Local history teacher brings the Zinn Education Project to the classroom

The wall behind Jeff Matlock’s desk is covered with photographs and paintings of his heroes from American history: Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Abraham Lincoln, and Jane Adams among them. There is a photograph of women marching down Pennsylvania Avenue in 1913 with a sign that reads, “I wish Ma could vote!” And, as if to encapsulate Matlock’s “nothing is black and white” view on history, he also has two contrasting photographs beside one another: one of a group protesting World War I with signs that say “Don’t send our boys to die in a useless war,” and the other, a shot of U.S. soldiers wading ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day. “There are two sides to every story,” he says simply.

One UCSC student’s project will save energy in campus apartments
“The Boardwalk’s going to be gone,” says Jennifer Helfrich, a freshly graduated UC Santa Cruz environmental studies student. “It’ll be underwater.”

While she isn’t talking about tomorrow, next year, or even this lifetime, studies do predict that sea levels will have dramatically risen by the end of the century.

“Climate change is happening,” she continues. “A lot of people are going to die and a lot of people are going to be hurt. There’s probably going to be some violence over it, and ecosystems are going to change. A lot of species are going to die but new species will evolve and some will move around. The environment will be fine; it always has been. It changes. The question is whether humans will be OK.”

Santa Cruzans are changing the way people work
What does the future of work look like? For those struggling to find a job in this downturned economy, it may be difficult to look beyond the present to what the future may hold. But the silver lining to the terrible job market is that it shows us that the current way we work doesn’t, well, work for all of us. Many people are realizing that there are alternatives to the nine to five grind. And thanks to some Santa Cruz innovators, it’s now easier than ever to choose where, when, and how we want to work. According to them, the way we work in the future will be more flexible, under our control, and maybe even friendlier.

Bay Area company comes to Santa Cruz with affordable way to go solar
With as much as 60,000 barrels of oil gushing into the Gulf per day, local economies on the brink of ruin and fragile ecosystems likely tarnished for years, there is no better time to really start thinking about what our dependency on fossil fuels is costing us. Sure BP is the evil company that may have skirted regulators and operated the unsafe rig that has caused the greatest environmental disaster in American history, but could it have been avoided if our demand for oil weren’t so insatiable?

The oil leak in the Gulf continues. What are your thoughts on it?
Every night we watch the news reports of the leak, we see the dead and dying animals and the sludge in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. It's heartbreaking.

I also find some of the comments coming out of Washington to be unbelievable.

New teen-led group seeks non-violent solutions to local gang issues
The paper shook in Taylor Burdick’s hands, but her voice remained clear and steady as the Santa Cruz High School (SCHS) junior read a poem dedicated to her friend Tyler Tenorio, a 16-year-old fellow student who was beaten and stabbed to death by gang members in October 2009.

It was Saturday, May 29 at the Louden Nelson Community Center, and the event was the first forum hosted by Peace on the Streets (POTS), a non-violence group created by 20 SCHS students. Burdick stood before an audience of about 150 fellow students, parents, teachers and community members and shared her memories of Tyler, concluding, “For now he is a star in the sky, and I know I will see him again someday.” She looked up from her paper and added, before taking her seat, “I just really want to see a difference in our town.”

Cabrillo astronomy professor helps land Hayabusa spacecraft
Richard Nolthenius’ love affair with the night sky began when he was a child. “The sky doesn’t try to impress you,” he remembers realizing at age 10. “It doesn’t try to posture to be this, that or the other. It’s just so natural and so unaffected by us—and pure in some way.”

The county began budget hearings. What are the plans for arriving at a balanced budget?
The annual budget process for the County of Santa Cruz began on June 14 and the proposed budget cuts are grim. We are expecting $17 million in cuts and possible layoffs of more than 60 people. Some of these jobs and services may be saved by furloughs of county staff and the cancellation of a 2.5 percent COLA.

Local company looks to reinvent electric vehicle technology, boost green industry
For many, the word “motorcycle” conjures up the sounds and smells of roaring engines and the kind of mechanical monsters known for startling unsuspecting pedestrians with a mere flick of the wrist. But Zero Motorcycles, a local developer and manufacturer of 100 percent electric motorcycles, is hoping to change that perception—one green bike at a time. 

UCSC volunteer group prepares for its second trip to Honduras
Two years ago, Ida Shahidi was an average college sophomore enjoying her spring break in Costa Rica. Call it serendipity or call it accident, but one lost plane ticket and a missed flight later, she was on an unplanned flight home, seated next to a young man from UC Santa Barbara, having the conversation that would change her life—and the lives of dozens of other UC Santa Cruz students, as well.