Sterile Spinach, Scorched Earth
In the push to eliminate E. coli risk, produce handlers are forcing local farmers to unravel conservation practices.
Most people don’t think of clean food and a healthy environment as zero-sum goals. Yet, worsened water quality and lost wildlife habitat are unintended consequences of new farming measures designed to keep pathogens out of ...
Miles That Matter
Buying locally grown food isn’t always better for the environment.
Organic asparagus from Chile, blackberries grown in Mexico, and sweet yellow onions from Peru. Glancing at Safeway’s produce section, it’s clear this food traveled hundreds, if not thousands, of miles before it hit the Del ...
Issues / 2007 / Nov 21
Ha Ha Happy
Nigel Lawrence stacks laughs at The Planet.
With his laid-back delivery, comedian Nigel Lawrence seemingly aspires to be just one of the guys. But the Los Angeles resident definitely seeks to be that one of the guys that categorically cracks you up. ...
Total Slacker
A young man finds a strange way to relax.
The barefoot 21-year-old man stands with his arms out, completely balanced and clearly in a meditative state of mind. Normal enough – only he’s walking a thin rope tied between two trees. Pierre Carrillo is ...
Getting Animated
Angelina Jolie on what excited her enough to do the digital film
It takes a lot to make Angelina Jolie blush. This is the woman, after all, who wore nothing but her birthday suit in Gia and romped naked in a bathtub with Antonio Banderas for Original ...
Spit Out
The sommelier certification test brutalizes a young wine pro.
Tasting wine has never been less relaxing. Before me stand two mystery wines in two tall wine glasses. One is a red, the other a white. The white displays some melon and papaya nuances. It ...
Hope, Hillary and Hugo
Former Mexican president talks immigration, presidential candidates and international relations.
Looking out over the golden spine of Carmel Valley’s Sierra de Salinas hills, the ex-president looks to be at peace. But his calm demeanor belies the fact that former Mexican President Vicente Fox doesn’t like ...
Slow Going
Seaside’s newest bicycle plan deflates hopes of a bike-friendly future.
On Feb. 21, world-class cyclists will line up in front of Seaside City Hall for the fourth stage of the AMGEN Tour of California. Suited up in muscle-hugging gear and followed by media cameras, the ...
New Seasons
THE SADIES
Much as The Apples in Stereo can make a listener forgive the Beatles for Sgt. Pepper and all the groups thus encouraged to chase the psychedelic butterflies inside their tiny collective minds, so too can ...
Ignore the Siren Call
Women should steady spending habits this holiday season.
Female shoppers, beware.Black Friday – the day after Thanksgiving, the biggest shopping day of the year – is upon us this week, raising the risk of a post-holiday-debt hangover.Twenty-three percent of Americans will not pay ...
ArtListings for Nov 21, 2007
ArtListings for Nov 21, 2007
OPENING THIS WEEK LAURYN TAYLOR FINE ART Holiday Lites: juried annual miniature exhibition featuring 400 6 x 6 miniatures from over 75 artists. Opening reception, Saturday, Nov. 24, 6-9pm. San Carlos between Ocean and Seventh, ...
We All Belong
DR. DOG
It’s difficult to listen to Dr. Dog’s 2007 release We All Belong without holding the group to the highest of standards. Where 2005’s Easy Beat employed doo-wopping vocal harmonies, distorted keyboards and teeth-clenching psychedelic guitar ...
Wilde Times
Going on Ed Sullivan details a dynamic life dedicated to comedy.
Larry Wilde recalls an instance early on in his prolific career as an entertainer when he was the opening act for the Girlies Galore Strip Club in Eugene, Ore. “To get in [the club] you ...
In a Rhythm
The Next Blues Band keep strummin’.
While attending college in Chicago, Bill Bouchard of The Next Blues Band had an encounter that would help shape the course of his life. One night back in 1972, Bouchard got to meet blues legend ...
Web Exclusive
Web Exclusive: Salinas development plan reborn as a sustainable, mixed-use project
An ambitious retail and housing development planned for east of downtown Salinas is back on the table. Sean Cooley of Walnut Creek-based Cooley Development Partners has rekindled plans to turn what is now an industrial ...
Legend Lost
Big Sur savant Jeff Norman left a prodigious legacy before dying at 54.
One of the many things longtime Big Sur resident Jeff Norman left behind when he died on Oct. 31 was an antique tin box filled with a stack of obituary columns cut from local papers. ...
Mad Thanks
Mad Thanks
Something To Give… It’s time to give thanks. Intuitively I understand how gargantuan the vessel full of thanks I carry with me is, yet when I try to spill them out individually they remain congealed, ...
What did you want to be when you were growing up? What happened?
Asked at Bi-Rite in Seaside.
Follow-up: What’s the dirtiest job you’ve ever had? ANDY KRUEGER |Game programmer | Seaside A: A racecar driver. I worked at Laguna Seca for seven years. But I just got stabbed and was in a ...
Letters to the Editor for Nov 21, 2007
Letters to the Editor for Nov 21, 2007
RAY CHEERS In a recent article, [Raymond Napolitano ] wrote about many peoples’ desire to open a restaurant because they throw a good dinner party. Not knowing the intricacies of the business, they are doomed ...
Squid Fry for Nov 21, 2007
Squid Fry for Nov 21, 2007
Rest In Peace… Mehdi Shahbazi, the Marina Shell gas station franchisee operator who used to call Squid “gentleman,” a first for this cephalopod, lost everything in his fight against Big Oil. He lost his Carmel ...
Be Very Afraid
Pentagon Papers whistleblower visits CSUMB, drawing frightening parallels between Vietnam and Iraq.
Daniel Ellsberg, who released top secret Defense Department documents to the New York Times in 1971 and helped turn public sentiment against the war in Vietnam, is a hero to some Americans, a villain to ...
Undercover No More
Seaside home has amenities you’d expect for a bigger price.
Although the owners prefer to remain anonymous, their home simply cannot. It’s too newsworthy and too much fun to stay under wraps. It conceivably could be the only pristine two-bedroom, two-bath home in a great ...
No Country for Old Men
The Coen Brothers return to the scene of their first crime with the violent and relentless
Watching the Coen Brothers’ superbly crafted scenes of hunter and hunted in No Country for Old Men, I flashed on the one that got away. In the early part of this decade, Joel and Ethan ...
By The Numbers
Foreclosures$260,000Price asked for 2/1 unit on Kern Street, Salinas.$1,791,390Price asked for 2/1 on Carmelo, Carmel-by-the-Sea.$369,900Price asked for 3/2 on Meadowbrook Drive, King City.source: foreclosure.com
Labor’s Loss
Three years into Travelodge boycott, still no contract for motel workers.
Despite a four-year fight for a new union contract at the Monterey Bay Travelodge, housekeeper Juana Enriquez says she is not ready back down. Enriquez is the union shop steward for UNITE HERE Local 483 ...
Critical Key to the Future
Literacy measures a community’s economic health and vitality.
Why should we be worried about literacy? This is Monterey County. Surely this is not a problem for us. The data tell a different story. Among kindergartners, 46 percent begin school without the necessary pre-academic ...
Enchanted
Princess Charming Amy Adams’ performance makes Enchanted enchanting.
It’s hard to say whether Amy Adams embodies a Disney heroine more in Enchanted when she’s rendered in cel animation, or when she’s wandering around New York City. In the opening sequences, she provides the ...
With a Song
How a local immigrant became an honored friend and host to Vicente Fox.
The surprising synergy that led former Mexican president Vicente Fox to Monterey County last week started with a song, a powerful song that made powerful people cry. Local contractor and mariachi singer Jose Buenrostro was ...
My Aim Is True (Deluxe Edition)
ELVIS COSTELLO
The endless repackaging of old music continues at a furious pace. Few figures from the punk era have benefited from the push to recycle as much as the prolific Elvis Costello, whose albums have been ...
Sergio Sanchez: In Or Out?
Salinas Councilman won’t say if he’s going to run for county supervisor.
Salinas City Councilman Sergio Sanchez may challenge Supervisor Fernando Armenta for his seat in the June 2008 election, political insiders tell the Weekly. While Sanchez won’t say he’s going to run against Armenta, he also ...
PublicCitizen
ONGOINGTURKEY FRYER OIL DISPOSAL | COUNTYWIDE—After frying a Thanksgiving turkey, here’s how to dispose the oil properly, and for free. On the Monterey Peninsula: Monterey Regional Waste Management District’s household hazardous waste collection facility, 14201 ...
