Local Girl Scout Troop 65060 wanted to give back to the community, so they decided to brighten up a corner they passed every day on their way to school. The artistically painted utility box the troop calls “Diversity” which they funded and designed themselves through the City of Ventura’s think outside the box program is a beacon of color on the busy corner or Stanley Road and Ventura Avenue. To find out more about the City of Ventura Public Art opportunities go to www.cityofventura.ca.gov/artopps

Kids & Families Together (K&FT) is a nonprofit that has been serving foster/resource, adoptive, kinship, and birth families throughout Ventura County since 2000. K&FT works with children who have experienced trauma, abuse, neglect, loss, and multiple placements and also works with caregivers.

In collaboration with many community partners, K&FT hosted a Gift-Away event called, Summer of Ohana Love on Saturday, August 8th for the foster/resource, kinship, adopted and birth families we serve. This fun drive-thru event provided donations of gift cards, back to school supplies, essential items and home goods to 250 children from 80 families. The celebration included bubbles, music, and a special guest appearance by “Moana”, who attended the event to spread the meaning of ohana. The most heartwarming experience for organizers and volunteers was seeing the children who came dressed in Hawaiian attire. Their excitement in seeing “Moana” as they drove through was contagious! We hope they felt as though they joined a parade of love! One caregiver emailed her appreciation afterwards saying, “Just wanted to say THANK YOU!! This was a wonderful event for the kids!!”

If you would like to contribute toward our ongoing relief efforts for the families we serve: https://app.mobilecause.com/form/nVVazA?vid=a28o8

Dear Theatrical Community

We wrote a while back promising to update you all on our plans to re-open the Ojai Art Center Theater as public safety guidance evolved.

Sadly, with the approval of public health guidelines still pending, it does not appear that we will be able to gather as artists in the same space to present live productions to you, our audience, in the fall. We are working together with artists in the community to choose projects to view online for your entertainment pleasure.

In the very near future we will update you with information about productions for viewing. Please visit our new website at OjaiACT.org to learn more. Also, we encourage you to join our monthly theater branch meetings the first Tuesday of each month at 7 pm on Zoom.

We miss bringing you the very best live productions and continue to be grateful for your support in every way as our community moves through these difficult times. We anxiously await the moment when we can all be together again, both onstage and off.

The Ojai Art Center is the longest continuously-operating multi-disciplinary center serving the arts in the State of California. Opened in 1939, the Ojai Art Center encompasses eight branches for the various art disciplines. The Theater Branch annually presents a variety of dramatic productions, ranging from comedy to drama and musicals. The branch operates with its own directors and monthly meetings to address all theater-related issues. They annually screen proposals for future productions and present a tentative schedule for approval to the Art Center’s Board of Directors.

Ojai Art Center is a California 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

Wishing you and yours good health!
The Executive Committee of the Ojai Art Center Theater Branch

by Richard Senate

A stroll though Ivy Lawn Cemetery in Ventura will show the final resting place of many of our great persons who once made this place home. If you should take such a walk you may come across a unique tombstone with a rainbow and the words; “somewhere over the rainbow.” It is the grave of John “Charlie” Leal (1905-1996) a long-time resident of Ventura County. He was a midget and blessed with a beautiful singing voice.  He went into show business, working first in circuses and in 1933 at the Chicago World’s fair.  He got a small part in the film “A Century of Progress” that starred Will Rogers. In the film Rogers was shrunk down by a machine with Leal playing the small version of the famed humorist.  Will even taught him some of his rope tricks that Leal used in his circus act where he played Will Rogers.

Another midget, his fiancé Eleanor Stubitz, gave an impression of sexy star Mae West. For a time they worked at The Pike in Long Beach until he found work on a strange western film with an all midget cast called  “The Terror of Tiny Town.” This part got him a role on the MGM classic, “The Wizard of Oz.”

In that movie he played several Munchkin parts, from a dancer to a marching soldier. He was paid $50 a week (Interestingly, Toto the dog made $125 a week). When World War II came, Charlie found work at the Lockheed plant assembling wings for fighter planes.  He was so small he could get into the wings and buck the rivets that held them together.  After the war he was in another film called “An Angel comes to Brooklyn. That film brought an end to his Hollywood career. He retired to his ranch at Lake Casitas called The Rancho del Rio.

After the sudden death of his wife Eleanor he never remarried. He was know locally for his skills as a hunter and fisherman who threw memorable barbecues. Once a year he invited all the surviving Munchkins to a big barbecue at this ranch.  He never talked about the making of the film much and only in an interview on his 90th birthday did he mention Wizard of Oz star Judy Garland, saying she was a wonderful and talented actress. He died in Ojai in 1996. He was 91 years old. “Charlie” had a long and colorful life that brought joy to many, a life that should be remembered.

New President Named of Nashville Superspeedway

Erik Moses has been named president of Nashville Superspeedway, becoming the first Black man to hold that title at any NASCAR track. Moses said he was welcomed to the industry this week by NASCAR President Steve Phelps and takes control in a year where the series has been swept up in the reckoning of the nation’s racial issues. “Any time that you have the distinction of being the first at anything professionally, it is a humbling kind of honor,” Moses told The Associated Press. “That said, I’m not naive enough to believe that I’m the first person of color qualified enough to run a NASCAR track. I’m going to focus on the job. I got hired to do a job, not because of what color I am.”

Black Americans are bearing the brunt of coronavirus recession

Extracted from article in TheConversation.com

As the COVID-19 pandemic worsened in April, many Americans were shocked by the extent that black Americans were being disproportionately impacted: higher infection rates, more deaths and greater job loss. But many black Americans were not surprised.

Economic history repeating itself. Prior to this pandemic, the worst economic downturns in post-World War II America were the 1981-82 recession and the Great Recession that followed the 2007-2008 financial crisis. During those downturns, the jobless rate of black Americans peaked at 20.2% and 14.8% respectively. From each downturn’s onset, it took 16 and 18 months to hit those levels.

This pandemic has eclipsed those figures in just one month. My estimate – based on the historic link between the unemployment rate and initial claims, and April’s data – has the black American unemployment rate already exceeding 20%, compared to a white unemployment rate of 13%.

Black Americans have higher likelihoods of losing their jobs because those jobs are concentrated in the hardest-hit sectors of the economy, such as hotels, restaurants, bars and other food services, and department stores.

Many who have kept their jobs face higher risks of infection because they work in “high touch” jobs such as transit workers and grocery clerks.

Further, because they tend to live in more densely populated communities, they also have a harder time practicing physical distancing. This, along with the long-standing chronic health challenges of many black Americans, puts them at greater risks of infection, illness and death.

Black infants die two to three times more often than white infants.

A pediatrician explains. Extracted from article by Patricia Temple Gabbe, M.D.

From Boston to Indianapolis racism has been declared a public health crisis in a growing number of cities and counties across the nation. In Ohio, state lawmakers are considering a resolution that would make the state the first to do the same.

As a pediatrician, I know racism is a significant public health crisis in Ohio because I see racism every day. I see it in the disparities in infant deaths in our neighborhoods, in our cities and in our state. We measure the quality of our public’s health by the infant mortality rates – the death of a live born infant in its first year of life. In our major Ohio cities and in our state, we woefully fail to meet standards. Black infants die two to three times more often than white infants. It’s been this way for generations.

Why disparities in infant deaths? Today, Black babies bear the burden of generations of stress and unequal treatment. They’re too often born very early in their mom’s pregnancy. They struggle to breathe in our hospital neonatal intensive care units, to survive those early days, weeks and months of life. They start life at a disadvantage. They live in poorer neighborhoods, more often in a homeless shelter, and go to poorer schools, with disabilities from prematurity. They grow up with the same chronic conditions as their parents, living with more asthma, hypertension, diabetes, severe anemia, anxiety and depression from life’s circumstances, through no fault of their own.

From our moms and dads, we learn the hard reality of why disparities exist. We see repeated evictions that uproot families and prevent children from sleeping and learning in a safe environment. We hear about the impact of hunger and lack of access to good, healthy food while pregnant. We hear how losing a job while pregnant without maternity benefits leads directly to an eviction and the homeless shelter. We hear how taking two hours on public transportation can make you late for a job or for an appointment and cause you to lose your job.

We see Black fathers in our Dads2B program who are struggling to find work that will pay the utilities and the rent and put food on the table. Yes, this does happen in white families, too. But for black families, there’s been structural discrimination for generations. There have been real estate covenants, bank red-lining and freeways built through once vibrant neighborhoods. All of these stressful, local events directly affect the health of our black families.

Toronto Raptors’ President Masai Ujiri countersues; video shows officer initiated shoving in 2019 NBA Finals aftermath

From ESPN

A countersuit filed by Toronto Raptors president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri includes new video footage that shows the San Francisco Bay Area sheriff’s deputy with whom he had an altercation in the moments after the Raptors won Game 6 of the 2019 NBA Finals was the aggressor.

The footage shows the deputy – Alan Strickland – grabbed Ujiri by the suit jacket and shoved him, telling him to “back the f— up” as Ujiri was attempting to show his team credential. Ujiri was trying to reach the Oracle Arena floor to celebrate with the Raptors in the wake of Toronto winning the first NBA championship in franchise history against the Golden State Warriors.

Strickland’s suit, which was filed in February, alleged that Ujiri assaulted him in the moments after Toronto’s victory and that as a result of the incident, he “suffered injury to his body, health, strength, activity and person, all of which have caused and continue to cause Plaintiff great mental, emotional, psychological, physical, and nervous pain and suffering.”

Alameda County Sheriff Greg Ahern initially requested Ujiri be charged with battery of a peace officer after the incident took place, claiming Ujiri struck Strickland’s jaw and shoulder. Eventually, however, the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office declined to press any charges after a month’s long investigation ended with a meeting between the office, Ujiri and his lawyers in October.

Doug Smith, the Raptors beat reporter wrote a piece in the Toronto Star highlighting the fact that Ujiri got treated the way he did because he is Black. And Adante Pointer, a civil rights attorney in Oakland, who represents many Black men who have been killed by police, agreed: “This would have never happened if Ujiri was a white man in a suit.” 

Black Voices in History

It is not possible to be in favor of justice for some people and not be in favor of justice for all people. — Martin Luther King Jr.