Illustration by Christine Hipp

In Santa Cruz County there are currently 424 persons living with HIV/AIDS. Those 424 community members are among nearly 200,000 California residents who battle the HIV/AIDS virus, which gained widespread attention in the early 1980s. Since then, nearly 90,000 Californians have lost that battle to a disease that is not only ongoing, but without a cure.

In honor of the 24th annual World AIDS Day on Dec. 1, supporters will gather to commemorate those who currently suffer from or have died from the HIV/AIDS virus. City on a Hill Press urges readers to join the global effort to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS, and to also wear red ribbons in solidarity with those affected by the virus.

While steps have been taken to educate the public on the spread of HIV/AIDS and its history, treatment for the virus relies strictly on state-funded programs. Decades later, the number of those infected continue to grow as funding dwindles.

As World AIDS Day approaches, we cannot forget that the HIV/AIDS epidemic is not only longstanding, but facing statewide budget cuts to HIV/AIDS resources and support. California also ranks second nationally in cumulative AIDS cases by state, surpassed only by New York.

Nationwide, proposed cuts to HIV/AIDS funding has ignited widespread protest, with the latest incident involving demonstrators removing their clothing in current Speaker of the House John Boehner’s office to reveal body painting with the phrase “ AIDS cuts kill.”

In California, former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger cut $85 million of AIDS funding in 2009 due to the California budget crisis. Since then, funding for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) has experienced several, devastating cuts to HIV/AIDS programs in addition to corresponding matching federal dollars.

Today, Gov. Jerry Brown’s November budget proposal for the 2012–13 fiscal year stands to reduce total funding for ADAP from $477 million to $395 million, a cut of $82 million. Without adequate funding, significant support programs and research efforts toward ending AIDS will be decimated.

The impact of this slash and burn approach toward funding cuts will not only drive up the cost of medications for those suffering from HIV/AIDS but run the risk of limiting access to vital information and testing agencies across the state.

We do not live in a post-HIV/AIDS society, and while California’s budget crisis is indeed grave, the state cannot afford to push the HIV/AIDS pandemic onto the backburner.

Since 1985, programs like the Santa Cruz AIDS Project (SCAP) have provided residents of Santa Cruz County with educational support programs aimed toward harm reduction. SCAP offers services including case management, benefits advocacy, financial and nutritional assistance, transitional housing and wellness events in addition to free HIV/AIDS testing.

However, cuts to state funding have threatened the availability of resources for victims of HIV/AIDS in localities across the state.

With World AIDS day soon approaching, City on a Hill Press urges readers to not only stand in solidarity with those who suffer from the HIV/AIDS virus but to join the fight to keep HIV/AIDS programs not only alive, but moving forward toward a cure.

To get involved with World AIDS day in Santa Cruz, visit: www.scapsite.org

Photo by Kyan Mahzouf

“It’s the story of the city that radically changed itself and then changed the world.”

Thus began an evening with David Talbot, UC Santa Cruz alumnus and founder of pioneering web magazine
Salon.com. Talbot the journalist took a temporary backseat to Talbot the author at a 4 p.m. gathering in Humanities 1 on May 22.

The focus of the appropriately named “An Evening with David Talbot” (“lecture” would have been overly formal) was Talbot’s new book, titled “Season of the Witch.” In slacks and a black polo, Talbot took the lectern after a brief introduction from humanities dean William Ladusaw.

“I mean this as a compliment — it’s a ripping yarn,” Ladusaw said to the group of about 30, comprised largely of baby boomers, before segueing into a YouTube trailer for Talbot’s book.

“Season of the Witch” details the aforementioned city “that radically changed itself”: San Francisco in the late 20th century. Drawing largely from Talbot’s own experiences as a journalist and his interviews with San Franciscans, the book is a study of the city’s tumultuous history and the catalyzing effect it had on the nation as a whole.

“San Francisco was the cradle of the American cultural revolution, but it was also its coffin,” Talbot said. “So-called ‘San Francisco values’ are still hotly debated — gay marriage, a livable minimum wage, universal healthcare.”

But first, Talbot said, San Francisco had to take care of its own issues, and those issues are one of the book’s focuses.

“The city first had to settle its own civil war; savage murder sprees, mysterious bombing campaigns, the largest cult suicide in history, the AIDS epidemic,” Talbot said. “San Francisco values weren’t born with flowers in their hair, but in blood and strife. [San Francisco] went from a rough-and-tumble hierarchy to a progressive’s vision of Oz.”

Talbot graduated from Stevenson College in 1973. During his time at UCSC he worked on a radical student publication, Sundaze, which folded in 1976.

“At UCSC, I was an angry young activist. I investigated slaughterhouses in Watsonville, I investigated drug murders, I investigated the mayor,” Talbot said. “I didn’t have anyone training me, so the journalism was probably pretty sloppy, but no one ever told me, ‘You can’t do that.’”

A few decades later, Talbot founded Salon in 1995. After working for a variety of publications that included Mother Jones, Rolling Stone and The San Francisco Examiner, Talbot said he just wanted somewhere to work that wasn’t in the mainstream media.

“I cherry-picked [the SF Examiner’s] newsroom, and got the hell out of there,” Talbot said of the then-struggling publication. “The state of journalism today is you either have a patron or you get gobbled up.”

Talbot has thus far managed to avoid both fates.

“Salon is my baby. I’ve done everything I could to keep Salon alive as an independent,” he said.

In some ways, Salon’s trajectory is similar to Talbot’s vision of the evolution of the “city by the bay,” which he defended to audience members who expressed concern over a perceived stagnation and sterility pervading San Francisco.

“I still think San Francisco has this cool artistic underground — it’s rough, but it can be done,” Talbot said. “Bohemia has always had a hard time surviving.”