congress in 2018, Riggleman had his own Republican party turn on him at the height of GOP Trump fervor after he officiated this same-sex wedding in July of 2019. He was defeated in the 2020 primary by an evangelical Christian candidate promoted by Trump and censured by a Republican committee in his home state of Virginia later that year. He subsequently left the GOP. PHOTO: Courtesy of Denver Riggleman
Riggleman is a former Republican, one more than willing to work with Democrats to fight against the MAGA legions. In fact, he played a primary role in Virginia Democrat Abigail Spanberger’s surprise recent reelection in the House, cutting a TV ad with her that analysts said cut through the fog of typical political noise by emphasizing bipartisanship and common sense. Riggleman was asked to work for the January 6 committee as a senior technical advisor, putting together teams that, for example, found the texts from Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, pushing White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to take more radical action to undo the results of the 2020 elections.
“We have to remember that January 6th was a fundamental and coordinated attack on our democracy,” outgoing Santa Cruz County Supervisor Ryan Coonerty told GT. “What I am taking away from the surprising results of the November election is that there is a fragile majority of Americans that are willing to fight back. Denver Riggleman is a fascinating figure because, like Liz Cheney, he’s willing to sacrifice his position and party for the cause. I hope we see more.”
Coonerty will join Riggleman this Friday, December 9, for a public discussion of how to save democracy in a time of mounting threats, at the Wellstone Center in the Redwoods.
Among the topics of conversation: Bigfoot, the subject of Riggleman’s first book, which was a study of disinformation. As Roll Call reported on a Riggleman appearance at a Washington conference earlier this year: “Riggleman connected opponents’ portrayals of his Bigfoot book in his successful 2018 campaign with how voters could be so fired up by people trying to make money off of Trump’s lies about the 2020 election that they attacked the Capitol.”
Coonerty, also a former Santa Cruz mayor, thinks the tide might finally have shifted with basic democratic values reasserting themselves. “I’ve taught voting rights and redistricting for almost 20 years at UC Santa Cruz,” he said. “Until recent years only the most politically interested students took the course. Now I’m having new students show up with a passionate interest and awareness of what’s at stake. It gives me hope for the future of democracy.”
With ‘The Breach,’ Riggleman (left) says he sought to show how predictive data can be used to stop the next January 6th.
GT spoke recently with Riggleman by phone about his new book and unusual political history.
You monitor right-wing online activity. What was your take on the recent series of antisemitic incidents in the news that included Kanye West being captured on video with Alex Jones and Nick Fuentes saying, “I like Hitler,” and social media’s explosive reaction?
DENVER RIGGLEMAN: We should be worried. If you look at what “J6” encapsulates at this point, it has become its own political movement, its own ideological movement, and a lot of that is really branded with antisemitism, racism and xenophobia. It’s really a free dereliction to believe the most insane conspiracy theories, either based on ignorance or the ability of grifters to persuade a large swath of constituents and voters that there’s some deep-state coup. I think what you see with Kanye West, Nick Fuentes, Alex Jones, all these grifters/true believers/Nazis [is that] instead of targeting generalized terms like “globalists” or “New World Order” or “deep state,” they are now just targeting Jews. It’s very, very effective, because if you can dehumanize and get people to believe that there’s one type of individual race, religion or ethnicity that’s creating chaos in America and trying to destroy it, that’s when violence happens. I think they have really changed their technique from more of an overarching globalist deep state type of attack on the United States, to “It’s just the Jews.”
Do you see this online conspiracy-mongering leading to more extremist violence?
I put out tweets on January 5th, 2021, that I saw violence coming the next day. A lot of people offered warnings. I wasn’t special. We had seen it coming with data for some time, and we thought it was inevitable to have violence. I would say right now I’m almost to the point—you never say anything is 100% down-the-line going to happen—but it seems inevitable that there’s going to be some pretty extreme violence, either against Jewish individuals or organizations.
You warned early on about figures like Marjorie Taylor Greene, and co-sponsored a resolution (with Democrat Tom Malinowski) condemning QAnon in October 2020. You also went on CNN with Jake Tapper that month and specifically warned about—as the Post put it—“dangerous, wildly fantastical conspiracies that could lead to violence, including the one Trump promoted on Twitter on Tuesday.” Where do you see all this going?
I would say that information warfare is the new forever war. I don’t know if the two-party system survives social media. Inconsistency is a feature, not a bug for conspiracy theorists. They want to hit you right in the amygdala. When you have social media that’s so vast, with so many digital streams that seem to be transmitted directly into people’s frontal lobes, the fact is the digital can be made real. I call this “Reverse Tron.” Violence is decentralized. If you’re talking about antisemitism, it’s almost like a decentralized digital pogrom. You don’t know where the violence is going to come from because everybody’s on the same page—they’re using memes, cartoons and jokes to press their message out into this bizarre digital ecosystem of conspiracy theorists, antisemites, Nazis, racists and things of that nature that are populating the far right. The issue that we have right now in this new war, this new system, is that people who consider themselves normal could be caught up in some of these belief systems, which they don’t even know stems from deep-rooted virulent antisemitism or racism. That’s what scares me. You have people that are being tripped up online because they don’t have the baseline knowledge to really determine what’s fact and what’s fiction. I think that’s probably where social media is really effective in radicalizing people. They have their own digital prophets that they can rely on, and sadly a lot of this is religiously based. That’s very difficult to combat.
How much do you think Trump will continue to be a factor in this going forward, and in the 2024 election?
I think he is the presumptive nominee as we go forward. People are already counting him out, thinking that [Florida Governor] Ron DeSantis or other individuals might challenge him, and they certainly might. But even in polling as of right now, December 2022, Trump is still well ahead of DeSantis in polling for the nomination. To count Donald Trump out, I think, would be unfortunate. I think we have to be very aware that radical elements are still behind Trump. Even though when we see Kanye West, Fuentes and other people like that trying to take over as the chaos agents for the crazies, the conspiracy theorists, the white supremacists and the far right, I do believe Trump still has a leg up. He still controls the digital space and that’s really important for these type of actors and characters out there.
What was your goal in co-authoring ‘The Breach?’
This is a book about how data can be predictive on how to stop the next January 6th. It also delves into the history of some of these people. What this book really tries to look at with data is that past performance or behavior is indicative of future performance or behavior. Some of the same people that have pushed the insanity in the past and been able to profit off of it, they have been able to radicalize others. That is the key, that is the untold story of January 6th: How technology can be used to fight technology. In that way, we might be able to turn the tide on that 3 to 5 percent of the population that might actually be reached.
In this last election, you cut an ad with Abigail Spanberger and helped her win reelection. How did that come about?
She called me. Abby asked if I would be willing to do an ad, and I said yes immediately. I always believe as sane, rational humans, we should be supporting facts-based people over facts-challenged people. Her opponent was so batshit crazy that it was a no-brainer for me. Abby was such a good candidate, she’s been a great congresswoman, she really does care about her constituents—and she was running against somebody completely unhinged.
You’re no longer a Republican. Are you an independent?
Yes, you can call me an independent, but I’m a distiller, too. I like to listen to other distillers in history and take the advice. A famous distiller in our history, George Washington, he warned against the two party system or parties in general. Said that’s why he was unaffiliated. I will continue to be, probably forever, unaffiliated.
How does your family business, Silverback Distillery, shape your perspective?
Not only am I not in the political pipeline, I don’t need to grift and make money off this crap, off the political system, because we actually have real jobs. We own distilleries in Virginia and Pennsylvania. My wife and daughters really run the bulk of the business interests. The fact is that I just have an amazing family. I have amazing women in my life that have allowed me to try to help others. Without them, I wouldn’t be here today.
You’re still on Twitter, which seems like a very bizarre place now under the leadership of Elon Musk. What do you think Musk is up to, and where do you see all this going?
I think Musk enjoys being a chaos agent. I do believe he thinks there’s more money to be made long-term by appealing to a certain subset of crazies in order to push his own agenda. With the money that he has, he really is playing with the American public at this time with being completely disingenuous [while] taking away filters and content moderation. Now, somebody who loves the First Amendment, I can plausibly see what he’s saying about people coming out and trying to protect free speech. But the issue that you have on a private platform is that free speech is really pushing people towards violence.After the bizarre Kanye West antisemitism interview with Alex Jones and Nick Fuentes, “Hitler was right” trended at 500% more on the Twitter platform. You have a lot of eyeballs on this type of language.
What’s your advice for individual people out there who are just trying to stay sane in an insane world? What are the things that you emphasize that people can do and should do?
The scariest thing is that you have to confront lies and disinformation. You have to confront facts-challenged people where they live. You can’t let it go for a second. I don’t know if people are ready for that house-to-house intellectual fighting between the facts-based and the facts-challenged. But right now, I think we can only cut across maybe 3 to 5 percent of the independents and center right who have fallen for a lot of these conspiracy theories like “Stop the Steal” or globalist New World Order or Covid conspiracy theories. All of this stuff is very difficult to break through, especially if there’s religion attached to it. Sadly, that means people on the side of facts and data have to confront it every second of every day.
DENVER RIGGLEMAN will discuss his new book ‘The Breach: The Untold Story of the Investigation Into January 6th’ in conversation with outgoing Santa Cruz County Supervisor Ryan Coonerty and Steve Kettmann on Friday, Dec. 9, at 7pm at the Wellstone Center in the Redwoods, 858 Amigo Road, Soquel. Free (RSVP required). in**@we***************.org.
Laura Marcus admits that she’s not very good at keeping her opinions to herself.
Around three years ago, the CEO of Dientes Community Dental Care was handpicked by then-Santa Cruz County Supervisor John Leopold to lead a community meeting regarding a 3.6-acre plot of land on Capitola Road.
“People were like, ‘We want a coffee shop.’ There’s already a coffee shop. ‘We want a market.’ There’s already a market,” Marcus says. “I thought, ‘What could we do here that could have a real impact in the community?’”
That thought served as the kernel for a state-of-the-art health and housing campus at 1500 Capitola Road, where locals celebrated the first of two ribbon cuttings on Nov. 19. With Marcus holding one side of the giant ceremonial scissors and Santa Cruz Community Health (SCCH) CEO Leslie Conner the other, the pair chopped through the oversized ribbon as the large crowd cheered.
As the tag-teamed scissor chop might suggest, the health and housing campus is a partnership between Dientes and SCCH. On one side of the campus is a 20,000-square-foot, two-story facility that provides medical, behavioral health and specialty care with a focus on pediatrics run by SCCH. On the other side of the campus, Dientes runs an 11-chair clinic where it will provide comprehensive dental care to low-income patients of all ages.
Next fall, the 57 low-income housing units being constructed by nonprofit developer MidPen Housing will be completed and filled.
As music blares in the background from a live band hired for the event during an interview a few moments after posing for photos and shaking dozens of hands, Marcus calls the day a “surreal moment” for all those involved in the project over the past three years.
“We keep laughing and saying, ‘The hard part is over, and now the hard part starts,’” she says.
Filling a Need
According to the state’s Health Places Index (HPI), many of the neighborhoods in Mid-County are considered to be among the healthiest places to live. The HPI, a product of the Public Health Alliance of Southern California, determines a community’s health rating by measuring various social conditions that impact a person’s health such as education, job opportunities and clean air and water.
But as the cost of living exponentially rises and wages and employment opportunities for lower-income residents stay stagnant, not everyone in Mid-County is managing to make ends meet. Around 15% of Live Oak Elementary School students are considered homeless, about 15,000 area residents do not have a doctor and roughly 74% of adults in Live Oak don’t have access to affordable dental care.
Marcus says that the new Dientes facility will serve around 6,000 low-income patients a year. Around 3,000 of those patients, Marcus says, currently receive services at Dientes’ 1830 Commercial Way location, about two miles from the new spot on the other side of Highway 1.
“This [new location] really brings it into the neighborhood where people live,” Marcus says. “Some of our patients are going to be able to walk to this location, and that’s huge for them.”
Although securing transportation might not be a deterrent for some county residents, it could be the difference between making or missing an appointment for the low-income residents Dientes serves, Marcus says. That is why the new campus is revolutionary: It brings services closer to the residents’ doorstep. Along with the health care services provided by Dientes and SCCH, Watsonville Law Center will have an immigration lawyer working on campus and MidPen will provide various services as well.
“The people that are living here are getting the wrap-around services they need. This is the way of the future in my mind,” Marcus says. “Santa Cruz is desperate for housing, so why don’t we continue to do these partnerships where we’re offering more than just housing and create a community hub?”
The 1500 Capitola Road location won’t be the last time Dientes and SCCH team up on a project. The two are working with the City of Santa Cruz on a smaller but similar development downtown. Dubbed Pacific Station South, the seven-story, mixed-use building will provide 70 affordable housing units and medical office space for both providers when it’s completed in 2024.
SCCH’s Conner says the two housing projects are a step in the right direction, but stresses that the county, which was ranked the second-most expensive rental market in the nation earlier this year, “probably needs another thousand” units to make a significant impact.
“It’s hard, but it can be done. And it can be done in a beautiful way, and we need to do it,” Conner says. “As a community, sometimes we’re going to have to sacrifice so that there aren’t people living on the streets.”
Decades of Service
This is the 30th year that Dientes has provided services in Santa Cruz County. Marcus has been with the nonprofit for half of them, spending four years as associate director around the turn of the century before taking over the top spot upon her return in 2011.
In that time, Dientes has grown from 26 employees and a $2.5 million budget to 120 employees and a $15 million budget.
Along with its Commercial Way and Capitola Road clinics, it also has locations in the Beach Flats neighborhood and in Watsonville and hosts an outreach reach clinic at the Housing Matters campus on Coral Street. It also conducts outreach days at local schools and skilled nursing facilities, providing cleanings for families who cannot afford dental care.
With the addition of the new clinic, Dientes will now serve 18,000 patients a year, 97% of whom live at or below the poverty level.
“We’ve done a lot of good over the past decade, and we’ve got so much more to do,” Marcus says.
In the coming years, Dientes will not only open up the aforementioned clinic in Downtown Santa Cruz, but also add five chairs to its Watsonville clinic, bringing the total number of chairs at that location to 11.
Marcus says that the organization’s steady rise is a product of its hard-working staff, and its wide web of donors who have slowly but surely bought into the idea that good oral health can positively impact a person’s life in several ways, from giving them the confidence to smile wide during a job interview or addressing bothersome, painful issues with their gums and teeth.
Dientes is one of 63 nonprofits participating in this year’s Santa Cruz Gives, the holiday giving drive helping Santa Cruz County organizations. Their Gives project this year is providing “Healthy Smiles for All,” which would allocate funds to ensure “that cost, insurance, income, race, language and transportation do not prevent people from visiting the dentist.”
“We feel like we’re adding value to the rest of the services that are offered in the community. I think people get excited about that idea,” she says. “They’re like, ‘Oh, yeah. I see the value in a healthy smile.’”
Here are five other nonprofits operating in the health and wellness sector that are participating in Santa Cruz Gives:
Encompass Community Services
The largest provider of health and human services in Santa Cruz County, Encompass’ Gives project is the construction of a state-of-the-art behavioral health center in Watsonville. The Sí Se Puede Behavioral Health Center will provide personalized, bilingual substance use and mental health treatment to more than 1,300 people a year.
The center will help the organization build on its 30-year history of serving the Watsonville community through bilingual programming that is led by Latinos with lived experience with substance abuse disorders.
Planned Parenthood Mar Monte
Gov. Gavin Newsom earlier this year declared California a Reproductive Freedom State, and a safe haven to all who seek abortion care. People are already traveling thousands of miles for care at Planned Parenthood health centers throughout the state.
Planned Parenthood Mar Monte’s Gives project—called “A Safe Haven for All”—is to respond to an additional 250-500 abortion patients every week throughout its local affiliates as more and more states deny their residents the right to abortion services.
Families In Transition
The project this countywide nonprofit hopes to fund through Santa Cruz Gives will help local families restore their credit scores to give them a better opportunity at snagging one of the forthcoming affordable and low-income housing units currently under construction across the county.
Center for Farmworker Families
A nonprofit dedicated to helping the area’s impoverished farmworkers survive on the expensive Central Coast, the Center for Farmworker Families’ (CFF) project is called “Comida, Cobijas y Cariño” (Food, Blankets and Care), a new program that invites 20-30 members of their farmworker families to participate in a monthly small-scale distribution where they will not only receive food, but home goods such as blankets and bedding, cookware and personal health items such as toiletries.
At these events, CFF partners with other nonprofits such as the Community Action Board Santa Cruz County and La Manzana to educate farmworkers about services available to them. A representative from each farmworker family will be invited to participate in the distribution just 1-2 times yearly.
Community Bridges
In Santa Cruz County, 56% of residents age 5 and older do not speak English very well or at all, according to the Census Bureau. Community Bridges’ project for this year’s Santa Cruz Gives, called “Let’s Learn English Together!,” seeks to address this.
This initiative will teach non-English speaking parents during the day to speak English, and help pay for childcare for young children while their older children are in school. This will allow them to guide their children with schoolwork.
In Santa Cruz County, the poverty rate among those who worked full-time for the past 12 months was 3%. Among those working part-time, it was 16% and for those who did not work, it was 19%.
Three years after “pandemic” entered our everyday lexicon, there’s a new, unwelcome vocab term to learn: “tripledemic.” As the weather gets cooler, and friends and families gather indoors for holidays, emergency departments around the country must now balance an influx of Covid, flu and Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) cases.
Santa Cruz County maintained low Covid numbers for most of the fall, but wastewater monitoring, reported on publichealth.verily.com, shows recent jumps in Covid, flu and RSV.
It measures copies of the viruses per gram of solid waste, which indicates levels of infection in a community.
“It’s, I think, a perfect way to monitor the health of the community,” Dr. David Ghilarducci, Santa Cruz County Deputy Health Officer, says. “One of the problems with testing is you’ve got to go to a testing center, you’ve got to get the test, you’ve got to wait for the results. There are lots of barriers to that.”
The wastewater numbers show community trends more accurately, but they don’t necessarily reflect the situation in local hospitals.
Emergency departments are now nearly full with the combined force of the three viruses. In a recent press release, county health officials urged people with mild to moderate symptoms to refrain from trips to the ER and instead recover at home or turn to primary care providers.
Ghilarducci reports that Dominican Hospital is nearly full. Alongside limited resources, staffing poses one of the biggest challenges, he says.
“A lot of people have burned out after Covid,” he says. “They have left the medical profession, have maybe been unwilling to work extra hours like they used to because they’re just tired.”
Covid and flu tend to hospitalize older adults, but RSV primarily affects young children, creating another strain.
“We started off with very little inpatient pediatric capacity in our county—really, statewide,” says Ghilarducci. “And so that is particularly scary because we might rely on sending kids to children’s hospitals over in Santa Clara County. Those hospitals are now full, and we’ll have kids that we’re going to have to take care of here in this county because there’s simply no place to send them. Capacity’s constrained everywhere.”
Before Covid, most kids were exposed to RSV before their second birthday. But Covid precautions largely kept both flu and RSV away. Now, four and five year olds are catching the virus alongside infants.
“So now we have this susceptible population that is catching up for the first time,” says Ghilarducci. “The same is true for flu; we largely skipped flu the last couple of years because of Covid precautions.”
Familiar Precautions
Now, with restrictions lifted and life returning to normal in many spheres, people are catching viruses they haven’t been exposed to in a few years.
“I’m actually least worried about Covid right now,” says Ghilarducci, citing a recent study that only about 5% of the U.S. population has never been exposed, either through infection or vaccination.
“That’s a far different situation than what we looked at last winter, and even better than what we saw the winter of 2021,” he says.
That’s not to say the situation couldn’t change.
“Covid continues to produce variants,” says Ghilarducci. And immunity wanes over time. “So we fully expect to see more hospitalizations and deaths from Covid.”
UCSC infectious disease ecologist A. Marm Kilpatrick makes similar points. The increase in transmissions over winter comes as no surprise, he says.
“We spend more time indoors, and environmental conditions allow viruses to persist longer in the environment—cooler, drier,” he says. “But the severity of the disease will likely remain low and decrease further unless a new variant arises with higher severity—or that is so different that it can evade multiple aspects of our immunity.”
Researchers have no way of anticipating a variant like that.
“We all hope it won’t happen, but no one can predict whether it will or won’t,” says Kilpatrick. “Anyone that says they can is spreading BS.”
Fortunately, familiar precautions work against all three viruses.
In another press release, Santa Cruz County listed several recommendations: Get vaccinated and boosted—and treated if needed. Stay home when sick to avoid spreading the viruses. Avoid going to the ER for anything beyond severe symptoms. Test before gathering with large groups of people. Wear a mask. Wash your hands, and cover your coughs and sneezes.
“If you’ve been boosted before, that’s great,” says Ghilarducci. “But if you don’t have the new booster, you don’t have full protection like you used to.”
He recommends the flu vaccine as well. There aren’t any vaccines for RSV yet.
And to the notion that the Covid pandemic is “over,” Ghilarducci responds that it hasn’t ended, just changed.
“I wouldn’t let your guard down. It’s okay to relax a little bit. But also think about all the principles that helped keep you safe and alive over the last couple of years,” he says. “Those, I think, will continue to be important.”
Batteries, fake leather, packing material, soil purification, dyes, imitation steaks and experimental treatments for alcoholism all have one thing in common: They can be made from mushrooms.
Fungi, a category of life completely separate from plants and animals, continue to surprise us, and experts have watched public interest bloom—or rather, mushroom—in recent years. In Santa Cruz, however, fungiphilia is nothing new.
Since 1974, visitors to the annual Fungus Fair have marveled at giant displays of local mushrooms and enjoyed fungi-filled foods. But Covid closed the doors on the multi-day event in January 2021, which had been held for the last several years at the London Nelson Center.
Last February, the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History teamed up with the Fungus Federation of Santa Cruz to bring back a “mini” version of the free event. The one-day fair, outside the museum where the event launched almost five decades ago, drew nearly 1000 people.
The collaboration continues this year with another mini fair outside the museum on Dec. 10. It will include the classic fungi display and local vendors and activities.
One of many local varieties of mushrooms found throughout Santa Cruz County. PHOTO: Tarmo Hannula
Visitors can paint with mushrooms, sniff around an olfactory-focused booth or learn about lichens. Interested foragers can practice identification and bring their own mushrooms for the display, and the culinarily inclined can try “fungus forward food” from Areperia 831.
The Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History will set up a station about identifying plants—a valuable skill for mushroom hunters. And local artists will display nature-focused art.
“We call it mini because it’s going to be smaller than London Nelson. But as you start to put it together, it gets bigger and bigger,” says Marisa Gomez, the community education and collaboration manager at the museum. “There’s so much love for mushrooms in Santa Cruz.”
The fair will kick off mushroom season both for the museum and the Fungus Federation, which will host mushroom hunts in January.
The Fungus Federation encourages people of all ages to explore the wild world of mushrooms. There’s only one rule: “If you don’t know what it is, don’t eat it,” says Phil Carpenter, a retired chemist who has led mushroom walks for more than three decades and is one of the science advisors for the federation.
“It’s not ‘maybe,’ but ‘for sure,’ because there’s a lot of lookalikes,” he emphasizes. To appreciate the beauty of mushrooms, just take a camera, he says. But for eating, it’s vital to get more in-depth.
“Learn how to identify, know people who know how to identify and know people that you can trust to give you the proper identification before you eat something,” he says. The Mini Fungus Fair could be a good place to start.
The Mini Fungus Fair takes place on Saturday, Dec. 10, 11am-3pm. Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History, 1305 E. Cliff Drive, Santa Cruz. santacruzmuseum.org.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Aries filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky wrote, “To be free, you simply have to be so, without asking permission. You must have your own hypothesis about what you are called to do, and follow it, not giving in to circumstances or complying with them. But that sort of freedom demands powerful inner resources, a high degree of self-awareness and a consciousness of your responsibility to yourself and therefore to other people.” That last element is where some freedom-seekers falter. They neglect their obligation to care for and serve their fellow humans. I want to make sure you don’t do that, Aries, as you launch a new phase of your liberation process. Authentic freedom is conscientious.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): The term “neurodiversity” refers to the fact that the human brain functions in a wide variety of ways. There are not just a few versions of mental health and learning styles that are better than all the others. Taurus musician David Byrne believes he is neurodiverse because he is on the autism spectrum. That’s an advantage, he feels, giving him the power to focus with extra intensity on his creative pursuits. I consider myself neurodiverse because my life in the imaginal realm is just as important to me as my life in the material world. I suspect that most of us are neurodiverse in some sense—deviating from “normal” mental functioning. What about you, Taurus? The coming months will be an excellent time to explore and celebrate your own neurodiversity.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Poet Jane Hirshfield says that Zen Buddhism is built on three principles: 1. Everything changes. 2. Everything is connected. 3. Pay attention. Even if you are not a Zen practitioner, Gemini, I hope you will focus on the last two precepts in the coming weeks. If I had to summarize the formula that will bring you the most interesting experiences and feelings, it would be, “Pay attention to how everything is connected.” I hope you will intensify your intention to see how all the apparent fragments are interwoven. Here’s my secret agenda: I think it will help you register the truth that your life has a higher purpose than you’re usually aware of—and that the whole world is conspiring to help you fulfill that purpose.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Author Flannery O’Connor wrote, “You have to cherish the world at the same time that you struggle to endure it.” I will add a further thought: “You have to cherish the world at the same time that you struggle to endure it and strive to transform it into a better place.” Let’s make this one of your inspirational meditations in the coming months, Cancerian. I suspect you will have more power than usual to transform the world into a better place. Get started! (PS: Doing so will enhance your ability to endure and cherish.)
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Many sports journalists will tell you that while they may root for their favorite teams, they also “root for the story.” They want a compelling tale to tell. They yearn for dramatic plot twists that reveal entertaining details about interesting characters performing unique feats. That’s how I’m going to be in the coming months Leo, at least in relation to you. I hope to see you engaged in epic sagas, creating yourself with verve as you weave your way through fun challenges and intriguing adventures. I predict my hope will be realized.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Venus is too hot and dry for humans to live on. But if travelers from Earth could figure out a way to feel comfortable there, they would enjoy a marvelous perk. The planet rotates very slowly. One complete day and night lasts for 243 Earth days and nights. That means you and a special friend could take a romantic stroll toward the sunset for as long as you wanted, and never see the sun go down. I invite you to dream up equally lyrical adventures in togetherness here on Earth during the coming months, Virgo. Your intimate alliances will thrive as you get imaginative and creative about nurturing togetherness.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): As far as I’m concerned, Libran Buddhist monk and author Thích Nhất Hạnh was one of the finest humans who ever lived. “Where do you seek the spiritual?” he asked. His answer: “You seek the spiritual in every ordinary thing that you do every day. Sweeping the floor, watering the vegetables and washing the dishes become sacred if mindfulness is there.” In the coming weeks, Libra, you will have exceptional power to live like this: to regard every event, however mundane or routine, as an opportunity to express your soulful love and gratitude for the privilege of being alive. Act as if the whole world is your precious sanctuary.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): A reader named Elisa Jean tells me, “We Scorpio allies admire how Scorpios can be so solicitous and welcoming: the best party hosts. They know how to foster social situations that bring out the best in everyone and provide convivial entertainment. Yet Scorpios also know everyone’s secrets. They are connoisseurs of the skeletons in the closets. So they have the power to spawn discordant commotions and wreak havoc on people’s reputations. But they rarely do. Instead, they keep the secrets. They use their covert knowledge to weave deep connections.” Everything Ella Jean described will be your specialties in the coming weeks, Scorpio.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Of all the signs in the zodiac, you Sagittarians are least likely to stay in one location for extended periods. Many of you enjoy the need to move around from place to place. Doing so may be crucial in satisfying your quest for ever-fresh knowledge and stimulation. You understand that it’s risky to get too fixed in your habits and too dogmatic in your beliefs. So you feel an imperative to keep disrupting routines before they become deadening. When you are successful in this endeavor, it’s often due to a special talent you have: your capacity for creating an inner sense of home that enables you to feel stable and grounded as you ramble free. I believe this superpower will be extra strong during the coming months.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Capricorn author Edgar Allan Poe made this mysterious statement: “We can, at any time, double the true beauty of an actual landscape by half closing our eyes as we look at it.” What did he mean? He was referring to how crucial it is to see life “through the veil of the soul.” Merely using our physical vision gives us only half the story. To be receptive to the full glory of the world, our deepest self must also participate in the vision. Of course, this is always true. But it’s even more extra especially true than usual for you right now.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Aquarian theologian Henri Nouwen wrote, “I have discovered that the gifts of life are often hidden in the places that hurt most.” Yikes! Really? I don’t like that idea. But I will say this: If Nouwen’s theory has a grain of truth, you will capitalize on that fact in the coming weeks. Amazingly enough, a wound or pain you experienced in the past could reveal a redemptive possibility that inspires and heals you.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Piscean novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen says it’s wise to talk to yourself. No other conversational partner is more fascinating. No one else listens as well. I offer you his advice in the hope of encouraging you to upgrade the intensity and frequency of your dialogs with yourself. It’s an excellent astrological time to go deeper with the questions you pose and to be braver in formulating your responses. Make the coming weeks be the time when you find out much more about what you truly think and feel.
On a brisk rainy day along West Cliff Drive, it’s hard to beat the view of the wind-whipped waves from the front porch of Steamer Lane Supply, where hard-working innovative cuisinartist Fran Grayson runs a very tight ship. A trio of surfers skipped the actual surf in favor of lunch treats from SLS and I joined them, awaiting my call-in order.
The menu here is so dreamy it could provide breakfast, lunch and dinner for any adventurous diner. Fusion Mexican ideas are here laced with kimchi and ingenious slaws, as well as salsas and gloriously original seasonings. Back home, our lunch order fulfilled the SLS promise of confident, high-wattage flavors and colorful presentation. Even wrapped snugly in foil and biodegradable boxes.
For sheer freshness and beauty, not much beats the house bowls (all gluten-free!), and that day we went for the albacore tuna salad bowl ($10.25). Generously mounded into a box, this bounty of smart ideas began with tuna, but didn’t stop there. Next to the tuna salad sat brown rice and Napa cabbage in a light dressing, and next to that a row of the delicious house pickles. Layers of seaweed salad (nice surprise), sliced ripe avocado and an addictive helping of spun carrots—all spiced in ginger mayo and topped with plump sun sprouts. That’s a lot of compelling gastro-entertainment for around ten bucks.
Our chicken tamale, packed into a thick masa wrapping (easier to eat right out of the hand, but thicker than I might prefer), was topped with drizzles of sour cream, queso fresco and transformational salsa verde. Seriously filling for a mere five bucks.
But then … then there was the life-changing Vegandilla. SLS offers a long menu of variations on the justly popular quesadilla. Dillas with scrambled eggs, with kale, with pulled pork, with Kimchi, with tuna, and the sexiest variation—the Vegandilla ($8.95). Pro tip: just because you may be a devoted carnivore, as we are, you shouldn’t avoid checking out the vegan side of a sophisticated menu. Our “toasty pressed burrito” (as the SLS menu describes it) involved a large rectangle pocket of tortilla (really large), filled with a layer of wildly unexpected goodies. Curried tofu salad, pickled veggies, seaweed, even brown rice and curry-intensive sambals. Frankly phenomenal. We couldn’t stop eating until this really large pressed burrito was consumed. And when I was through eating it, I wanted another one. No higher praise.
Eventually we will eat our way through Grayson’s entire menu and back again. But it will be almost impossible to go to this very Santa Cruz seaside pit-stop without bringing home one of those outrageous Vegandillas. Steamer Lane Supply is a local treasure that should be on everyone’s short list of go-to depots of fantastic flavors. Open daily, 8am-5pm.
Steamer Lane Supply, 698 W. Cliff Drive, Santa Cruz. 831-316-5240; steamerlanesc.com.
Stern Stuff
Can’t wait for the opening of the new restaurant home of chef Katherine Stern, mostly recently the chef-in-residence at Bad Animal. Her incredible handiwork (available through her farmer’s market Midway outlet) will finally find its own home on Soquel Avenue, where Oyunaa’s Mongolian Cuisine held forth for many years. The word is that Stern’s new place could open early in 2023. For those of us who recall her incredible years as chef and menu designer at La Posta, this new dining showcase for her considerable skills can’t come soon enough … Farewell to longtime Santa Cruz chef Scott Cater, whose culinary expertise powered the kitchen of Casablanca for many years, and most recently Paradise Beach Grille in Capitola. Such a skillful hand with seafood specialties—thanks for the memories, Scott.
Seascape Beach Resort’s Wine Wednesday is a great way to get to know local wineries and various wines. It’s also an opportunity to gather a few friends and go wine tasting for $25, which includes a small charcuterie plate. Integrity Wines was pouring several different vinos at a recent Wine Wednesday. I took a shine to their marvelous 2021 Monterey Albariño ($26), served with plates of cheeses, salami, crackers and fruit—an excellent pairing that totally nailed it. With its fruit-forward notes and “dynamic tones of guava, lychee and yellow and orange Starburst chews,” the world seemed brighter after just a few sips. Produced and bottled by Integrity Wines of Watsonville, the 2021 Albariño white wine is truly delicious.
Kudos to local Bargetto Winery. Their 2019 Pommard Clone Santa Cruz Mountains Pinot Noir is now in two Wolfgang Puck restaurants in Las Vegas: CUT at the Venetian and Lupo at the Mandalay Bay.
Venus Cocktails’ Beachside Location Remodel
The newly opened Venus in Rio del Mar was gangbusters busy as six of us gathered for drinks and some “share plates.” The food is excellent, and the restaurant has a great vibe. This location is closed temporarily through the winter as the interior is redesigned, but the other Venus location at 200 High Road on the Westside of Santa Cruz remains open. venusspirits.com.
Discretion Brewing
My friend Jan and I stopped by Discretion Brewing recently for a much-needed cold beer. We both loved the Redwood Mountain Blonde—a perfect brewsky for a warm afternoon on Discretion’s outdoor patio.
Discretion Brewing, 2703 41st Ave., Ste. A, Soquel, 831-316-0662; discretionbrewing.com.
Beijing native Yiling Cui moved to Wisconsin to attend college and then came to Santa Cruz in the ’90s to work in agriculture and be part of the organic farming movement. Now she is co-owner of the newly opened Four Streams Kitchen in Aptos—named after an area where four rivers merge in China’s Sichuan basin. Though Cui had never worked in the restaurant industry before, she invested in Four Streams—she even brokered the sale of the building—because she believed in Mei, the owner, and Chen, the chef. She says the famously spicy cuisine is fresh and made using high-quality ingredients. Menu highlights include the hot and spicy Sichuan Boiled Fish, a signature regional dish. The lemon chicken is also popular, as are the garlic string beans. Other best-sellers are the broccoli and Mongolian beef and the sizzling seafood soup. Starters include classic egg and spring rolls, chicken salad and crab Rangoon. Hours are 11am-9pm daily (open till 9:30pm on Fridays and Saturdays) for dining in or carry-out. GT asked Cui about Mei and Chen and her vision for their new restaurant.
What made you believe in Mei and Chen?
YILING CUI: Chen was my previous client, and I knew he was a very hard worker. He was trained in China to be a chef and had owned a restaurant in Monterey. Mei is another hard worker, she’s always willing and capable, and she wanted the American dream, so I wanted to help her achieve that. I believe everybody comes to this country just needing an opportunity. When I came here 40 years ago, others did that for me, so I wanted to do that for someone else.
What is Four Streams’ mission?
We try very hard to meet the locals’ tastes and preferences and have every customer leave full and satisfied by not only our food but our service as well. We are about serving the locals, making sure our food is healthy and delicious and promoting quality organic ingredients in our kitchen. For our first six months in business, we’ve gotten good feedback. People seem to really want good Chinese food locally.
