The Santa Cruz Weekly’s recommendations on the Nov. 2 statewide ballot initiatives.
Shark-Petting At Seymour Center
Kids and parents poured into the Seymour Marine Discovery Center in Santa Cruz on Sunday for a chance to do something they never imagined: pet a shark and live to tell about it. To mark the Center’s tenth anniversary, it unveiled its new shark tank, stocked with swell sharks. Swell sharks are generally harmless to humans and pose no threat to divers. Nevertheless, people were warned to, “Use two fingers only, touch gently on the middle of the back … don’t touch near their heads.” Still, it is an experience not to be missed, and great cause for boasting among kids and adults alike, “I pet a shark!”
Santa Cruz Local Foods To Expand
Noah and Eleanor Taylor have a backyard farm, and they wanted to make sure that their produce gets to as many people as possible. That’s why they started santacruzlocalfood.com, a local business that collects food from local farmers, sell it online to local buyers and delivers it—by bike, of course—to customers. It’s a chance for people to get the freshest strawberries, tomatoes, and lettuce, and even flowers, breads, meat, and eggs while leaving a minimal carbon footprint. All of their suppliers are local “small-to-medium-sized producers who employ organic methods or use organic ingredients and who operate within 100 miles of Santa Cruz, unless noted,” according to the site. Deliveries are done with Pedal Express and cost $7, but there is also an option of coming to a drop site and picking up the groceries you’ve ordered yourself at one of three locations. Pick up and delivery take place on Tuesday, between 4:30 and 6:30 pm.
The Butterflies Are Back—In Theory
The skies above Santa Cruz will soon be speckled in orange and black as the monarch butterfly begins migrating southward and westward for the winter. This Sunday, lepidopterists and fall color enthusiasts from across the county converged on Natural Bridges State Beach to see the monarch butterflies return to Santa Cruz in a blaze of orange and black. The park’s eucalyptus grove is the only monarch preserve in California, and Sunday marked the 24th annual Welcome Back Monarchs Day.
Machinima, Unlikely Offspring of Video and Film
Future film historians might look back on the past decade and pinpoint it either as the beginning of the medium’s demise or its evolution into something vital, egalitarian and ubiquitous. Of course, the very notion of “film” is already antiquated seeing as the vast majority of moving pictures are now created digitally (even the term “digital video” sounds quaintly redundant). Where the culture critics of tomorrow may think today’s directors jumped the shark is in the realm of “machinima,” a video subgenre that emerged in the aughts in which would-be directors realized they didn’t need a camera or even actors to put the power of cinema in their hands—literally—by way of a game-controller.
Rallies to Defend Public Education
They rallied at UCSC—inevitably—but also in Watsonville and downtown Santa Cruz. They waved signs that read, “Witness the death of public education.” As the state senate prepared to finally pass the budget, students across Santa Cruz County demanded that their legislators protect the state’s colleges and universities. It was the National Day of Action to Defend Public Education, and students and professors alike demanded that their voices be heard.
Can Pot Cure What Ails California?
Efforts to legalize pot in the Golden State are so familiar as to seem both quaint and ripe for action at the same time. Come Nov. 2, voters will cast their ballots again on a proposal to legalize marijuana for recreational use in California.
SCPD Shuts Down Drug Ring
The SCPD, together with the DEA and ICE, shut down a major drug ring in Operation Southern Exposure. According to police, more than 40 people were arrested, including nine who were in the country illegally. Police also confiscated several pounds of drugs (cocaine, meth, heroin, ecstasy, and crack), 10 firearms and $25,000.
By Gosh, It’s Santa Cruz Dosh!
In February, local organizers from the New Earth Exchange hope to launch a new currency in Santa Cruz—something they say could be a boon to the county’s economy and help shield Santa Cruz from big economic crises. The as-yet-unnamed money—we’ll call it Cruz Cash for now—will exist on three levels: as physical, hard-to-counterfeit cash; as electronic funds transferable on the Internet and as a plastic card readable at participating businesses. Supporters claim it could add as much as $1 million to the local economy.
The Exhibitionist: ‘Visibly Invisible’
Difficult as it may be to “find oneself” during the course of that journey we all share, Cabrillo Gallery’s exhibition, “Visibly Invisible,” shows how, for some, that search became a hero’s quest. Curator Tobin Keller brought together five artists working in still photography, drawing and painting, film, video and multimedia to present perspectives, each very personal, on the issue of gender transformation. Subtitled “Artists Working with Transgendered Themes,” the exhibition voices truths relevant to the entire race, whatever gender, through its empathic focus on one group of people struggling with how to be who they are.
