I’ve been thinking lately about the disappearing art of the classic alternative-press first-person story. It may seem ridiculous to worry about the loss of the first-person perspective in a world where there’s more of it than ever, especially online. But I’m not talking about opinion essays, or the thousands of blogs that package editorializing on someone else’s reporting as original work. I’m talking about truly personal journalism, the kind pioneered by “New Journalists” like Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, Hunter S. Thompson and Gloria Steinem; the “participatory journalism” of George Plimpton, who would actually join and play with everything from pro sports teams to orchestras in order to get the most insightful story possible.
I got a hit of Plimpton from Liza Monroy’s cover story this week; it’s ostensibly a profile of maverick Santa Cruz surfboard shaper Carl Gooding. And it is that, don’t get me wrong—Gooding is a fascinating subject. But Monroy’s story is just as much about her own journey, and the challenges she faces as a woman surfer—some of which she wasn’t aware of until she started taking a deeper look at exactly how the design and shape of a surfboard works—and eventually, designed and shaped one herself. I think it’s a great surfing story, profile and example of how participatory journalism continues today.
This whole idea is a complete waste of time and money. Everyone knows that Scotts Valley is going to develop more with the Town Center and more high-density housing. And absolutely nothing to build more water production and storage infrastructure. Soquel Creek Water District is spending $100 million to use less than 15% of the wastewater, when they could have used 100% of it for the same amount of money, contingent on if they could use the rail corridor for a larger pipeline. Said pipeline could be extended to Deep Water Desal. Now you have plenty of water to eternity. But, no, we need the brilliant Rail + Trail billion-dollar project. Morons control the infrastructure decisions in California. Let’s build a section of High Speed Rail, or don’t fix a $10 million repair job on Oroville Dam. Everyone in SLVWD is going to oppose this, and they already started sending in their protests today.
— Bill Smallman
PHOTO CONTEST WINNER
Environmental Volunteers’ After-School Nature Walks program for 2020/2021 is designed to help students and their families get to know our local city parks and open space areas. Small, individual, family groups will be guided by a knowledgeable environmental educator during a 90-minute (covid-safe) exploration of a local park. These small groups will be introduced to fun nature-based activities, and a chance to learn more about the plants and animals all around us. Offered twice a week (Tu/Th), the location will change to a new park each month, and families are welcome to sign up for as many as they like. Cost is $8/child for each session. The field trips are intended for children ages 6-11.
Submit to ph****@*******es.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
THINK OF THEM
The Family Service Agency of the Central Coast’s I-You Venture is helping alleviate some of the increased loneliness and isolation seniors in care facilities have been facing during the pandemic. Community members can send “Thinking of You” cards, or donate items such as crossword puzzles, word search books, adult coloring books and art supplies. Items can be mailed to: FSA/I-You Venture, 104 Walnut Ave., #208, Santa Cruz, CA, 95060, or dropped off at the Santa Cruz Volunteer Center,1740 17th Ave., Santa Cruz, CA (marked “Attn: I-You Venture”). Office hours are Monday-Thursday, 10am-noon and 1-4pm. They then deliver the items to local care facilities. For more information, call 831-459-8917, ext. 205.
GOOD WORK
SHOW TIME
While the rest of us talk about when live music might come back, Michael’s on Main has been dipping music lovers’ toes back into the live experience this month with their “Dinner and a Show” series—very limited capacity shows on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and Wednesdays, with seating at socially distanced tables. Table reservations are available for two or more, and face masks are required. Upcoming shows include Sambada on Saturday, March 20, and Anthony Arya with Life is a Cabaret on Saturday, April 3, Grateful Dead covers every Sunday, and more. Call 831-479-9777, ext. 2, for tickets.
I’ve loved surfing for years, but before the pandemic, I couldn’t regularly go. When lockdown began, though—with my husband’s dawn commute over the hill on pause and our kids out of preschool—I regularly forced myself out of bed at 5:30am and biked to a nearby spot.
A couple months into quarantine, water days outnumbered my under-wetsuit swimwear supply. So I paid a visit to Aylana Zanville, former pro surfer and proprietress of local surf-y clothing line Ola Chica. As she laid out bikinis on her lawn, I admired a blue surfboard leaning against her shed.
“The shaper does these single fin, flowy boards,” she said. “I’ve gotten a lot of custom boards over the years, and I’ve never had a board like that.” She paused, considering. “You know, you should call Carl.”
She gave me the number of Carl Gooding, a board shaper who works out of a nondescript local garage, but I was skeptical. Zanville was an expert. Why would an intermediate-ish recreational surf mom need a custom board?
In a world where most boards are shaped for men, “Carl has a keen understanding of shaping women’s boards,” Zanville told me. From shoulders to hips, he designs for each particular client’s body type and abilities.
I’d been riding the same board for four years without a thought as to who it had been shaped for. So not long after, on a sunny, socially distanced afternoon in Gooding’s airy living room, I found myself listening to him talk about his quest to create a more inclusive, sustainable surf world—for women, BIPOC, and Mother Earth herself. The timing was apt, as spring seems to be the time when all of Gooding’s concerns come together: March, April and May contain International Women’s Day, Earth Day and Mother’s Day, respectively.
With his teenage daughter’s noserider leaning by the door, Gooding said that in an industry still permeated by racism and sexism, he strives to differ from the stereotype of the “old privileged white guy making surfboards,” with a focus on inclusion and sustainability. “There are not nearly enough people of color in the water,” he says. “How do you change that?”
An affable, soft-spoken fellow with a shiny gray mane and eyes that are pools of blue sincerity, Gooding has lived many lives—he’s worked for MTV, been a professional NBA photographer, and a craftsman building off-road race cars, bike frames, and model airplanes. In his 60s now, he brings his waste-not maker’s ethos to his Dawn Patrol Surfboards business. Though he’s run it for a decade, it remains a hidden gem, hiding in plain sight. Gooding started Dawn Patrol when his daughters, then 8 and 10, joined what was the Shoreline surf team (now the Pleasure Point Surf Club). In looking for boards, nothing he found was quite the right fit.
“That’s how shaping started,” he says. “I have an analytic mind. I thought, ‘I can do better.’” Ever since, he’s been on a mission to craft custom boards “with soul,” and he takes pride in shaping for girls, women and all body types and abilities.
Surfing Through Quarantine
When I moved to Santa Cruz in 2012, a friend lent me a board and took me out at beginner-friendly Cowells. Catching my first waves sparked an obsession. I bought a dinged piece of junk for $60 off Craigslist that’s probably in a landfill right now. In 2016, for my first Mother’s Day as a mom, I received a “real” board: a tri-fin 9’0 former rental from a name-brand surf shop.
When I met Gooding, he was getting back to work after a non-Covid bout with pneumonia threatened his future as a shaper. When the illness finally subsided, Gooding was especially glad to be back because “Covid happened, and we got really busy.”
Indeed, while many industries continue to suffer during the pandemic, surfing has boomed, as is evident from the crowded lineups along the coast and internationally. During quarantine, surfing became synonymous with sanity and self-care—a safe, socially distanced way to get outdoors, exercise, and momentarily forget doomscrolling.
Gooding requested I bring my surfboard to show him. He looked it over like a doctor examining a patient and said, “The board isn’t helping you. It’s for a big dude riding big waves.” I was the opposite. How long had I been surfing? Seven years, with two pregnancy breaks. “You’re at a point in your life to stop surfing the old rental board you bought when you didn’t know what you were doing,” Gooding diagnosed.
He opened the garage door, revealing his soundproof shaping room. Racks held boards-in-progress and blanks, pieces of foam “marble” that become—with the shaper’s craft that blends art, engineering, mathematics, and creativity—surfboards as specific as a fingerprint.
Gooding calls all surfboards a compromise. “Most people are on the wrong board. People can be embarrassed to tell the guy at the surf shop how they truly surf, whatever it happens to be,” he told me.
I could relate. I felt impostor syndrome describing my so-so skills to a professional shaper, but Gooding put me at ease. He launched a CIA-worthy interrogation of my surfing: where did I go, what spots, what conditions? What kinds of waves did I surf now, and what did I aspire to? I presented a virtual vision board of graceful women cross-stepping and noseriding, admitting I wasn’t near that yet. He went into a detailed explanation of surfboard mechanics—what helped and hindered.
Marisol Godinez, designer, surfer, surf-club mother, and a co-organizer of Women on Waves, an inclusive women’s event to which Gooding donated a board for a contest prize, describes Gooding as a Renaissance man who understood what she, who was “not aspiring to be a big, fast wave surfer,” wanted to accomplish.
“He’s never patronizing,” Godinez says. “He is a great shaper. He spends a lot of time getting to know the person, their style and the types of waves they like to ride. He took time to ask all these questions. Each board is a thumbprint for a person, very specific, unique. He’s always asking me, ‘How do you like [the boards]?’ He always wants to know.”
Michael Allen, head coach of Pleasure Point Surf Club and author of Tao of Surfing, met Gooding and Godinez when their children enrolled. “Because he started shaping boards just for his daughters,” Allen says, “he carries that caring, thoughtful, meticulous style into shaping each customer’s board. He wants to make sure that the person he is shaping for is not only going to enjoy riding it, but that the board will take them into a higher level of surfing.”
Godinez has a prime example: an 8’5 board outfitted with a colorful, retro fabric inlay on the deck. Gooding’s mother bought the fabric in the ’60s at a Redwood City fabric store. Talk about reuse and recycle.
When Freeline Surf shop did a remodel six years ago, Gooding wound up with the old curtains from the dressing rooms. “I did a board from that as well,” he says. “At some point perhaps I’ll do another with what I have.”
Form and Function
My old rental board was too wide, impacting my paddling. I’d never considered what Gooding termed my “wingspan,” or my narrow shoulders and hips.
We would stick with a 9’0, Gooding advised, but with thicker rails—and narrower, made not for “a big dude riding big waves,” but a small person of mellow surf. The single-fin longboard would make paddling more efficient and meet me where I was now, but also allow for evolution as I learned how to cross-step. With Gooding’s supportive, encouraging manner, any nerves I felt about working with him faded as we got down to the design.
He probed into my background and identity. Writer—some typewriter keys? Mom to a five- and two-year old—how about their handprints on the deck in blue and purple paint, my favorite colors?
That design would grow more meaningful over the years. “With respect to all the great shapers in town, that’s an idea I don’t think any other shaper would have thought of,” Allen says. “He’s very artistic with years of professional photography behind him, so he has his eye on the visual element.”
First Wave
A few weeks later, I caught my first wave on my Dawn Patrol board. As soon as I stood and made my first turn on it, I had the feeling of meeting a soulmate: This is how it’s supposed to be! I turned, trimmed, and rode more smoothly. The board enhanced my performance and enjoyment.
Price-wise, Gooding’s custom longboard was $750, while the old brand-name rental was $900. I’d seen certain foamies for sale in surf shops for $500. Dawn Patrol surfboards rarely exceed $1,000. “It doesn’t need to be that expensive,” Gooding says. “’What market will bear’ doesn’t make it fair. You can get a reasonably priced board that’s not made in Taiwan. People should go out and get the stoke as soon as they can and be able to afford it.”
The author on her first time out with her Dawn Patrol board. PHOTO: MICHAEL ALLEN
Sustainable Surf
“Carl definitely lives close to the earth,” says Allen, now a surfboard tester for Dawn Patrol in addition to his job as a technical writer for companies in Silicon Valley and volunteer work with the surf club—where, as a certified first responder, he teacheswilderness and surfing first-aid. “You have to in order to be a shaper. With so many disposable soft-top boards showing up in landfills, getting a custom board eliminates this waste. You’re more likely to keep it. The board stays in family homes. Carl is always mindful of this.”
The popularity of surfing during Covid lockdowns has meant producers of surfboards and wetsuits had trouble keeping supply in stock. Many beginners seek out something cheap off the racks at places like Costco. But Gooding aims to change disposable surf-consumer culture with boards families will enjoy and keep for a lifetime. “Ultimately, how much faster will a Wavestorm end up in the garbage than a hand-shaped board?” he points out.
Gooding saves dust and wood chips from shaping, and uses it as compost. “There are a handful of people making boards sustainably,” he says. “Out of wood, trying to use bioresins, hemp cloth, flax cloth. No one has that whole thing sorted yet. It will be really cool when we get there.”
Lately, he’s been working on projects like the Alaia board, made of redwood that he can turn into furniture if it breaks or is out of commission. “The Alaia is all wood,” he says. If it’s out of commission “you can burn it as firewood, put bricks under and make a table… you can put it outside and it won’t rot. It’s biodegradable, sustainable, and nontoxic—if not an easy thing to surf.”
Making of a Maker
Gooding contextualizes his work not within the world of other shapers, but as part of a larger, loose community of makers—consummate DIY anti-consumers who would rather teach themselves to build something than buy it from a store. He has friends who are shoemakers, glass blowers, woodworkers, and home brewers.
In Redwood City in the ’60s as a young child, Gooding took apart his tricycle and made it into a big wheel. At 10, he saved money from mowing lawns to buy bicycles at an auction, “got them to work with a mishmashing of parts,” and sold them.
An entrepreneur was born. “I was always building and making stuff. I got in trouble with my dad,” he says. “He was too concerned about his tools.”
He started shaping surfboards at 50, after a variety of other careers: fixing and building cars, studying engineering at Cabrillo, followed by a photography and film production degree at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. He worked for the NBA, NHL, MLB, and WNBA, photographing athletes and lighting arenas. He built competitive airplanes and became a general contractor. Then, after moving around the country for years, he settled with his family in Santa Cruz and his daughters joined the surf club. When he made the first boards for them, people noticed. “Another kid’s mom wanted a board. She rode my daughter’s and asked me to make one, [asking] ‘How much?’ I had no idea what the hell I was doing, but I had a template and that board,” he says. “I floated Dawn Patrol by doing repairs. I bought boards, made them work, and sold them.”
Hull of a Surprise
Six months into my new surf life with my Dawn Patrol longboard—now the only board I was sure I’d ride forever—I was driving to a break when Gooding called. Would I want to shape a new board with him, as a holiday special? I didn’t need another surfboard, but was curious. “A true noserider?” I asked. Was he steering me further toward my stated goal?
“No,” he said. “Something completely different.”
Once again I wasn’t sure what was ahead, but I already trusted him.
“A displacement hull,” he said.
Displacement hulls push through water rather than riding on top of it. I was surprised he thought I was ready to step down from a 9’0 to a 7’2 midsize. Does he think I’m a better surfer than I am?
Over two half-days in the garage-based shaping bay came a crash course in the process of shaping a blank into a surfboard. We used power tools and a sander, made calculations (well, Gooding did, as I wracked my brain for rusty math), extracting a board from the proverbial marble.
As we worked, 18-year-old surfer and part-time Dawn Patrol apprentice Dane Luckscheider came to take a board. I recognized Luckscheider from his impressive cross-stepping and noseriding at a nearby spot.
“Carl is a mentor for my surfing and shaping,” Luckscheider says. “Working and shaping with him helps you envision every part of what the board he’s making will do, how it will turn, trim, and everything else. When you talk to him about a board he’s created, you can tell he has a deep understanding of what he made. He’s an awesome and interesting guy with a ton of knowledge and stories.”
While this wave wunderkind doesn’t foresee becoming a full-time shaper himself, he says, “I do plan on only riding Dawn Patrol surfboards or boards I shape.”
There is a calm serenity to crafting a surfboard, a flow state much like surfing or writing, when it’s going well. After sculpting the blank into what would become the 7’2 single-fin, filing away and going over it with the planer to smooth out rough edges and irregularities, Gooding loaded his truck and drove it to the glasser in Morro Bay.
Gooding warned me it would take a few sessions to get the shiny new purple-blue little surfboard dialed, but once I did, it would be the most fun. Another accurate prediction.
Ironically, the challenge of riding the hull was what finally got me cross-stepping on my longboard. After the hull, the longboard felt simple. And the hull itself fit me in a way I couldn’t articulate.
“It’s a more old-school way of riding,” Zanville says. “Less aggressive, more flowy.”
She could have been describing … me. The hull now lives in my bedroom, matching the color scheme and decor.
“There’s definitely other people shaping out of their garages,” Zanville says, “but Carl’s boards are all unique. The whole thing is a signature. I don’t think it’s very common, what he’s doing. He’s open to working with people. The whole thing he did with helping you shape a custom board and take you through the process, that’s amazing.”
Gooding prides himself on accessibility. “I’m not a guy behind a curtain,” he says. “People can talk to me, figure out what they need and want.”
These days, when I spot other Dawn Patrol boards in the water, I paddle over to ask how they know Gooding. Because, despite his expertise and focus on environmental and social justice, Gooding has managed to keep DP on the DL. You can’t find him profiled on Surfline. With customers who find him through personal connections or online, he has plenty of work and is always busy, but isn’t yet among the ranks of local celebrity shapers. Perhaps it’s intentional for the crafty iconoclast. “I’d rather be someone’s shot of whiskey than everyone’s cup of tea,” he says. “I’m just a guy making stuff.”
Allen would disagree. “Santa Cruz is famous worldwide for its surfing history,” he says. “We have some of the best shapers here who have been significant for decades. I honestly have never met anyone as knowledgeable of every intricate design aspect in a surfboard as Carl.”
Gooding tells me it’s his love of shaping boards that are as one-of-a-kind as the individuals who ride them that keeps him motivated, as does the question of “how you make money and keep the integrity of what you’re making,” he says. “How do you sell soul?”
Then he heads back to the garage, a slew of new orders on deck. “Time to go make dust.”
A new study from UCSC, the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the U.S. Geological Survey highlights the role of otters in maintaining local kelp forests amid urchin outbreaks.
Less than 10 years ago, iconic giant kelp dominated the underwater landscapes of the Monterey Bay. “These were towering, tall underwater forests that resembled their terrestrial redwood forest counterparts,” says Joshua Smith, a UCSC Ph.D. candidate and the lead author on the study.
But the forests look different now. They’re patchy—broken up by rock fields covered in purple sea urchins. Researchers call these underwater deserts “urchin barrens.”
The barrens formed under a perfect storm of events. As urchin populations increased, sea star wasting syndrome wiped out one of their main predators—sunflower sea stars—in 2013. The next year, a major marine heatwave slowed the growth of kelp.
“Normally, sea urchins live down in the rock crevices and eat drift kelp,” says Smith. Drift kelp, he explains, is like leaves that fall from trees. But after the warm water damaged the kelp, less of it made its way to the cracks in the reef.
“The pizza is not being delivered to the doorstep. They’ve gotta go out and look for it,” says Steve Lonhart, a research ecologist at the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary who was not involved in the study. “It’s also helpful that one of the things that might eat them is not around, so there’s a little bit less of the sense of fear in the water.”
The urchins crawled out of their holes and began mowing down live kelp. They overwhelmed entire forests then sat dormant on the rocks, waiting for any available scrap of food.
Urchins swarm a kelp stipe in Carmel Bay. Photo: Michael Langhans
Diving into Data
As urchin numbers increased, researchers wondered how otters and the ecosystem as a whole would respond. Sea otters feed on small, slow-moving animals like urchins and eat around a fourth of their body weight each day.
To learn more about how the behaviors of otters and urchins affect kelp forests, scientists set out on a three-year study. They reviewed 20 years of sea otter census data and monitored hundreds of sites around the Monterey Peninsula.
A land-based team watched and recorded the locations of otters feeding on urchins. A dive group then surveyed the areas. “Our team spent hundreds of long, cold hours underwater,” says Smith.
They recorded the amount of kelp and urchins at the sites and collected a few urchins to dissect in a lab. Then they repeated the process at areas where otters were not eating urchins.
The scientists found that otter numbers increased after the urchin explosion. The predators also began developing a taste for the spiky prey. “A lot more otters were focusing on urchins than in previous years,” says Jessica Fujii, assistant manager of sea otter research at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and a co-author on the study.
But the group found that otters only feed on urchins in kelp forests. They ignore the barrens. When the scientists opened urchins from the underwater deserts, the reason became clear.
“Sea urchins that live in these patches of kelp forests are really healthy,” says Smith. “But those in the barrens are completely starved out.” The dormant, nearly-empty urchins are “just not worth the otter’s time.”
A kelp forest in Carmel Bay. Photo: Michael Langhans
Finding Balance
By increasing the proportion of urchins in their diet and focusing on kelp forests, otters defend the existing kelp. This protection could become a key factor in restoring healthy forests.
“Those patches of forests maintained by otters are the ultimate spore sources to help replenish the barren areas,” says Smith. But since otters don’t pick urchins off barrens, something else must take them out.
“When you’re in this urchin-dominated system, it may be very difficult to displace it back to the kelp unless there’s some sort of large disturbance such as disease for the urchins, or large storm events,” says Lonhart.
Urchins currently get a bad rap, but researchers want people to know that they’re not inherently harmful. “Otters need urchins as a source of food,” says Fujii. “Ideally, what we would like to see is a balance of all those different key players for a healthy kelp forest ecosystem.”
Some scientists hope a recovery of the sunflower sea star could bring that balance. Others don’t think it would help. “I would argue that chances are, they would be overwhelmed,” says Lonhart.
Uncertainty also surrounds the otter population. “The next question,” says Fujii, “is what’s going to happen as those healthy sea urchins start to become depleted.” The number of local otters has already decreased compared to the early years of the urchin boom, she says.
The new study highlights how the behavior of a few key species can change entire ecosystems, but the forests’ futures are still unpredictable. “This system is so dynamic and complex,” says Smith.
Researchers expect to spend the next several years watching the natural experiment of kelp forests and urchin barrens unfold. “At this point,” says Fujii, “there’s still a lot of unknowns about what’s going to come next.”
German Carrillo’s family is one step closer to getting their day in court for a lawsuit stemming from their son’s in-custody killing at the Santa Cruz Main Jail. On March 2, Judge Beth Freeman of the Northern District Federal Court ruled against Santa Cruz County’s motion to stay the civil case in federal court, which potentially could have delayed the trial for up to a decade.
In her eight-page ruling, Freeman disagreed with the county that “federal court damages awarded ‘would caste (sic) a negative light on the People’s prosecution’” against Mario Lozano and Jason Cortez, the two cellmates accused of killing Carrillo. The county motioned to stay, citing the 1971 Younger V. Harris decision that federal cases are to abstain from hearing civil rights cases brought by a person who is being prosecuted for a matter arising from the claim.
“Carrillo’s parents will not have an opportunity to raise their constitutional claims in state criminal proceedings against Cortez and Lozano because they are not parties to the case,” Freeman writes. “In addition, Carrillo’s suspected murders are not capable of representing Carrillo’s parents’ interest in their criminal trial.”
Good Times readers will remember Carrillo from our cover story on the Santa Cruz County Main Jail in December. The 24-year-old was discovered killed by strangulation in his cell at Santa Cruz Main Jail downtown. His body was found on Oct. 14, 2019, roughly 36 hours after his time of death, according to autopsy reports.
Carrillo was initially arrested for allegedly aiding and abetting in the stabbing death of Felipe Reyes after an altercation with childhood friends on Feb. 28, 2013. He was charged on March 3, 2013, and was held at the Santa Cruz County Juvenile Hall, then transferred to the Main Jail on his 18th birthday, where he remained awaiting trial until the time of his death. Carrillo had no prior record and was not a known gang member, according to the complaint.
However, the nature of the gang-related stabbing death brought him to be housed in the N-Unit, a wing of the jail known for housing Norteño gang affiliates. The complaint alleges this was a violation of Carrillo’s safety and civil rights as an incarcerated person, and that he would still be alive today if he had been housed in another wing of the jail.
“The judge sees clearly that German should not have been in that [gang-related] cell,” says Carrillo family attorney Elizabeth Caballero of Caballero & Gettleman Law Office.
The civil rights complaint also alleges the emergency buttons within Carrillo’s cell were inoperable, and the cell window was obstructed from correctional officers’ visual observation—both severe violations. Both cellmates had prior felony convictions and violence accusations against them. At the time of Carrillo’s death, Lozano was in custody on homicide charges in the multiple stabbing death of a rival gang member.
Both Caballero and Jonathan Gettleman say since they are representing the Carrillo family, the civil case has no impact on the state’s cases against Lozano and Cortez for the homicide, and the motion to stay was purely to protect the county’s image.
“What the county basically wanted to do was not have this process go forward,” Gettleman states.
Gettleman also says it was discovered in court that county attorneys have yet to receive any information on the Carrillo case—from either the Sheriff’s Office or the District Attorney—in the last six months.
“They’re trying to keep this super secret, and I don’t think the court is going for it at all,” he says.
The denial by Freeman means the proceedings can move forward into the discovery phase, with the civil trial scheduled to take place in federal court on Sept. 18, 2023.
Good Times requests for comment by the Sheriff’s Office were unanswered at press time.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Poet Ocean Vuong speaks of the Hawaiian word kipuka. It refers to a patch of earth that doesn’t get covered with lava when an active volcano exudes its molten material. “Before the lava descended,” Vuong writes, “that piece of land was insignificant, just another scrap in an endless mass of green.” But now that piece of land is special, having endured. I encourage you to identify your metaphorical equivalent of kipuka, Aries. It’s an excellent time to celebrate the power and luck and resilience that have enabled you to persevere.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): “Extraordinary things are always hiding in places people never think to look,” writes Taurus author Jodi Picoult. Luckily for you, Taurus, in the near future you’ll be prone to look in exactly those places—where no one else has thought to look. That means you’ll be extra likely to find useful, interesting, even extraordinary things that have mostly been hidden and unused. You may also discover some boring and worthless things, but the trade-off will be worth your effort. Congratulations in advance on summoning such brave curiosity.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): “When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice,” said Gemini author Saul Bellow. So if you have come here today to read my horoscopes, it’s possible that you’re seeking an accomplice to approve of you making a decision or a move that you have already decided to do. OK. I’ll be your accomplice. But as your accomplice, the first thing I’ll do is try to influence you to make sure your upcoming actions serve not only your own selfish interests (although there’s nothing wrong with that), but also serve the interests of people you care for. The weeks ahead will be a favorable time to blend self-interest and noble idealism.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): A character in Barbara Kingsolver’s novel The Lacuna is told to “go rub his soul against life.” Now I’ll advise you to do the same. Why? While it’s true that you have a beautiful soul, you sometimes get in the habit of hiding it away or keeping it secret. You feed it a wealth of dreams and emotions and longings, but may not go far enough in providing it with raw experience out in the messy, chaotic world. In my judgment, now is one of those times when you would benefit from rubbing your soul against life. Please note: I don’t mean you should go in search of rough, tough downers. Not at all. In fact, there are plenty of pleasurable, safe, educational ways to rub your soul against life.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): If you love the work of self-help author Paulo Coelho, you might be inclined to adopt his motto as your own: “Being vulnerable is the best way to allow my heart to feel true pleasure.” But maybe you wouldn’t want to adopt his motto. After all, what he’s suggesting requires a great deal of courage and daring. Who among us finds it easy and natural to be soft and receptive and inviting? And yet according to my analysis of the astrological omens, this is exactly what your assignment should be for the next two weeks. To help motivate yourself, remember the payoff described by Coelho: the possibility that your heart will feel true pleasure.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Virgo author Michael Ondaatje celebrates “the hidden presence of others in us—even those we have known briefly. We contain them for the rest of our lives, at every border we cross.” As you approach your own upcoming border-crossing, dear Virgo, I encourage you to tune into memories about seven specific people who over the course of your life have provided you with the most joy and the most interesting lessons. Close your eyes for 20 minutes and imagine they are all gathered together with you in your favorite sanctuary. Remember in detail the blessings they bestowed on you. Give thanks for their influences, for the gifts they gave that have helped you become your beautiful self.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): “A balance that does not tremble cannot weigh. A person who does not oscillate cannot live.” So wrote biochemist Erwin Chargaff, who did crucial research leading to the discovery of DNA’s double helix structure. Since you’re the zodiac’s expert on balance and oscillation, and because these themes will be especially meaningful for you in the coming days, I’ll ask you to meditate on them with extra focus. Here’s my advice: To be healthy and resilient, you need to be aware of other possibilities besides those that seem obvious and simple and absolutely true. You need to consider the likelihood that the most correct answers are almost certainly those that are paradoxical and complicated and full of nuance.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): In her poem “Sandra,” Scorpio poet Ariana Reines testifies that she has too many feelings—and that’s not a problem. On the contrary. They are her wealth, she says, her “invisible splendor.” I invite you to regard your own “too many feelings” in the same way, especially in the coming weeks. You will have opportunities to harness your flood of feelings in behalf of transformative insights and holistic decision-making. Your motto: Feelings are healing.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Historian and author Thomas Berry described “wildness” as the source of our “authentic spontaneities.” He said it’s “the wellspring of creativity” at the root of our lust for life. That’s a different definition from the idea that wildness is about being unruly, rough and primitive. And Berry’s definition happens to be the one that should be central to your work and play in the coming weeks. Your assignment is to be wild: that is, to cultivate your authentic spontaneities; to home in on and nourish the creative wellspring of your lust for life.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Some of the great discoveries in the history of physics have been made while the trailblazing physicists are lolling in bed or in the bathtub. They have done the research and carried out the rigorous thinking and are rewarded with breakthroughs while relaxing. I think that will be your best formula for success in the coming weeks. Important discoveries are looming. Interesting innovations are about to hatch. You’re most likely to gather them in if you work intensely on preparing the way for them, then go off and do something fun and rejuvenating.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): My typical horoscope is an average of 108 words long. In that limited space, I can’t possibly tell you all the themes and threads that will be active for you during the upcoming phase of your cycle. I have to make choices about what to include and what not to include. This time I’ll focus on the fact that you now have an opportunity to deepen your relationship with your sense of smell—and to purposefully nourish your sense of smell. Your homework: Decide on at least five scents with which you will cultivate an intimate, playful, delightful connection in the coming days. (P.S.: You may be surprised at how this practice will deepen your emotional connection with the world.)
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): No one had ever proven that there was such a thing as electromagnetic waves until Piscean physicist Heinrich Hertz (1857–1894) did so in 1886. He was the innovator who first transmitted and received controlled radio waves. Alas, he didn’t think his breakthrough was useful. In 1890, he confessed, “I do not think that the wireless waves I have discovered will have any practical application.” But other scientists were soon capitalizing on his work to communicate long distances. Radio broadcasts were born. I will encourage you not to make a Hertzian-type mistake in the coming months. Always follow through on your initial labors. Have faith that the novelties you dream up will eventually have practical value.
Homework. If you believed everything you see in the “news,” you’d be so full of despair you couldn’t move. Describe how you protect yourself: tr**********@***il.com.
Good wine and good food go hand in hand. My husband and I headed to Jack O’Neill’s at the Dream Inn to try the cuisine of Gus Trejo, the restaurant’s new executive chef. Toting our own bottle of Aptos Vineyard’s De Novo Chardonnay 2019 ($33), we arrived before sunset on a Friday evening.
Sitting under the huge tent erected outside the restaurant, we enjoyed our first sip of the 2019 Chardonnay, which paired perfectly with our ultra-fresh crab cakes—served with vibrant remoulade sauce and daikon radish. Trejo has added his own distinctive touch to the menu, enhancing dishes with innovative flair. His clam chowder is outstanding.
One of my favorite things to eat is salmon, and Trejo’s rendition of this anadromous fish was simply delicious.
As our bottle of Chardonnay dwindled, we fortunately still had some left to enjoy with Trejo’s scrumptious dessert of lemon meringue—a winter citrus custard tart with fresh lemon pizzazz.
Aptos Vineyard was started by the late Judge John Marlo and his wife Patti Marlo in 1974. The winery is now owned and operated by Aptos locals James Baker and daughter-in-law Tina Cacace-Baker, who have revived this much-respected label.
“Our first Chardonnay bursts onto the stage with floral aromas and bright tropical fruits,” say the Bakers. Grapes are from respected Lester Family Vineyards in Corralitos.
With brilliant winemaker John Benedetti on board, we have many more of Aptos Vineyard’s well-made wine to look forward to.
After taking months to remodel the interior of a central spot in Aptos, husband and wife team Jeff Hickey and Leah DiBiccari are all set to open Soul Salad on March 18 (with a ribbon-cutting ceremony due for March 17 by the Aptos Chamber of Commerce). As the name implies, salads are the restaurant’s main focus—all freshly made and 100% organic.Soul Salad, 7957 Soquel Drive, Aptos. 831-708-2106, ap********@***il.com.
Cautiously surfing the point of evolving dining protocols,Soifindowntown Santa Cruz has reopened for outdoor dining once again Wednesday through Saturday. This is great news for those craving the irreplaceable experience of face-to-face dining with careful family and friends. No need to make reservations; seating is first come, first served.
And because Soif’s ongoing takeout service has been so welcome, we enjoyed a terrific meal last week, made in the Soif kitchen but enjoyed by candlelight at our own dining table. Our dinner began with a luscious avocado and citrus salad ($12), a colorful collage of green avocado and blood oranges, tangerines and grapefruit slices all bathed in a feisty lime cumin vinaigrette.
My main dish was a mega-comforting (and large!) portion of tagliatelle infused with generous chunks of fresh crab, tiny red chiles, toasted breadcrumbs and gremolata ($27). Delicious that night as well as for lunch the next day. Our other entree was another standout creation of grilled quail ($24), resting on a cushion of polenta with braised fennel in salsa verde. I could eat this dinner four nights a week. And you can too!
Kudos to Avanti on Mission Street, where hard-working owners Jonathan and Tatiana Glass have kept the kitchen going throughout this pandemic. Now, in addition to takeout and outdoor patio dining, Avanti is open for indoor dining at 25% capacity. I picked up a dinner a few days ago and observed many happy diners, indoors and out, enjoying the restaurant’s finely-tuned menu.
Silver Mountain Tasting
Starting this month, Silver Mountain Vineyards’ winery and tasting room will be open noon-5pm every weekend for tastings. Founder Jerold O’Brien tells me that the Westside tasting room has four tables under awnings on the patio. Soon the tasting room itself will be open for tastings and sales.
Home of outstanding Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs, Silver Mountain tastings are memorable. The Santa Cruz location is at 328 D Ingalls St., around the corner from Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard, next to Marini’s Candies. The winery is located 10 breathtaking miles up Old San Jose Road, overlooking Monterey Bay. Email re**********@*******tn.com for reservations at either location.
Salute to Shopper’s
Keeping up its standards—fine produce and butcher counter, specialty foods as well as staples, plus a heroic wine and liquor inventory—Shopper’s Corner made it possible for its loyal customers to shop without paranoia during this year of pandemic. My thanks to all those masked checkers who helped carry, bag and respond to the needs of patrons while maintaining distance. Those red arrows on the floor helped us navigate during stressful mornings. And a cheery attendant greeted us at the door, handing us a freshly cleaned and sanitized shopping cart, letting in only a fixed amount of shoppers at a time.
Jim Beauregard and company helped take some of the sting out of this past year of very careful grocery shopping, especially during the seemingly endless purple tier. Now retail stores are open at 50% occupancy, and grocery stores are at full capacity. Masks and social distancing are still in effect, of course!
St. Patrick’s Day
If you’re reading this on March 17, I hope you’re wearing green. It’s St. Patrick’s Day, and that means corned beef and cabbage. Pubs will tempt you with special ales, and bakeries will have at least one cupcake with green frosting. Gayle’s at 504 Bay Ave. in Capitola has iced shamrock cookies and individual Bailey’s Irish Cream cheesecakes. Irish soda bread too! Get over there now! Find more info at gaylesbakery.com.
On Wednesday, the Girl Scouts of California’s Central Coast (GSCCC) announced it is extending its Cookie Program until April 18, and will reopen some traditional troop cookie booths across the region.
The news comes as much of the state moves from the purple tier into the less restrictive red tier of the California Department of Public Health’s (CDPH) reopening plan. The GSCCC council came to the decision after reviewing recent research and following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and CDPH’s guidelines for small group youth cohorts.
“Isolation from their fellow troop members has no doubt resulted in a tough year for Girl Scouts, and girls have been working harder than ever to reach their goals in new and creative ways,” a GSCCC spokesperson said in a press release.
Due to the pandemic, troops have relied on delivery and shipping, including an online locator, a smart phone app and a partnership with GrubHub, to find troops by zip code. The organization has also started the Cookie Booth Buyout, where donors can purchase and donate cookies to a cause of their choice, as well as a number of other donation programs.
The inclusion of booth sales in the final month could help troops by reaching customers who might be unaware of these options.
But the council admits it has been struggling to locate businesses that will allow troops to set up like in normal years.
Council CEO Tammie Helmuth urged businesses to recognize the difficulty troops have gone through so far, and the challenges that will come transitioning from online to in-person sales.
“Girl Scouts are incredibly resilient and business savvy, and even with all of the Covid-19 pandemic challenges thrown at them this year, [they] always find a way to thrive,” said Helmuth. “One of the many ways our community can help support Girl Scouts during their most challenging cookie season to date is to allow girls to set up booths outside of your local business.”
Watsonville Troop 14113 leader Wendy San Juan said that her girls have done relatively well with cookie sales this year despite the challenges—and there have been many.
“This year, the cookies you take, you have to sell. You can’t give them back,” San Juan said. “We had to decide how much to order. We had tough conversations about how we would navigate everything.”
About 60% of the troop’s sales have been entirely virtual, and her girls have been finding creative ways to promote through social media. One girl, San Juan said, even produced a short rap music video to encourage friends and family.
“It was all her, she put it together and did everything,” San Juan said. “We all thought, ‘Wow, this is so amazing.’ Her parents couldn’t believe it.”
San Juan said that her troop, a multi-level group of Brownies (grades 2-3) and Juniors (4-5) actually doubled in size during the pandemic. A small troop of five girls has now expanded to 10.
“It showed there was a need for connection—parents wanted their kids to stay in touch with their peers outside of a school environment,” she said. “The families of these girls have been amazing. They’ve really been involved.”
Prior to the pandemic, San Juan says troop 14113 was very active—going hiking, camping at Pinnacles National Park and visiting the San Francisco Zoo. Now, the troop is meeting virtually, doing everything from singing and cooking demos to art projects and community service. They’ve invited special guests onto their virtual meetings, including a well-known Mexican jewelry maker and business owner from Los Angeles.
In December, the girls even came up with the idea to make gift bags to hand out at the Gabilan Chapter Kinship Center in Salinas for foster kids.
“They want to share their worth, and their work,” San Juan said. “They want and need validation. It’s been so nice to create spaces and do stuff outside of school, even if it is over the computer.”
Badge earning has also continued. Troop 14113 is currently working on earning the Dolores Huerta patch, a popular project in other areas of California that aims to inspire girls to become leaders in their community. (Huerta, activist and co-founder of the United Farm Workers, was a Girl Scout herself for 10 years.)
The Girl Scout organization is forging ahead through the pandemic and plans to continue it’s programming in any way it can, eventually allowing girls to once again attend events, volunteer and more.
“[We’re] here to stay,” Helmuth said. “At Girl Scouts, girls prepare for a lifetime of leadership, success, and adventure in a safe, no-limits place designed for and by girls.”
But the organization needs more support, said San Juan. They are always looking for community partners to volunteer, donate and share their skills with local troops. Connecting with STEAM programs in particular is vital, she said.
“In Watsonville, we often don’t get the opportunities that troops in other places do. It’s almost like you need to know someone,” San Juan said. “If I don’t go out and find someone, my girls won’t have things to do. We want to encourage the community to support us in any way they can.”
For all of the industries that have experienced contraction since the dawn of Covid-19 in 2020, one local business is seeing expansion in its very near future: KBCZ radio.
Centered in Boulder Creek, the station is growing into new territory. Within the next few weeks, listeners of the homespun station will be able to hear their favorite music and local news in Felton, Scotts Valley and Santa Cruz. Station Manager Tina Davey said she is tickled pink and ready for the challenge of expanded coverage and a changed location on the FM dial.
“The desire to reach all of SLV has always been the goal for us, really from the get-go. Almost immediately, people were asking us when we would reach Felton, and we just had to sit tight and wait and plot,” she said.
Davey said the station saved money for a new antenna and transmitter, which will be stationed atop one of the San Lorenzo Valley Water District’s (SLVWD) water tank sites.
“With the help of Paul Nanna, our technical director, and JV Rudnick, our engineer specialist, that installation will allow us to blanket the valley with our signal as our new license intends,” she added.
Davey says that setting up a radio station is more than just getting an FCC license and a microphone. Having broadcast from 90.1FM for years, she said she is keenly aware of what it takes to succeed in the industry. The new 89.3FM frequency had sat silent for years until it was awarded to KBCZ in December 2020.
“It’s a difficult thing to do, really, start your own station. The FCC awards you a license, like they granted KBCZ 90.1FM back in 2013, but that license is just a piece of paper,” she said. “It’s up to the team to build the station, buy microphones, mixing boards and other equipment, build out the infrastructure and get people in the broadcast chair—normally that can take up to 10 years. We were lucky in that we have always had the support of our community and of course, the Boulder Creek Recreation and Park District, as our license owners, have always helped us to grow.”
Longtime DJ Big Bri, who hosts “The Reggae Soul Power Hour” every Friday from 4-6pm, is excited that friends and neighbors in Lompico, Scotts Valley, Felton, portions of Bonny Doon and Santa Cruz will be able to share and experience the community radio station.
“We provide vital information such as traffic and weather events, along with community events, and I am happy that more people will be able to receive our broadcasts,” she said.
The listener base has been enthusiastic and supportive of the expansion, Davey said.
“This little radio station really shines in times of disaster, and that was no more apparent than in the last six months. The DJs here get very serious about emergency broadcasting and we have worked hard on our local partnerships,” she said. “Boulder Creek Pizza Pub shares their backup power system with us, allowing our live studio to stay up in an emergency, and the San Lorenzo Valley Water District has assisted us with our antenna site. Boulder Creek Fire Department has also provided backup power to our existing antenna site, and we’re grateful for those relationships.”
Although the pandemic has changed the way in which KBCZ operates (hello, kitchen table DJs), this new opportunity will allow for fresh voices to emerge on the airwaves, Davey says.
“Covid-19 really stopped us in our tracks as it relates to training new DJs, but we will be able to welcome new talent through the door in coming weeks,” she said. “That’s always one of the aspects I most enjoy about this job, is when a person walks through the door and they are interested in being on the radio. They build their on-air persona, design their own show logos and start marketing themselves. Suddenly, they’re getting interviews, and listeners get to see this new entity appear in the world. It’s pretty cool.”
KBCZ airs 100% original programming, with music shows featuring live DJs who choose their own music from their own personal music collections. Davey says they don’t plan on purchasing any NPR-type news shows, as their News Roundup Monday through Thursday at 12:30pm is specific to the Valley.
“We want to highlight our lives here in the Santa Cruz Mountains, during the good times and the bad,” she said.
DJ Julie Horner, host of “The Mountain Road” on Monday nights from 7-9pm, said that KBCZ’s downtown location made it a “communications hub” during the recent mountain emergencies, and provided “a place to charge cell phones, and an eye on the scene that’s close to the fire and sheriff stations.”
“KBCZ had a front row seat when the helicopter delivered replacement HDPE pipe to the burned out SLVWD tanks above town after the CZU Complex fire, for instance. And being part of the musical fabric as a DJ just ties it all together,” she said.
The station is searching for new DJs, specifically for potential daytime shows on cooking, SLV/Santa Cruz history, and local and national sports. Interested? Email kb********@***il.com.
WASHINGTON — Seeking to comfort Americans bound together by a year of suffering but also by “hope and the possibilities,” President Joe Biden made a case to the nation Thursday night that it could soon put the worst of the pandemic behind it and promised that all adults would be eligible for the vaccine by May 1.
During a 24-minute speech from the East Room, Biden laced his somber script with references to Hemingway and personal ruminations on loss as he reflected on a “collective suffering, a collective sacrifice, a year filled with the loss of life, and the loss of living, for all of us.”
Speaking on the anniversary of the World Health Organization declaring a pandemic and the moment at which the virus began tightening its grip on the United States, the president offered a turning point of sorts after one of the darkest years in recent history, one that would lead to more than half a million deaths in the country, the loss of millions of jobs and disruptions to nearly every aspect of society and politics.
With the stimulus bill about to give the economy a kick, the pace of vaccinations increasing and death rates down, Biden said Americans were on track to return to a semblance of normal life by July 4 as long as they took the chance to get vaccinated and did not prematurely abandon mask wearing, social distancing and other measures to contain the virus.
In putting a date, however cautiously, on the calendar, Biden also offered something intangible: hope for a summer with barbecues, family gatherings and hugs for grandparents.
“July 4th with your loved ones is the goal,” he said.
Biden did not mention his predecessor, Donald Trump, but his address drew sharp contrasts to him, repeatedly citing the need to tell the American people the truth, appealing for unity, celebrating the accomplishments of science and calling for continued vigilance against a virus that he said could still come roaring back.
“Just as we were emerging from a dark winter into a hopeful spring and summer is not the time to not stick with the rules,” Biden said. “This is not the time to let up.”
Biden set out concrete steps to build on the progress so far, starting with a requirement that states act by May 1 to make all adults eligible to be vaccinated. The administration had already announced last week that it would have enough doses to begin inoculating every adult by the end of May. Biden said that Americans should expect to get in line for a vaccine by May 1, but not to expect to have been vaccinated.
He said the federal government would also create a website that would allow Americans to search for available vaccines, make the vaccine available at more pharmacies, double the number of mass vaccination sites and certify more people — including dentists, paramedics, veterinarians and physician assistants — to deliver shots into arms.
“I’m using every power I have as president of the United States to put us on a war footing to get the job done,” Biden said. And after reminding Americans that the initial spread of the virus last year was met with “silence” and “denials,” the president stressed that a government stepping in to help its hardest-hit citizens was a powerful positive force.
“We need to remember the government isn’t some foreign force in a distant capital,” Biden said. “It’s us, all of us.”
The speech, which advisers said the president had line-edited for the better part of a week, followed Biden’s signing of the stimulus package, the American Rescue Plan, into law, setting off a huge disbursement of federal funds to individuals, states and struggling businesses through legislation that also amounted to a down payment on an expansive Democratic agenda.
Among its many other provisions, the plan provides some $130 billion to assist in reopening schools.
“This historic legislation is about rebuilding the backbone of this country,” Biden said to reporters who had gathered in the Oval Office, “and giving people in this nation, working people, the middle-class folks, people who built the country, a fighting chance.”
Biden signed the landmark legislation and scheduled his speech a year to the day after Trump declared from the Oval Office, in an early indication of what became a catastrophically misguided pattern of denying the reality of what faced the United States and the world, that a “low risk” coronavirus pandemic would amount to nothing more than “a temporary moment in time.”
Hoping to build political support for the rest of his agenda, including a large infrastructure program and an expansion of health care, Biden now intends to begin a campaign to sell the benefits of the stimulus legislation to voters.
One of the most easily digestible parts of the plan will take effect in days. Direct payments of up to $1,400 per individual are scheduled to arrive in the bank accounts of Americans as early as this weekend, said Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary. Expanded federal unemployment benefits will be extended.
The legislation provides the largest federal infusion of aid to the poor in generations, substantially expands the child tax credit and increases subsidies for health insurance. Restaurants will receive financial help and state governments will get an infusion of aid.
This week, about halfway through Biden’s first 100 days, the new administration has celebrated not just the passage of the stimulus plan but also progress in filling out the president’s Cabinet. On Wednesday alone, the Senate confirmed three of his picks: Merrick Garland as attorney general, Marcia Fudge as secretary of housing and urban development and Michael Regan as the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
But, just as the vote had been, the reaction to the relief bill in Washington was split along party lines, even though it is widely popular in national polling. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hailed the package as “the most consequential legislation many of us will ever vote for,” and chastised Republicans who, she said, “vote no and take the dough.”
Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, dismissed the relief package as “far-left legislation that was passed after the tide had already turned.”
The president and his advisers said that the urgency of getting direct payments into the hands of low- and middle-income Americans, reopening schools and lifting children out of poverty was worth the cost, financially and also politically. Biden, whose early message of political unity was quickly overtaken by a need to “go big” on the stimulus plan with only Democratic votes, has been determined to lay out a more hopeful vision, and reframe the virus as an opportunity to come back stronger.
There are significant challenges. The country remains deeply divided, politically and culturally. In his speech Biden condemned a spate of anti-Asian American violence as “un-American” scapegoating over the cause of the virus.
A substantial number of people remain hesitant about getting vaccinated even as supplies grow, and the administration is directing federal funds to campaigns to convince skeptical Americans that the shots are safe.
“I know they’re safe,” Biden said in his address. “We need everyone to get vaccinated.”
Biden and his advisers say they know it is not enough to help the nation emerge from the pandemic and are planning to use the stimulus legislation and the positive trends in containing the virus to build support for further initiatives.
On Thursday, the White House underscored the importance of the plan by delivering the bill to Biden’s desk ahead of schedule and summoning journalists to the Oval Office at the last minute to witness the signing. A celebration of the bill with congressional leaders was still scheduled for Friday. Psaki told reporters that the celebration would be “bicameral” but not “bipartisan.”
The White House’s decision to go out and sell the stimulus package after its passage reflects a lesson from the early months of the Obama administration. In 2009, fighting to help the economy recover from a crippling financial crisis, President Barack Obama never succeeded in building durable popular support for a similar stimulus bill and allowed Republicans to define it on their terms, fueling a partisan backlash and the rise of the Tea Party movement.
This time, Biden and some of his most high-profile administration members, including Vice President Kamala Harris and Jill Biden, the first lady, will crisscross the country to sell the plan to bipartisan audiences, betting that Republican support for pandemic aid exists in individual districts, even if politicians in Washington have refused to cooperate. Biden will visit Pennsylvania and Georgia next week.
But even as his advisers publicly hailed the passage of the stimulus plan, Biden made it clear that he also wanted to use his speech to reflect on how many lives had been upended, or lost, and show the nation that he understood what that loss meant.
“Finding light in the darkness is a very American thing to do,” Biden said. “In fact it may be the most American thing we do, and that’s what we’ve done.”
