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WHAT KEEPS SANTA CRUZ NOT WEIRD, BUT LOONEY? Author Nancy Abrams said at the Art Bites Back Forum Sunday that Santa Cruz is among the top 5 artistic cities in the USA. And we all seem to take that as being true but what is it that seems to be making our citizens loonier than ever in the last few years. I brought up the nearly insane movie Thrive down below that was a sell out hit at the Del mar last week. Read about it, it’s off the sanity charts and it’s a local hit…why. Why too when the world is going more and more for the oft- proven fluoridation of city water supplies does Santa Cruz still fight it? Why are any Democrats at all from this normally Democratic stronghold supporting a right wing Republican like Bruce McPherson? We are now watching Highway 1 get widened for another mile and we’ll watch it fill up even more than it is now after traffic increases. We read about De-Sal plants failing all over California and the entire world and yet our City Officials keep forcing this multi million dollar bomb on us. We bitch and gripe about the highways being in such bad shape, we complain about our crowded schools, we gripe about the high real estate prices and we encourage more and bigger out of town businesses to locate here…and send their profits out of the county. It’s tough to figure out. Yes we may be arty, and somewhat weird abut it’s the looniness that’s becoming a real concern.
FLUORIDATION, A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL. The NYTimes editorial Sunday stated… “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called fluoridation of water supplies one of the top 10 public health achievements of the 20th century. And the article concludes by saying, “Fluoridation has been a boon to public health. The agencies should issue final standards and guidance as soon as possible”.
ARTISTS BITE BACK. Sunday afternoon at the Santa Cruz Art League nearly 75 people gathered to hear a panel discussion by the artists participating in the Art Bites Back exhibit that just ended. It was lively, spirited, and showed that both artists and spectators cared a lot about making political statements with art. They talked about propaganda, money and corporations. What was really funny was how everyone laughed and applauded over the way nature swung the San Lorenzo River around to try to destroy the Boardwalk. Rus Brutsche’s oft reproduced painting of the sunken and ruined Desalination plant in the San Lorenzo was more than prophetic, it spoke for so many of us.
| NEW ORLEANS JAZZ. Doug Pomeroy of Brooklyn, NY. sent this clip of early jazz greats such as George Lewis, Alphone Picou, Paul Barbarin and Punch Miller in 1958. |
SAVE THE POGONIP FROM MOUNTAIN BIKES. The proposal for the new mountain biking trail on the Pogonip (the so-called “EMUT”) is to be heard by the Santa Cruz City Council, on Tuesday, March 27, 7:00 pm Santa Cruz City Council chambers
City Hall, 809 Center Street
Please try to attend this hearing to show your opposition to this proposal. Speaking times may be very limited. This will be our last chance to oppose the construction of this trail.
The agenda for this meeting is expected to be posted on the City’s website.
Whether or not you attend, please do at least one of the following:
* Send an email to the City Council at
citycouncil@cityofsantacruz.com
* Or send a letter to them at 809 Center Street, Santa Cruz 95060
* Or call the City Council offices at 831-420-5030.
While emails or letters may be sent any time prior to March 27, if they reach them prior to 5:00 pm Tuesday March 20 they will be included in the packet provided to each councilmember. Even if the Council approves the trail proposal, they may condition
their approval so as to ensure appropriate funding for maintenance and enforcement as well as construction.
We have also updated our website to add new material, including a page describing in detail what happened at the Parks & Recreation Commission’s hearing on March 5, and additions to the list of comments many of you provided when you signed our online petition. Here are links to those pages:
http://PogonipWatch.org/commission/
http://PogonipWatch.org/comments/
Finally, please ask others to visit our website and sign our online petition. It will help. A PDF of our flyer is attached. Consider printing it out, cutting into quarters, and handing a flyer to a friend. We need more petition signers. Thanks so much,
Peter and Celia Scott, for Friends of the Pogonip
WHY BILINGUALS ARE SMARTER. Read this amazing article from Sunday’s NY Times… “SPEAKING two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age”.
PATTON’S PROGRAM. Gary talks again about how citizens should be making land use decisions…he says, “Step one for those who want to be engaged in the decision-making process is to “get organized.” Step two is to “get the facts.” The third step seems obvious: “make a plan.” If you and your group want to accomplish a public policy objective, you will need to have a plan for how to do that. You’ll need to know the facts about the issue, and understand the legalities, too. Democratic decision-making is a “legal” process. It’s all about following the law and making the law. It wouldn’t hurt to get a lawyer involved!”. Read every day’s broadcast scripts here. (Gary Patton is “Of Counsel” to the Santa Cruz law firm of Wittwer & Parkin, which specializes in land use and environmental law. The opinions expressed are Mr. Patton’s. Gary has his own website, “Two Worlds / 365” – www.gapatton.net)
| LIGHTHOUSE ALL STARS, 1958. Not New Orleans but West Coast Jazz. Here’s Shorty Rogers, Victor Feldman, Bud Shank, Bob Cooper, Howard Rumsey, Frank Rosolino giving us the coolest version of any jazz form. |
THRIVE FILM AND CRITIQUES. Eric Johnston in last week’s Santa Cruz Weekly wrote an excellent critique of that nutso film Thrive. Eric takes on the Thrive delivers a dark and dishonest version of the real world and espouses a blend of paranoid conspiracy theories and right-libertarian propaganda. Aliens, and UFO’s, conspiracies, Reptilians, Jews in control of the world, the John Birch Society, Illuminati, and that Barack Obama is an alien!!!
Nope, I didn’t see it. And I probably won’t go to any other film that focuses on Pyramid Power, an International Jewish conspiracy headed by the Rothschild’s, Tesla’s free energy as a cure, Foster Gambles prediction that if there were no governments that private security forces would keep things peaceful, supporting Ron Paul’s Libertarian beliefs, and all those new age cures. Read another critique here…
PAUL ELERICK SENDS PHOTOS. We haven’t heard a word from Paul in weeks, but he did send this link to some absolutely wonderful and collectible WW2 photos.
The messages that came with the photos… “Pictures worth seeing. Excellent quality, but be patient, it can take awhile to load. Enjoy! Back in the Days of Real Photography, Fine Cameras and Great Film…4 x 5 inch film & a great lens equals these 69 year old photos. These photos are great! Not only the historical value but in quality too.
In 1970 the Department sent me out as an Evidence Technician and the camera was the old 4×5. You know the one with the bellows and you had to slide the photo plates in and out to get your exposures. The quality was outstanding and I would venture a guess that it is still one of the best quality cameras today.
ANCHOR IN ANTARCTICA. Micaela writes, “My life will get a serious shake-up this week. Our supply ship, the RV Laurence M. Gould, arrives later this week with the bulk of the winter crew. When she heads north, so will most of my cohorts from the summer. These crew shifts happen twice per year in late fall (March) and early spring (September), and we call those cruises the Turnover Boats because we “turn over” the station to a fresh set of hands. Since I’m staying a full year, Turnover means moving into a new position on station.
Changing departments carries more weight down here than you might imagine. Our jobs structure our lives on Ice. We work ten hour days, six days per week with the same crew and that naturally affects our social lives after work. Friendly cliques form, with inside jokes that transform into custom patches or themed bingo nights. (You take the good with the bad.) To switch departments after six months isn’t too uncommon, but still causes a stir. My friends in the UT Shop (as we call the Maintenance Department) started teasing me four months ago when I signed the contract. Now that the moment has arrived, they’ve started calling me “traitor” and talking about all the fun they’ll have once I go. Meanwhile, my new gang in Logistics promises an endless supply of cookies. Who to believe?
Identifying folks by their department has a practical application in a place where a relatively large number people are scattered across multiple station, but still constitute a “small world.” How do you differentiate a continent’s worth of Jennifers? Well, you ask if you’re talking about Fuelie Jen who started as a Jano at Pole. (She works in the Fuels Department, but her first contract was at South Pole Station as a Janitor). Last names get lost, but people remember a woman who stunk like diesel and told a funny story about frostbitten wrists. Nicknames help, too: most people know Rex, Eggs and Sandwich better than they know Brian, Dave or Allison.
But I don’t have a nickname and I’m between departments. Luckily, Palmer Station is small enough that this doesn’t matter”.
Micaela Neus works for Raytheon Polar Services Company as a utilities technician and is currently living at Palmer Station, Antarctica until at least October 2012.
VINTAGE DE CINZO. Constant reader DeCinzo brings us up to date on our public libraries…scroll below.
EAGANS DEEP COVER. Tim looks at probable planning for the next war…see downwards.
LANDAU’S PROGRES. Saul writes, « Republicans Implode ; I’m Uneasy » He states, “The preachers of peripheral focus have somehow twisted the minds of tens of millions of low-income Republican voters to demand the government stay out of their Social Security and Medicare. Republican apparatchiks have also reduced Democratic registration on voter rolls in strategic places. Phony voter ID rules and other scams abound. On Tuesday March 6, polling station officials turned away a former Democratic Tennessee Congressman and his wife because of an “order” from the Republican Secretary of State. Such hanky panky leads to fewer Democratic voters; the Romney-Santorum chances rise. The February-March verbal screw-ups will fade from national memory as will Rush “The Real Republican” Limbaugh’s misogyny. Gas prices? Economic downturn? War? Don’t count on a Democratic landslide – or even an Obama victory. It will require lots of work”. Read all of it here…. Saul Landau is an Institute for Policy Studies fellow whose films are on DVD from roundworldproductions@gmail.
LISA JENSEN LINKS: Lisa writes: “It’s a mixed bag this week at Lisa Jensen Online Express (http://ljo-express.blogspot.com/), from an excellent Albanian drama about the futility of revenge to a sneak peek at Captain Jack Tonto—and more!” Lisa has been writing film reviews and columns for Good Times since 1975.
BEING FLYNN. Robert DeNiro and Paul Dano do fine acting jobs in this sad saga or melodrama of the plight of homeless, aimless, depressed, father and son. DeNiro has some excellent bits of acting in it, and the film does hover on the brink of cornball but go see it. Gritty, nasty, human and it could happen to you!!
JEFF WHO LIVES AT HOME. Even with pretty good reviews Jason Segal and Ed Helms and the direction, and the plot failed to impress me. I detested the story line, never believed the acting, and even Susan Sarandon almost made me angry in this artificial story. This was a rare occurrence for me, and I don’t know why I couldn’t like any part of this film, but I didn’t. Go warned if at all.
UNIVERSAL GRAPEVINE. Each and every Tuesday from 7:00-8:00 p.m. I host Universal Grapevine on KZSC 88.1 fm. or on your computer (live only, or sometimes old programs are archived…(see next paragraph) and go to WWW.KZSC.ORG. Julie James will tell us latest plans and plays such as Hello & Goodbye and Blithe Spirit from The Jewel Theatre on March 20. After Julie, Deb McArthur from the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History will reveal late plans and projects. On March 27 Rita Wadsworth and Shannon Marie Kerr from Mountain Community Theatre will talk about their new play, “Crimes of The Heart”. Plus John Thiemann will give us details about the Monterey Bay Funeral Society. The April 3 Grapevine has UCSC professor Amy Beal who is curating/programming the annual “April in Santa Cruz Festival of Contemporary Music”. (April 5-April 27). She’s followed by Robbie Schoen the host & director of Felix Kulpa Gallery. Mary Thyken, exec.dir. Of the Santa Cruz Community TV will be the opening guest on April 10th then Felicia Rice from UCSC’s Digital Arts Department will clue us in on late plans. Joan Boothe Author of “The Storied Ice” about Antarctica’s Explorers will be on April 24th. Send me more program ideas if and when you have them!!!
UNIVERSAL GRAPEVINE ARCHIVES. In case you missed some of the great people I’ve interviewed in the last 5 years here’s a chronological list of just this year’s podcasts. Click herehttp://kzsc.org/blog/tag/
QUOTES. “We call that species most successful that has made its own kind its worst enemy”, Garrett Hardin. “If we don’t survive we don’t do anything else“, John Sinclair. “The destruction of this planet would have no significance on a cosmic scale. It would be no more than a match flaring for a second in the heavens. The choice is ours”. Stanley Kubrick
COLUMN COMMUNICATIONS.
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82 Blackburn Street, Suite 216
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
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BEST OF VINTAGE STEVEN DeCINZO.
Deep Cover by tim eagan.
