SmartMeter Opponents Step Up Tactics

Stop SmartMeters! founder Josh Hart was arrested June 21. Photo by Chip Scheuer.

The wildfire of rebellion against PG&E’s plans to install SmartMeters in households across the state is growing hotter by the day. Before sunrise on Monday, June 27, about 50 demonstrators surrounded the gates of a PG&E yard in Capitola to keep workers from exiting and installing wireless SmartMeters in local neighborhoods, as PG&E had announced would happen that day.

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Book Bloggers Here To Stay

A few years ago I worked for a newspaper on the East Coast. It was a very small town paper with not much news to report but it was owned by a huge media company. The media company sent us to various educational seminars about the internet. One of the most important things I learned was that everyone educates themselves via the internet before shopping.

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Mandolins at UCSC

David Grisman is one of the teachers at this week's Mandolin Symposium at UCSC.

Bill Monroe, the legendary father of bluegrass, was one of the earliest musicians in the U.S. to bring the mandolin into the mainstream. Though it never approached the ubiquity of the guitar, the instrument has grown in popularity since then and even made the transition to rock, thanks in part to the Band’s Levon Helm and later Rod Stewart (who can forget the mandolin riff in “Maggie May?”)—and yes, even a couple of Grateful Dead songs (“Friend Of The Devil” and “Ripple”). Most of all, the mandolin has acquired an eclectic group of ardent fans who strum, pluck, and play the mandolin both professionally and for fun. Many of them are at UCSC this week for the eighth annual Mandolin Symposium.

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New Stow Video Surfaces

TMZ has just released a video of what appears to be Bryan Stow at the Dodgers-Giants game in which he was brutally attacked. The video shows Stow in the bleachers, arguing with a Dodgers fan. At one point, the fan has a finger just inches away from Stow’s face.

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