Former Watsonville high school history teacher Mas Hashimoto explains why the simple things make him happy.

When someone close to you dies, it’s always strange, even if they were old and in poor health and you knew it was coming. When the deceased is a longtime friend, an exact contemporary and a peer in your shared obscure line of work, someone you spoke with over the phone the day before and who was no drunker than usual and otherwise in good health as far as you knew—when he is suddenly found dead in his San Jose cottage, apparently of a heart attack, at 62, your grief and disbelief are of a different order of magnitude.

Assembly Speaker Karen Bass has postponed her appointment decision for the Central Coast’s representative to the California Coastal Commission and asked for more nominations. Spokeswoman Shannon Murphy told the Santa Cruz Sentinel that although Bass is not unhappy with the current nominees, “the speaker’s been consumed with budget negotiations.” Bass’s office would not comment on why she had not renewed incumbent Dave Potter’s appointment.

There will be no election. It won’t be on any ballot. The Powers That Be have already decided. We will have a seawater desalination plant. And you will pay for it.

Last Saturday, over the course of 12 hours, Dusty Nelson visited New Brighton, Wilder Ranch, Twin Lakes, Waddell Creek, Natural Bridges and Henry Cowell state parks. But it wasn’t a day of play; Nelson was on a mission. Camera in hand, working on behalf of the Friends of Satna Cruz State Parks, he interviewed parkgoers at the six state parks for their thoughts on the California State Parks crisis. The responses he got were much the same.

Last week Haiping Su, a UC-Santa Cruz earth sciences researcher at NASA Ames Research Center, filed a federal lawsuit against the FBI and NASA Ames for labeling him a “security threat” and destroying his career.

Capitola City Council broke the stalemate over property rezoning to meet a state requirement Thursday night with a three to two vote in favor of confining action to two site, including a contentious location on Park Avenue.

Berry picking without poison ivy? Definitely a first for me. Driving down the dusty, winding roads past fields of berries to Watsonville’s Gizdich Ranch, my mouth waters and my fingers twitch—whether in anticipation of picking or memories of scratching, I’m not sure. Once there, I eavesdrop for instructions. “Pick the darkest and the shiniest ones you see,” a grandmother tells her squealing grandson. For my first olallieberry-picking excursion, I listen, excluding the light saber sound effects.

A long gravel driveway shaded by overhanging trees recalls the long, humid summers of Savannah, where the photograph was taken. In an aged-looking, high-contrast photo, dried roses wilt in their vase, as if exhausted. Nearby, a heavily made-up San Francisco woman leaps out at the viewer from a hazy, glossy closeup.