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.
Sound Museum Searches for New Home
In an unremarkable office trailer tucked in a corner of the sprawling California Grey Bears thrift complex on Chanticleer Avenue in Santa Cruz is one man’s ode to the stereo. No more than a modest collection of dusted off old speakers, televisions, radios and record players stacked on flimsy shelves amongst a scattering of musical and political posters, the room is the pride of Grey Bears employee and local activist Franklin Williams. But one person’s “sound museum” is another’s “inappropriate use of space,” and come July 16, these old relics will need to find a new home.
Group Plans Trip to Cuba in Protest of Embargo
The first six months of Barack Obama’s tenure as president has seen the most drastic changes to U.S. policy toward Cuba in more than 50 years. But for a group of local and international volunteers, the president’s move to relax restrictions on family travel to the communist country is “commendable, but it is not enough.”
UCSC Researcher Sues FBI Over “Security Threat” Label
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 Identifies Future Affordable Housing Sites
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.
Olallieland Ride
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.
Place And Time: Photographs by Pete Saporito
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.
Local Cop Shops Sweating Bullets Over Crime Labs
“I can tell just by looking at this that this is cocaine,” says senior criminalist Meghan Kinney. She’s pointing to a computer readout of numbered lines, each corresponding to different chemicals found in a sample that’s just gone through the gas chromatography-mass spectrometer at the Freedom Crime Laboratory in Watsonville.
In Defense of Slow Reading
Has the relentless cacophony of Google culture made us dumb? An Internet junkie picks up a book and finds out.
Watsonville Passes Final Budget, With One Surprise
At the final city council meeting on Watsonville’s budget Tuesday night, city staff managed to pull off a small miracle, to the surprise and delight of many of the assembled nonprofits.
