State of Hunger
The battle against food scarcity in California.
A decade ago, Tammy Jaime lost everything to drugs. She and her husband spent through their savings, lost their home and car, and ended up in the rural northern California mountains, begging for food for ...
Hunger Pains
With more than a quarter of Monterey County’s children living in poverty, accessing food takes priority.
Children ride around on tricycles in the King City Fairgrounds parking lot. They look like they’ve gathered to play on a sunny morning, under the watch of grown-ups who stand around talking, some sharing coffee ...
When a man loves a golf game
Anthony Anderson earns audiences with versatility on course and on screen.
Of late, drama-comedy double-threat Anthony Anderson has grown used to visualizing success – and finding it – in his rise from “bright-eyed kid in Compton” to star in everything from Golf in America to Law ...
The Navy Man, the Bad Boy and the Fighter
Three relative unknowns are well worth following.
Even casual fans know the names Tiger and Lefty. And they should, especially since at least one of the previous AT&T Pro-Am champs will take the title in 2012 (see box, right). But this year, ...
Ready to Play
Coming off a historic year, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am gets even better.
Talk about your Cinderella stories. No, not Bill Murray. D.A. Points. Murray’s long been everybody’s buddy – for years he had his own rooting section, outfitted in Carl Spackler helmets and camos and drinking cannonballs. ...
Best Golf Bag Ever
The top clubs from the top players in AT&T Pro Am – and the world – make for a mean set of sticks.
Every golfer’s got one. For Kevin Costner’s character in Tin Cup, it’s the 7. (“I hit the 7-iron the way John Daly hits the 3,” he says.) For Bobby Jones, it was his putter. He ...
Winter 2012 Food and Wine - Carmel Valley Tasting Rooms
Carmel Valley’s rack of tasting rooms has doubled in five years – plus Gallante and Cima Collina are about to uncork their own rooms and Silvestri is seriously considering it. A couple notes, before a ...
Winter 2012 Food and Wine: Foodie A to Z in Carmel Valley
Plenty of places proclaim they’re The Next Napa. Those places miss the point. Yes, Napa’s beautiful. Stuffed to bulging with Masaharu Morimotos and Cindy Pawlcyns. Juiced to the gills with Stag’s Leap Cabs and Duckhorn ...
Winter 2012 Food and Wine - Lokal Yokels
Brendan Jones recruits a partner from Prague to give the area an infusion of foodie energy.
At new Lokal in Carmel Valley Village, Chef Brendan Jones will use things like eggplant and asparagus, artichoke and avocado, quinoa and deer-tail lettuce grown in his mom’s backyard maybe a quarter of a mile ...
Out of the Valley
Beyond Carmel Valley, the bull is back and Happy Girl makes people… happy.
All the juicy Carmel Valley flavor dripping over this week’s Wine & Food issue borders on overwhelming. It can also feel a little unnerving, like something’s missing, à la El Mariachi Restaurante in Monterey (324-4953), ...
Winter 2012 Food and Wine - Boxing Wine
John Saunders’ backstory makes him a Carmel Valley icon – and this icon makes good wine.
John Saunders, 61, didn’t get the Stirrup Cup bartending gig at 21 because of his food-and-beverage degree. He was hired because the owner wanted a fighter, and Saunders happened to be a Vietnam-tested Marine and ...
The Beautiful Struggle
As the Monterey county branch of the NAACP enters its 80th year, the activists who helped build Seaside into a center of black power look back on the fight for equality.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday commemoration compels the nation to revisit the life and work of the civil rights leader, while Black History Month shines a light on major black figures of the past like ...
The Mermaid Treatment
Aqua Wellness Day Spa brings a new element to pampering.
Eyes shut, I can’t see the meditating gold frog perched beside the pool. But I can hear my own heart, and the water flowing past my ears, and a low hum from the chest of ...
The City Pool Wisdom
The guy in the next lane knows a lot about a lot, including nutrition, and lives to share it.
When the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) went before Congress, Seaside’s Rick Lagerstrom read the whole thing. He powered through all 906 pages despite the fact he’s not in government (though he ...
The Extreme Relaxation
CVAC’s cutting-edge hydrothermal experience aims to soothe Monterey County with intense temperatures.
First comes the choice, then the moment of truth. The choice arrives after 25 minutes sweating in a massive Finnish sauna. It’s between cold-plunge pools: one chilled to approximate the Pacific Ocean (marked with a ...
The Kelp Conditioning
Open-water swimming off Pacific Grove’s coast nets a dozen understandings.
When all you see – and smell – of kelp are decaying strands on the beach, the notion of a vibrant undersea forest is more mystery than majesty. But swimming along and below the water’s ...
Communication Nation
From niche musings on sandwiches to holistic, holy views of Big Sur, here are some top online voices of the Central Coast.
Weblogs (or, in the vernacular, blogs), launched in the ’90s with a small and dedicated band of geeks, and they’ve never really fallen out of fashion. They’re the modern version of water-cooler chat. Hell, they’re ...
Doomsdaze of 2012
Mayan theories and astronomy conspiracies abound, making the upcoming year – if it lasts – one for the paranoid records.
By now, the holiday detritus has mostly been put or tossed away, the menorah placed on the shelf, the dying Christmas tree out on the curb or the aluminum Festivus pole back in the garage. ...
Through the Looking Glass
The past year brought a range of stunning portraits - and surprising emotions with them.
In retrospect, I’m surprised the picture isn’t blurry given how much my hands were shaking. In fact, I almost put the camera down and considered deleting the picture. Instead I took a breath and kept ...
Bunny Nightmares, Meatball Heroes
Your bizarre dreams manifest in print in our 101-Word Short Story Contest.
In an office where the placement of a comma can cause a fight, imagine the battle that goes on when it comes time to read and select the winners – and the best of the ...
Agha’s Empire
Nader Agha’s holdings span Monterey County, but he’s looking to conquer the world.
On a Tuesday afternoon at his Monterey Antique and Gift Center, Nader Agha holds court in a mahogany armchair beside a startled-looking Bulgarian photographer. Two reporters lurk near a $2,400 fairy statue, on deck for ...
Man in a Suit
Agha’s Litigation Highlights
Year Filed: 2004 Plaintiff: Pacific Star Concrete, a tenant at the Moss Landing Commercial Park Defendants: Agha and his company, HMBY, L.P. Allegations: Harassment and intimidation. Owner Sean Welch believed Agha was trying to evict ...
Nader Agha's Businesses and Properties
Holman Building Associates holds the Holman Building on Pacific Grove’s Lighthouse Avenue; five residential properties in Monterey and Pacific Grove; and condos on Rio Road in Carmel The Coin Shoppe / Plaza of Antiques and ...
Dissecting How and Why We Die
Dr. John Hain wants Monterey County to get better at doing both.
The forensic pathologist who scrutinizes Monterey County’s unexpected deaths stands in the middle of the coroner’s autopsy room, next to a 6’5”, 238-pound, 24-year-old man he’s about to open up, and talks about dancing. “I ...
Death’s Detectives
Exploring death investigation by way of the guys and gals on the ground.
Curiosity is key. So is compassion. And an ability to assimilate information – including medical science – quickly. Humility also helps: “If you think you didn’t miss anything at the crime scene,” Forensic Pathologist Dr. ...
Incomplete Conclusion
A forensic pathologist IDs the three trickiest deaths to diagnose conclusively.
“Instead of being burned out or depleted by death,” Dr. John Hain says, “I accept it for what it is, simply another part of the mystery of life, offering me and anyone else willing to ...
Notes from the End
Short-form observations on life and death from inside the Monterey County Coroner’s Office.
• The forensic team members report they’re frequently stunned by eerie parallels in body appearances that arrive the same day: similar appearances – “Like twins,” says forensic technician Tameka Moore – or identical shoes. “It’s ...
Mission Statement
Tracing Junipero Serra’s arc through Monterey County by bamboo bike speaks to joys and pains of an iconic Catholic’s early California.
Somewhere west of Greenfield I decided to become a trespasser. If anyone had a problem with it, I figured they could take it up with Junipero Serra. Serra had inspired me to end up here ...
Buy Local Guide
The Real L Word: Spending local means more bang for the buck.
Local spas. Local salons. More local wines than you can pull a cork from, swirl around a glass and drink by this time next year. Local artists and craftspeople. Local theater tickets and museum visits, ...
The Lure of Local
Buying local means keeping bucks in your community, and building community while you spend.
Where do you shop? It sounds like an innocent question, but depending on the answer – and the asker – it’s loaded. The question can imply judgment: The person asking really doesn’t care where you ...
Monterey County Gives! 2011 - Pt. 2
Arts & Culture
Alisal Center for the Fine Arts Year Founded: 1986 Staff: 11 paid, 60 volunteers Budget: $133,000 758-5715 www.alisalcenterforthefinearts.org The Big Idea: A recent study by IBM asked more than 1,500 CEOs and public sector leaders ...
Monterey County Gives! 2011 - Pt. 6
Health, Wellness & Food
Ag Against Hunger Year Founded: 1990 Staff: 5 paid, 750 volunteers Budget: $453,000 755-1480 The Big Idea: It’s farmers and volunteers, working together to feed Monterey County – and beyond. Ag Against Hunger collects and ...
Monterey County Gives! 2011 - Pt. 1
Animals
Animal Friends Rescue Project Year Founded: 1998 Staff: 11 paid, 401 volunteers Budget: $868,200 333-0722 www.animalfriendsrescue.org The Big Idea: More than 6,000 dogs and cats were euthanized in Monterey County last year. AFRP wants to ...
Big Ideas For All of Us
MCGives! launches its 2011 season of giving.
It’s a great thrill to be introducing Monterey County Gives! 2011. Last year’s campaign was a clear demonstration of how all of us, working together, can support critical programs around the county – we raised ...
Monterey County Gives! 2011 - Pt. 5
Environment & Sustainability
Elkhorn Slough Foundation Year Founded: 1982 Staff: 30 paid, 60 volunteers. Budget: $2.2 million ($1 million funds the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve) 728-5939 www.elkhornslough.org The Big Idea: The Elkhorn Slough Foundation’s award-winning Visitor ...
Monterey County Gives! 2011 - Pt. 3
Community & Social Services
Access Monterey Peninsula Year Founded: 1998 Staff: 6 paid, 103 volunteers Budget: $524,000 333-1267 www.ampmedia.org The Big Idea: Providing a platform for First Amendment rights and promoting transparency in government by broadcasting city council and ...
Monterey County Gives! 2011 - Pt. 4
Education & Youth
ARIEL Theatrical Year Founded: 1986 Staff: 7 paid, 375 volunteers Budget: $435,000 775-0976 www.arieltheatrical.org The Big Idea: Every year, ARIEL provides an opportunity for elementary and middle school kids from Monterey County to attend a ...
Occupying Democracy
Movement defends Americans’ identity as “We the People,” not “We the Corporations.”
“It’s coming from the feel That this ain’t exactly real, Or it’s real, but it ain’t exactly there… Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.” – Leonard Cohen, “Democracy” Cohen’s got it all wrong. As our ...
The Clickster Party
Americans Elect is mounting a high-tech, online challenge to the two-party system, but they’re doing it with big bucks from traditional conservatives.
With hyperpartisanship in Washington at a fever pitch and Occupy protesters demanding accountability and transparency from some of the biggest donors in politics, the widespread discontent with the U.S. status quo is jolting citizens out ...
Field Maneuvers
Growers say E-Verify will destroy the modern ag industry, but Congress has yet to offer a fix.
With quick strokes of the blade, workers cut romaine heads from a Gonzales field on a brisk October morning. They precisely shave off the greenest exterior leaves and pass the crisp romaine hearts to an ...
Otter Confidential
Sea Studios banks on sea otter story to spark action on ocean conservation.
[Open scene.] Dark skies loom as waves crash against the Big Sur coastline. The wind swirls the sand on the beach, and the ocean roars. As the clouds part the next day to reveal thin ...
Uncorking the Unconventional
Hahn Winery eyes an ambitious culinary center and an equally dynamic approach to food.
As we look out across the Salinas valley, with the distant Pinnacles pointing the way toward heaven, an almost-giggling Brian Overhauser turns and says, “I’m a big floater.” We are standing on a hillside above ...
How to Hooch
The easy art of fermenting alcohol at home.
The fermentation exploration began with some deliberate experiences, some accidents, and one particularly sweet surprise product of procrastination. Back in a college viticulture lab we spent two afternoons a week caring for several varieties of ...
Hot on the Trail
The ghost pepper, the world’s spiciest, presents a goldmine of an opportunity – if Salinas farmers can get it to grow.
There’s a moment of tolerable heat. Then come tears, a constricted windpipe and ungodly sweating. A half-hour spectacle ensues, radiating waves of scorched tongue, throat and stomach painful enough to send a few adventurous eaters ...
Brew for You
A tiny and helpful new homebrewer hub opens in Seaside.
Now homebrewers have one more thing to toast: Namely, no more jetting to Santa Cruz for bottle caps or paying more than the cost of your siphoning hose in shipping. Brand new Bottoms Up Home ...
Riding the River
Tasting notes from Hahn and three neighbors.
It took a while, but the fog has cleared, and the Foothill/River Road track has come ripe. After years of producing second-rate Cabernet and Merlot grapes, varieties that are both ill-suited for the cool, Santa ...
Strategy of the Fittest
Moss Landing’s development diversity makes it an economic survivor.
Ray Retez pedals down Moss Landing Road, cruising at the easy pace of someone who knows where he’s going but is in no hurry about it. He parks his bicycle, strolls into The Haute Enchilada’s ...
The Grateful Dead Moves Furthur
with Bob Weir and Phil Lesh four decades after Monterey Pop.
In June of 1967, an unkempt and hairy ragamuffin San Francisco rock outfit brought its extended acid test jams to the Monterey Pop Festival. The Grateful Dead had already started gaining underground notoriety for their ...
The Worst-Kept Secrets
Project Censored highlights the year’s most relevant ignored news.
In an age of blogs, tweets, hacks and piles of beans spilled by Wikileaks, the notion of media censorship may seem dated. But the rundown of stories Project Censored calls attention to this year serves ...
The Great Uncrowding
More than 30,000 state prisoners will shift from state to county control starting Oct. 1 – including 300-plus headed to Monterey County.
In Monterey County’s “situation room” at the county probation department, local law enforcement and public health’s top brass – Sheriff Scott Miller, Probation Chief Manuel Real, District Attorney Dean Flippo, Chief Judge Timothy Roberts and ...
Literary Living
The Carmel Authors & Ideas Festival enters its fourth year in feisty fashion.
William Shakespeare could rise from the grave, show up in Carmel and offer to talk about great plays and literature as part of the upcoming Carmel Authors & Ideas Festival. But if he couldn’t rock ...
Scenes from Above
Local theaters, local arts battle for audiences and relevance in a down economy.
Theater In this recessed economy – an environment where live theater is regarded as an intellectual luxury, where entertainment is converging with powerful technology to reach wider and more frugal audiences – theater companies are ...
Big Scores
Tracking the must-sees at the 54th annual Monterey Jazz Festival, from Herbie to Huey to New Orleans’ nicest.
The legendary Billie Holiday headlined the inaugural Monterey Jazz Festival back in 1958, along with Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and the Modern Jazz Quartet. On a rare recording of her performance that night, the airplanes ...
Fall for It
A snapshot of the months ahead, with special notes on particular performances.
Sept. 16 Mad Magazine’s Joe Raiola: American Heretic 7:30pm. Henry Miller Library, Big Sur. 667-2574, www.henrymiller.org. Sept. 23 Monterey County Artists Studio Tour Gala Party | 7-9pm. Pacific Grove Art Center, Pacific Grove. 659-5003, www.pgartcenter.org. ...
The Long Aftermath
A terrible day for America has turned into a devastating decade of wars.
After witnessing the first jetliner crash into the Twin Towers on that Sept. 11 morning, a friend’s wife and 7-year-old daughter fled to their nearby Manhattan loft and ran to the roof to look around. ...
The Price of Aging
Budget cuts slash senior services just when aging baby boomers need them.
For Jo Anne Curtis, 61, of Salinas, the Alliance on Aging’s group peer counseling is what’s keeping her aging parents alive and independent. Her 88-year-old father is blind, hard of hearing and suffering from arthritis ...
Interview with Shepard Fairey
First, a question that’s been going around. Are you coming to the opening? No. I'm not. I just have too much on my plate to come. I'd like to, but it's not going to be ...
Moon Music
Jam band vets Moonalice lead a big-name, two-day lineup of free music.
Last year’s West End Celebration featured internationally renowned Mexi-Cali outfit Los Lobos. This year, the names – which include Southern rockers Truth & Salvage Co. (Saturday at 2:30pm), folkster Jackie Greene (Saturday at 4pm) and ...
The Regional Desal Project for Dummies
If you don’t follow the Peninsula’s wonky water saga, think of it as our own ridiculous reality show.
The devoted fans who followed Arrested Development through its three twisting seasons know why it won six Emmy Awards. But drop-in viewers had a hard time decoding its tangled subplots and nuanced dialogue – a ...
Arty Party
Dozens of diverse artisans and local resident artists keep West End’s creative heartbeat thumping.
Artists have worked in Sand City for decades, but at the beginning, many were living illegally in empty warehouses. When Sand City changed the West End zoning from heavy industrial to mixed-use, artists came crawling ...
Leading the Flock
The work of street artist and accidental celebrity Shepard Fairey highlights West End Celebration.
Less than two weeks ago, much of the bottom floor of The Independent (formerly The Design Center) was a dusty space dominated by cement and emptiness. Today it’s a Valhalla of intricate portraits crafted by ...
Sand City looks to the future with a new perspective on its annual community festival.
Earlier this month, vibrant green paint covered a formerly homely patch of wall in central Sand City thanks to a team of artists who conjured a West End mural in the space of a half ...
Taking the Wheels
Getting up to speed with the truck drivers, an overlooked but fundamental Car Week fixture.
The Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance attracts car lovers from far and wide. But they wouldn’t have anything to look at if it weren’t for the truck drivers transporting those million-dollar vehicles. And it turns out ...
Car Week Coolness
The Concours d’LeMons rusty buckets offer Car Week a chill pill counterpoint.
Casting his eyes over the 18th Fairway at Pebble Beach, Alan Galbraith witnessed the pursuit of perfection. He saw why car fanatics routinely call the Concours d’Elegance the pinnacle of the automotive world, why they ...
It's Car Week Again in Monterey
Car Week Crib Sheet
This week dozens of the flyest Lamborghinis in the land will gather in Los Angeles for one big sleek police-escorted race up the state to the Monterey Peninsula. If such a scene strikes you as ...
The Sound of Glass
Famed contemporary classical composer Philip Glass establishes a local legacy with his Days and Nights Festival.
Philip Glass’s life is akin to that Johnny Cash chorus, “I’ve been everywhere, man/ I’ve been everywhere, man.” He was born in Baltimore in 1937, and, steeped in a music-rich childhood, entered the University of ...
Enter the Shocker
Filthy genius John Waters talks Henry Miller, Justin Bieber and what shocks even him.
Some 40 years ago, a slender young filmmaker with a pencil-thin moustache and a crude sense of humor borrowed $10,000 from his parents – his grandmother gave him his first 8-millimeter camera when he turned ...
A Study in Resolve
Michelle Magdalena’s journey to tsunami-ravaged Japan led her to believe she is viewing a most patriotic time in the world’s history.
Pacific Grove-based photographer Michelle Magdalena Maddox stepped off a train in the Japanese coastal town of Ishinomaki, and took a giant leap of faith. She carried only an umbrella and her camera bag, loaded with ...
Killer Instincts
It’s legal to trap and euthanize raccoons, but not relocate them.
Raccoons have it good at the Skyline Forest home Charles Van Vliet shares with his family. They sit and eat dinner on the deck, peek in the windows and miraculously climb pillars and squeeze through ...
Cute or Evil: A Quest for Raccoon Truth
Raccoons own a stunning array of skills and a non-negotiable place in our local existence. Yet few know much about them.
The checkout guy at Sand City’s Costco looked like he’d just been served a plate of poison-oak Parmesan. He stared at the customer in front of him, his face twisted into a portrait of undiluted ...
Tricks of the Trade
Undocumented women servicing field workers, streetwalkers in seedy motels, high-end flesh sold at high-end events: Sex sells in Monterey County.
an intricate dance takes place weekend nights on the streets of East Salinas. As the bars and clubs close and people seep onto the streets, the women come out of the shadows and into plain ...
One reporter investigates rumors regarding more than a massage.
Tucked back in a fairly quaint and non-descript little strip-mall in Salinas is a well-advertised Asian massage parlor that, from its ads, suggests beautiful women are at the ready to help release the stresses of ...
Oh It’s On, Johann
Even as it closes in on three quarters of a century, Carmel Bach Festival grows more adventurous and accessible in its programming.
The two-week-long Carmel Bach Festival turns 74 years old this week, and it just got younger. That’s thanks to a guard change at the top of the artistic slots, including incoming Music Director and Conductor ...
Bach Notes
Twenty insights into the reason for Carmel’s classical-music season.
Today, Johann Sebastian Bach’s name and music are known virtually all around the world. But during his lifetime, he never traveled more than 200 miles from the small town, Eisenach, where he was born. There ...
Fixing Baroque
Pianist-composer Stephen Prutsman constantly evolves the meaning of Bach.
To achieve fluency in music is a feat in and of itself, but pianist Stephen Prutsman moves freely from classical to jazz, and even to theater, in conversation. He proceeds to recite the opening line ...
Status Quo in Sand City
The Line in Sand City: Where a mall defines downtown
It’s possible to walk for an hour in the afternoon along the calm dead-ends lined with industrial warehouses – roofing parts, auto repair, stone design – that comprise Sand City’s West End without encountering a ...
Struggling in Salinas
Oldtown Salinas: Go Big or Go Home
Around dusk on a recent Wednesday evening, Main Street in Oldtown Salinas resembles a classic Wild West ghost town, sans tumbleweeds. Empty storefront windows reflect the sunset, faded paint flakes off aged buildings, and the ...
Mediocrity in Monterey
Downtown Monterey: Ripe for Reinvention
Time and again, Monterey’s elected officials describe their fair city as “internationally renowned” and “a world-class destination.” But when comes to describing their downtown, these selfsame praise-singers aren’t exactly effusive. They sigh when discussing Alvarado ...
Salvage Love
A case for city-scale recycling
Dan Cort coined a new word to describe what he does: “contra-development.” It’s done by buying decrepit historic buildings in flagging downtowns and renovating them into functional spaces that restore life to city neighborhoods. Cort’s ...
At the Core
Projects on the horizon may revitalize many of Monterey County’s downtowns. But each city faces its own fiscal challenges.
If, as Greek statesman Pericles of Athens once put it, “All good things on this Earth flow into the city,” then he might well have considered cash, construction, manufacturing and jobs bad in these modern ...
Golden State of Frustration
Redevelopment on its Deathbed
The towns of Monterey County have no shortage of development projects in the works. There’s just one problem: One of their key funding sources could be sucked dry by the state in the very near ...
Mixed Messages in Marina
Disappointment in Marina: The Kids Aren’t All Right
Mayor Bruce Delgado is the first to admit parts of Marina look abandoned. “General Jim Moore [Boulevard] right now looks kind of like a road to nowhere,” he says. “We assumed, like the world did, ...
Stalling in Seaside
Seaside Slump: not even Obama can fix downtown
Four years ago, Seaside was buzzing with ambitious plans to reinvent its sluggish downtown corridor. At the heart of the project: lower Broadway Avenue, a wide and rather lonely stretch occupied by niche shops, industrial ...
Promise in Pacific Grove
Downtown Upturn: Pacific Grove’s Lighthouse lights up
Just about every California city is facing hard times, but old-fashioned charm seems to have softened the economic blow to Pacific Grove. Sure, America’s Last Hometown still struggles with out-of-control CalPERS costs and bickering political ...
Local Heroes 2011 – Peter Nelson
Because technical literacy brings opportunity.
“I’m just making this S*** up as I go along,” jokes Peter Nelson, who runs the Salinas Chinatown Community Learning Center, a computer lab and digital literacy classroom for underserved populations. But Nelson’s seat-of-his-pants approach ...
Local Heroes 2011 – Michelle Slade
Because one mentor can make all the difference.
You can expect a surging number of young lemonade stand proprietors to hit the streets this summer, and it’s because Michelle Slade is planning far ahead for the future of Monterey County. Instilling a spirit ...
Local Heroes 2011 - John Pearse
Because protecting the tiniest of ocean creatures is the work of a lifetime.
Following in the wading boot impressions of local marine biologists like Julia Platt and Ed Ricketts, Dr. John Pearse is a humble hero with simple goals: Keep an eye on our oceans, and get kids ...
Local Heroes 2011 - Celina Trujillo
Because the children of migrant workers matter.
Following a Saturday evening presentation at the Bread Box Recreation Center in East Salinas in April, people greet Celina Trujillo like an old friend, catching up over cookies and lemonade. Though she’s just presented sobering ...
Local Heroes 2011 – Megan Tolbert
Because eco dynamics touch every aspect of life.
Toss an organic apple at a local environmental issue, and you’ll probably hit Megan Tolbert. The 34-year-old can be sighted digging in Monterey’s community garden, sitting in on Electric Vehicle Alliance meetings, teaching Monterey Peninsula ...
Oil on the Range
Ranchers say old-school cattle raising doesn’t pay the bills. now, even some enviros are backing oil leases to save ranch land.
South of Salinas, where the dark green valley floor gives way to golden slopes of the Gabilan and Santa Lucia mountains, there appears what ranchers call “hill land.” On a bright spring morning, cattle are ...
A Hazy Future – Part 3
Part 3: The Money
The profit motive is a compelling argument for increasing access to medical marijuana in California, particularly as the Golden State slashes services in its struggle to sustain solvency. Proponents of Proposition 19, last year’s unsuccessful ...
A Hazy Future – Part 1
Part 1: From the feds to the county, the confusion surrounding medical marijuana laws are enough to drive a girl to get stoned.
Compassionate Health Options is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kind of place. Tucked away in a small, second-floor suite off Pacific Street in Monterey, its only signage is a faded piece of paper taped to a ground-level window ...
A Hazy Future – Part 2
Part 2: The Medicine
To get to Judy Song’s home, you must wend your way through Carmel Valley, whose hillsides, as Richard Rosen recalls, were the site of massive marijuana grow operations in the early ‘80s. Song calls this ...
Drawing the Lines
Central Coast redistricting puts Latinos in the spotlight.
The California Citizens Redistricting Commission hearing in Salinas May 22 quickly became a polarized debate about the Central Coast’s identity in which the Latino community took center stage. “Monterey, Santa Cruz and San Benito counties ...
Minority Rules
P.G. Mayor Carmelita Garcia mulls Hispanic power on the Peninsula.
Monterey County’s Latino base is at its strongest in Salinas and the South County (see table, p. 20). It’s also a political force to be reckoned with on the Monterey Peninsula, but that growing population ...
Power Play
If it voted en masse, the Latino electorate could change America’s political balance for decades. But neither party has sealed the deal.
The rapid growth in the U.S. Hispanic population over the last 40 years – both in terms of raw numbers and percentage of the population – is probably the most important emergent force in American ...
The War on Culture
From kindergarten to community college, art education budgets are being slashed to the bone. And we’re all going to pay the price.
Kim and Gina Weston hosted the Weston Scholarship awards ceremony in early May like they do every year, but this year’s event at the Sunset Center was bittersweet. To enter the contest, each student must ...
Blighted Battlefield
New activist group fights to push development off the remaining oak groves – and onto paved eyesores – on the former Fort Ord.
There’s a heaviness to Bill Weigle as he walks a slow loop through the former Fort Ord on a sunny April morning, past wildflower-smattered maritime chaparral, lichen-draped oak woodlands and gentle khaki-colored slopes cut through ...
On the Path to Enlightenment
Life at Tassajara Zen Center provides a rigorous retreat, for guests as well as students of the ancient practice of meditation.
The road to Tassajara Zen Mountain Center is the ultimate in karmic jokes: a 14-mile roller coaster ride on a track of rutted, rock-strewn dirt, sometimes straight up, sometimes straight down, and almost always with ...
Well OK Zen
Writer Leo Babauta’s popular blog provides instant access to living Zen.
Leo Babauta is insistent. “I’d be happy to talk to you, but honestly, I’m not a Zen master…I don’t feel like I’m a good representative of Zen,” he emails. What the San Francisco resident is, ...
