Talk of the Bay from KSQD

The Gipsy Kings have sold 20 million records worldwide, won a Grammy for best World Music Record, and four other grammy nominations. They have played the great concert halls of the world, appeared in movies (Big Lebowski, Toy Story III) and wowed audiences with their combination of rumba, salsa, flamenco and pop music. In this interview Rachel talks with founder and lead guitarist, Tonino Baliardo, who only speaks French and Spanish, so had a translator. The Gipsy Kings will play the Warrior’s Stadium in Santa Cruz on May 19th.

In part II of “Have you Been Canceled?”, a look at California’s homeowner’s insurance crisis, Rachel Anne Goodman talks with Deputy Insurance Commissioner and spokesperson for Commissioner Ricardo Lara, Michael Soller. She asks him about the proposed fixes coming from his boss and how that may impact insurance availability.

This month at the Actors’ Theater in downtown Santa Cruz we have a rare opportunity to experience a very local story. White Sky, Falling Dragon is a play in two acts by playwright, and Director, Steve “Spike” Wong. The play runs April 19 through May 5.  Inspired by Spike’s own father, Captain Ernest Wong, USAAF, the play tells the story of a young Chinese-American man’s return to small town Watsonville, California in 1944 after his WWII service as a bombardier.   This production, featuring an all Asian cast in primary roles, offers a rare opportunity to experience a largely untold story of the heroic contributions of Chinese-Americans, and a dramatic telling of the aftermath of war. With its focus on Chinese-American culture, immigration, and military service during wartime, the play is a unique blend of drama and comedy and a moving tribute to the complexities of what it means to come home. For more information and to purchase tickets: Actors Theater

In this program, State Senator John Laird and Executive Director of Consumer Watchdog, Carmen Balber discuss California’s homeowner’s insurance crisis and whether Commissioner Ricardo Lara’s proposed fixes will actually help the flight of insurance companies from the state or make it worse. Listeners weigh in, too.

  Omer Bartov was born in Israel and educated at Tel Aviv University and St. Antony’s College, Oxford. His early research concerned the Nazi indoctrination of the Wehrmacht and the crimes it committed in World War II, analyzed in his books, The Eastern Front, 1941-1945 (1985), and Hitler’s Army (1991). He then turned to the links between total war and genocide, discussed in his books Murder in Our Midst (1996), Mirrors of Destruction (2000), and Germany’s War and the Holocaust (2003). Omer Bartov’s interest in representation also led to his study, The “Jew” in Cinema (2005), which examines the recycling of antisemitic stereotypes in film. His more recent work has focused on interethnic relations in the borderlands of Eastern Europe. His book Erased: Vanishing Traces of Jewish Galicia in Present-Day Ukraine (2007), investigates the politics of memory in West Ukraine, while Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz (2018), is a microhistory of ethnic coexistence and violence. The book received the National Jewish Book Award and the Yad Vashem International Book Prize for Holocaust Research, among others, and has been translated into several languages. Bartov’s Tales from the Borderlands: Making and Unmaking the Galician Past (2022) explores the centuries pre-dating the Holocaust. He has edited several volumes, including Shatterzone of Empires: Coexistence and Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Borderlands (2013), Voices on War and Genocide: Three Accounts of the World Wars in a Galician Town (2020) and, reflecting his new interest, Israel-Palestine: Lands and Peoples (2021). His novel, The Butterfly and the Axe, was published in January 2023. His new book, Genocide, The Holocaust and Israel-Palestine: First-Person History in Times of Crisis, has just come out. Omer Bartov is the Samuel Pisar Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University, where he has taught since 2000.

  Martin Rizzo-Martinez is a historian and a producer of film, podcast, and other media content. After completing his PhD at UC Santa Cruz in 2016, he became a UC Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow to work with Dr. Cliff Trafzer at UC Riverside. Following his postdoc, he worked with California State Parks as the Historian & Tribal Liaison for the Santa Cruz District, which allowed him to work closely with the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band and other tribal partners in the region. He is currently a professor in the Film and Digital Media program at UCSC. Martin is the author of the recently released book We Are Not Animals, a detailed look at the lives and survival strategies of the native peoples of the Monterey Bay area who survived the Spanish mission system, and the Mexican and American colonizing forces that followed it. He is also co-producer of the podcast “Challenging Colonialism”.

As the Watsonville Film Festival approaches its final weekend, documentary filmmakers Jeff Dunn and Jon Silver talk about the changing world of their craft. Jon Silver’s short film, “Living in in Exile”, about the life of Nicaraguan “nuevo cancion” singer, Carlos Mejia Godoy, is playing at the festival in Seaside on March 15th. Mejia Godoy was forced to flee his homeland after speaking out against the government of Daniel Ortega, who he had once supported through his music and his work as a radio host.

  Woody Hastings is the Phase Out Polluting Fuels program manager for The Climate Center. He is an energy and environmental policy analyst, strategic planner, and community organizer with over thirty years of experience in the non-profit, governmental, and private sectors. Woody has been with The Climate Center since 2010 when he was hired to help lead the formation of what became California’s second Community Choice Agency (CCA), Sonoma Clean Power (SCP). After the launch of SCP Woody worked to expand CCA in other parts of California including the Central Coast. In 2020, with CCAs established throughout the state, Woody’s focus shifted to work in the oil & gas supply side issues of extraction and refining of fossil fuels. The emphasis is on how to advance a comprehensive, coordinated, equity-centered, worker-friendly managed transition away from fossil fuels in California. The initiative he manages also includes demand-side end-use of fossil and other polluting fuels, particularly in transportation policy and building electrification. Woody received his bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies from San Francisco State University with an emphasis on sustainability and social justice. He is also a Fellow of the Leadership Institute for Just and Resilient Communities.

It’s no small task to start something new and keep it going for 12 years. That’s the story for film maker and mover and shaker, Consuelo Alba. Seeing a lack of Latino/a representation in film, and especially film festivals, she decided to do something about it. Now in its 12th year, the festival has become the landmark event for Latine film makers from local and Bay Area cities.

Sifting through the results of the primary election, we find some trends locally and statewide and discuss the future of the progressive movement in Santa Cruz. Is it dead, or just dormant?

American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) PACS have been flooded with donations since the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Congressional Candidate in California District 19 (Santa Cruz to Paso Robles) Sean Dougherty is running against incumbent Jimmy Panetta, an establishment Democrat whose father, Leon Panetta, served as Chief of Staff for Bill Clinton, and as both CIA Director and Defense Secretary under President Obama. Dougherty called a press conference on Feb. 28 at the Santa Cruz, CA County Courthouse to discuss Panetta’s “windfall” contributions from the AIPAC PAC, totaling $184,400.00. Panetta received the largest, single-day donation from the AIPAC PAC in December of 2023—more than any other Congressional candidate. And this amount represents Panetta’s largest single donation. Why is the AIPAC PAC spending so much money on this California Congressional district? Ami Chen Mills interviews Sean about campaign finance; polling figures on the American public’s feelings about a ceasefire in Israel and Gaza; big money in US political campaigns; why Jimmy Panetta is being accused of voting to “end social security,” according to critics–and what the candidate (Sean) would do with the US military budget, after cutting it in half, if elected. A special Talk of the Bay news segment produced by the Moment of the Truth team. Notes and Resources: Sean Dougherty website: www.SeanforPeace.com The Lever Online News and Commentary: https://www.levernews.com/ On AIPAC’s new funds and how it is spending them: https://www.levernews.com/inside-the-israel-lobbys-new-90-million-war-chest/ Interviews with global journalists on the ongoing death toll and destruction in Gaza, and on AIPAC funds. Plus: US Senate Candidates and more–excellent and in-depth election coverage from Rose Aguilar at Your Call (a KSQD morning program produced by Pacifica’s KALW): https://www.kalw.org/people/rose-aguilar

Talk of the Bay hosted by Bodie Shargel features an interview with County Supervisor of District 3 Justin Cummings about Measure K and L, a 1/2 cent sales tax for the County and City respectively. Later Bodi talks with Tony Nuñez, committee member for YES on Measure N, supporting a bond for the Pajaro Valley Health Care District. https://santacruzlocal.org/election/2024-mar-05/measures/k-county-sales-tax/ https://santacruzlocal.org/election/2024-mar-05/measures/l-santa-cruz-sales-tax/ https://santacruzlocal.org/election/2024-mar-05/measures/measure-n-pajaro-health/  

“In municipalities throughout the United States, a policy of trap-neuter-return (T.N.R.) has become the preferred approach to the problem of unowned cats,” writes author Jonathan Franzen in his recent New Yorker exposé on feral cats and the decimation of wild bird populations. “Our sympathy for animals has created a situation that’s terrible for animals.” Causing a stir in the world of animal lovers, Franzen calls TNR “a strategy with no firm basis in science”—and recently he came on KSQD, his home radio station, to speak about his research. Franzen’s conversation with Talk of the Bay host Rachel Anne Goodman covers his process of researching and fact-checking the article. He’s a bird-lover fearful of forthcoming mass extinction events, an animal-lover advocating for the killing of countless furry friends, a writer who focuses on fiction but found real life calling loudly for his attention. “I married into an animal loving family and a birdwatching family, and quickly became a serious birdwatcher,” Franzen explains about his move to Santa Cruz County 25 years ago. I became pretty extreme about it, and with that came a sense of fear about what is happening to the wild birds of the world.” In the second half of the program, Franzen goes back to his comfort zone and talks about the joy of retreating to the 1970s of his teen years to write his more recent novel, Crossroads. For more information: Listen on YouTube Listen on Apple Podcasts “Cats of L.A.” in the New Yorker American Bird Conservancy About Jonathan Franzen Jonathan Franzen is a novelist and essayist whose sprawling multilayered novels about contemporary America have elicited critical acclaim. His novels combine brilliant storytelling while exploring the intimate connections of family relations. Franzen’s 2001 novel, “The Corrections,” won the National Book Award and the James Trait Black Memorial Prize and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Since then, he has written four more novels, including “Crossroads,” a national bestseller named one of the New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2021. It was also cited by Barack Obama, Financial Times, Good Housekeeping, Oprah Daily, Newsweek, NPR, Publishers Weekly, TIME, USA Today, Vogue, The Washington Post and many more. His recent essay in the New Yorker magazine Cats of L.A. takes on the issue of feral cats and the efforts of communities to try to reduce their numbers in humane ways.  

Political reporter for Lookout Santa Cruz, Chris Neely takes us through the California and Santa Cruz races as we near the March 5th election.

Gitta Ryle was 7 when her mother sent her and her 10-year-old sister Renee from their home in Vienna, Austria to France to be hidden from the Nazis.  What followed was seven years of separation and fear, always hiding and hoping not to be caught and killed. Her father was killed in Auschwitz. Gitta tells her story and reflects on what it means in our current time and how therapy helped her want to live and shed the anger that was weighing her down. She is approaching her 92nd birthday and finds purpose in telling about what happened so that no one can deny history and hopefully, we will learn from the past not to repeat the tragedies of fear and fascism.

In this episode, we hear three heartfelt stories of struggle and healing from freshmen at UCSC. Each fall quarter, UCSC students write and perform personal “Slug” stories in front of an audience of peers and faculty as part of John R. Lewis College’s Social Justice and Community core course. Modeled after The Moth Radio Hour, this project has been collecting student stories for the past several years in an audio archive. Read more in this article:  

Award-winning journalist Claudia Melendez Salinas has been writing in-depth articles about people at the margins who do not traditionally get covered by local or national daily papers. Voices of Monterey Bay is a passion project of local journalists Julie Reynolds, Royal Calkins, Joe Livernois, and Melendez covering in-dept stories impacting Monterey County. She talks about her recent investigative work and the need for local journalism.

  Craig James started his professional career as a Cabrillo College dropout at the age of seventeen. Four years as a sailing instructor, boatbuilder, machinist, and carpenter taught him the value of craftsmanship and what it means to have real responsibilities. He also figured out that laboring in the hot sun can make college seem quite attractive. Born and raised in California, he graduated from UC Davis with a degree in electrical engineering, and some years later earned his master’s degree in Computer Science (Artificial Intelligence and linguistics) from Stanford University. It was while at Stanford studying artificial intelligence, linguistics, and philosophy that James got his first inspiration to write a book. In addition to his writing, James is an accomplished amateur guitarist, a tolerable clarinet player, a deep-sea sailor, and the father of three. In his spare time, he enjoys sailing, hiking and bicycling in the beautiful beaches and mountains of Northern California. The books: The Religion Virus: Why We Believe in God Affairs of State (a novel)

  Thom Zajac began publishing the Santa Cruz Comic News in September of 1984. Now in its 40th year, each issue of the Comic News features well over 100 cartoons from the nation’s leading political cartoonists. The Comic News is the longest running cartoon newspaper and granddaddy of them all, having inspired over 100 copycat publications, many of which are still going to this day. Thom has adapted to changing technology and media markets over the decades, and the Comic News website now features weekly updates and highlighted cartoonists, among other things, while the print edition continues to grace local newsstands.

It is said that there are more opinions than people in Santa Cruz county, and the Rail and Trail project has not only spanned decades, it swarms with opinions, ideas, and contradictions. As the Santa Cruz Regional Transportation Commission takes its next steps towards studying the nuts and bolts of what an integrated rail and trail could look like for the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line, Christine Barrington continues her Rail-Trail series and digs into common questions and conundrums that have beset the project.   This is episode #3 in a 5-part series and features former Regional Transportation Commission Executive Directors Linda Wilshusen (1985-2005) and George Dondero (2006-2018) along with Board members of Friends of the Rail and Trail: Barry Scott, Sally Arnold and Bruce Sawhill. Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission: Zero Emission Passenger Rail & Trail Project Study Offer your feedback at the Virtual Preliminary Project and Need Open House: Until March 4, 2024: Online at www.zeprt.com RAIL & TRAIL EPISODES: #1) The Rail & Trail: Visiting the Past; Finding the Future #2) The Rail & Trail Part 2: 2206-2018: George Dondero, Cory Caletti and John Leopold #3 Questions and Conundrums #4) Friends of the Rail and Trail #5) The Rail and Trail in Watsonville and Beyond Bonus show: Mitigating Environmental Impacts of the Rail and Trail with Senior Ecologist Justin Davilla