Giveaway: Tickets to Redwood Mountain Faire

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The Redwood Mountain Faire is one of the musical highpoints of summer in Santa Cruz County. Each year, the faire brings a stellar lineup of artists that cover the gamut, from folk, bluegrass and rock to soul, blues, pop and jam, including standouts of our rich local scene. This year is no exception. On June 3 and 4, Cracker, Dave Alvin & Phil Alvin (above) with the Guilty Ones, Katdelic, Poor Man’s Whiskey, Jesse Daniel and the Slow Learners, Taylor Rae, the Coffis Brothers and many more gather for a weekend of music, crafts, food, kids activities and community. Proceeds benefit local nonprofits and service organizations.


INFO: 11 a.m. Saturday & Sunday, June 3 & 4 at Roaring Camp, 5401 Graham Hill Road, Felton. More information: redwoodmountainfaire.com. WANT TO GO? Go to santacruz.com/giveaways before 11 a.m. on Wednesday, May 24 to find out how you could win a pair of passes to the faire.

Love Your Local Band: Spun

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The members of Spun have been playing together since the late ’90s. But in the past couple of years, the band has played some incredible shows that they consider to be highlights. They played the Pleasure Point Bike Race three years in a row before it closed. Then last year, they got to play at Facebook, where they performed to some 700 people. And audiences have been loving them at bike and skate demos.

“The music really seems to fit the genre of skater, surfer, BMX mentality,” says guitarist/vocalist P-Bone.

Before starting Spun, the members played in several alternative rock bands, and Spun was conceived as a genre mashup group—the name refers to them “spinning all different styles of music.” Primarily playing covers, Spun audiences can hear songs from Bob Marley, Montrose, Van Halen, Sublime, James Brown, Poison, and many more.

“A lot of bands now are specialized. Like you’re the Led Zeppelin tribute band. You’re an AC/DC tribute band. Which we could do if we wanted to, but it’s nice to mix it up and throw those different vibes out,” says P-Bone.

They hope to work on more originals, while still maintaining the fun vibe of the shows.

“Life’s short,” says guitarist/vocalist T. Rollin. “We try to be as danceable as possible without getting cheesy with it. The classic rock songs that we do pull out are really good feel-good choices.”


INFO: 8 p.m. Saturday, May 20. Don Quixote’s, 6275 Hwy. 9, Felton. $10. 335-2800.

Who’s to Blame When Protesters Won’t Talk?

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Ryan Masters, a reporter for the Santa Cruz Sentinel, remembers it as “a nightmare situation.”

While he covered this month’s occupation at UCSC’s Kerr Hall, students repeatedly yelled, “Fuck you, Ryan Masters!” “Asshole!” and “Racist reporter!”

“The Afrikan/Black Student Alliance [A/BSA ]—I’ve got a lot of respect for them. I understand systemic racism. I understand white supremacy,” Masters says. “But unfortunately, with some things they say, they sound like a hate group.”

Masters had tried to get into the occupation by knocking on the door and asking to get into the building.

The A/BSA did not respond for comment for this story, but some students have said on social media that they felt the administrative building had been turned into a home for students. They say that by posting pictures, Masters was invading their privacy—although Masters responded that Kerr Hall is a public building. Students also criticized the way Masters wrote about a previous UCSC protest.

Some news outlets got more of a window into the occupation.

One day before the university acceded to protesters’ demands, A/BSA co-chair Imari Reynolds spoke on air with Tucker Carlson, who had just taken over Bill O’Reilly’s slot on Fox News. It struck Masters as an odd approach. “As far as them deciding the local news is the enemy and then going on Fox News, that just baffles me,” Masters says.

The protesters’ message may have been a little slow in getting out to the campus. One student told KSBW reporter Phil Gomez, “I tried reading news articles about it, and most of them said they wouldn’t talk to news crews, so I’m not entirely sure what that was all about.”

Masters says he saw people yelling at Gomez and KSBW cameraman Tom Lopez as well, although he took the brunt of the barrage himself—something the station’s news director Lawton Dodd agrees with, having followed the situation remotely.

“The protesters made it obvious that they weren’t going to talk to us. It was clear that Ryan was really the target of their ire,” Dodd says. “We cover the news, and if someone wants to talk, that’s part of the story. And if someone doesn’t want to talk—OK, that’s part of the story.”

One outlet, City on a Hill Press, UCSC’s student-run paper, did have reporters on the ground in Kerr Hall. In an editorial last week, the newspaper criticized local reporters for not showing more sensitivity in their coverage and for doing a lousy job building rapport with activists they cover.

If some people of color show distrust of how reporters represent them, a look at news trends nationwide might provide insight into why.

One study after another—conducted by researchers from institutions such as UC Santa Barbara and Yale—have found that news agencies skew their coverage, for instance, over-representing stories of African-Americans who are poor or involved in criminal activity. And a 2016 diversity census from the American Society of News Editors found that people of color made up 17 percent of newsroom journalists—an increase over previous years, but still nothing like the country as a whole.

Conn Hallinan, who taught journalism at UCSC for 23 years, says that—no matter the circumstances—it behooves activists to be open with reporters.

“The media is the way people access what’s going on in the world. As false as some of it may be, as controversial as some of it may be, it’s still the first line of communication,” says Hallinan, who was also provost for Kresge College for three years. “Even if you’re as critical of the media as I am, you have to talk to them and be confident that your protest is valid, that your demands are valid—that they reflect needs of students of color and the student population as a whole. There’s an old rule in politics that you don’t pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.”

Hallinan, who once did 30 days in jail for a protest in 1963, stresses that he’s sympathetic to the struggles that people of color go through in this country. At the same time, he does not agree that protesters have any protection from being photographed.

On the other hand, he calls Masters’ decision to argue back-and-forth with people on Twitter “a dumb thing to do.”

We shouldn’t forget, of course, that the university did meet A/BSA’s demands, so the protesters didn’t really need any in-depth news coverage to achieve their stated goals.

Discussions around the First Amendment at schools isn’t unique to UCSC. In its controversial coverage of safe spaces, The Atlantic suggested in 2015 that some university activists have “weaponized the concept,” using safe spaces to shut down journalists.

Masters says, ultimately, his concern is that the press faces an assault—as he sees it—with intimidation coming from President Donald Trump on one side and some left-leaning protesters on the other.

Indeed, Americans’ trust in media has plummeted, beginning long before Trump took office, or even declared his candidacy. The portion of Americans who trust the news sank to 32 percent this past September, down from 55 percent in 1999 and a high of 72 percent in 1976, according to Gallup. The number dropped a whopping eight points between 2015 and 2016 alone.

But are protesters getting more standoffish with reporters than ever? Dodd, whose reporters spend a lot of time at breaking news scenes, says he’s hesitant to paint “in broad strokes”—looking for trends when they may or may not be there.

And although he doesn’t mind venting, Masters looks forward to putting the kerfuffle behind him.

“It upset me. It was interesting,” Masters says. “I don’t want to make a huge freaking deal about it because I don’t want to distract from the issues they’re talking about. That’s the story.”

Consensus on Homelessness?

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Men and women of all ages packed the Louden Nelson Community Center on May 8 for the standing-room-only first meeting of the Santa Cruz Coalition on Homelessness. Organized by members of the Warming Center Program (WCP), local religious organizations and community advocates for homeless rights, the meeting focused on the everyday struggles individuals have on the streets and what is being done to meet their needs.

“Emergency shelters have been providing to meet some of these needs,” explained WCP organizer Brent Adams. “But a lot of the funding has gone away.” For the last three years, the Warming Center Program has been an essential tool in the battle against homelessness, often providing safer and more accessible shelter than the federally funded programs, he said.

Coalition organizers informed the audience on what other communities are doing throughout the West Coast to help meet the basic needs that are falling through the systematic gaps. Coalition organizers argued that they can meet many of homeless people’s essential needs through innovative thinking, empathy for others and some creative financing.

“I’m a tightwad and I don’t just want to write out a check,” said Ron Powers, founder of Loads of Love. Based out of a van and fueled by a generator, Loads of Love is a mobile laundromat where individuals without shelter can clean their belongings and feel a little more human for an hour. Powers is an Apple employee, who uses the company’s philanthropy program to fund his endeavor.

“There are a lot of companies that have services where whatever you donate, they will match,” he explained.

The meeting happened around the same time that the city of Santa Cruz released its 20-point Homelessness Coordination Committee report, aiming to solve a lot of the same problems coalition members had discussed, including access to showers, charging stations, storage and emergency shelter.

The City Council unanimously adopted the report at its May 9 meeting. The council chose to prioritize certain efforts, including year-round shelter and mental health services, while looking for buy-in and collaboration from neighboring jurisdictions, as well as giving direction to explore “what a state of homeless emergency is,” and if it would have any impact on local services. MAT WEIR

Film Review: ‘Norman’

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It’s a trope as old as the movies—and Jewish culture in New York. Everybody has an uncle or an in-law who specializes in connecting people to other people who might be able to do each other a favor some time. It’s the thrill of adding people as the web of connections becomes more intricately tangled that makes these usually small-time operators feel like big shots.

But what would happen if somebody involved in this roundelay of minor obligations suddenly came into a position of real power? How would that reverberate throughout the web—especially for the webmaster who constructed the whole thing? That’s the question posed by Norman, a droll, offbeat dramatic comedy of truth and consequences written and directed by New York-born Israeli filmmaker Joseph Cedar. It stars Richard Gere as a dealmaking, old-school New York “fixer” who gets in way over his head.

We first meet Norman Oppenheimer (Gere) trying to jump-start some shady-sounding financial scheme. It’s a confusing way to start the movie, but the details of this particular scheme aren’t important; all that matters is seeing Norman in action. Against his better judgment, his nephew, Philip (Michael Sheen) supplies his wheedling uncle with one bit of information, which sends Norman to Central Park at the crack of dawn to stalk a financial investor (Dan Stevens) on his morning run.

Roaming the city streets in a snap-brim cap, long coat, and muffler, earbuds constantly plugged into his phone, Norman doesn’t seem to actually live anywhere; he’s always on the move, looking for his next opportunity. (His business card reads “Oppenheimer: Strategies.”) One afternoon, he buddies up to a minor Israeli diplomat, Micah Eshel (Lior Ashkenazi) that somebody in his web wants to meet. That meeting fails to happen, but in the course of the hour or so they spend together, Norman insists on buying Eschel an expensive pair of shoes. (Shoes that will “last longer than the government I serve,” sighs Eshel, referring to his beleaguered party back home.)

Yet three years later, Eshel has become the Prime Minister of Israel. To Norman’s amazement, Eshel remembers him fondly when he goes to the reception at the New York consulate, introducing Norman to so many influential people (conveyed in a swoony, dreamlike montage) that Norman has to whip out his ever-present yellow legal pad and scribble down all their names and who they know on his way home.

But fortunes rise and fall as truth becomes ever more complicated and elusive. Players in the unfolding drama include Alex (Charlotte Gainsbourg), who’s investigating possible corruption in Eshel’s ties to New York, and Rabbi Blumenthal (Steve Buscemi), leader of Norman’s synagogue, who needs Norman’s help when their temple is facing eviction. Suddenly Norman finds himself where he thought he’s always wanted to be—right in the middle—but not necessarily in a good way.

Gere is effective as Norman. Well-meaning, but annoying in his relentless drive to link people up (“It’s the third time in five minutes you’ve tried to introduce me to someone,” Alex tells him), he’s desperate to embroider any chance remark or random encounter into a fantasy of significance and personal relationships that does not actually exist. When Eshel’s people stop taking his calls, they decide to brand him as a “delusional name-dropper.” (Hmm, sound like anyone else we know in the public eye?)

Ashkenazi is terrific as Eshel—debonair and determined to embrace compromise to keep himself and his agenda afloat. (He starred in the fine 2001 Israeli drama Late Marriage, about a thirtysomething bachelor involved with a Moroccan divorcee whose parents are pressuring him to marry a virgin.)

Norman has some sharp, sly moments, but the pacing often unravels over two hours, especially when focus shifts to complicated Israeli politics. Filmmaker Cedar tries to jazz it up with split-screen and other busy techniques, but the story feels a bit hollow. As sympathetic as Gere often is, his character is written as an empty archetype, who can’t quite sustain the whole movie.


NORMAN

**1/2

With Richard Gere, Lior Ashkenazi, Michael Sheen, and Steve Buscemi. Written and directed by Joseph Cedar. A Sony Classics release. Rated PG-13. 118 minutes.

Friday Food Destination: Watsonville Farmers Market

On Friday afternoons, a mouth-watering array of dishes, regional cuisines and snacks from Latin American countries line two sides of the Watsonville City Plaza, which is crowded with cross-generational community members and lately, one North County food writer.

With so many enticing smells wafting down the corridor, it can be difficult to decide where to go first. When in doubt, I always look for the longest line as an indicator of impending deliciousness, which, on a recent, exceptionally warm spring day led me to a stall offering ice cold drinks.

The most popular option was the mangonada—almost every person in front of me was walking away with a cold, sunny drink of chopped mango and lime spiced generously with chili and finished with a straw rolled in tamarind powder and a healthy squirt of Tapatio. But the weather is hot enough without adding to the furnace, so I order a tejuino, a sugary cooler made from fermented corn. My straw slid through the shaved ice and I tasted sweet corn, lemon and brown sugar.

Thirst quenched, I peeked into the Oaxacan stall and saw a woman grilling masa, and ordered a mamela. The base of this snack is similar to a tortilla, but thicker, chewier and toasted from the grill. It’s topped with frijoles, the wonderful, mozzarella-like queso Oaxaca, and a few spoonfuls of pickled vegetables. For a dollar more, I add a 6-inch quesadilla filled with diced, slippery nopales.

Although I’m running out of hands, Noe’s Churros causes me to pause. I watch as a hand-operated machine pulls and cuts the dough into long, thin, ridged doughnuts and drops them into a huge bowl of hot oil, until they’re fried to a golden brown. $1.25 later, I walk away with dessert and mix with the rest of South County in the tree-studded plaza.


1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Fridays at Watsonville City Plaza.

Zayante Vineyard’s 2012 Santa Cruz Mountains Zinfandel

This could be one of my last articles on Zayante Vineyard. Although an abundance of Zayante’s varietals are in wine stores and supermarkets right now, the winery is up for sale—so who knows what changes are afoot when the new owners come in?

Winery owners Kathleen Starkey-Nolton and Greg Nolton, along with winery co-owner Marion Nolten, have always made affordable wines, and the 2012 Santa Cruz Mountains Zinfandel is no exception. At just under $20, it’s worth the search to get some. Or head to Deluxe Foods in Aptos where the shelves are bursting at the seams with local wines, including those of Zayante Vineyard.

Zayante’s Santa Cruz Mountains Estate Zinfandel has earthy aromas of plum and strawberry jam—with a balance of fruit that leaves a lingering finish. The Noltens’ mission has always been to produce “the finest wines in California,” and they’re doing a stellar job.

The fascinating Zinfandel grape has many fans, and it’s always a sure-fire hit with anything barbecued—its typical peppery-jammy aromas and flavors adding lip-smacking spiciness.

After the devastating loss of their son three years ago in a motorcycle accident, Kathleen and Greg continued with the winery, producing their quality wine. But now they are moving on, and I wish them well for their future.

Zayante Vineyard, 420 Old Mount Road, Felton, 335-7992. Before you head to Zayante Vineyard, check zayantevineyards.com for opening times.


Route 1 Farms Summer Dinners

Route 1 Farms’ spectacular al fresco dinner events are coming right up.

June 25 is at Rancho del Oso with Chef Stephen Beaumier of Mutari Chocolate in Santa Cruz, and Richard Alfaro of Alfaro Family Vineyards as the featured winemaker.

Aug. 13 is at Rancho del Oso with Chef Jessica Yarr of Assembly in Santa Cruz, and Eric Stockwell of Stockwell Cellars.

Sept. 24 is at Ocean Street Extension with Chef Katherine Stern of La Posta in Santa Cruz and Denis Hoey of Odonata Wines. This dinner is sold out but you could request to be put on the waitlist.

Visit route1farms.com for more info.

Rob Brezsny Astrology May 17—23

 

ARIES (March 21-April 19): “A two-year-old kid is like using a blender, but you don’t have a top for it,” said comedian Jerry Seinfeld. Would you like to avoid a scenario like that, Aries? Would you prefer not to see what happens if your life has resemblances to turning on a topless blender that’s full of ingredients? Yes? Then please find the top and put it on! And if you can’t locate the proper top, use a dinner plate or newspaper or pizza box. OK? It’s not too late. Even if the blender is already spewing almond milk and banana fragments and protein powder all over the ceiling. Better late than never!

 

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): My pregnant friend Myrna is determined to avoid giving birth via Caesarean section. She believes that the best way for her son to enter the world is by him doing the hard work of squeezing through the narrow birth canal. That struggle will fortify his willpower and mobilize him to summon equally strenuous efforts in response to future challenges. It’s an interesting theory. I suggest you consider it as you contemplate how you’re going to get yourself reborn.

 

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): I invite you to try the following meditation: Picture yourself filling garbage bags with stuff that reminds you of what you used to be and don’t want to be any more. Add anything that feels like decrepit emotional baggage or that serves as a worn-out psychological crutch. When you’ve gathered up all the props and accessories that demoralize you, imagine yourself going to a beach where you build a big bonfire and hurl your mess into the flames. As you dance around the conflagration, exorcise the voices in your head that tell you boring stories about yourself. Sing songs that have as much power to relieve and release you as a spectacular orgasm.

 

CANCER (June 21-July 22): In normal times, your guardian animal ally might be the turtle, crab, seahorse, or manta ray. But in the next three weeks, it’s the cockroach. This unfairly maligned creature is legendary for its power to thrive in virtually any environment, and I think you will have a similar resourcefulness. Like the cockroach, you will do more than merely cope with awkward adventures and complicated transitions; you will flourish. One caution: It’s possible that your adaptability may bother people who are less flexible and enterprising than you. To keep that from being a problem, be empathetic as you help them adapt. (P.S. Your temporary animal ally is exceptionally well-groomed. Cockroaches clean themselves as much as cats do.)

 

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Lady Jane Grey was crowned Queen of England in July 1553, but she ruled for just nine days before being deposed. I invite you to think back to a time in your own past when victory was short-lived. Maybe you accomplished a gratifying feat after an arduous struggle, only to have it quickly eclipsed by a twist of fate. Perhaps you finally made it into the limelight but then lost your audience to a distracting brouhaha. But here’s the good news: Whatever it was—a temporary triumph? incomplete success? nullified conquest?—you will soon have a chance to find redemption for it.

 

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): While shopping at a funky yard sale, I found the torn-off cover of a book titled You’re a Genius and I Can Prove It. Sadly, the rest of the book was not available. Later I searched for it in online bookstores, and found it was out of print. That’s unfortunate, because now would be an excellent time for you to peruse a text like this. Why? Because you need specific, detailed evidence of how unique and compelling you are—concrete data that will provide an antidote to your habitual self doubts and consecrate your growing sense of self-worth. Here’s what I suggest you do: Write an essay entitled “I’m an Interesting Character and Here’s the Proof.”

 

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Leonardo da Vinci wrote a bestiary, an odd little book in which he drew moral conclusions from the behavior of animals. One of his descriptions will be useful for you to contemplate in the near future. It was centered on what he called the “wild ass,” which we might refer to as an undomesticated donkey. Leonardo said that this beast, “going to the fountain to drink and finding the water muddy, is never too thirsty to wait until it becomes clear before satisfying himself.” That’s a useful fable to contemplate, Libra. Be patient as you go in search of what’s pure and clean and good for you. (The translation from the Italian is by Oliver Evans.)

 

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): My friend Allie works as a matchmaker. She has an instinctive skill at reading the potential chemistry between people. One of her key strategies is to urge her clients to write mission statements. “What would your ideal marriage look like?” she asks them. Once they have clarified what they want, the process of finding a mate seems to become easier and more fun. In accordance with the astrological omens, Scorpio, I suggest you try this exercise—even if you are already in a committed relationship. It’s an excellent time to get very specific about the inspired togetherness you’re willing to work hard to create.

 

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): In ancient Greek myth, Tiresias was a prophet who could draw useful revelations by interpreting the singing of birds. Spirits of the dead helped him devise his prognostications, too. He was in constant demand for revelations about the future. But his greatest claim to fame was the fact that a goddess magically transformed himself into a woman for seven years. After that, he could speak with authority about how both genders experienced the world. This enhanced his wisdom immeasurably, adding to his oracular power. Are you interested in a less drastic but highly educational lesson, Sagittarius? Would you like to see life from a very different perspective from the one you’re accustomed to? It’s available to you if you want it.

 

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): “You remind me of the parts of myself that I will never have a chance to meet,” writes poet Mariah Gordon-Dyke, addressing a lover. Have you ever felt like saying that to a beloved ally, Capricorn? If so, I have good news: You now have an opportunity to meet and greet parts of yourself that have previously been hidden from you—aspects of your deep soul that up until now you may only have caught glimpses of. Celebrate this homecoming!

 

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): I predict that you won’t be bitten by a dog or embarrassed by a stain or pounced on by a lawyer. Nor will you lose your keys or get yelled at by a friend or oversleep for a big appointment. On the contrary! I think you’ll be wise to expect the best. The following events are quite possible: You may be complimented by a person who’s in a position to help you. You could be invited into a place that had previously been off-limits. While eavesdropping, you might pick up a useful clue, and while daydreaming you could recover an important memory you’d lost. Good luck like this is even more likely to sweep into your life if you work on ripening the most immature part of your personality.

 

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Time out. It’s intermission. Give yourself permission to be spacious and slow. Then, when you’re sweetly empty—this may take a few days—seek out experiences that appeal primarily to your wild and tender heart as opposed to your wild and jumpy mind. Just forget about the theories you believe in and the ideas you regard as central to your philosophy of life. Instead, work on developing brisk new approaches to your relationship with your feelings. Like what? Become more conscious of them, for example. Express gratitude for what they teach you. Boost your trust for their power to reveal what your mind sometimes hides from you.


Homework: Imagine what your life would be like if you even partially licked your worst fear. Describe this new world. freewillastrology.com.

As Above, So Below

The Sun and the planets shift about more than usual in the following days, which means more shifting about and activity on Earth. As the outer planets are contacted, we see signs of continued transformations in our world. Mercury and the Sun change signs this week. Mercury left risk-taking Aries and entered slow-moving, Taurus (Monday night), sign of the Art of Living.

On Saturday, Sun leaves Taurus (comfort) and enters Gemini, sign of the messenger instructing humanity in communication.

Friday (possible difficult day) things get all shook up due to interactions between Saturn/Uranus, Mars/Pluto and Venus/Jupiter. As above in the heavens, so below on Earth.

With Saturn trine Uranus (in fiery Sag and Aries), everything that is staid, unmovable, crystallized and locked into place is shocked into instability. Uranus doesn’t allow the old ways to hinder the new ways from forming. Uranus disrupts everything, allowing new rhythms to take shape.

With Mars/Pluto (Gemini/Capricorn), the old world comes tumbling down with a fury! Nothing seems to work. Messages (Gemini) are lost in the rubble.

With Venus opposite Jupiter (Aries/Libra), something new “over there somewhere (opposite us)” appears. We can’t comprehend it, so we ignore or destroy it. But Venus/Jupiter is benevolent, kind and expansive. They bring awareness, love and wisdom to our relationships. Eventually, we allow ourselves to see what new is being introduced. Gradually, we accept and integrate it. We always learn through conflict and chaos.

With Sun in Gemini we are more communicative, friendly, sociable, interested and curious to learn about everyone and everything. We gather information and share it. We listen to Blake Shelton’s music (Gemini Sun). And our hearts open. Why? Gemini distributes Ray 2 (Love/Wisdom) from a star in the Big Dipper.


ARIES: You may be dreaming more often, feeling more instinctive, sometimes confused, sensitive, inspired and insightful. Prayer, meditation, study, contemplation are good for you. They create compassion and a deeply caring way of being. When you find yourself in a group calling you to leadership to help create the future, the needed skills, tools and virtues appear. The new world is what you are to initiate.

 

TAURUS: You have one task now—a focus upon health. Tend to joints and bones and your heart, taking more calcium/magnesium, not allowing anxiety or stress, eating calming foods. Swimming in warm salt pools is recommended. Use practicality to care for yourself. You must choose daily—to be out and about socially, leading everyone into the future, or remaining at home, in the garden, building toward perfect health. Begin each day facing the early morning Sun. Eyes wide open.

 

GEMINI: Something revelatory happens between you and the world, you and work, and you and certain groups. You’re inspired, encouraged and guided. With careful study, years of preparation, and viewing the past in terms of cultivating your gifts, a spiritual pathway opens. Choices and commitments are more easily made, and gratitude settles in your heart. The next festival is the Gemini festival of Goodwill. Plan to participate.

 

CANCER: What have you been sensing, feeling and thinking of during these spring festivals? Do you feel you’re being introduced to new qualities within yourself, a new identity emerging? Do these days make you feel generous and at home? Is there a new reality or interest presenting itself? You want to participate fully. But you know it’s not quite the right timing. Are you gardening, redecorating, expanding your foundation? Love is close by.

 

LEO: You’re becoming more perceptive, intuitive and enlightened, and this affects those you work with. Someone, something (words, ideas, memories of someone in particular) will create a shift into greater and deeper awareness of how you have related in previous relationships. Your mind sorts through ideas of intimacy, money, sadness sometimes, and old dreams. Love is good, all the time, even when it hurts, which means you’re learning.

 

VIRGO: You will relate better with others, especially those close to you, if you offer love as unqualified and unconditional. This is something many of us need yet to learn. We don’t quite know how to love. But when we do so, we flourish and thrive and discover greater support and the needed guidance. Challenging others doesn’t work. Curiosity, listening, care and compassion do. They nourish all hearts.

 

LIBRA: Think, visualize and pray daily for all that you want and need your life to be. Include art, creativity and loving relationship partnerships. If you’re not sure of your needs, ask yourself each day, “What are my hopes, dreams and wishes? What are my abilities and gifts?” In the coming months, you become stronger, more resilient. Take cautionary care with money and resources. You need fishes in a fishbowl and an apricot canary.

 

SCORPIO: Use your resources and investments in terms of preparing for the future. Find a forward-thinking money manager. Think seriously about a new economy needing to unfold. It will look much different than our present one. Don’t speculate on the old economy. Consider precious metals. Study books on greenhouses and bio-shelters and the resources needed to create these environments. You then become forward thinking.

 

SAGITTARIUS: The planets are affecting your sense of self, your identity, your money, your family, home situation, creativity and possibilities in terms of relationships, partnerships, and for some, marriage. So many different realities pulsing about. Something kind and benevolent, something sacrificial and sad is remembered in your family. Are relatives and loved ones on your mind? Your remembering creates the needed relinquishment.

 

CAPRICORN: You’re thinking optimistically about doing something new about who you are in the world, your talents and gifts. You want to bring more grace, goodness, ease and beauty to your life and the life of humanity. You recognize everyone’s doing their very best, especially you, and you’re asking for more opportunities in the world. Begin writing (journaling) in earnest and even drawing how you want to serve the world. This is your next creative endeavor.

 

AQUARIUS: Money and resources are going through a definite change. You want adequate money in order to stabilize yourself in the future. This means more attention to the well-being of your finances. Don’t forget to always help others. When we serve others, our needs are always taken care of. The charts show a focus on home, past, present and future. Follow what calls to you. It loves you.

 

PISCES: Neptune in Pisces brings forth revelations and visions and, at times, confusion. Neptune blends many realities into one reality and specifics dissolve away. Be aware and observe this occurring. Neptune is not the planet of detail. It’s the planet of refinement, of parting the veils, of creative imagination and realms where dreams come true. Neptune transits can make us experience exhaustion. Magnesium, vitamins A, B and D3 help stabilize the body. Tend carefully to health in these times.

Preview: Kip Andersen on His Documentary ‘What the Health’

There’s a scene in the documentary Cowspiracy where director Kip Andersen charges into the lobby of the San Francisco Greenpeace office and asks the woman at the counter to see the program director. Andersen has been trying to get an appointment for two months, and wants to know why Greenpeace doesn’t focus on animal agriculture as the leading cause of greenhouse gas emissions. Greenpeace’s PR person comes out to shoo him away, saying representatives will be in touch.

Cowspiracy, which got some star power from executive producer Leonardo DiCaprio, has become the most popular and arguably most controversial pro-vegan documentary of all time. That’s at least partially because Andersen doesn’t just take on the obvious targets: healthcare, pharmaceutical companies and factory farming. This is Greenpeace, after all—the same Greenpeace whose members routinely scale famous monuments to display climate change banners and put themselves in the path of whalers. But the former Boulder Creek resident is uncompromising, leaving no cow unturned—a man who, early in our interview, asks “Can you be an environmentalist and still eat meat?”

Andersen has taken the same confrontational approach with his follow-up, What the Health, in which he investigates the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries’ connection to our nation’s reliance on meat, dairy and processed food consumption. What the Health will be screened in Santa Cruz on May 17 followed by a Q&A with the filmmaker.

When you’re uncovering “one of the biggest health cover-ups in the history of mankind, how it got to be so, and what the solution is,” you’ve got to take risks, says Andersen of his scorch-earthed tactics.

He spent hundreds of hours researching, sending emails, making calls and showing up at American health nonprofits, only to have his questions ignored, he says. He claims the information he did find was tainted by questionable studies, media hype and political interference.

“It’s tough because with medical studies you have to dig really deep and go back to see how they were funded,” says Andersen. “A lot of times it’s like ‘Oh, that’s funded by the meat and dairy industry.”

Like the Siri-Tarino study, says Andersen, which was headed by Robert Krauss and sparked the “butter is back” craze in 2010 when it concluded that there was no significant evidence to connect saturated fat with an increased risk of coronary heart disease or cardiovascular disease, despite studies since 1965 saying the opposite.

When the study was repackaged and released in 2014, the chair of Harvard’s nutrition department called it “seriously misleading,” saying it contained “multiple errors and omissions,” and called for the paper to be retracted. Turns out, says Andersen, Krauss had been funded by the National Dairy Council since 1989, and received support from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the Robert & Veronica Atkins Foundation (if you remember the Atkins Diet from the ’90s, it was pretty big on meat intake).

“That’s what they want: ‘doubt is our product,’” says Andersen, quoting the 1969 PR proposal from Brown & Williamson, a then-subsidiary of British American Tobacco, reviewing the state of the tobacco industry’s public relations and proposing next steps. “It’s formulated, it’s perfected. All you have to do is introduce doubt, and then people say ‘Oh well, I don’t know what to believe,’ and then move on with doing what they want to do.”

With the deep pockets and long-standing influence that these industries have, says Andersen, it’s no wonder that when we think protein, we think meat, and when we think calcium, we think milk.

A plant-based diet can offer those nutrients and more, he says, but it’s the combination of mass marketing, popular myths, and enough doubt to not know the difference that keeps people reaching for burgers instead of tofu, tempeh and seitan.

Cowspiracy has been called “vegan propaganda” by critics, who claim that it’s unrealistic to transition the global population to veganism, and that some of the facts used in the film were over-hyped. Andersen sighs.

“When Leonardo DiCaprio came on board, we had two of his lawyers down our throats for 10 months making sure we had every single fact sourced, at least one or two sources,” says Andersen. “It’s all his image—he’s worth, what, a billion dollars? It is the most lock solid.”

He’s also responding to the backlash surrounding the 2006 UN study cited in Cowspiracy, which states that 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions comes from meat production. In 2010, a UC Davis researcher criticized the study’s methodology, calling the numbers into question.

When asked if he’d wished they had included a bit of that controversy in the film, Andersen says yes—there is a long footnote on the website’s fact page—but he claims that the number should actually be far higher, not lower.

“If you talk to someone who truly does not have any affiliation with the meat and dairy industry—which those FAO numbers do,” he says, referring to the 18 percent, “Then the number is anywhere from 35 to 51 percent.”

Andersen’s referring to the Worldwatch “Livestock and Climate Change” report, which asserts that the 2006 UN number should be something closer to 51 percent.

But the hullabaloo doesn’t matter to him, says Andersen, because at screenings across the globe, he’s met receptive audiences.

“We’re in a paradigm shift, I feel, as a human species,” says Andersen. “Everybody really wants to know what’s going on—they’re hungry for it—to realize that we can know the truth and move on, not rely on these powers that be and cross our fingers that they’re telling the truth.”


Info: 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 17. Nickelodeon Theatre, 210 Lincoln St., Santa Cruz. Tickets available at the door 6-6:30 p.m. and online. 722-3253. tugg.com. $10.

What the Health is also available for download at whatthehealthfilm.com.   

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Preview: Kip Andersen on His Documentary ‘What the Health’

What the Health film director Kip Andersen
Fiercely passionate ‘Cowspiracy’ director Kip Andersen comes to Santa Cruz for screening of his latest film, 'What the Health.'
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