Mr. Alejo Goes to Sacramento
Armed with a handful of university degrees and driven by his family’s farmworker past, Luis Alejo went from the Watsonville council to the state Assembly in under three years.
Bobby Kennedy gives a thumbs-up from behind the open door of Assemblyman Luis Alejo’s new office in the State Capitol annex. Assuming the photo could see, it would catch a glimpse of each lobbyist popping ...
Issues / 2011 / Feb 24
Street Talk 02.24.11 (Asked on Lighthouse Avenue in Pacific Grove.)
What do you lose most frequently?
Follow-up: Of the things you’ve lost, what do you miss the most? TALIN TERSAKYAN | Mum’s Cottage Owner | Monterey A: I am a very organized person, but I guess I do lose my keys ...
Heated Delivery
Fire-balling Olympic pitcher and Salinas native Monica Abbott helps celebrate Steinbeck.
Driving up Highway 101 north at 65mph, Monica Abbott figured her car must be smoking and ready to explode. Why else would the woman driving alongside her be frantically waving and screaming? “[The woman] yells, ...
Brezsny's Astrology Feb 24 - March 3 , 2011
Free Will Astrology
Aries (March 21-April 19): “Newspapers are unable, seemingly, to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilization,” said George Bernard Shaw more than six decades ago – and it’s still true. It’s very ...
By The Numbers 02.24.11
Real Estate
$3,000,000 Recent Sale 3124 Spruance Road, Pebble Beach Built: 1988 Size: 6,000 square feet Features: 5 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms, 3-car garage Amenities: Ocean view, fireplace, guest apartment, expansive deck, greenhouse, wet bar Seller: Michael and ...
Dolores Love
The Peninsula’s best eatery street improves and Dann Dunn gets drunk.
There’s something different about Carmel’s newest tasting room, Caraccioli Cellars (622-7722). It must be the lively-but-loungy, hip-but-old-world feel generated by architect Si Teller’s eye, the riddling wall in the back, the floating shelves and varying ...
The Public Voice
o(rly)? I am Orly Taitz, who was named by the media “The leader of the birther moveent (sic).” (“Squid Fry,” Feb. 17-23.) Recent polls show that 60 percent of Americans and as much as 72 ...
Cedar Rapids
Small Town, Big Laughs, Bigger Heart: Cedar Rapids treads tricky directorial territory to hilarious and affecting results.
Although the ads pitch it as being somewhere between The Office and The Hangover, Cedar Rapids is actually a semisweet charmer of a movie that fluxes between edgy comedy and palpable pathos. Its depiction of ...
Congestion Headache
Residents challenge county over Carmel Valley Road traffic counting.
Only in Carmel Valley could traffic analysis become a topic hotter than Clint Eastwood’s latest movie project. At issue is a new metric for assessing traffic on Carmel Valley Road under the county’s recently approved ...
Winging It
Feds release funds to stop European grapevine moth’s spread in California.
There’s a new moth in town. It’s the European grapevine moth, and according to some growers, it makes the light brown apple moth look (almost) like a fruit fly. To date, only one has been ...
Monterey pledges to examine leasing losses on Fisherman’s Wharf.
The city of Monterey will hold public hearings this spring on concerns it loses millions of dollars a year by leasing Fisherman’s Wharf property at far below market rates. Last December, City Planning Commissioner Bill ...
A single dominant industry no longer carries the economy, and the time to think small has arrived.
Earlier this month, as Republican House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa held a hearing on “job-killing” government regulations, and President Barack Obama ventured over to the anti-worker U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a different kind of ...
Get Involved
THURSDAY 2|24 HEALTH STRATEGIES | SEASIDE – The health department and Natividad Medical Center want community input on access to care, nutrition, exercise, safety and youth health. 5pm. Martin Luther King Elementary, 1713 Broadway. www.mtyhd.org. ...
Squid Speaks
HERTS SO GOOD… Squid sometimes has free time on the old tentacles, and was thinking of making a foray into public service. But it looks like the open position might already be filled. That’s right, ...
Monning floats a beverage tax as diabetes rates soar.
The “Sweet Surprise” website features a photo series of impish, multi-cultural children. There’s the adorable Asian girl, sitting in front of a short stack of pancakes drizzled with syrup and dotted with berries. The freckle-faced ...
Drive Angry
Hell on Earth:Drive Angry takes cinematic violence and sex to Hades and back again.
I cannot help but recall the excellent advice of Groundhog Day’s Phil Connors: “Don’t drive angry.” Yes, he passes these words of wisdom on to a groundhog, which would be likely to do no driving ...
The Axe Man Cometh
A nonpartisan report warns that a cuts-only state budget could increase university tuition 10 percent.
Some 162 people, many in wheelchairs, spoke out against the proposed $750 million in cuts to disability services at an Assembly budget committee hearing last week. Some wore breathing apparatuses and couldn’t speak – or ...
¡Ask a Mexican! 02.24.11
Dear Mexican: The perception of Mexico having a defective culture has come up in your column several times. The U.S. was invaded by settlers who came to live here permanently. Mexico was conquered by gold-seeking ...
It’s a Lang Thang
Guitar prodigy Jonny Lang and the Dani Paige Duo sell out Sunset Center.
Not only was Jonny Lang invited to play Eric Clapton’s daylong Crossroads Guitar Festival in Chicago on a bill with Jeff Beck, B.B. King, Steve Winwood, Buddy Guy and dozens of other legendary musicians – ...
Wired In
The Bare Wires’ free show represents another coup for Carbone’s in Monterey.
Tobin Peregrina has been booking shows in Monterey for almost four years now, most prominently at Jose’s Underground Lounge and then the Blue Fin, but it’s his latest partnership with Carbone’s that has been drawing ...
Looking Glass
Philip Glass expected to introduce an eponymous festival in Carmel.
This Friday, Philip Glass will come to Hidden Valley Music Theater to make an announcement of such import that it compels Philip Glass to come to Hidden Valley Music Theater this Friday to make it. ...
Methyl Battered
Department of Pesticide Regulation’s own scientist decries fumigant registration.
Science was “subverted” in the state Department of Pesticide Regulation’s approval of the strawberry fumigant methyl iodide, and its use is likely going to have a negative impact on public health. Those strong words came ...
Petals and Pastries
Adorably Edible: Pastries and Petals’ sensual from-scratch treats make a cute home in Carmel.
In the heart of tourist town U.S.A., it was the locals Jeanne Johnston was after, people who would come back to P&P over and over again and spend as much time there as they’d like. ...
