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Surfer Looks to Expand Unique Rehab Efforts
News Apr 03, 2012, by Maria Grusauskas 1 Comments
Darryl “Flea” Virostko needs a house, preferably near the waves, hopefully with sports equipment. Not for himself, but for the greater good. The big wave surf legend behind FleaHab, a support program for recovering addicts, says he’s reached the point where he realizes he could help more people if FleaHab had four walls, a roof and a few beds.
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Journalists Say They Were Targeted for Covering Occupy
News Apr 03, 2012, by Jacob Pierce 4 Comments
After surveying the December damage to a vacant bank building owned by Wells Fargo that included graffiti, broken cameras and damaged ceiling tiles, investigators from Santa Cruz Police Department went to work. They came up with preliminary list of 12 suspects—out of more than 75 who passed through the building—involved in the three-day occupation of 75 River Street. Police handed their list over to county District Attorney Bob Lee’s office, and Lee’s office served 11 warrants to suspects.
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Council Approves Pogonip Multi-Use Trail
NewsEnvironmentPolitics Mar 28, 2012, by Jacob PierceMountain bikers will soon be getting a new place to ride in a city park. Santa Cruz City Council approved construction of the Pogonip East Multi-Use Trail on Tiuesday night. The controversial trail, which will be open to bikers, equestrian and pedestrians, will offer a passage to the park’s U-Conn trail and up to UC–Santa Cruz.
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In California, Fracking Foes Take Aim
NewsEnvironment Mar 27, 2012, by Kathryn Leishman 3 Comments
Rarely has a single image from a documentary film sparked greater debate overnight: a Colorado homeowner turns on his faucet, and as soon as he puts a cigarette lighter to the tap water, it catches fire—the result of highly flammable methane seeping into the water supply from an oil drilling operation nearby. The drilling involves hydraulic fracturing, a controversial oil and gas extraction process the potential medical and environmental perils of which are the subject of the Oscar-nominated film Gasland.
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The Case for Shiftlessness
News Mar 27, 2012, by Ted Rall 1 Comments
In a just world, American workers’ high productivity would lead to leisure and prosperity, not overwork for some and unemployment for many. Ted Rall says we should stop pretending and accept the new (un)employment reality—and consider a livable base income for all, no matter what their livelihood.
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Methyl Iodide Pulled From U.S. Market
NewsEnvironment Mar 21, 2012, by Jacob PierceThe Tokyo-based company that manufactures methyl iodide announced plans yesterday to pull the controversial fumigant from the U.S. market. Arysta, which markets the chemical in the U.S. under the name Midas, said in a statement the decision about methyl iodide came after “an internal review of the fumigant and [was] based on its economic viability in the U.S. marketplace.”
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The Skinny on Vitamin D
News Mar 20, 2012, by Maria Grusauskas
Call me an addict, but the first sunny morning following a slew of rainy days always propels me outside to soak it up with a maximum skin-to-clothing ratio. Sunshine on skin: an ancient, visceral pleasure, and one of life’s simplest. Too much of it causes wrinkles, sun spots, and skin cancer. But just a little bit of conscientious, unblocked sunbathing is actually as good for our body chemistry as it feels: it converts vitamin D, a unique and crucial nutrient, into one of the three forms that can be absorbed by the human body. (The other two forms come from the diet.)
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Surprisingly, a deficiency of the sunny vitamin is more common in Santa Cruz, and more serious, than you’d expect. -
Students’ Plan for Disc Golf Course Worries Soquel Neighbors
NewsEnvironmentSports Mar 20, 2012, by Jacob Pierce 3 Comments
Fabiano Hale, a student at Soquel High School, has had a dream ever since founding his school’s disc golf club as a freshman four years ago. Hale and Spanish teacher Luke Dahlen, the club’s faculty adviser, say they used to gaze out at the rolling hills through the window of Dahlen’s classroom and imagine the possibilities for the county park neighboring the school.
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The Hidden Right-Wing Agenda at the Heart of ‘Thrive’
News Mar 13, 2012, by Eric Johnson 7 Comments
Dust off your tin foil hats! The locally produced film with the cult following claims the government is suppressing a mystical source of “free energy.” And that’s just the start of the wackiness. Thrive also lionizes radical libertarians, John Birchers and conspiracy theorists who believe a race of lizard people rule over us.
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COPA Plans to Fight Foreclosures
NewsBusinessPolitics Mar 13, 2012, by Jacob Pierce
The regional community activist group COPA is gearing up to put lots of pressure this year on Monterey Bay candidates to do something about people losing their homes to banks. “There’s not enough trained people to deal with foreclosure,” says Jon Showalter of COPA, which stands for Communities Organized for Relational Power in Action. “The banks just kick you down the road.”
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