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The Beetles are Coming
The Golden Spotted Oak Borer Beetle has invaded California and is ravaging plant life in San Diego. University of California scientists are working hard to study the beetle's impact and how best to mitigate it. Experts from UC Riverside are also warning people about discounted firewood selling in Southern California, often on the side of the road. Many of these logs were chopped from fallen trees already destroyed by the beetle and are still infested. If brought to the Central Coast, they could wreak havoc on native oak trees.
CultureBeat
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Bring on 2010!
2010 is upon us and with it comes the promise of plenty of amazing comic related events. From the annual conventions to a slew of new movies, it's looking like we comic fans have nothing to worry about as the trend of the last decade looks to continue into the next with yet another awesome year. While we still have a little while to wait for all of the major info that the coming convention season always delivers, I've gone ahead and tossed together a top five countdown of the most exciting things we can expect:
DC and Marvel Play Nice? - It looks like the comic landscape is about to experience a radical alteration when the 2 heavies lay on a friendlier, more approachable aesthetic to their respective universes in the next few months. Given the tendency to lean toward the dark and gritty for the past 25 years or so, I'd say it's about time for the breath of fresh air.
Mind & Body
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New York Sets the Tone
When travels involve predictable family drama, emotions generally run unchecked. I have developed my yoga practice to such a habitual state, that the practice comes first wherever I am, and I remain somehow intact with the outer life. I did see and practice with my former teacher from Santa Cruz (Phil) http://eastyoga.com, as well as practice at my adopted studio, Jivamukti, www.jivamuktiyoga.com, where the owners taught master classes and a meditation forum that was powerful, the fact is, it’s all yoga, and it’s great to get out and test my core on other teachers.
The Ticker
UCSC Reports Record Number of Applications
UC Santa Cruz has announced that it recieved 34,630 applications this past fall, a 5.4 percent increase over last year and the highest volume it has ever recorded. In addition, transfer applicants increased to 7,007, a 24.8 percent increase. The increase in transfer applicants from UCSC's under-represented groups was even higher. A university press release reported a 46 percent increase in African American transfer applicants, a 29 percent increase in Indian Americans, and a 38 percent increase in Chicano/Latino applicants. For more information and statistics visit: ucsc.edu/news_events/press_releases/text.asp?pid=3480.
The Ticker
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How to Help: from Santa Cruz to Haiti
As you probably know, a massive earthquake struck Haiti on Jan. 12, affecting about three million people (a third of Haiti’s population). Food, water, and medical services are desperately needed in Haiti. A number of relief organizations are trying to provide these things. If you are wondering what you can do to help, you might consider attending a local benefit (or holding your own!) or donating to one of the organizations listed below. Please contact news editor Elizabeth Limbach ([email protected]) with additional local efforts, as we hope to continue updating the list as opportunities arise.
The Ticker
Sempervirens Fund Purchases Two Redwood Forests
The Sempervirens Fund purchased 267 acres of redwood forest this week from Redtree Properties, a large timber owner operating in the Santa Cruz Mountains. One acquisition, a 160-acre parcel in the Butano Creek Watershed, contains an old growth redwood forest that is home to an endangered seabird called the Marbled Murrelet. They also bought a 107-acre redwood forest located between Castle Rock and Big Basin State Parks. The Sempervirens Fund will manage both parcels until they are able to transfer them into the California State Parks system. A free, public celebration will take place on Saturday, March 13. For more information, visit their website semepervirens.org or call (650) 968-4509.
The Ticker
Watsonville Receives Grant to Promote Healthier Kids
The Go For Health! collaborative, an effort of United Way of Santa Cruz County, has been awarded a $360,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to address the health problems amongst youth in the Watsonville/Pajaro Valley area. Forty-one cities across the country were selected as recipients of the grant as part of the foundation’s Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities initiative. Go For Health! plans to put the money to work increasing opportunities for physical activity and access to healthier foods—like the copious fruits and vegetables being grown in neighboring fields. The effort will includes attempting to close this gap between the food grown in the community and the food eaten by the community.
The Ticker
Watsonville Awarded Healthy Communities Grant
Thirty-six percent of Pajaro Valley Unified School District’s fifth, seventh and ninth graders are overweight or obese, according to the California Healthy Kids Survey. The Go For Health! Collaborative, an effort of United Way of Santa Cruz County, has just been awarded a $360,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to address the health problems amongst youth in the Watsonville/Pajaro Valley area. Forty-one places across the country were selected as recipients of the grant as part of the foundation’s Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities initiative. Go For Health! plans to put the money to work increasing opportunities for physical activity and access to healthier foods—like the copious fruits and vegetables being grown in neighboring fields.
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- Ice Plant Peace Invasion
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- Trek on Track
- Film, Times & Events: Week of May 23
- From The Editor
- Free Angela
- Poetic Cellars
- The Pleasure of Süda
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- Santa Cruz Movie Times
Free Angela
Political activist and UC Santa Cruz Professor Emerita Angela Davis commands the spotlight in a riveting new documentary. PLUS: UCSC’s Bettina Aptheker opens up about the political upheavals of the ’60s and ’70s—and today. Angela Davis is not a human being who can be easily summed up in several sentences or paragraphs—books maybe, but, even then, capturing the political activist, scholar and author in the most comprehensive light is downright complex. That’s because Davis is an undeniably unique political creature, one who should be seen and heard to be fully absorbed and downloaded. Which is what makes Free Angela and All Political Prisoners, the new documentary about Davis and the turbulent political upheavals she faced during the late-1960s and ’70s, so inviting. In it, filmmaker Shola Lynch marks the 40th anniversary of Davis’ acquittal on charges of murder, kidnapping and conspiracy with a historical vérité style of filmmaking to illuminate a side of Davis few may have seen (or can recall), and captures the events that thrust the woman into one of the most fascinating orbits of notoriety and political intrigue of the 20th century.
No Big Surprises
The highly anticipated draft Environmental Impact Report for desal is finally out. Will it change anything? When scwd2, the group pursuing the proposed joint desalination plant for the Santa Cruz Water Department and Soquel Creek Water District, set up a booth at the Santa Cruz Earth Day festival in 2012, its reception was less than warm. Signature gathering for Measure P, the “right to vote” on desal ballot measure, was in full swing, as were tensions over the controversial project, which would produce up to 2.5 million gallons per day of desalinated water and cost an estimated $100 million. What were representatives of an energy-intensive desal plant doing among the recycling and conservation booths? That was the attitude Melanie Mow Schumacher, public outreach coordinator for scwd2 (pronounced “squid squared”), remembers sensing.
The Maya-Ixil Move Forward
Local nonprofit works to educate and create opportunity for indigenous communities in Guatemala In an isolated region of the Guatemala mountains called Ixil, the indigenous Maya population was devastated by a civil war between the government and leftist guerrilla factions that spanned 1960 to 1996. During that 36-year war, the Guatemalan military eradicated entire Mayan communities. In what amounted to genocide, soldiers burned Mayan farmlands and homes, raped and tortured the people, and scattered families. By the end of the war, 200,000 Mayans had been killed, 7,000 of whom were Maya-Ixil.
Public Thinking
Watsonville teens host TEDx event Santa Cruz County is no stranger to the TED brand. TED—which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design—talks have come to the area through independently organized events 10 times since 2011. This month, the gathering returns to the county with a new twist, thanks to the Watsonville Youth City Council. TEDxYouth@Watsonville, which will take place Sunday, May 19 at the Henry J. Mello Center for the Performing Arts in Watsonville, will feature only speakers younger than 19 years old and will traverse topics from racial stereotypes and renewable energy to traditional Mexican dance.
Transoceana
Danny Moriarty’s musical influences have been known to impact his life beyond his local rock band, Transoceana. “I went through two periods,” confesses the singer, guitarist and songwriter. “I borrowed Bono’s mullet look from the ’80s for a while, and then I dressed like I was from the ’70s and had big hair like Jimmy Page.” Bono and Page are also symbolic of Transoceana’s evolution as a band during their three years together.
Cruzin’ for Inspiration
Former resident pays homage to Santa Cruz with locally shot thesis film When he left Santa Cruz for the University of Southern California’s graduate film program in 2010, Christopher Guerrero had completed the film major at UC Santa Cruz in 2008 and worked on campus in the film and digital media department. It wasn’t until he headed south, that Guerrero began to reminisce about the coastal town. “It was really really hard when I moved to L.A., to acclimate and find friends,” he says, adding that—counter to the philosophical, conversational culture of Santa Cruz—he found nowhere in his new town where he could simply sit and talk about life with someone. “I didn’t really realize why I love [Santa Cruz] so much until it was gone.”
Beck to the Future
In celebration of Beck’s solo acoustic show at The Rio, GT explores Song Reader, the alternative rock icon’s most ambitious interactive art piece yet. Here’s an odd little paradox of the digital revolution: The more sophisticated our technology gets, the more our musical milieu begins to resemble that of a bygone era, when song ideas were passed around from musician to musician, perpetually taking on new twists. Dozens of different YouTube users might try their hand at setting somebody’s rant about cats or double rainbows to music, or you might hear the Belgian musician Gotye turning the many and varied covers of his song “Somebody That I Used to Know” into a virtual orchestra (see below).
Growing Berries Without Bromide
Researchers test a new alternative to a controversial chemical The scarecrows perched in Santa Cruz strawberry fields do little to scare away the birds, much less the insects and fungi harbored in the soil. Everything likes to eat strawberries, which makes growing them a risky business. This predicament led UC Santa Cruz professor Carol Shennan to take an unconventional approach to pest management. Nine years ago, the fatal plant disease Verticillium wilt was wiping out strawberry plants at the university farm. Chemicals hardly phase the pathogen, and Shennan saw little improvement with crop rotation, which is typically used to treat infested fields. A visiting plant pathologist from the Netherlands recommended a little-known organic technique called anaerobic soil disinfestation, and, with so few other options, Shennan decided to give it a try.
Uniting All That Has Been Separated
