UCSC scientists win grant to study toxic algae blooms along California coast
A curious event happened in the summer of 1961.  One foggy night, birds began acting confused, suicidal, even violent. Hundreds of sooty shearwaters are said to have crashed into buildings and power lines across Capitola in the middle of the night. Residents who ventured from their homes found themselves attacked by some of the birds who seemed drawn by their flashlights. The next morning streets and rooftops were found littered with the bodies of the birds, and those avian creatures that survived the night filled the streets, noticeably confused and disoriented.

Can you give a brief report on this fiscal year’s county budget?
Though it wasn’t easy in these difficult economic times for county government, the board was successful in minimizing the reduction to community programs—the nonprofits in our community that provide essential safety-net services. While a 20 percent cut was proposed (on top of a significant cut the previous year), the board was able to decrease the cut to 10 percent so that these vital programs, which provide assistance to the needy and vulnerable in our community, will be there for those who need them.

UCSC dissolves its 30-year-old Rape Prevention Education center
“As of next school year, Rape Prevention Education as you know it will no longer exist.” This is what UC Santa Cruz administrators told Rape Prevention educator Gillian Greensite last month, explaining a decision to “reorganize” the program.

Greensite was told that, starting in the 2010/2011 school year, Rape Prevention Education would no longer be a separate effort, but would be absorbed into the Student Health Outreach and Promotion program (SHOP), and that she would no longer be a rape educator, but a sexual health educator through SHOP. She promptly retired.

211, free human resources referral system, launches in Santa Cruz
Like a miniature fortress, boxes upon boxes are stacked up against the wall. Amongst the cubicles bathed in fluorescent light, the typical Monday morning drone is notably absent. In its place is a general buzz of anticipation, as the last finessing touches are made to a long-awaited project.

Everyone in the United Way of Santa Cruz County office is preparing for the July 30 launch of 211, a free phone referral service for human services ranging from food stamps to evacuations in the case of a natural disaster. The experience of being forced to listen to bad ’80s pop music while being put on hold, as one’s question is shuffled around, is an experience shared by many. Mary Lou Goeke, the executive director of United Way, says 211 arose from the need for a direct and accessible answer. 

New rebate programs provide incentives for home energy efficiency
When talking about sectors of the economy hit hard during the recession, it’s hard to compete with construction. According to the latest job report put out by the U.S. Labor Department, construction unemployment remains around 20.1 percent, or 1.8 million people still looking for work. No matter how you spin it, that’s a lot of people.

Last week, the Green Careers Partnership held a workshop at Cabrillo College aimed at helping Santa Cruz contractors move out of that figure and into the emerging economy of energy efficiency retrofitting for homes. Around 60 contractors sat in attendance at the event, which featured presentations highlighting new rebate programs for green home retrofitting, useful credentials and software for the green home sector, and attempts to create a network of green-minded builders.

Santa Cruz nonprofit provides micro-grants for community projects
Thousand dollars and a smart idea go farther than you may think. For the last 22 years, Bread for the Journey (BFJ), a national nonprofit organization, has been operating on this principle.

BFJ has 20 chapters scattered across the country, including one in Santa Cruz, all with a simple mission: to collect funds and redirect them in the form of micro-grants of less than $3,000 to catalyze local community projects. The organization is run entirely by volunteers, often from their own homes.

“When I think of Bread for the Journey, I think of someone saying, ‘Here’s a little bread for your journey. Here’s a little bit to get you going—to get you to your next stop,’” says Jerilyn Kass, one of the four founding board members of the Santa Cruz chapter. “We give seed money for people who have these great ideas but [have] no money, and it gives them that initial push to get them to their next stop.”

Congregants from local church and synagogue to visit Israel together
In a set-up straight out of the corniest joke books, a pastor, a rabbi, and a fitfully observant Jewish journalist walk into an interview.

It’s a cold, blustery late spring morning, and Rev. Dave Grishaw-Jones, senior minister at the First Congregational Church, a United Church of Christ congregation, and Rabbi Paula Marcus, a rabbi and cantor at the Reform Jewish Temple Beth El, have both made time in their exceptionally busy schedules to sit down together. As they settle into Rev. Grishaw-Jones’ book-lined study, the two clergy members, who co-lead an interfaith Middle East dialogue group, prepare to talk about their latest—and perhaps most challenging—project. On July 14, they will lead 25 of their congregants to Israel and the West Bank for two weeks, on what they agree promises to be both an enlightening and exhausting journey. “The itinerary is rather frightening,” laughs Rabbi Marcus.

Anti-nuclear weapons activists take on Santa Cruz
Beneath a magnolia tree in the parking lot behind the Resource Center for Non-Violence, a group of five young adults pulls a makeshift puppet show out of a dust-covered white Astrovan. A puppet in a lab coat steps out in front of a meager audience—five people, including the press, sit on chairs and a tattered gray couch and watch as “Dr. Lab” learns a nightmarish lesson about the detrimental and lasting effects of his work in a nuclear laboratory. A deformed frog tells the doctor that nuclear waste has poisoned his frog family; a visitor from 30,000 years in the future informs him that the effects of nuclear radiation and waste continue to poison and frighten the world’s residents; and a pile of uranium canisters dance and chant about the cancer they will inevitably spread to surrounding residents.

The war in Afghanistan is the longest war in U.S. history, and last month was the deadliest month of the war yet. Are we getting any closer to getting out of there?

I have consistently opposed the war in Afghanistan, and my opposition remains unwavering. I never bought the proposal that occupying Afghanistan would improve our national security, and it’s clearly not in our nation’s interest to remain there.

I continue to be skeptical about what our military can accomplish in Afghanistan. I’m convinced that the sooner we withdraw our troops, the sooner we can refocus on cooperating with our allies to break down terrorist networks around the world. Taking down these networks—not occupying countries—is the best way to enhance our national security. And we can do that for a far lower cost, in both lives and dollars, than by occupying Afghanistan.