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Zoppé Italian Circus returns to San Francisco

San José Art Museum

by Magdy Zara

Italian family circus Zoppé returns to Redwood City for the 16th consecutive year and presents a brand new theme: Carnavale di Venezia.

The circus and Italian comedy have always been related, being two of the oldest works of performing art. At the heart of this Italian spectacle is the Venetian Carnival, which comes to life under the big top of the Zoppé Family Circus.

Event attendees will be enthralled this season as the circus brings its authentic single-ring tent for a 2-hour immersive circus production.

The Zoppé Family Circus is an event that takes place once a year, which makes it the perfect time to share a different show with the family.

The Zoppé Family Circus welcomes visitors in an authentic circus tent that pays tribute to the best story of Old World Italian tradition. Starring the clown Nino, and sometimes featuring his son Julien, the circus is driven by a central story (as opposed to individual acts) featuring acrobatic feats, equestrian spectacle, canine capers, clowns, and plenty of audience participation.

GA tickets are bleachers with no assigned seating. VIP tickets are premium ringside seats, padded chairs with backrests. No assigned seats. Guests can arrive 30 minutes before the show for a unique pre-show experience.

The circus arrived in Redwood City Redwood City and opened its doors on Nov. 9 and its show will be open to the public until the 27th of this month, for which it has designated two daily performances starting at 5 p.m. Tickets are $10 and $27.

Zoppe Italian Family Circus is located at 1044 Middlefield Road Redwood City.

”Help us give smiles at Christmas to children in Peru”

A group of citizens of Peruvian nationality have organized to raise funds to continue bringing joy during this Christmas season to children and older adults in the Sierra region of Peru.

For this they have planned a breakfast and lunch with typical dishes from that country, with as special guests the group La Combinación Perfecta, DJ Kenyu, the prince of Cumbia, Edy Francia Show, Los Rondón Orchestra and George Amores.

The collaboration is $20 and you can taste two combos that include:

Bread with Chicharrón, polloda, tamale, passion fruit or Inka Kola and coffee.

The appointment is next Nov. 19, starting at 1 p.m., at 2931 Harbor St. Pittsburgh. For more information, contact us at 925-550 7167,

San José Art Museum opens Encode/Store/Retrieve exhibition

On Dec. 8, the San José Museum of Arts announces the opening of its Encode/Store/Retrieve exhibition, and to celebrate this occasion it plans to hold a reception for its members.

The memory landscape has changed dramatically throughout the digital age, marked by the ease and speed with which we can record, store and share information. Through digital technologies, almost anyone can participate in the production of memory at any time. However, the ever-growing digital archive has significant financial and ecological impacts that we must address.

Encode/Store/Retrieve brings together artworks primarily from SJMA’s collection to explore low-tech forms of memory production from the past sixty years. The sculptures, paintings, photographs, installations and works on paper gathered here are organized into thematic groupings that reference the key processes underlying cognitive and computational models of memory: encoding, storage and retrieval. By bringing together conversations about digital, biological, institutional, and ecological memory, the artists in this exhibition provide us with strategies to address emerging issues in our growing digital archive.

Some of the artists featured in this exhibition are: Wallace Berman, Val Britton, Jim Campbell, Enrique Chagoya, Chryssa, Binh Danh, Steven Deo, Bruce Hasson, Xandra Ibarra, Dinh Q. Lê, Darlene Nguyen-Ely, Margaret Nielsen , Harold Paris, Beverly Rayner, Analia Saban. Katherine Sherwood, Rose B. Simpson, Stephanie Syjuco, Stella Waitzkin, Xiaoze Xie, among others.

The reception is scheduled for Friday, Dec. 8 from 6 to 7 p.m., while the inauguration will be this same day from 6 to 9 p.m., completely free and will be open to the public until Sunday, April 21, 2024.

The SJMA is located at 110 Mercado Sur street, San José.

12th Chocolate Festival, in Tabasco, Mexico

Villahermosa will receive about 120 thousand people for the largest Chocolate Festival in its history. Don’t be left out!

Tabasco celebrates the Chocolate Festival from November 15 to 17. Live a unique and delicious experience!

Attention chocolate lovers! Get ready to enjoy the sweetest weekend of the year where you can delight your palate with a symphony of flavors at the Chocolate Festival, which this year will welcome its visitors with an extensive gastronomic display and activities that awaken all the senses.

A festival of Mexico and the world

How not to celebrate one of the most versatile ingredients in Mexican cuisine and one of the most beloved in the world. On this occasion it will be held in Halls I and II of the Tabasco Park in a space of 15 thousand square meters, where a gastronomy section and two events will be incorporated: the Mexico Showcase and the Mundo Maya Showcase, with representative delegations from the 32 states. of the Republic, as well as 5 countries of the Mayan World: Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Belize and Mexico, to expose their tourist destinations, gastronomy, crafts and cocoa and chocolate producers.

In addition, they will have Italy as a guest country, which has Perugia as its flagship city. You can find traditional products such as ‘baci’ bonbon (which means kisses), made with chocolate-covered hazelnuts. Exquisite!

What will you see at the Chocolate Festival?

The collaboration of commercial chocolate houses, cocoa farms, as well as the participation of renowned local, national and international chocolatiers and specialists who will give workshops, conferences and will be juries of the different competitions that will be held.

The event considers five dimensions in the value chain, with exhibitions related to the production, marketing and services of cocoa and chocolate, in addition to promoting and seeking international recognition of Creole cocoa originating from the entity.

Competitions

  • 1st Mexican Chocolate of Origin Contest.
  • 1st Mexican Origin Cocoa Contest.
  • 1st International Stove Duel with Gastronomic Innovation.
  • 1st Table Chocolate with Water Contest
  • Chocolate Promises (Wolter 2023)
  • Children’s Chocolate Painting Contest
  • Photography contest

Certifications

In addition, there will be the certification program of the International Institute of Chocolate & Cacao Tasting, with its level 1 and 2 courses. Level 3 will also be held during the Festival and, for the first time in the world, level 4, which will be named Origin.

Cocoa, an ancient treasure

Chocolate is one of the most consumed foods in the world, originally as a drink, and later as pastries, in gastronomy and as a candy. Chocolate has transcended through the history of man, but its origin is proudly Tabasco. From this pride arises the Tabasco Chocolate Festival, which since 2010 has been presented promoting the management of knowledge of this ancient grain.

How long will the homeless cleanups miracle continue on SF sidewalks?

This week San Francisco experienced a miracle, yes, a miracle. If you don’t believe in miracles, then start believing, because ‘supernatural’ things happen in this city.

Well, it turns out that for several years our beautiful city, where romantically in love visitors, who frequently remember it through the immortalized song of the great Tony Bennett, “I left my heart in San Francisco“, and eager to return to their beloved city, now they were leaving with their hearts broken to see how all the charm described in Tony Bennett’s song had faded, like a beautiful rose that withers.

The dirty streets full of filthy people who sleep on the sidewalks, high on fentanyl, alcohol or any substance that numbs their brains, where the filthy smell is felt meters away, and it is scary to walk through them.

Where the misfortune of a city in decline cries out to politicians to save it from its misfortune to return it to its greatness that it once had, and which was the pride of the entire nation for its historical and monumental beauty.

Where suddenly the thief is not punished, but compensated with the loot he stole from the robbed stores and allowed to occupy places on the sidewalks to sell his loot without fear of being punished by the permissible laws that protect them.

The destruction of life in San Francisco as it was before is the daily pain of those who were born, lived and came here to stay and participate in the growth and aggrandizement of the Golden Gate city. Where entrepreneurial immigrants were able to develop companies and their American dreams, but suddenly everything withered like flowers.

Businesses closed due to store robberies, due to mentally ill people who walk like zombies next to those affected by fentanyl, destroying harmony.

Politicians who adhere to the political parties in power get elected with abundant promises and slogans and then climb to other higher positions within the invisible command hierarchy. However, nothing changes. The homeless are still on the streets, drugs continue to ravage the most vulnerable. Youth are lulled to sleep by cannabis, while politicians’ promises remain just promises.

However, today a miracle happened. After so much time making excuses such as the lack of police, the lack of monetary resources, the lack of beds for the homeless, the inability to control drug use on the streets, and the lack of cleanliness, today everything changed.

On the afternoon of Nov. 14, 2023, Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in San Francisco on a special plane for a China-US summit, and a summit meeting with 30 APEC Economic Leaders at the invitation of the US president Joe Biden. Some 20,000 foreign dignitaries are also expected.

APEC, short for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, serves as an arena to foster trade, investment and economic development among nations surrounding the Pacific Ocean. The group is made up of 21 “economies,” including China, Russia, Japan, the United States and Australia, which account for nearly 40 percent of the world’s population and nearly half of global trade.

But before their arrival, the entire Democratic machine in power in the state of California made sure they could cleanse the city of all the rot that local citizens have had to endure due to the lack of will of these politicians who were elected to protect the city.

They made sure, however, that during the historic visit of the Chinese gentleman and the other guests, they would not suffer a bad impression and they (the politicians) would not be embarrassed by the state of neglect in which they themselves have allowed San Francisco to remain.

So now, suddenly, the city streets of SF are clean and shining for safety.

Reads a New York Post headline: “Sources Said Drug Addicts, Homeless People Plaguing Downtown San Francisco Miraculously Disappear Ahead of Biden-Xi Jinping Summit,” and vave been pushed to other parts of the city in preparation for the event, which began on Thursday, Nov. 16.

Says one article: “Amid the star-studded spectacle, tech leaders were quick to highlight the remarkable cleanup San Francisco achieved just before the event.

“It seems crazy that the zombie apocalypse can be cleaned up for an important visitor, but not for those who live there and pay for everything!” Elon Musk tweeted on Monday.

“San Francisco can instantly be the cleanest, safest, most beautiful, most incredible city in the world. It happened for Dreamforce and it is happening again for APEC,” Marc Benioff posted.

It’s not exactly groundbreaking for a bustling city to put itself in order before an event as important as this. Take Paris, which is undertaking a $1.5 billion project to clean up the Seine in anticipation of the 2024 Olympics, a river that Parisians have been banned from swimming in for a century because it was that disgusting.

But the question arises: how long will San Francisco residents enjoy this miraculous cleanliness and security?

I wonder if this miracle in San Francisco will be like the story of Cinderella, whose charm in her meeting with the Prince disappears when the bells ring at 12 at night, and she returns to her original form with the ragged dress and the pumpkin float.

The end of the era of justice, ¿what’s next? – And, turn to Israel’s destruction of Palestine

Note from the Editor: The following article is the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the El Reportero newspaper.

by Paul Craig Roberts

In the year 2023 Justice Is Nowhere to be Found in the Western World.

Examples are numerous. I have written about the injustices inflicted on Julian Assange, Trump supporters, and those forced to submit to Covid “vaccination.” This time I will illustrate the point with the “fraud case” against Trump for allegedly overstating the value of his real estate holdings and with the entire world standing aside, the genocide of Palestinians under the rubric of Israel’s “self-defense.”

The “fraud case” against Trump consists of an unsupported allegation against Trump by George Soros’ disciple NY attorney general Letitia James who is on record as a Trump-hater.

It is not a trial. There is no jury. The staged proceeding is only for the judge to determine how big a fine Trump has to pay for allegedly–no proof is supplied, only Letitia’s accusation–overstating the value of his holdings.

The judge, Engoron, in my opinion, is indulging his publicly-avowed hatred of Trump. It is the judge who should be indicted and placed on trial. He is guilty of ignoring an appellate court’s ruling that set a statute of limitations on the case. He granted a summary judgment against Trump of $250,000,000 before the process of determining Trump’s fine began.

Engoron and his staff are hardcore Democrats. They have made political contributions to the Democrat Party that are against the rules of conduct for judges and their law clerks.

Additionally, the biased judge has ruled against Trump’s ability to speak his mind and has prevented Trump’s attorneys from pointing out the ridiculous nature of the charges.

The charge that Trump overstated the value of his real estate holdings is only the unsupported opinion of the biased Trump-hater Letitia James who claims that New York State was damaged by Trump’s alleged overstatement of the value of his holdings.

The judge, who has no qualification as a real estate appraiser, says Trump’s Mar-a-Lago is only worth $18 million. Forbes magazine gives it a minimum value of $350,000,000.

Neither New York nor anyone suffered from the alleged and unsupported claim that Trump overstated the value of his holdings.

As US Representative Elise Stefanik stated in her ethics compliant filed against judge Engoron in New York, “no evidence was presented on trial to suggest fraud, and in fact material evidence suggested the opposite.”

“The defendant paid back the sophisticated Wall Street banks, on time, in full, with interest, as agreed. No insurance company paid a penny. And these banks and insurance companies, allegedly defrauded, continue to do business with the defendant.”

“Indeed, two banks had done their own analyses of President Trump’s net worth, as revealed in testimonies, and for some development projects the bank had courted President Trump’s business, not the other way around.”

Trump Organization had valued Mar-a-Lago between $426 million and $612 million in these statements, while Ms. James and the judge valued it at $18 million to $27.6 million, prompting ridicule from prominent real estate brokers who regarded the Trump-hating judge’s claim as “ludicrous.”

The judge, who declared Trump to be “a bad man” dismissed from the record exculpatory evidence for Trump in the form of a sworn affidavit from Lawrence Moens, the top Palm Beach luxury broker, who said if he had the opportunity to market Mar-a-Lago, it would be sold to someone with “net worths in the multiple billions,” the likes of Elon Musk, kings, emperors, and heads of state. Engoron called the statement an “unsubstantiated dream,” but admitted testimony from someone on the attorney general’s side who helped come up with the $250 million disgorgement figure, suggesting banks lost out on more than $100 million in interest because the financial statements were inflated. THIS IS ONLY THE JUDGE’S AND LETITIA’S CLAIM, NOT THE BANKS’ CLAIM. THERE ARE NO INJURED PARTIES.

TO BE CLEAR THE “FRAUD CASE” AGAINST TRUMP HAS NO COMPLAINANT EXCEPT LETITIA

HOW DID SUCH A FAKE CASE GET INTO THE JUSTICE SYSTEM?

THE ANSWER IS THAT THE US “JUSTICE” SUSTEM IS NOTHING BUT A WEAPON AGAINST OPPONENTS OF THE DEEP STATE. TRUMP IS BEING PERSECUTED FOR ONE REASON ONLY–TO MAKE IT CLEAR TO ALL FUTURE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES THAT IF YOU ATTEMPT TO REPRESENT THE PEOPLE INSTEAD OF THE RULING ESTABLISHMENT YOU WILL BE DESTROYED.

Now turn to Israel’s destruction of Palestine.

After a month of slaughter, Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and the rest of the world have taken no action to stop it.

No government has lifted a finger against Israel’s declared intention of destroying the remnants of Palestine still lingering after 75 years of Israel’s ongoing theft of Palestine from the inhabitants.

The Great Moral Western governments ban citizens from protesting Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians. US corporations and law firms collect the names of protesting students and blacklist them from employment. What person of integrity would work for such companies?

We have now lived through more than one month of Israeli bombing relentlessly killing 10,000 Palestinian women and children, and the entire world together cannot stop the atrocity. When the UN tries, Washington vetoes the UN. Israel’s declared policy is to drive every resident of Gaza into the Sinai Desert into “tent cities,” from which Israel expects Europe and the US to absorb them as immigrants, thus erasing Palestine from history.

Going by news reports of massive US military forces accumulating around Israel and announcements that Washington has Hezbollah, Iran, and Syria in its targets, it seems that the US is employed as Israel’s agent in behalf of Greater Israel–“from the Nile to the Euphrates.” The ethnic cleansing of Palestine is the beginning of the slaughter.

López Obrador to meet with Biden and Xi at APEC summit

by Mexico News Daily

Later this week, President López Obrador will find himself in a place he has seldom been since taking office almost five years ago: the world stage.

AMLO, as the septuagenarian president is best known, will travel to San Francisco for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Summit, at which U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping will be among the leaders in attendance.

López Obrador has one-on-on meetings lined up with both Biden and Xi.

Speaking in Culiacán, Sinaloa, on Tuesday a day after celebrating his 70th birthday, AMLO told reporters that he will depart for San Francisco on Wednesday.

After initially announcing that he would attend the APEC meeting, López Obrador changed his mind, saying in September that he wouldn’t be going because of Mexico’s strained, “on hold” relations with Peru due to the ouster of former president Pedro Castillo in December 2022.

However, AMLO – who has described the current Peruvian government as “spurious” – subsequently announced that he would in fact attend the summit that brings together officials from 21 member economies, including the U.S., China, Japan, Russia, Canada, Australia, Chile, Peru, Indonesia, South Korea, Vietnam and Chinese Taipei (Taiwan).

The meeting with Biden

López Obrador is scheduled to meet with the U.S. president in San Francisco on Friday.

Speaking at AMLO’s Tuesday morning press conference in Culiacán, Foreign Affairs Minister Alicia Bárcena said that the Mexico-U.S. border, the fight against synthetic drugs, migration and the U.S. DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) policy will be among the issues the two leaders will discuss.

Their meeting will take place four weeks after López Obrador met with leaders and other officials from 10 Western Hemisphere countries at a regional migration summit in Palenque, Chiapas, at which the participants agreed on 14 points to “jointly confront the migration reality” they face.

AMLO subsequently said that he would raise the issues discussed in Palenque with Biden during his meeting in San Francisco. His central goal is to obtain more funding from the U.S. for development programs aimed at providing well-being for would-be migrants and thus deterring them from leaving their homes and venturing north.

“The president wants to speak with the president of the United States about how the United States can collaborate on these development projects,” Bárcena said.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement that Biden and López Obrador “will discuss ongoing efforts to strengthen the U.S.-Mexico bilateral relationship and address issues of shared concern.”

They “will also discuss how we can continue to work together as partners to manage migration at our shared border and mobilize a hemispheric-wide response to this challenge,” she added.

The talks will come six weeks after Mexican and U.S. officials discussed issues including the fentanyl problem, arms trafficking, migration and the United States’ plan to build a new section of border wall at high-level security talks in Mexico City.

The meeting with Xi

López Obrador will meet the Chinese president and general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party on Thursday.

Bárcena said Tuesday that the meeting between the two leaders is “extremely important” and noted that it will be the first time they have a face-to-face conversation.

The foreign minister, who will also travel to San Francisco, said that Chinese aid for Acapulco, which was devastated when Hurricane Otis made landfall on Oct. 25, trade and the supply chain for illicit fentanyl will be among the issues López Obrador and Xi will discuss.

AMLO wrote to Xi earlier this year to seek his support in the fight against fentanyl, as precursor chemicals used to make the synthetic opioid are shipped to Mexico from China, according to Mexican and U.S. authorities.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson subsequently declared that “there is no such thing as illegal trafficking of fentanyl between China and Mexico.”

Bárcena said that the fentanyl supply chain issue will be broached by López Obrador in his discussions with Xi, suggesting that his focus will be on “how to organize ourselves in order to have better control … of the exportation and importation in general of our products,” including precursor chemicals that are shipped from China to Mexico and subsequently used to make the synthetic opioid.

She acknowledged earlier in the press conference that fentanyl is manufactured legally in Mexico in some cases. Bárcena also said that precursors used to make fentanyl “mainly come from Asia.”

Following his meeting with Xi, AMLO is scheduled to meet with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the foreign minister said said.

APEC and the Leaders’ Summit 

APEC began in 1989 with 12 members and increased through the 1990s to reach 21.

The 21 member economies account for nearly 40% of the global population and almost half the world’s trade, according to the Associated Press.

Mexico hosted the annual APEC meeting in Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, in 2002, when Vicente Fox was president.

Citing White House aides, AP reported that the goal for the 2023 Leaders’ Summit is “to try to make APEC economies more resilient, particularly in the face of growing climate issues and following a global pandemic that killed millions of people and strained supply chains.”

A bilateral meeting between Biden and Xi on Wednesday is set to overshadow the Leaders’ Summit, although the traditional photo in which leaders dress in typical local attire will no doubt attract attention.

López Obrador has largely avoided international meetings and events during his presidency, with former foreign affairs minister Marcelo Ebrard representing him on numerous occasions until he resigned in June to seek the ruling Morena party’s nomination for the 2024 presidential election.

Economy Minister Raquel Buenrostro attended the 2023 G20 Summit in New Delhi, India, in September, while AMLO stayed at home to attend to domestic matters.

López Obrador frequently asserts that “the best foreign policy is domestic policy,” and has only traveled abroad to other Western Hemisphere nations during his presidency.

With reports from Milenio, El Economista, El Universal and AP.

Guterres insists on ceasefire due to loss of life in hospitals

by the El Reportero wire services

The UN chief expressed his concern in a statement released by his spokesperson Sthéphane Dujarric while the Al-Shifa hospital is the focus of operations of the Israel Defense Forces.

Tel Aviv troops claim that Hamas established a command center beneath the health facility, an allegation denied by medical staff.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates there were 135 attacks on health facilities in Gaza over the past month.

This is, according to WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris, the highest figure recorded in such a short time.

“I hope this is the worst we’ve ever seen,” she lamented.

Harris warned of a “growing trend” of attacks on healthcare, which is also seen in other ongoing conflicts in Sudan and Ukraine.

“It seems that somehow the idea that a hospital should be a safe haven, a place where people come for treatment when they need it, has been forgotten,” she told reporters.

The spokesperson considered the facility’s workers heroic, who maintain their efforts while the center has been operating without electricity since November 11 and there is not enough food or drinking water.

About 700 patients and more than 400 health personnel were still there, in addition to about three thousand displaced people who sought refuge there.

According to Harris, 20 patient deaths were recorded in the last 48 hours.

Press reports on Tuesday indicated that the Israeli army offered to provide incubators to Al-Shifa hospital, where 36 premature babies require constant care.

In the last three days, at least six premature babies died because their incubators could not function due to lack of electricity.

California mental health agency on the hot seat as lawmakers review ‘groundbreaking’ law

A 2020 California law expanded the number of mental health conditions that insurers must cover. Now, lawmakers are reviewing whether the law is working as intended

by Jocelyn Wiener

Three years ago, California leaders passed legislation that promised the most dramatic expansion of mental health and addiction care coverage in decades.

As the state’s residents struggled with the stress and trauma of a raging pandemic and a record wildfire season, mental health advocates used words like “groundbreaking” to describe the new law. Finally, they said, California was poised to become a national leader on mental health.

Their optimism about that law, Senate Bill 855, has been fraying ever since. Advocates say health plans routinely fail to ensure that enough mental health providers accept their coverage, and often make patients wait too long before being seen.

Case in point: Last week, the Department of Managed Health Care unveiled news of a historic $200 million settlement with Kaiser Permanente for failing to provide patients with timely mental health appointments, among other issues.

Such issues will take center stage Wednesday at a special oversight hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Mental Health and Addiction.

Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco, chair of the committee and  author of the California Mental Health Parity Act, says he shares many of the mental health advocates’ concerns.

“We know the plans have a long history of finding ways not to cover mental health treatment,” he told CalMatters. “The whole purpose of this law is to put an end to that.”

Prior to the passage of the 2020 law, the state only required health plans to cover medically necessary treatment of nine serious mental illnesses. For years, mental health advocates had tried and failed to expand that list. With Wiener’s law, they were finally triumphant.

Beginning in January 2021, the state has required plans to pay for treatment of a much more extensive array of mental health issues, along with substance use disorder and addiction. This state law is separate from a federal mental health parity law passed in 2008. The concept of “parity” refers to requiring insurers to treat mental and physical health conditions equally.

Health plans say they “have been diligently working in good faith” to comply with these laws while facing industry-wide challenges like workforce shortages. They say they are navigating guidelines that are ambiguous and uneven while waiting for the Department of Managed Health Care to finalize regulations.

“This creates a situation of moving goal posts for plans, providers, and our enrollees,” said Mary Ellen Grant, spokesperson for the California Association of Health Plans, in an email.

Mental health parity investigations

Mental health advocates have also long criticized the Department of Managed Health Care, which oversees health plans in the state that receive monthly fees to provide health care for their members. And they, too, are concerned that it’s taking so long for the official rules to be decided.

This summer, more than a dozen advocacy groups signed a letter of concern to the department, questioning its commitment to enforcing some aspects of the new state parity law. The organizations want the department to publish and publicize its investigations.

“It’s still a relatively secret process,” said Lauren Finke, a policy director at The Kennedy Forum, a national organization that cosponsored California’s parity legislation.

The Department of Managed Health Care declined to make anyone available to speak with CalMatters until later this fall. In an email, a representative said the department “is committed to ensuring enrollees have appropriate access to behavioral health care when they need it.”

In response to advocates’ critiques that the department isn’t adequately analyzing and publicizing how well plans are complying with state parity law, the department said in a statement that it is evaluating health plans’ compliance in other ways; including that analysis in the behavioral health investigations would slow them down too much, the statement said.

Meiram Bendat, a Santa Barbara attorney and psychotherapist who focuses on mental health parity, says that the three-year-old state law has improved patients’ ability to receive mental health care by creating a uniform definition of what is considered “medically necessary.”

But when it comes to ensuring that health plans maintain adequate provider networks, he said, the department is “failing miserably.” Too often, plans offer their members only outdated lists of providers who then prove to be unavailable, Bendat said. The Department of Managed Health Care hasn’t adequately held plans accountable for this and other problematic practices, he said.

“The historic network inadequacy around the state and the lack of meaningful fines, that’s a real failure on the part of the department,” he said.

Kaiser mental health settlement

Finke, of The Kennedy Forum, called the Kaiser settlement “long overdue” and “a very important first step in the Department holding plans more accountable for their performance (or lack thereof).” The settlement includes a $50 million fine and corrective action plan as well as a commitment by Kaiser to invest an additional $150 million over five years to improve behavioral health services.

But Finke and others also said the settlement itself provides evidence of the department’s failures to enforce a previous settlement agreement with Kaiser from 2017.

“Will DMHC do its job going forward? That’s the big question,” asked Fred Seavey, research director for the National Union of Healthcare Workers, which represents 2,000 Kaiser mental health workers in Northern California who undertook a 10-week strike last year over heavy clinician workloads and long wait times for appointments. He said he wrote complaints to the Department of Managed Health Care earlier this year, saying that Kaiser in Southern California has been illegally restricting the scope of behavioral health services.

Kaiser said, in an emailed statement, that “any accusation that we intentionally limit or restrict needed care is untrue.”

Southern California Kaiser members receive a wide range of behavioral health clinical offerings, the statement said. Despite a statewide shortage of clinicians, Kaiser  is “doing all that we can” to expand its network of mental health providers.

 

Request for Proposals at Peralta Community College District

The Peralta Community College District (PCCD) is seeking proposals from qualified firms to provide District-Wide Energy Efficiency Planning and Implementation Services (RFQ/P No. 23-24/05).  Proposals are to be delivered to the Purchasing Department electronically (via Vendor Registry), until 1:00 P.M. on November 28, 2023.

The District wishes to incorporate the principles of sustainability into its organizational values and core business goals. These principles express the agency’s commitment to “reduce, re-use, and recycle all internal resources and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” These climate, energy, water, and resource conservation and management principles are to be integrated into the District’s infrastructure and facilities activities to reduce resource consumption; decrease air pollutant emissions, including greenhouse gas emissions; reduce solid and liquid waste generation, and increase recycling and diversion from landfill.

A mandatory pre-proposal video conference meeting will be held on November 15, 2023 at 10:00A.M. via Zoom: Conference Meeting ID 886 8912 8235

https://peralta-edu.zoom.us/j/88689128235

Copies of the proposal documents may be obtained by clicking on the following link: https://vrapp.vendorregistry.com/Bids/Manager/DraftBid?BidId=29231ad2-e39a-4c92-9662-e163ca48e70c or, by contacting the Peralta Community College District, Purchasing Department, 501 5th Avenue, Oakland, California, 94606, Phone (510) 466-7225, Office Hours: 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

 

Governing Codes:

GC 53068

EC 81641

El Reportero

Afro-Mexicans, a forgotten ethnic group

Vicente Guerrero es considerado el primer presidente afrodescendiente de México y Norteamérica. - Vicente Guerrero is considered the first Afro-descendant president of Mexico and North America.

Afro-Mexicans are a part of the population that was overshadowed by miscegenation and indigenism. We tell you about its importance

Shared/by Mexico Desconocido

The story of the arrival of slaves of African origin to Mexico is born under three premises:

  • The legal inability to enslave indigenous people.
  • The thesis of “divine will” that concluded in racial superiority.
  • The idea that “blacks” have better physical characteristics for heavy work.

Afro-Mexicans, a forgotten ethnic group

The process of insertion of Africans in Mexico always had a tendency towards invisibility. In the collective imagination of Mexico, the black man has been thought of as a kind of antihero. An example of this are two historical figures who function as archetypes of the vision of black people in Mexico.

The first is Estebanico, a slave of great physical proportions who traveled alongside the conquerors. The second is Francisco Eguía, a colonizer who introduced the smallpox virus into the indigenous population. In both cases the vision of the black man as a clumsy human, unconscious ally of the Conquest, is exalted.

Despite the caste system, cultural and biological miscegenation could not be stopped by the Spanish. However, the miscegenation of the black population not only dissolved their physical characteristics, it also blurred their cultural identity.

Unlike the indigenous, the black man did not manage to reinterpret his culture in a Western mold that would allow him to continue preserving it. On the contrary, Afro-Mexicans were diluted in the mestizo identity. Despite this, Afro-descendants maintained conditions of oppression and isolation similar to slavery.

Another situation that Afro-Mexicans have gone through is the tendency toward foreignization. Afro-descendants with more notable physical features tend not to be recognized as Mexicans, which has limited the formation of their identity, to be included in those that have greater acceptance.

Afro-Mexicans today

Although the black population was a minority during the Colony, in no case can it be considered irrelevant to the achievements of the current Mexican population.

Non-mestizo blacks were close to the Spanish in numbers, while the Afromestizo population quickly surpassed the European population. For this reason, the African influence is considered by many to be a third cultural root of Mexico.

Unfortunately, the recognition of the black population in Mexico is late. The intellectual production in which the Afro-Mexican population is mentioned is scarce or not recognized.

To the above, we can add that the reconstruction of postcolonial identity had indigenous studies as protagonists, and then gave way to the construction of a Mexican national identity during the 19th and 20th centuries.

According to INEGI, 1.16 percent of the national population identifies as Afro-Mexican or Afro-descendant.

A large part of this population recognizes discriminatory attitudes against them, including the denial of their identity. The states with the largest number of Afro-Mexicans are Oaxaca, Veracruz and Guerrero, entities that preserve vestiges of African traditions.

 

Afro-Mexican Day of the Dead in Oaxaca, a tradition of great cultural wealth

Especially on the Costa Chica, the Afro-Mexican Day of the Dead is celebrated, a mix of pre-Hispanic, European and Afro-descendant customs.

Although in our country people of African descent represent only 2% of the population, they also celebrate the Afro-Mexican Day of the Dead, although with their own traditions, such as the Danza de los Diablos and the artesa fandango. We tell you more about the rituals that this community carries out to honor their deceased.

Afro-Mexican Day of the Dead on the Costa Chica

While it is true that throughout our territory there are different communities of Afro-Mexicans; These are concentrated mainly in the Costa Chica, between Guerrero and Oaxaca.

Likewise, its origin dates back to the viceregal period, when the slave trade between Spain and its colonies was common. For this reason, many Africans arrived in Mexico by boat, mainly through the ports of Guerrero, Oaxaca and Veracruz.

Already in America, the traditions of the native peoples mixed with those of Europeans and people of African descent; and in the case of the Day of the Dead, the latter added to the ritual the cult of Ruja, an African divinity who was asked to end slavery through the Dance of the Devils.

 

Food insecurity in CA on rise as food benefits drop

by Suzanne Potter

Nov. 6, 2023 – Despite the roaring economy, food insecurity got worse in 2022 – nationally and in Los Angeles County.

New data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows 12.8 percent of American households were food insecure last year, an increase of more than 2.5% from 2021.

And, a recent report from the University of Southern California found that more than a million households in LA County are food insecure.

Alba Velasquez, executive director of the Los Angeles Food Policy Council, said inflation is partly to blame – as the cost of living in California has gone up 19% since 2020.

“So there’s been an increase in housing, in your utility bill, in food,” said Velasquez, “without seeing an increase in livable wages.”

And inflation rose even as millions lost their jobs during COVID. So food pantries have seen an increase in demand.

The most recent state budget put $35 million into the Market Match program to help low-income families afford fresh produce at farmer’s markets.

In addition, families on Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) – also known as food stamps – saw a steep drop in their monthly benefits once the pandemic emergency ended.

Velasquez said that means rates of food insecurity will be even worse for 2023.

“During COVID, there was an increased allotment for EBT recipients that was between $36 and $95 per month,” said Velasquez. “It was an emergency, temporary allotment that ended this last March. And so now we’re in a deeper crisis.”

The issue will come up again in the next few months as legislators hammer out a new farm bill, which provides funding for food assistance. Some conservative lawmakers have called for significant cuts in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food benefits.

 

CA colleges work to reduce high cost of textbook

College students pay upwards of $1,100 a year for books and supplies, so many schools are working to try to reduce the burden.

A study from U.S. Public Interest Research Group found the cost of course materials has increased at three times the rate of inflation since the 1970s, due mostly to lack of competition in the college publishing industry.

Cailyn Nagle, open education resources program manager for the Michelson 20 Million Minds Foundation, co-authored the report.

“We see 65 percent of students skip buying a textbook due to cost, and 21 percent of students skip buying access codes because they can’t afford it,” Nagle reported.

Many campus libraries lend out textbooks, and bookstores sell used books and facilitate rentals or digital downloads. Students look for deals online. And schools are also moving toward an Open Educational Resource model where courses use textbooks, journals and other materials available free online. In 2021, the State of California allocated more than $115 million to help schools promote the transition.

Leslie Lange Kennedy, assistant vice chancellor of academic technology services at California State University, said the school works to help students get the materials they need.

“We work really hard to help faculty become aware of zero-cost course materials,” Lange Kennedy explained. “And to help them with the time and effort that it takes to migrate their courses utilizing a free or low-cost material.”
Recently, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 607, which requires colleges and universities to disclose the costs of their courses ahead of time.

Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.

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