0113| Jan 13

Brown the Soothsayer

Explosive debt, bad credit and a wealth of social ills have tarnished the Golden State’s glow. Can the new, old governor reinvent us as he reinvents himself?

I asked my friend Angela Oh, defense attorney and Buddhist priest, what she thought of the karma of Jerry Brown. Pausing only for a moment, she replied that “his karma is to inherit the collapse ...

Issues / 2011 / Jan 13

Opinion: One man’s take on his culture’s stereotypes

¡Ask a Mexican! 01.13.11

Dear Mexican: I think I have a Mexican problem. I have a home in sunny California on a property with an abundance of agave cactus and Century plants growing along the street. Every year for ...

Squid Fry 01-13-11

SLANKETED APOLOGY… The man Squid recently busted for daring to abscond from a white elephant party with a much-coveted Snuggie before anyone could “steal” his choice (a clear and breach of pachyderm party etiquette) has ...

Letters To The Editor 01-13-11

The Public Voice

CLUBHOUSE CONUNDRUM There’s a brouhaha brewing in “America’s Last Home Town,” Pacific Grove, where the powers that be want to convert the golf clubhouse into a concert hall (read that as a late evening cocktail ...

Punking the Junk

One man wages a humble war against an army of unwanted mail.

In the late ’90s box office bust The Postman, the year is 2013, post-apocalypse. America has been decimated by war, and those that remain have to contend with unsavory bands of armed rogues. The unlikely ...

Pay to Play

Environmental activists claim appeal fees are undemocratic. 

Environmental advocacy groups are appealing the County Zoning Administrator’s approval for up to nine exploratory oil wells in South County, granted in October to a Denver-based oil company, Venoco, Inc. The appeal, though, isn’t only ...

Mucky Duck Probe

Investigators try to determine what went wrong in death of misidentified man.

More than a week after a Monterey County Sheriff’s Office SWAT team descended on a quiet Greenfield neighborhood to help the Monterey Police Department serve a search warrant, sheriff’s investigators are probing what went wrong ...

Film Tremors Shaking in Seaside

From its innocuous online release on June 18, 2007, the formerly uncredited and mysterious documentary film Zeitgeist has garnered a sustained tidal-wave of buzz, including, according to its website, 100 million views, two sequels and ...

Public Citizen 01-13-11

Get Involved

ONGOING XMAS TREE RECYCLING | COUNTYWIDE – Recycle your Christmas tree curbside in areas where Waste Management is your local garbage provider. Trees must be cut into 3-foot pieces. Waste Management also maintains a number ...

Brew Pub Love

Peter B’s gets better, CCM closes and a new veggie restaurant debuts.

You don’t often see audit and awesome in the same sentence. But a recent audit-of-sorts at Peter B’s BrewPub (639-2699) has local beer looking much more awesome. Portola Hotel leadership knew the knock on Peter ...

Bangin’ Tango

Luis Bravo and Cheryl Burke charge the wildly popular Forever Tango with culture and electricity.

Tango, born a hybrid in the barrios and bordellos of teeming, multi-cultural Argentina in the late 1800s, among European and Caribbean immigrants, Gypsies and native people, was once danced as a prelude to sex, equal ...

Purpose Party

Mahitopalooza honors a late local legend with great music and comedy.

You can’t really blame friends and family for thinking Mahito Shirako could do anything. They’d seen him do it. The late CSU Monterey Bay alum built his own A-frame cabin when he was 11. The ...

Prize Player

Chamber Music Society brings Grammy winner to Sunset center.

Cellist Lynn Harrell looked at the premature death of his parents as something that made him a stronger person and a stronger musician. “I have found the resilience of the human spirit to be extraordinary,” ...

Rider on the Strom

Levi Strom plays Fernwood, helps forge Big Sur recording studio.

Levi Strom’s approach to music is as spontaneous as his approach to life. A few years back, the 29-year-old decided to leave his job at a nonprofit in the Bay Area and head down the ...

Blue Valentine

Blue Valentine deserves Oscar consideration for acting, alternate approach to romance.

We’ve seen these characters many times: boy and girl in a storybook romance destined to last forever, and our final image of the happy couple is one of warm, loving embrace. But what happens next? ...

Real Estate 01-13-11

By The Numbers

$1,880,000 Recent Sale 26407 Carmelo St., Carmel Built: 1954 Size: 2,890 square feet Features: 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 1-car garage Amenities: Fireplace, wooden flooring, deck, glass-encased rooms, vaulted ceilings Seller: Constance Stround Buyer: NWBR Broker: ...