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Thirty-Six Hours in Santa Cruz, California

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By DAN WHITE, Published: December 30, 2010

FORGET what you heard about Santa Cruz being the city that sleeps. Yes, this sunny coastal town still has its countercultural wackiness. You can still watch surfers shred waves, ride a seaside roller coaster on the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and hear a street musician sing Pink Floyd’s “Goodbye Cruel World.” But Santa Cruz has been stirred by the tech boom in nearby Silicon Valley. In the past, “rabid localism” meant getting a black eye at the Stockton Avenue surf break. Now, the term refers to the restaurant that uses eggs from its own chicken coop, and the woman who churns organic ice cream with fennel foraged from a nearby field. And sleek

Slide Show

A Weekend in Santa Cruz

Map

Friday

4 p.m.
1) PACIFIC CRUISE

Once the domain of seedy bars and bong displays, the southern section of Pacific Avenue is now a more fashionable strip where the city’s lust for vintage is on display. Idle Hands Dry Goods (803 Pacific Avenue; 831-466-9305; idlehandsdrygoods.com) feels like an updated Rolling Stones track, melding vintage American outlaw looks (cowboy boots, belt buckles) with rock-’n’-roller attitude (graphic T-shirts, Pendleton shirts). True Love Antiques & Vintage (805 Pacific Avenue; 714-847-3961), is a wonder cabinet of curios, art and odd-ends. And on nearby Cedar Street, MetaVinyl (320 Cedar Street; 831-466-9027; metavinyl.com) carries new and old LPs, turntable gear and rare finds, like a mint-condition copy of 2 Live Crew’s “As Nasty As They Wanna Be.”

7 p.m.
2) HAUT KEBABS

The staid dining scene in downtown Santa Cruz got a jolt this fall with the arrival of Laili (101B Cooper Street; 831-423-4545; lailirestaurant.com), a stylish Afghan restaurant. With its nattily dressed waiters, soaring ceilings and wall-size photo display of precious Afghan jewelry, this is no hole-in-the-wall kebab joint. A cross-section of Santa Cruz can be found on a given night, sampling Persian chive-stuffed Aushak dumplings ($9) and the braised lamb shank with kabuli rice and yogurt ($16). Ask for a seat at the communal table, where you can rub elbows with surfers and techies, and watch a cook in an open kitchen preparing naan dough with a giant rolling pin.

9 p.m.
3) LATIN RHYTHMS

The spiciest spot downtown is arguably the weekly salsa dance party at the historic Palomar Ballroom (1344 Pacific Avenue; 831-426-1221; palomarballroom.com), where dancers swirl in tight dresses, miniskirts and high heels. If you know your salsa moves, pay $5 at the door. If you need to brush up, a $10 fee covers a salsa class and the dance party.

Midnight
4) DEEP RED

A crimson glow beckons late-night patrons upstairs to the Red Restaurant & Bar (200 Locust Street; 831-425-1913; redsantacruz.com), a curiously dark lounge with hidden nooks that stays open until 2 a.m. Unless you sit by the fire, reading the menu can be a challenge, so try the Winnie ($7.75), a house-infused rose tea vodka with fresh lemon and simple syrup. Don’t confuse this spot with the Red Room, which occupies the floor below and is a rite of passage for college students.

Saturday

10 a.m.
5) WARM BRIOCHE

Stock up for an outdoor picnic along the scenic coastline. True to its name, the Buttery (702 Soquel Avenue; 831-458-3020; butterybakery.com) specializes in butter-rich comfort foods like lemon cheese pockets ($2.65) and blueberry muffins ($2.65). It also sells French baguettes ($2). Round out your supplies across the street at Shopper’s Corner (622 Soquel Avenue; 831-423-1398; shopperscorner.com), a local institution with a neon clock, local wines, hard cheeses and tapenades.

11 a.m.
6) TAKE A HIKE

A slow ride on West Cliff Drive offers views of cypress trees, eroded cliffs and epic surf breaks. Park at the Wilder Ranch State Park (1401 Old Coast Road; 831-423-9703; parks.ca.gov), a 7,000-acre park with numerous hiking trails that tunnel through misted forests of alders, Douglas firs and coastal redwoods. The park is also home to bobcats, feral piglets and the occasional cougar.

3 p.m.
7) GREEN HEDONISTS

Once home to a frozen vegetable processing plant, the Swift Street Courtyard (402 Ingalls Street) has been transformed into a kind of epicurean food court. The bittersweet Black IPA ($4.50) is a specialty at Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing (Suite 27; 831-425-4900; santacruzmountainbrewing.com), an organic microbrewery with a tiny tap room. If you’re hungry, order a platter of fish tacos ($12.50) delivered to the bar from the shop next door, Kelly’s French Bakery (831-423-9059; kellysfrenchbakery.com). Or, if you want to sample biodynamic wines, head to the tasting room at Bonny Doon Vineyard (328 Ingalls Street; 831-425-4518; bonnydoonvineyard.com), where a metal spaceship hovers overhead. A $5 flight of wine tastings includes a white Spanish varietal called albariño and a dry muscat, both made from Monterey County grapes.

6:30 p.m.
8) SEABRIGHT SALUMI

At La Posta (538 Seabright Avenue; 831-457-2782; lapostarestaurant.com), the flavors might hail from Italy, but the ingredients are local. This handsome restaurant, which opened four years ago in a former general store, draws locavores to the hushed neighborhood of Seabright. Examples of its farm-to-table ethos include the ortiche brick-oven pizza ($14) with wild nettles foraged at Route 1 Farm in Santa Cruz, and an escarole salad ($8) topped with a boiled egg that comes from the chickens out back.

8 p.m.
9) MUSIC BOXES

With its large college population, Santa Cruz has long been a hub for indie music. One of the best spots to hear live music is the Rio Theatre (831-423-8209; 1205 Soquel Avenue; riotheatre.com), a former movie house from the 1940s that reopened 10 years ago as a concert hall and features acts like Neko Case and Cat Power. Another reliable option is the Crepe Place (1134 Soquel Avenue; 831-429-6994; thecrepeplace.com), a small venue housed in a century-old Victorian building, where acts such as Erin McKeown and the cult favorite Dan Bern perform under the original stamped-tin ceiling.

11 p.m.
10) ROCKIN’ RYE

With its old armoires, velvet curtains and private room, 515 Kitchen and Cocktails (515 Cedar Street; 831-425-5051) has an air of sophisticated decadence that attracts young professionals, graduate students and neighborhood bartenders. House drinks include the Dry Dreams ($7.75), made of Old Overholt rye whiskey, lemon, egg whites and maple syrup.

Sunday

10 a.m.
11) BEACH WALK

After ordering a butter-slathered hot cinnamon roll ($2) at Linda’s Seabreeze Cafe (542 Seabright Avenue; 831-427-9713; seabreezecafe.com), walk to nearby Seabright State Beach (East Cliff Drive at Seabright Avenue), a long stretch of tan-white sand, with a midget lighthouse, a foghorn and a cave. The Municipal Wharf (21 Municipal Wharf; 831-420-6025; santacruzwharf.com), a large pier built in 1914 that draws fishermen and pods of barking sea lions, is nearby. Don’t trust your eyes: that set of “islands” is a fog-bound stretch of coastline.

2 p.m.
12) DEEP FREEZE

Two scoops of celery raisin ice cream? You won’t find that in the freezer case of the local supermarket, but it is among the eccentric flavors that are dreamed up at the Penny Ice Creamery (913 Cedar Street; 831-204-2523; thepennyicecreamery.com). The artisanal ice cream shop, which opened in late August in a former hair salon, changes its menu daily, so you never know whether it will have familiar options like rum raisin and dark chocolate, or whether Kendra L. Baker, one of the owners, has come up something nutty, like black sesame ice cream or mandarin creamsicle.

IF YOU GO

The nearest major commercial airport to Santa Cruz is in San Jose, about 45 minutes away by car.

The Santa Cruz Dream Inn (175 West Cliff Drive; 831-426-4330; dreaminnsantacruz.com), which reopened in 2008, is the city’s lone beachfront hotel, with a 1960s retro theme and Jetsons-style furniture. All 165 rooms have ocean views and private balconies, with rates starting at $179.

Made of sun-baked bricks, the Adobe on Green Street (103 Green Street; 831-469-9866; adobeongreen.com) is a four-room bed-and- breakfast that opened in 1999. It has a dahlia garden, giant birds of Paradise in front and old-timber floors, with rates from $119 weekdays, $189 Friday and Saturday, including a continental breakfast.

The new Pacific Blue Inn (636 Pacific Avenue; 831-600-8880; pacificblueinn.com) is an unfussy bed-and-breakfast with a leafy patio and hot breakfasts made to order. The nine rooms start at $168.

Cranky and Free: American Speech

New York Times Editorial:

City of Santa Cruz' DECORUM vs
Robert Norse's Free Speech
May Finally Get a Real Trial

Robert Norse this year, across the board from street photographer and angel
Ronee Webster Curry, on Pacific Avenue in downtown Santa Cruz, California.
Ronee has a mission that includes bringing comfort and love to street people and
homeless folks in our town. Thank you, Ronee.

Editorial published: December 29, 2010

To the City Council in Santa Cruz, California, Robert Norse was a pest long before he sued it. An old-fashioned (and full-time) activist, he championed the city’s homeless and showed up regularly at meetings, making cranky comments and daring members to lose their cool.

Which they did, in March 2002, in an incident viewable on YouTube. As a gesture of silent protest when the Council asked someone else to stop talking, Mr. Norse raised his left arm in a Nazi salute. He was thrown out of the meeting, arrested when he refused to leave and released without charges. Mr. Norse then sued the city and Council members for infringing on his First Amendment right to sound off. But, on the eve of the trial and on his own motion, the trial judge threw out the case because, he said, the people Mr. Norse sued had official immunity.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit unanimously sided with Mr. Norse, Dec. 15. In a tart and persuasive opinion, Judge Sidney Thomas said that in ruling on his own motion — sua sponte — and without adequate notice, the trial judge had not given Mr. Norse a fair chance to be heard and had thus abused the legal process.

He also made plain that even a guy who’s a pest can count on the protections of the First Amendment. It’s all right to set reasonable time limits on public comments, Judge Thomas said. But if you have a right to be in a place, the right to free speech comes with you.

As the Ninth Circuit’s chief judge, Alex Kozinski, wrote in a concurring opinion about what he saw on the YouTube video, it “clearly shows that Norse’s sieg heil was momentary and casual, causing no disruption whatsoever.” Mr. Norse is not the only beneficiary of the appellate court ruling. All of us who value free speech, even when it is obnoxious, are stronger for it.

Linda's Hearth note: Earlier article in blog shares the so-called "objective" journalism version of this news. In short, per Linda's Hearth, the Ninth Circuit's Appeals Court sent Norse's claim against the City BACK for trial, as the prior judge just skipped over court rules in favor of giving City Councilmembers "immunity", but forgot to check out the facts of the case.

A version of this editorial appeared in print on December 30, 2010, on page A28 of the New York edition.

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No Social Safety Net? Germany Thinks We're Nuts!

America in Decline: A Look at Our Empire
Through the Eyes of the European Media

December 26, 2010
By Democrats Ramshield, from AlterNet


As an American expat living in the European Union, I’ve started to see America from a different perspective.

The European Union has a larger economy and more people than America does. Though it spends less -- right around 9 percent of GNP on medical, whereas we in the U.S. spend close to between 15 to 16 percent of GNP on medical -- the EU pretty much insures 100 percent of its population.

The U.S. has 59 million people medically uninsured; 132 million without dental insurance; 60 million without paid sick leave; 40 million on food stamps. Everybody in the European Union has cradle-to-grave access to universal medical and a dental plan by law. The law also requires paid sick leave; paid annual leave; paid maternity leave. When you realize all of that, it becomes easy to understand why many Europeans think America has gone insane.

Der Spiegel has run an interesting feature called "A Superpower in Decline," which attempts to explain to a German audience such odd phenomena as the rise of the Tea Party, without the hedging or attempts at "balance" found in mainstream U.S. media. On the Tea Parties:

Full of Hatred: "The Tea Party, that group of white, older voters who claim that they want their country back, is angry. Fox News host Glenn Beck, a recovering alcoholic who likens Obama to Adolf Hitler, is angry. Beck doesn't quite know what he wants to be -- maybe a politician, maybe president, maybe a preacher -- and he doesn't know what he wants to do, either, or least he hasn't come up with any specific ideas or plans. But he is full of hatred."

The piece continues with the sobering assessment that America’s actual unemployment rate isn’t really 10 percent, but close to 20 percent when we factor in the number of people who have stopped looking for work.

Some social scientists think that making sure large-scale crime or fascism never takes root in Europe again requires a taxpayer investment in a strong social safety net. Can we learn from Europe? Isn't it better to invest in a social safety net than in a large criminal justice system? (In America over 2 million people are incarcerated.)

Jobless Benefits That Never Run Out

Unlike here, in Germany jobless benefits never run out. Not only that -- as part of their social safety net, all job seekers continue to be medically insured, as are their families.

In the German jobless benefit system, when "jobless benefit 1" runs out, "jobless benefit 2," also known as HartzIV, kicks in. That one never gets cut off. The jobless also have contributions made for their pensions. They receive other types of insurance coverage from the state. As you can imagine, the estimated 2 million unemployed Americans who almost had no benefits this Christmas seems a particular horror show to Europeans, made worse by the fact that the U.S. government does not provide any medical insurance to American unemployment recipients. Europeans routinely recoil at that in disbelief and disgust.

In another piece the Spiegel magazine steps away from statistics and tells the story of Pam Brown, who personifies what is coming to be known as the Nouveau American poor. Pam Brown was a former executive assistant on Wall Street, and her shocking decline has become part of the American story:

American society is breaking apart. Millions of people have lost their jobs and fallen into poverty. Among them, for the first time, are many middle-class families. Meet Pam Brown from New York, whose life changed overnight. The crisis caught her unprepared. "It was horrible," Pam Brown remembers. "Overnight I found myself on the wrong side of the fence. It never occurred to me that something like this could happen to me. I got very depressed." Brown sits in a cheap diner on West 14th Street in Manhattan, stirring her $1.35 coffee. That's all she orders -- it's too late for breakfast and too early for lunch. She also needs to save money. Until early 2009, Brown worked as an executive assistant on Wall Street, earning more than $80,000 a year, living in a six-bedroom house with her three sons. Today, she's long-term unemployed and has to make do with a tiny one-bedroom in the Bronx.

It's important to note that no country in the European Union uses food stamps in order to humiliate its disadvantaged citizens in the grocery checkout line. Even worse is the fact that even the humbling food stamp allotment may not provide enough food for America’s jobless families. So it is on a reoccurring basis that some of these families report eating out of garbage cans to the European media.

For Pam Brown, last winter was the worst. One day she ran out of food completely and had to go through trash cans. She fell into a deep depression ... For many, like Brown, the downfall is a Kafkaesque odyssey, a humiliation hard to comprehend. Help is not in sight: their government and their society have abandoned them.

Pam Brown and her children were disturbingly, indeed incomprehensibly, allowed to fall straight to the bottom. The richest country in the world becomes morally bankrupt when someone like Pam Brown and her children have to pick through trash to eat, abandoned with a callous disregard by the American government. People like Brown have found themselves dispossessed due to the robber baron actions of the Wall Street elite.

Hunger in the Land of the Big Mac

A shocking headline from a Swiss newspaper reads (Berner Zeitung) “Hunger in the Land of the Big Mac.” Though the article is in German, the pictures are worth 1,000 words and need no translation. Given the fact that the Swiss virtually eliminated hunger, how do we as Americans think they will view these pictures, to which the American population has apparently been desensitized.

This appears to be a picture of two mothers collecting food boxes from the charity Feed the Children.

Perhaps the only way for us to remember what we really look like in America is to see ourselves through the eyes of others. While it is true that we can all be proud Americans, surely we don't have to be proud of the broken American social safety net. Surely we can do better than that. Can a European-style social safety net rescue the American working and middle classes from GOP and Tea Party warfare?

Linda's Hearth note: Believe me, Pam Brown, it gets way worse! to reders: I'll have to add the 2 photos next time.

Blog on Homelessness: Solutions to Social Problems and Why They Work

"There is this sense in our minds that someone who’s on the streets is almost in their DNA different from someone who has a house
... that is really not the case.”
~~ Becky Kanis, Common Ground, NY

Opinionator - A Gathering of Opinion From Around the Web
December 24, 2010, 8:30 pm

The Street-Level Solution
By DAVID BORNSTEIN

Solutions to Social Problems and Why They Work

When I was growing up, one of my father’s favorite sayings (borrowed from the humorist Will Rogers) was: “It isn’t what we don’t know that causes the trouble; it’s what we think we know that just ain’t so.” One of the main insights to be taken from the 100,000 Homes campaign and its strategy to end chronic homelessness, which I wrote about in Tuesdays’ column, is that, until recently, our society thought it understood the nature of homelessness, but it didn’t.

That led to a cascade of mistaken assumptions about why people become homeless and what they need. Many of the errors in our homelessness policies have stemmed from the conception that the homeless are a homogeneous group. It’s only in the past 15 years that organizations like Common Ground, and others, have taken a more granular, street-level view of the problem — disaggregating the “episodically homeless” from the “chronically homeless” in order to understand their needs at an individual level. This is why we can now envision a different approach — and get better results.

Most readers expressed support for the effort, although a number were skeptical, and a few downright dismissive, about the chances of long-term homeless people adapting well to housing. This is to be expected; it’s hard to imagine what we haven’t yet seen. As Niccolò Machiavelli wrote in “The Prince,” one of the major obstacles in any effort to advance systemic change is the “incredulity of men,” which is to say that people “do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.” Most of us have witnessed homeless people on the streets for decades. Few have seen formerly homeless people after they have been housed successfully. We don’t have reference points for that story. So we extrapolate from what we know — or think we know.

But that can be misleading, even to experts. When I asked Rosanne Haggerty, the founder of Common Ground, which currently operates 2,310 units of supportive housing (with 552 more under construction), what had been her biggest surprise in this work, she replied: “Fifteen years ago, I would not have believed that people who had been so broken and entrenched in homelessness could thrive to the degree that they do in our buildings.”

And Becky Kanis, the campaign’s director, commented: “There is this sense in our minds that someone who’s on the streets is almost in their DNA different from someone who has a house. The campaign is creating a first hand experience for many people that that is really not the case.”

Once homeless people return to housing, they’re in a much better position to rebuild their lives.

One of the jolting realizations that I had while researching this column is that anybody could become like a homeless person — all it takes is a traumatic brain injury. A bicycle fall, a car accident, a slip on the ice, or if you’re a soldier, a head wound — and your life could become unrecognizable. James O’Connell, a doctor who has been treating the most vulnerable homeless people on the streets of Boston for 25 years, estimates that 40 percent of the long-term homeless people he’s met had such a brain injury. “For many it was a head injury prior to the time they became homeless,” he said. “They became erratic. They’d have mood swings, bouts of explosive behavior. They couldn’t hold onto their jobs. Drinking made them feel better. They’d end up on the streets.”

Once homeless people return to housing, they’re in a much better position to rebuild their lives. But it’s important to note that housing, alone, is not enough. As with many complex social problems, when you get through the initial crisis, you have another problem to solve which is no less challenging. But it is a better problem.

Over the past decade, O’Connell has seen this happen. “I spend half my time on the streets or in the hospital and the other half making house calls to people who lived for years on the streets,” he said. “So from a doctor’s point of view it’s a delightful switch, but it’s not as if putting someone in housing is the answer to addressing all of their problems. It’s the first step.”

Once in housing, formerly homeless people can become isolated and lonely. If they’ve lived on the streets for years, they may have acquired a certain stature as well as a sense of pride in their survival skills. Now indoors, those aspects of their identity may be stripped away. Many also experience a profound disorientation at the outset. “If you’re homeless for more than six months, you kind of lose your bearings,” says Haggerty. “Existence becomes not about overcoming homelessness but about finding food, panhandling, looking for a job to survive another day. The whole process of how you define stability gets reordered.”

Many need regular, if not continuous, support with mental health problems, addictions and illnesses — and, equally important, assistance in the day to day challenges of life, reacquainting with family, building relationships with neighbors, finding enjoyable activities or work, managing finances, and learning how to eat healthy food.

{Related -- More From Fixes -- Read previous contributions to this series}

For some people, the best solution is to live in a communal residence, with special services. This isn’t available everywhere, however. In Boston, for example, homeless people tend to be scattered in apartments throughout the city.

Common Ground’s large residences in New York offer insight into the possibilities for change when homeless people have a rich array of supports. In additional to more traditional social services, residents also make use of communal gardens, classes in things like cooking, yoga, theatre and photography, and job placement. Last year, 188 formerly homeless tenants in four of Common Ground’s residences, found jobs.

Because the properties have many services and are well-managed, Haggerty has found post-housing problems to be surprisingly rare. In the past 10 years, there have been only a handful of incidents of altercations between tenants. There is very little graffiti or vandalism. And the turnover is almost negligible. In the Prince George Hotel in New York, which is home to 208 formerly homeless people and 208 low income tenants, the average length of tenancy is close to seven years. (All residents pay 30 percent of their income for rent; for the formerly homeless, this comes out of their government benefits.) When people move on, it is usually because they’ve found a preferable apartment.

“Tenants also want to participate in shaping the public areas of the buildings,” said Haggerty. “They formed a gardening committee. They want a terrace on the roof. Those are things I didn’t count on.” The most common tenant demand? “People always want more storage space — but that’s true of every New Yorker,” she adds. “In many ways, we’re a lot like a normal apartment building. Our tenants look like anyone else.”

As I mentioned, homelessness is a catch-all for a variety of problems. A number of readers asked whether the campaign will address family homelessness, which has different causes and requires a different solution. I’ve been following some of the promising ideas emerging to address and prevent family homelessness.

Later in 2011, I’ll explore these ideas in a column. For now, I’ll conclude with an update on the 100,000 Homes Campaign. Since Tuesday, New Orleans and a few other communities have reported new results. The current tally of people housed is 7,043.


David Bornstein is the author of “How to Change the World,” which has been published in 20 languages, and “The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank,” and is co-author of “Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know.” He is the founder of dowser.org, a media site that reports on social innovation.

Linda's Hearth note: Maybe I can create a responsive essay to this? It may help me get out my own perspective: local manifestations of those policies Bornstein describes? I like the writer's "balance" between spheres of influence: between street heat, creative nonprofit and religious service providers, and "the public sector." Voices of local citizens, and of merchants, developers, education and private enterprise seems missing, in any ongoing sense, to me, where decision and policy happens.

I personally believe that in congregate housing, an ideal set-up for most homeless people going thru' yet another **collosal psychic change** once they get a room or place with indoor privacy: wrap-around supportive services directed by client, balanced with real-world property management/advocate support (people gain new skills when it works). I would want to help create a collaborative household which includes BOTH the wrap-around client supports with building-based, voluntary, tenant-advised "social activities". For ex: AA meetings, art therapy workshops, "yoga nite", root beer floats together (maybe not the sugar?), or whatever social supports clients together deem helpful to many.

When I was a homeless mom, I remember needing somebody to help me make some timely phonecalls, but any such help was a huge gulf away (wait lists everywhere then)because "helping programs" deign to make personal and family decisions for me before they decide for themselves how they may help out. It is such a waste of resources at the least; for me it created insurmountable debts, delays in ongoing bureaucratic and legal tasks borne of poverty, which I wasn't able to complete because I had to perform somebody else's schedule.

My young son's school progress was injured drastically because a shelter had a standing rule that kids under 12 had to be enrolled nearby. This is a form of blackmail that my son and my family will always be compensating for. I cannot blame the "counselor" orthe shelter, I cannot blame myself for going against my instincts because OTHER instincts drove me to stable food situation, beds instead of car seats, etc. NO FAULT, and MUCH gratitude. Makes me sad that there is not feedback loop to the funders and caregivers because clients are homogenized by staffers. I learned that without our clients' voices, support systems will not work very well and can do great harms which nobody can forsee. WITH clients' voices, if they are fresh from homelessness or any other serial shocks (Vietnam, sudden weaning, losing one's parents even for a short time, hunger, facing others' predations without the support and rearing required...

Along these lines, I would also caution those who help with intake and developing an action plan for homeless clients, and who would be case managers or support people during such reentry into "mainstream" life -- KNOW that even the homeless person who is articulate and at ease with interviewing is not going to be able to share all the horror and shock of being on the streets or hidden in a forest for too long. Don't press for a new client's whole story -- instead, make it easy for the person to "share" (and feel heard, and feel their own voices validated) when she or he is ready.

The worse one's shocks have been, whether distant or recent, the harder it will be to "bring up" everything at once. I believe there's a necessary sequencing required for such work to be healing. It takes months or a year; longer wihtout the right, tender, social contacts and support, for one's injuries to be fully revealed, once a continuum of safety is established.

One Win for DemocraticTransparency

Arrest for Self-Corrected Nazi salute violates Constitution's First Amendment

Santa Cruz City Council's ouster of civil rights activist Robert Norse over a protest gesture was 'viewpoint discrimination,' rules 9th Circuit appeals panel. Called a "hissy fit" by secondary councilmember rather than disruption as City lawyers maintain

By Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Time, December 16, 2010

The city of Santa Cruz violated the 1st Amendment rights of an advocate for the homeless when the mayor had him arrested for giving a Nazi salute at a City Council meeting, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The unanimous ruling by a full 11-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals deemed Mayor Christopher Krohn's order to remove activist Robert Norse from the public meeting to be "viewpoint discrimination" rather than an effort to maintain order during discussion about where the homeless would be permitted to sleep.

Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, a libertarian and fierce supporter of 1st Amendment protections, said Norse's ouster was spurred by a councilman's "hissy fit," not any actual disruption of the meeting.

Free speech advocates hailed the ruling as a warning to public officials trying to muzzle opposing voices.

"This kind of behavior not only occurs in Santa Cruz but in other places too," said David J. Beauvais, an Oakland attorney specializing in 1st Amendment issues who represented Norse in the protracted legal action. Beauvais said two previous rulings by the 9th Circuit on city officials' power to control public meetings "set up such a relaxed standard that cities were emboldened to do whatever they want."

The appeals court reversed a lower court decision to dismiss Norse's lawsuit on grounds that city officials are immune from such legal actions. The case had been dismissed by U.S. District Judge Ronald M. Whyte of San Jose on the eve of trial, denying Norse any opportunity to argue that his rights had been violated, the appeals court said.

"This kind of behavior not only occurs

in Santa Cruz but in other places too,"

said David J. Beauvais, an Oakland

attorney specializing in 1st Amendment

issues who represented Norse in the

protracted legal action.

Kozinski wrote a concurring opinion to underscore the constitutional issues behind the decision to send the case back for trial. The chief judge said a video of Norse's gesture at the March 12, 2002, meeting, part of the case record as well as available on YouTube, "speaks for itself.

"Norse raises his hand in a brief, silent protest of the mayor's treatment of another speaker. The mayor ignores Norse's fleeting gesture until Councilman [Tim] Fitzmaurice throws a hissy fit," Kozinski said in arguing that Norse' stiff-armed salute fell far short of the disruption necessary to justify his removal and arrest.

At a June hearing on Norse's lawsuit, the 9th Circuit judges made clear their concerns about the city's claim to unlimited latitude in controlling expression at public meetings.

Norse is an activist with Homeless United for Friendship and Freedom and has been battling Santa Cruz officials over their treatment of the city's down-and-out for more than a decade.

George J. Kovacevich, attorney for the city of Santa Cruz, said city officials hadn't yet decided whether to seek U.S. Supreme Court review or let the case go to trial. He said he was disappointed in the ruling and concerned it could lead to more unruly behavior at public meetings.

"But that's always a rub with the 1st Amendment," he said. "I'm not saying that's good or bad, just that it goes with the territory."

# # #

carol.williams@latimes.com

Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times

Rob Brezsny Punches Light Into English Translation On Sacred Warriors

Four Dignities of the Warrior's Path

interpretation by Rob Brezsny
excerpted from Free Will Astrology, December 14, 2010
*

SACRED ADVERTISEMENT

In Tibetan Buddhism's "Four Dignities of the Warrior's Path," courage and ferocity are absent. In fact, the qualities regarded as essential for being a warrior have nothing in common with the training regimens of Marines or football players or lobbyists.

The first dignity is often translated in English as meekness, but that word doesn't convey its full meaning. "Relaxed confidence" is a more precise formulation -- a humble feeling of being at home in one's body.

Perkiness, or irrepressible joy, is the second dignity. To develop it, a warrior cultivates the habit of seeing the best in everything and works diligently to avoid the self-indulgence of cynicism.

The third is outrageousness. The warrior who embodies this dignity loves to experiment, is not addicted to strategies that have been successful in the past, and has a passionate objectivity that's free of the irrelevant emotions of hope and fear.

The fourth dignity is inscrutability, or a skill at evading the pigeonholes and simplistic definitions that might limit the warrior's inventiveness while fighting for his or her moral vision.

* * *

The preceding oracle comes from Brezsny's fun and wonderous book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

Would you like to hear me say some more about your ever-evolving destiny? Check out your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE. Meanwhile, to get a taste of what my audio offerings are like, listen to my free podcast, Beauty and Truth Lab.

Linda's Hearth note: I started writing a review this provokative and fun book when I got a copy, signed, at Gateways Books, which may soon close. But I didn't have the convenience of this simple-to-use blog system, nor any other computer support system, what a lame excuse for not publishing it, but there's my excuse.

It finally dawned on me that a more successful writer might better accomplish what I had been inspired to do. Above, his words. Check out this book -- feed the corners of your brain that are dank and hungry.

I will come back here someday, maybe even expand this with my words, too, once I learn how to make those Blue Words link things online.

Some People Who Changed Human Rights History

Human Rights Day is December 10th, 2010

HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS ~Statement from Navi Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

Since the United Nations was established over 60 years ago, there have been dramatic advances in crafting and implementing a system of universal human rights – rights which are, under international law, applicable to each and every one of us: old and young, male and female, rich and poor, whoever we are and wherever we are from.

We know the names of some of those who changed human rights history: those who were in the vanguard of the struggle to abolish slavery, such as William Wilberforce; those who engineered major advances in women’s rights, such as Gloria Steinem, Huda Shaarawi and Simone de Beauvoir. We also know about those who tackled the injustice of colonialism such as Mahatma Gandhi, and those – like Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Rigoberta Menchu – who campaigned to end institutionalized racism and discrimination against minorities and indigenous peoples.

But these inspirational figures could not have done what they did without the help of many others whose names we don’t know. Efforts to end slavery spanned 1,000 years, and still continue with adults and children being trafficked for sex and indentured labour. After a mammoth struggle that lasted more than 150 years, women have won the right to vote almost everywhere, but still lack many other fundamental rights.

We owe the progress we have made to the enormous efforts of hundreds of thousands of largely unsung heroes, known collectively as human rights defenders.

Human rights defenders come from all walks of life, ranging from princesses and politicians, to professionals such as journalists, teachers and doctors, to people with little or no formal education. There are no special qualifications. All it takes is commitment, and courage.

We can all be human rights defenders, and – given how much we owe to others for the rights many of us now take for granted – we all should be human rights defenders. At the very least, we should do our utmost to support those who do defend human rights. Every year, thousands of human rights defenders are harassed, abused, unjustly jailed and murdered. That is why Human Rights Day 2010 is dedicated to Human Rights Defenders and their courageous battle to stop discrimination of all sorts. We need to stand up for their rights as much as they stand up for ours.

Some of those who are unjustly detained become the subject of international efforts to win their freedom. This spotlight can provide them with a significant measure of physical protection, even if it does not always win them a speedy release. But most of those detained by repressive authorities languish largely unnoticed in jails, under house arrest, in ‘re-education centres.’ Often their families are targeted as well.

Some of those killed – like Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, murdered outside her apartment in 2006, and Floribert Chebeya Bahizire, the Congolese human rights defender found dead in his car earlier this year – are remembered and revered. But many of those less well-known defenders who are murdered for their belief in human rights remain unknown to the wider world.

The work of human rights defenders is as vital today as it has ever been, because hundreds of millions of individuals still suffer directly or indirectly from some form of discrimination every day.

There are an estimated 370 million indigenous people in the world, a great many of whom face discrimination. Even in the developed world, the life expectancy of some groups of indigenous children born today is up to 20 years less than that of non-indigenous children.

Minorities suffer similar disparities. In Latin America, for example, the some 150 million people of African descent tend to be trapped in poverty to a much greater degree than other sectors of the population. Similarly, of the estimated 650 million people with disabilities, more than two thirds (426 million) are living below the poverty line in developing countries.

Women – half the world’s population – still face rampant discrimination in some societies, and more subtle versions in others. One of the most alarming of many depressing statistics on this issue, is that 70 percent of the 70-100 million children who are not attending school are girls.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

"...of the estimated 650 million people with disabilities, more than two thirds (426 million) are living below the poverty line in developing countries."

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Around 100 million people are forced into poverty each year because they have to pay for health care. In many countries, children from poor backgrounds are 10 times less likely to be vaccinated than those whose parents are better off, and poor women are up to 20 times less likely than the richest 20 percent of women to give birth in the presence of a skilled health worker capable of saving their lives.

The more than 200 million migrants worldwide, and especially the irregular and undocumented migrants among them , face racism, xenophobia and other chronic forms of discrimination, in both developed and developing countries.

These are some of the daunting challenges facing today’s and tomorrow’s human rights defenders. I wish to salute their selfless determination. They work tirelessly in on all the issues singled out above, and many more besides – for example sexual orientation and the rights of stateless people, older people and those living with HIV.

One important set of statistics is missing: we have no idea how many human rights defenders there are, or how many of them are intimidated, harassed, beaten up, jailed or killed each year. We have also failed to develop ways to measure their successes, which are often credited not to them but to the politicians or governments that finally listen to them or give in to their pressure. We need to do a much better job of defending our defenders.

The 21st century is witnessing the emergence of new economic and political forces, which, like others before them, will face the responsibility of promoting development at home and abroad while at the same time being held accountable for their actions. Human rights defenders will play a crucial role in this process, by pointing out flaws and benefits in current and future policies and actions. Yet, despite the benefits they bring to society, in some parts of the world they are facing increased harassment, persecution and restrictions on their activities, especially freedom of speech.

On this Human Rights Day, I call on Governments to acknowledge that criticism is not a crime, and to release all those people who have been detained for peacefully exercising their fundamental freedoms to defend democratic principles and human rights.

Linda's Hearth note: I like this essay because it lists names of a handful of the people we need to REMEMBER, who have sacraficed having a life of their own in order for the rest of us to have more freedom and autonomy.

I follow the releases of HREA in order to expand my worldview toward a more global awareness. -LEL

HREA - www.hrea.org

Human Rights Education Associates (HREA) is an international non-governmental organisation that supports human rights learning; the training of activists and professionals; the development of educational materials and programming; and community-building through on-line technologies.

Covering Up Government Agent Activities with Impunity?

Attacking Wikileaks Means Attacking Constitutional Freedoms of Speech and of the Press, Intent on Burying Government Corruption

GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.gp.org

Thursday, December 9, 2010
Contacts:
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, cell 202-904-7614, mclarty@greens.org
Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, starlene@gp.org

WASHINGTON, DC -- Green Party leaders called the attacks on Wikileaks by the US government a direct and deliberate assault on the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of the press.

"The war on Wikileaks may set a precedent for the treatment of journalists who expose government wrong-doing," said Carl Romanelli of the Pennsylvania Green Party. "While the US government has increasingly operated outside of US constitutional and international law, Wikileaks' actions would not be called a crime in a free and open society."

Green voters expressed dismay and outrage over the decision of companies like Amazon, Pay Pal, MasterCard, and Visa, as well as several Internet hosting companies, to cooperate with US government demands for censorship.

Green Reasons to Defend Wikileaks

There is no proof that Wikileaks has broken the law, and no criminal charges have been filed.

Reporters and media organizations like Wikileaks that expose 'top secret' documents showing evidence of criminality deserve praise and support, not condemnation. The Wikileaks cables revealed secret US military operations in Yemen that killed dozens of Yemenis (previously denied by Obama officials), orders from the US State Department for personnel to steal personal information from UN officials and human rights groups, manipulation of Britain's Iraq inquiry to protect US interests, pressure from Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah for the US to launch an attack on Iran, and many other examples of information that the American public and the world deserve to know.

Despite warnings that Wikileaks has endangered military personnel and individuals in Afghanistan working with the US, publication of the cables has resulted in no known deaths. On the other hand, US operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Yemen have caused the deaths of countless civilians.

The demand by politicians in the US and abroad for Julian Assange to be hunted down and executed, without due process, demonstrates why media organizations like Wikileaks are vitally necessary.

The Bush Administration authorized prolonged detention without due process, denial of habeas corpus, extraordinary rendition and torture, warrantless surveillance of US citizens, harassment of whistleblowers, and false justifications for war. The Obama White House has maintained most of these policies and refuses to prosecute Bush officials who approved torture, including President Bush himself.

The Green Party supports the rule of constitutional law -- as should every American -- and therefore welcomes the Wikileaks revelations detailing official abuses of power.

The calls for legal action against Wikileaks, a small media organization, are cowardly and hypocritical, since no such calls have been made for legal action against The New York Times, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, and other major corporate media that have published the cables. Furthermore, the published cables were redacted by Wikileaks to to protect innocent individuals.

Undermining Net Neutrality vs Imposing Corporate/Government Internet Access Control

In the context of recent attempts in Congress to undermine net neutrality and impose corporate and/or government control in the US over access to the Internet, the attempts to block public access to the Wikipedia logs represents a dangerous step towards censorship.

below more on Wikileaks:

"Don't shoot messenger for revealing uncomfortable truths"
By Julian Assange, The Australian, December 8, 2010
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/wikileaks/dont-shoot-messenger-for-revealing-uncomfortable-truths/story-fn775xjq-1225967241332

"Assange's rights should be upheld: Brown"
Quotes from Australian Senator and Greens leader Bob Brown, The Greens, December 6, 2010
http://greens.org.au/content/assanges-rights-should-be-upheld-brown

Glenn Greenwald's coverage of Wikileaks and the media response in Salon.com
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/

Green Pages: The official publication of record of the Green Party of the United States (Fall 2010 issue now online)
http://gp.org/greenpages-blog


~ END ~

Green Party Speakers Bureau: Greens available to speak on civil liberties and the US Constitution: http://www.gp.org/speakers/speakers-civil.php

Fav Poems & Short Stories # 6

Miroslav Holub's SELECTED POEMS
Linda's Hearth favs ~~Three Poems I love ~ ~
further acknowledgement below selections

Truth

He left, infallible, the door itself
was bruised as he
hit the mark.
We two sat awhile
the figures in the documents
staring at us like
green huge-headed beetles
out of the crevices of evening.
The books stretched
their spines,
the balance weighed just for the fun of it
and the glass beads in the neclace
of the god of sleep whispered together
in the scales.

'Have you ever been right?' ine if us asked.
'I haven't.'

Then we counted on,
It was late
And outside the smokey town, frosty and purple, climbed to
the stars.




The Harp

Of all stringed instrumemts I like best
the hard stretched from hand to hand,
From blood to blood. From disaster to deliverance. From
error to perfction.
Of all the stringed instruments I like best
the harp of healaing.
Its music sounds at man's deep centre.
And King David plays it,
He who never was,
He who always will e when the candle
gutters and the flesh
is lifting off the bone.



In the Microscope

Here too are dreaming landscapes,
lunar, derelict.
Here too are the masses
tillers of the soil.
ANd cells, fighters
who lay down their lives
for a song.

Here too are cemeteries,
fame and snow.
and I hear murmuring,
the revolt of immense estates.


~3 by Miroslav Holub


Linda's Hearth note: I love the voice of this poet!

I am hopeful the above all 3 from Section One of Selected Poems, a Penguin Modern European Poets publication, is a good sample of his brilliant, lush and ironic perspective. Because I couldn't narrow down to a favorite. I love his (?) mingling of "earthy" metaphor and scientific precision with language.
~*~Translations (c) 1967 by Ian Milner and George Theiner.

Beginning p-graphs of back cover for bio:
Miroslav Holub would like people to read poems as naturally as they read the papers, or go to a football match, "not to consider it as anything more difficult or effeminate, or praisworthy." Miroslav Holub, an internationally distinguished scientist, is Czechoslovakia's most lively and experimental poet. The scientist in him is always creatively present in his poems, lurking behind his restless experiments in free verse and his constant probing below the obvious surface of things. Above all he shows an unwavering sense of the realities of life.

My apologies for not knowing how to set the spacing beyond this blog's default, but I will get back in here and fix to match the published poetry as soon as I find a helper/techie/buddie.


Linda's Hearth: note to self reg Truth~ fluish left: "He left...", We two sat...", "The books stretched..." and "the balance weighed." &after "in the scales." indented, the rest lines flush left. est 32-space indent. lasts line: 3-sp indent. Note reg Harp: put 3 sp indents: 2nd line, 4th line,6th line,11th n 12th lines.

Fav Poems n Short Stories # 5

How came Beauty Against This Blackness

But the beauty is not the madness
Tho' my errors and wrecks lie about me
And I am not a demigod,
I cannot make it cohere.

If love is not in the house there is nothing
The voice of famine unheard,
How came beauty against this blackness,
Twice beauty under the elms --
To be saved by squirrels and blue jays!

-Ezra Pound



Linda's Hearth note: I have loved this poem since I first saw it, had it posted above my desk on the blinds, when we lived at Barson St and Canfield Ave, Santa Cruz "Surf City", California. Posting it "centered", takes something away from the original scripting: it was flush left, with the first and last line indented 5 spaces.