Playwright Lillian Hellman once said: “I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions.”
The statement was in a letter to the House Un-American Activities Committee. The year was 1952. We tell ourselves that the McCarthy era was vastly different than our own—but what about the political fashions of 2010?
Santa Cruz Neighbors, a local community group, is expanding its reach beyond the threat of gang violence in the city. It is starting to address teenage alcoholism, and it’s using local teens to get its message across. On Tuesday, about 100 people of all ages filled the community room at the Santa Cruz Police Department to watch “Wasted,” a 15-minute short film about the problem of underage drinking. It was no Reefer Madness. It was a film by teens about teens and how they are becoming increasingly susceptible to alcohol and drug abuse.
About 1,000 students gathered at Porter Meadow on the UCSC campus yesterday to mark 4/20 with bongs and brownies. It was about half the crowd that attended last year’s event. Comedy Central was there, filming a new episode for its program, “This Show Will Get You High.” Conspicuously absent were the anti-marijuana activists who showed up last year. Perhaps they had a change of heart, or perhaps they were afraid of getting caught in the cloud of smoke that rose from the Meadow at exactly 4:20 pm.
When Jayne Dudfield noticed the hillside directly behind her home beginning to erode, she informed the city of Santa Cruz to no avail. That was almost 40 years ago, according to records supplied by residents currently living above the hillside, and still the bluff over Chestnut Street—created in 1961 as part of a city engineering project that cut away a steep hill to create a sheer cliff in its place—continues to crumble away. And still the Santa Cruz Public Works Department has failed to stanch the erosion.
Mathematically, it’s impossible for one person to see every band at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. With around 140 acts playing on five stages over three days, it’s unlikely, in fact, that said person would even see every band they like. Accepting this fact is the first step in attending the West Coast’s premier music event and it’s especially important if you’re a journalist naively hoping to sum up a weekend’s worth of sensory overload on paper. With slideshow.
The first ceremony begins at dark. The participants come into the octagon spiritual room in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. They sit in a circle and state their intentions about what they want out of the ceremony. The more specific the question they want answered, the better. The doses of ayahuasca are handed out in small cups. Everyone drinks it together, most wincing at the acrid taste that has been likened to “the entire jungle ground up and mixed with bile.” As soft tribal music plays in the background, everyone lies down. They focus their attention and wait.
Erik Rebert Johnston was driving along Highway 9 on April 1 with his girlfriend and her two daughters, aged 9 and 22 months. At one point something ticked him off, so authorities say he pulled over to the side of the road and flung the younger baby out of the car.
It’s here! It’s here! It’s finally here! April 20 is for potheads what Christmas is for little kids or, dare I say it, what April 19 is for the armed and dangerous anti-Obama crowd. It all goes back to 1971, when a group of San Rafael teens used to gather after school at 4:20 pm at the statue of Louis Pasteur. They were not going over their biology notes. The only papers they brought with them were for rolling their weed, and 420 soon became synonymous with weed and the cannabis counter-culture.
On April 15, the Pacific Fishery Management Council decided at its Portland meeting to extend the recreational salmon season, which opened April 3, until Sept. 6. The decision comes as an unpleasant surprise to many California fishermen, some of whom would prefer to see salmon fishing prohibited for at least the rest of the year following the poor return of spawning adults to the Sacramento River last fall.
It’s a known fact that in times of recession, some people are forced to abandon their pets. The ASPCA and other organizations are overwhelmed by the numbers of cats and dogs that end up in their hands. What few people realize is that sometimes the abandoned animals include horses too. Pregnant Mare Rescue of Aptos does. Since the non-profit group was founded four years ago, they have rescued some 60 horses from abandonment or worse, the dinner table.
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