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Jun 19th
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GT Columns

Local Talk

What traditions have been passed down in your family?

What traditions have been passed down in your family?

I grew up in a religious Shinto famiy and we would visit homes of sick people and hospitals and give them healing prayers, prayers for healing. And that's been done in my family since my great great grandparents. I'm Japanese American Nisei.
Joy Takahashi
Santa Cruz | play therapist
 

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Opinion

Angry Words Don’t Help the Public Debate

Angry Words Don’t Help the Public Debate

The late New York Times columnist William Safire once predicted the end of a civil public debate by citing a key fact understood by commercial businesses – and ignored by the politicians.

What businesses understand is that there’s no percentage in disparaging the product of a competitor. If a Corn Flakes manufacturer, for example, trashes another company’s similar breakfast cereal, the prospective customer remembers only one thing — that that breakfast cereal is bad.

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Astrology

The Moon’s Influence

The Moon’s InfluenceAs the Sun moves through the last half of Aries, it’s best to begin projects this week (not next) because on Sunday, April 18th, Mercury retrogrades (looking back, past review) in Taurus. Things initiated now (before the retro) will enter into a reflective stage during the retro, then manifest into form and matter after the retro (May 11th with Aries moon). Thursday and Friday are Aquarius moon days. We could feel rebellion, seek personal freedom, everything’s a bit sideways, unusual and tradition has no place as we build toward the future. Saturday and Sunday are Pisces moon. We seek retreat, tranquility, peacefulness. We’re sensitive, spiritual or drug and alcohol induced. Veils between worlds are thin, delicate, and translucent.
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Editors Note

From the Editor

From the Editor

Plus Letters to Good Times...
More Jobs, Please
Abortion and Health Care
Knowing the Gulch

Surfing is such a big part of Santa Cruz culture, but how many of us really know its origins here? This week’s cover story, penned by Geoffrey Dunn and Kim Stoner sheds light on Santa Cruz’s surfing history in such a unique way, that you can actually envision what life may have been like back in the late-1800s, when all things surf here seemed to have begun.

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Local Talk

What's Your Idea of Heaven?

What's Your Idea of Heaven?

My idea of heaven is the life
that we create on earth.
Kevin Contreras
Watsonville | Conservationist

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Astrology

Easter, the Resurrection Festival

Easter, the Resurrection Festival

In the Christian liturgy this week, Thursday is celebrated as Holy Thursday, the day of the Last Supper, when Christ (Archangel from Sirius, where Love originates) gathered His students (disciples) in an “upper room” (higher mental plane) and instituted the priesthood and Holy Eucharist, the new dispensation (Pisces Law of sacrifice, the heart of which is Love). No longer was humanity to sacrifice (offering) the blood of humans or animals on the temple altars. Instead, the “sacrifice” was the in the form of bread (Christ’s body—form/matter, Ray 3) and wine (blood, the Spirit, Ray 1).

Good Friday is the day of Christ’s Crucifixion, the 4th Initiation, the Great Renunciation, the “dying” into spirit or into our “essential nature.” Holy Saturday, the candles are extinguished in the church; there is no light, commemorating the death of Christ in the tomb of matter. While in the tomb, Christ entered the underworld and released the earth spirits from their involutionary (deeper into matter) path. Humanity was released also from 18 million years of isolation.

Sunday is Easter, which always follows the Aries Full moon. This festival of Resurrection recognizes the new spiritual year in humanity. It’s the Festival of Love; of new life coming forth in all kingdoms each year.

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Editors Note

From the Editor

From the Editor

Plus Letters to Good Times...
Walking the FRSC Plank
Change the Focus

As the last week of March rolls in, it won’t hurt to take stock of our own personal progress thus far. How is 2010 treating you? How are you treating it? I am bringing this up because most of our issue this week focuses on the external home and gardens in your life. And, since I am a fan of waxing philosophical and diving into deep emotional waters—I can hear my mother chucking at how “California” I might sound—I think it’s also fitting to ask: Well, what are we doing with our inner sanctuaries? Any screws loose? What’s blooming inside? Are you re-arranging the furniture in the living room of your mind? (Usually a good thing.) Lately, I’ve realized that in order to maintain some delicious balance in my life, I have to be in nature more often. To that end, I’ve been re-discovering the mecca in which we all live—the beaches, the forests and more. And now that the days are longer, I’m also apt to take more walks in the evening. It is Spring, after all, and there’s plenty to see and enjoy. Try it. See what shows up for you.

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Local Talk

If you were to be famous, what would you like to be known for?

If you were to be famous, what would you like to be known for?

For contributing to there being no more war.
Josh Brooks
Santa Cruz | Job Hunter

 

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Opinion

Tarplant or Alternatives to the Automobile?

Tarplant or Alternatives to the Automobile?

What is environmentalism? Does the word encourage learning about the natural world, or is it more about not building on that vacant lot near my own home?

This issue is playing out again in that undeveloped area between Santa Cruz and Live Oak known as the Arana Gulch greenbelt. It’s a fascinating battle, one that pits environmentalists versus environmentalists—cycling advocates versus those opposed to any development there at all.

Center stage in the drama is the Santa Cruz Tarplant, a native species that’s part of the sunflower family. The inoffensive and endangered plant is the focus of a debate as to whether a bike path connecting Brommer Street to Broadway ought to be built.

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Opinion

An Invitation to a ‘Thought Experiment’

An Invitation to a ‘Thought Experiment’

I’d like to invite every “housed” person in our community to join me in a “thought experiment.” It’s pretty simple. When you climb into bed tonight, pull the covers over you and look up at the ceiling, pause for a moment and imagine that you are homeless.

Imagine you’re about to go to sleep under a tree or a bridge somewhere … you’re on a piece of damp cardboard with a couple of dirty blankets. You haven’t had a shower in several days (you had one after waiting for a few hours at the homeless center last week). As you try to go to sleep, think about what you’re wearing: the same clothes you wore all day today…and yesterday and the day before. Imagine how safe you are feeling with no walls around you and no door to lock. Imagine that every material thing you have is in a single bag, which you are using as a pillow. Now imagine that it’s starting to rain…and you hear footsteps approaching.

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CYNDI

On the eve of Cyndi Lauper’s Mountain Winery gig, we dissect the woman, the icon, the creative beast. Plus: Her thoughts on the music industry, equal rights and those sparkling ‘Kinky Boots’ Few performers possess the kind of fierce, she-bopping tenacity Cyndi Lauper has become famous for. Equal parts free spirit, civil rights activist and Grammy-winner, Lauper is one of the few creative artists able to successfully marry her cutting-edge verve with a heart-of-gold panache. It certainly has helped fuel the remarkable career resurgence she has been experiencing lately.

 

Field to Vase

Open house provides opportunity for residents to meet their local flower growers Valentine’s Day is a high point of the year for those in the cut flower business. So when, one year in the late ’90s, the bouquet-riddled holiday failed to deliver for Kitayama Brothers Farms, the family behind the decades-old rose-growing business knew something was wrong.  “It was the writing on the wall,” recalls Stuart Kitayama, operations manager for the Watsonville-based company. “Those of us who had been hoping things would just get better finally said ‘it’s time to change.’”

 

The Price of Safety

The city's proposed budget addresses public safety needs The City of Santa Cruz’s pocketbook has come a long way since 2009, when an $8 million shortfall loomed. According to City Manager Martin Bernal, the proposed general fund budget for 2013-2014 is healthier than it has been since the beginning of The Great Recession in 2008. Armed with this returning stability, the proposal puts one of the community's top concerns—public safety—front and center.

 

Community Studies 2.0

After a controversial suspension, a new incarnation of the unique UC Santa Cruz major is reinstated The UC Santa Cruz community studies lounge is a great place to have a conversation.  Housed on the second floor of a faculty building in Oakes College, just down the hall from a whiteboard that reads “COMMUNITY STUDIES LIVES,” the room has a big round table, couches and chairs, and shelves stacked with past senior “capstone projects.”

 

North Pacific String Band

Jeff Wilson, who plays banjo for North Pacific String Band, loves being part of original music experiences. “What I like about the music we play is that it’s fairly unique and kind of hard to put your finger on,” Wilson says. “We’re not just trying to do bluegrass or country or folk. It’s a mixture of those things and we try to add in a lot of musicality to all of that.” Originality and musicality aren’t ideas which are limited to the band’s exploits either.

 

Peace in the Middle East

New dance-concert explores Palestinian-Israeli conflict Inspired by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, local choreographer Karl Schaffer’s “Mosaic” is a dance-concert featuring Jewish Diaspora and Arab music from the women’s choral group Zambra, singer Fattah Abbou and a troupe of local dancers. In between rehearsals for the show, which runs June 21-22 at Motion Pacific, Schaffer shared the story behind its creation.

 

Muscle-Bound

Valiant cast battles loud, ugly action for the soul of 'Man of Steel' Early in Man of Steel, fourth-grader Clark, the boy who will be Superman, is cowering in a broom closet at school, eyes screwed shut, hands clapped over his ears. He can't control his super powers: his X-ray vision shows him the skulls and skeletons under everyone's flesh; unfiltered noise—dogs, traffic, heartbeats—assault him from all sides. Rushing to school, his mom kneels outside the door and asks what's wrong.

 

The Plug Bug & Corbin Dunn

Mechanic, programmer, acrobat, builder, tinkerer. Corbin Dunn's 1969 Volkswagen Beetle is a fully electric vehicle. It has an electric motor powered by 48 stacked squares of Lithium-ion battery cells under the hood in place of the 50 horsepower gas engine that it was built with. He calls it, affectionately, “the Plug Bug.” Dunn, who was born in Hawaii, raised in Corralitos, and now lives in a large, old A-frame house near the summit in the Santa Cruz Mountains, is a 35-year-old programmer for Apple in Cupertino, where he helped develop the iPhone and works on the framework for the Macintosh operating system. But his aptitude for intricate technical work is not limited to computers. Dunn is a tinkerer.

 

Making the Grade

The quest to identify sources of high levels of bacteria at Cowell Beach continues With straight As on Heal the Bay’s annual “beach report card” for 10 out of 13 Santa Cruz County beaches—Main Beach, Seabright, and even Cowell Beach at the Stairs, to name a few—it would seem that Santa Cruz boasts a high coastal GPA. But in recent years, one Santa Cruz beach just can’t seem to pass: Cowell Beach west of the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf.

 

Flag Day, Father’s Day and Chiron

Another week of complex planetary energies falling to Earth. Mars interacts with Pluto (inconjunct), Uranus (sextile) and Chiron (square, challenge, ouch!). We won’t know how to comprise, we’ll want to be friends but our hurts will challenge that desire.
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Good Morning Maui

Goodness, righteousness, virtuousness and fairness are some of the four-score English words that attempt to describe the Hawaiian essence of pono, whose use in the state motto translates to “The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.”

 

The Power of Conversation

Local author Cecile Andrews emphasizes importance of community engagement in newest book Cecile Andrews, author of the new book “Living Room Revolution: A Handbook for Conversation, Community and the Common Good,” probably wouldn’t get along too well with Larry David’s character from HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, known for hiding his face and avoiding communication with anyone he runs into on the street. Andrews is a longstanding part-time Santa Cruz (part-time Seattle) resident who says something that’s struck her about this town over the years is people's willingness to participate in a practice she’s dubbed the “Stop and Chat”—which is exactly what it sounds like.

 

Is Edward Snowden a patriot or a traitor?

He's a patriot. Anyone who stands up for the rights that we stand for as a country, that is real democracy. That would be in my book—somebody who is a patriot. Leah WeissSanta Cruz | Therapist

 

Best of Santa Cruz County

The 2013 Santa Cruz County Readers' Poll and Critics’ Picks It’s our biggest issue of the year, and in it, your votes—more than 6,500 of them—determined the winners of The Best of Santa Cruz County Readers’ Poll. New to the long list of local restaurants, shops and other notables that captured your interest: Best Beer Selection, Best Locally Owned Business, Best Customer Service and Best Marijuana Dispensary. In the meantime, many readers were ever so chatty online about potential new categories. Some of the suggestions that stood out: Best Teen Program and Best Web Design/Designer. But what about: Dog Park, Church, Hotel, Local Farm, Therapist (I second that!) or Sports Bar—not to be confused with Bra. Our favorite suggestion: Best Act of Kindness—one reader noted Café Gratitude and the free meals it offered to the Santa Cruz Police Department in the aftermath of recent crimes. Perhaps some of these can be woven into next year’s ballot, so stay tuned. In the meantime, enjoy the following pages and take note of our Critics’ Picks, too, beginning on page 91. A big thanks for voting—and for reading—and an even bigger congratulations to all of the winners. Enjoy.  -Greg Archer, EditorBest of Santa Cruz County Readers’ Poll INDEX | Shops | Food & Drink | Arts & Entertainment | Health & Fitness | Professionals | The Rest |

 

Dancing Creek Winery

At the Pinot Paradise event back in March, I tasted some very good Pinots from the Santa Cruz Mountains, and Dancing Creek Winery’s 2009 Pinot ($27) was one of them. This plummy dark brew, made from grapes grown in Corralitos, has delicious flavors of pomegranate, prosciutto, dried cherries, and mint julep.

 

Paying it Forward

Pianist Benny Green wants jazz’s past to continue to inform its future I can honestly say I’m still learning.” Hearing such an admirable, humble statement from someone like Benny Green—a jazz pianist, arranger, composer and band leader whose 30-plus year career includes performances and recordings with jazz luminaries like Oscar Peterson, Art Blakey and Betty Carter—might be surprising at first. But Green’s insatiable desire to keep learning has served him well. That desire—and his deep love of jazz—is something he wants today’s younger musicians to feel, too.

 

A Very Fine House

Adjacent to the front door, the long, clean wooden bar is surrounded by pumpkin-colored stools. At the entrance to the dining rooms, there is a new low-slung cafe door hung in the wood-covered arch. Where there once was a stage, stocky wooden tables are neatly arranged perpendicularly on a new tile floor, each set with square white plates and burnt orange cloth napkins.

 

Exposed

David Cay Johnston’s new book explains how big companies rob us blind In his late teens David Cay Johnston started to ask questions. “Why do we have these guys in uniforms with guns driving around in cars all day?” “Why is the Santa Cruz County Courthouse being built in such an unusual shape?” He wrote an article, while still living in his hometown of Santa Cruz, proving that the off-kilter courthouse building, which officials had promised would save money, actually cost more than a conventional building.

 

What’s your secret to avoiding the summer swarms?