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.

Former mayor and UCSC student recap their experiences at the United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women

While traveling to New York for the 57th United Nations (UN) Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), seasoned local activist Jane Weed-Pomerantz had a notion of what to expect. But, with the vast scope of worldwide women’s rights violations presented at the commission, she knew she would still be taken aback at times.

“I was worried because I had a feeling I would be finding out what I did find out about women and girls in the world,” says Weed-Pomerantz. “I was trying to brace myself for the knowledge of the reality, because we are really very protected in this country.”

Can the debate over homeless services come to terms with the need for drug and alcohol treatment? 

Over the last few months, sharp disagreement on what needs to done about crime and homelessness has polarized the city council, homeless service advocates and neighborhood safety groups, not to mention the larger community.

With total arrests for all types of crime up more than 50 percent between 2011 and 2012, and with 42 percent of offenders booked in county jail being homeless, transients, or having given the address of the Homeless Services Center (HSC) as their residence, Santa Cruz Deputy Chief of Police Rick Martinez says the city is at a critical “tipping point” in addressing drug addiction and homelessness.

Documentary explores the hunger/obesity paradox—a question at the heart of Second Harvest’s evolving mission

In 1968, with 10 million Americans suffering from hunger, CBS News aired Hunger in America, a documentary that exposed the severity of the problem and led to national mobilization. School food programs and food stamps resulted, and hunger took a significant plunge by the late 1970s.

“Hunger was virtually eliminated in America,” says Willy Elliott-McCrea, CEO of Second Harvest Food Bank (SHFB). This proved that ending hunger was a matter of choice, he says.

But that positive trend didn’t last. Today, nearly 50 million Americans, including a fourth of all children, don’t know where their next meal is coming from.

Is a self-regulated, communal camp the answer to Santa Cruz’s homeless problems?

In dozens of cities across the country, there are organized, self-managed homeless communities—a concept dubbed locally as “sanctuary camps”—that aim to help people pull their lives out of the gutter, get organized, find employment and secure housing.

Local videographer, Occupy activist, and now homeless advocate Brent Adams was inspired to initiate plans for a sanctuary camp in Santa Cruz when he traveled in December of last year to Portland, Ore., where there are two camps—one called “Right 2 Dream Too,” nicknamed “R2DToo,” and another called “Dignity Village.”

May is Perinatal Depression Awareness Month

After the birth of a child, most women experience a short period of mood swings and anxiety known as the “baby blues” as hormones return to normal levels. But according to a study published in JAMA Psychiatry in March, one in seven women will experience these feelings longer and more intensely than others will. This disorder, known as postpartum depression (PPD), is something Santa Cruz resident Jodi Koumouitzes-Douvia experienced firsthand.

As Gov. Brown faces down the courts over prison populations, GT looks at how realignment is unfolding locally 

Santa Cruz County Jail’s (SCCJ) “recreation areas” are dark rectangles the size of a small living room with ceilings of mesh and spirals of barbed wire. The sky is visible, but the rooms are concrete walls and flooring, and depending on the section of the jail and time of day, many recreation areas remain shaded. Basketball hoops are available, but the space is barely large enough to accommodate a half-court game. There are no plants in sight, not even patches of grass.

Faith group leader relocates to Santa Cruz County for artistic freedom, gets art red tagged

Rev. Robert Seals, an artist, musician, and leader of Mother Nature’s Temple—an earth-based faith group that originated in Butte County, but is now headquartered in Soquel—has utilized artistic expression as a means of protest since the Vietnam War era. So, naturally, when he ran into legal problems with a neighbor upon moving onto a 50-acre property just off Old San Jose Road last year, he expressed his frustration by creating a sculpture.

That artistic expression came in the form of a 14-foot tall “Mr. Potato Head,” with a wide, grinning mouth full of sharp fangs and glaring eyes. He crafted the face from the churning tank of a cement mixer, which he purchased for about $600, cutting and welding features, painting it, and setting it vertically. From Seals’ mountain property, the face peered directly at the neighbor’s home.

The psychoactive jungle brew ayahuasca plays a starring role in the Psychedelic Science 2013 conference

During a 1966 congressional hearing on the banning of LSD, Sen. Robert Kennedy famously commented, “Perhaps to some extent we have lost sight of the fact that [LSD] can be very, very helpful in our society if used properly.”

At that time, the controversial chemical in question was the most researched psychiatric drug on the planet, considered by many practitioners to hold huge promise as an aid in the treatment of such disorders as psychopathology, drug and alcohol addiction and end-of-life depression and anxiety.

The City of Santa Cruz experiments with employing private security to help prevent crime

They stand on street corners, roam Pacific Avenue, cruise the San Lorenzo River levee in trucks, and sit idly by in parks, doing what they do best: deterring crime.

In the past few years, First Alarm, a private security company based in Aptos, has become a growing component in the City of Santa Cruz’s public safety strategy.

“We launched it with some pilot programs downtown,” says Santa Cruz Police Department (SCPD) Deputy Chief Steve Clark, “and then we expanded into the Harvey West neighborhood to deal with the issues around the Homeless Services Center and the negative impacts we were seeing, and then we expanded to our levees, our beach area, and now to the parks.”