Thursday, April 30
Spring Fever--Young musicians and new bands burst with springtime energy and enthusiasm.
Looks like we can kiss the cold and wet goodbye and welcome the summer season of festivals and outdoor concerts. Don''t you think it''s about time? That feeling hit me as I watched last weekend''s ...
From the Past with a Blast--Millennia collide in Haunted by Waters'' electronic tribal music.
What do you get when you blend synthesizer with bodhran, electric violin with didgeridoo? You get something like the music from Haunted by Waters; it''s a mystical sound, blending early tendrils from the coming millennium ...
Project Censored's National Judges
&bul; Dr. Donna Allen, president of the Women''s Institute for Freedom of the Press. &bul; Ben Bagdikian, professor emeritus and former dean, Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley. &bul; Richard Barnet, author of 15 ...
David Mamet's latest film gets off to a slow start but offers huge payoffs.
The first 15 minutes of David Mamet''s The Spanish Prisoner are artificial, stilted and awkward. Mamet''s celebrated textual minimalism is at odds with lush settings in a tropical resort and unnecessarily active camera work. But ...
Sweet Deals--New CD releases capture recent visiting artists, save money.
A year ago, an enthusiastic crowd filled the large church at Mission San Juan Bautista to hear "Matins for the Virgin of Guadalupe" (properly Maitines para Nuestra Se¤ora de Guadalupe). The work, which was composed ...
Project Censored--Is the News Reliable?
Sonoma State puts out "Project Censored" each year to draw attention to the nation''s most under-reported news stories. But how does the public feel about the news? Do people feel important issues are neglected, or ...
Believe it Or Not
Next Up, RJ Reynolds Reports on Smoking... If you weren''t in the Bay Area last weekend, you missed out on the Alameda Newspaper Group''s April 26 interview with Dina Ruiz Eastwood, the part-time KSBW anchor ...
May Hot Kid Picks
3 sunday Happily Ever After The Friends of the Aromas Library's annual storytelling concert is a not-to-be-missed event for families looking for riveting entertainment for their 2 to 14-year-olds. On tap are the Humdingers!, a ...
A portrait of the actor as a chronic bullshitter.
Hot off his limited engagement at the county home for wayward movie stars, Robert Downey Jr. returns to the big screen in Two Girls And A Guy, a showcase for Downey''s talents that should cement ...
Palermo Bakery
When the phone rang at Palermo Bakery last week, Erasmo Aiello picked up the call at Mickey's Toontown in Disneyland while loading his kids onto a ride. "The guy wanted to know where his bread ...
A battle is brewing between Monterey County and private Internet service providers.
A decision this past February by the Carmel Middle School (CMS) to drop the Monterey County Office of Education (MCOE) as its Internet service provider after only several weeks of service, has touched off a ...
Saint Material
There''s St. Michael, the patron saint of grocers. Then there''s St. Dunstan of Canterbury, patron saint of locksmiths. St. Stephen of Jerusalem is the patron saint of bricklayers, and St. Nicholas of Russia represents children, ...
Eat or Be Eaten --Predation may not be pretty, but that's nature.
There is a "tooth and claw" aspect of nature that isn''t (by our reckoning) pretty. Witness the recent Herald article reporting on orca (killer whale) predation on migrating gray whale calves. It is only natural ...
Letters
Get Busy! I find your paper to be invaluable when I plan my entertainment and dining out. I especially enjoy Beth Peerless' contributions. Chuck Thurman also provides a nice presentation. Scott MacClelland is pretty negative ...
From carcinogenic toothpaste to world arms sales and lost spaceships of plutonium, here's 10 stories that didn't make headlines.
Last month, for the 22nd year in a row, the Sonoma State University student and faculty program announced the conclusion of its annual search for major, significant, but little-reported news stories. And once again, the ...
Proposed transit changes have some riders unhappy.
At a meeting last week at the Monterey Public Library, officials from Monterey Salinas Transit (MST) tried to explain to an unhappy crowd of mostly senior and disabled bus riders why after almost 20 years ...
Thursday, April 23
Local journalist puts her career, her talents, and her passion on the line to help out in Bosnia.
Annabel Lund claims she''s not much different from any other baby boomer raised in the Monterey area. She grew up a military brat on Fort Ord and was a student at North Salinas High and ...
Windows and floors are key elements for interior design--and they can be re-done on the cheap.
You feel it may be time. Your tie-dye window treatments >(circa 1965) are tattered, in danger of coming back into style and your shag carpeting is looking like the Rugs-R-Us slumlord''s special. The time has ...
Big Sur Marathon runs a new route.
In spite of extensive damage to Highway 1, there will be a 13th Annual Big Sur Marathon this year. But it won''t start in Big Sur. Although the California Department of Transportation (CalTrans) hopes to ...
Naval Postgraduate School's satellite will accompany Glenn in space.
When Senator John Glenn of Ohio takes off on the Space Shuttle this fall, most people will be watching to see the oldest man ever to blast off into space. But students at the Naval ...
The look of towns and neighborhoods in MoCo reflect and define community personalities.
Driving through a community, it''s often easy to read its history. Stamped in the architecture and layout of component neighborhoods, one can read the stories of economic growth and decline, the vision of community leaders ...
MIIS Website trying to organize a global campaign for small arms control.
AK-47s. Grenades. Submachine guns. Small mortars. Shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. These small arms and "light" weapons (so called because they can be carried by an individual or fired by a small crew) are widely considered to ...
Collection, Confection, Correction
Will Work for Free Perhaps you''ve been following the headlines about Hartnell President Ed Valeau. An interesting sidebar to the whole issue is the fact that the county''s affirmative action officer, Rudy Asunsolo, is heading ...
Catching Up--Chamber Music concert reveals little-known 20th-century gems.
If opening the door on 20th-century music in Carmel continues, we might just catch up with it before the century''s gone. Sponsored by the Chamber Music Society, the Da Capo Players last weekend disrobed such ...
Salinas college president faces allegations of racism and sexual harassment.
Long-simmering tensions between Hartnell President Ed Valeau and members of the college''s Latino community appear to be boiling over this week, with allegations swirling around the campus and in the local media, charging Valeau with ...
Christmas In April --Volunteer group rebuilds America one house at a time.
It was the crowd and the clamor I remember. The street on which I lived was always lively, but lively in the sense of a water droplet skittering across a hot skillet. Tensions were always ...
Hot As Hell
''Bad Girls in Heat.'' ''Hot Bitch at the Beach.'' ''Sultan''s Main Squeeze.'' No, this isn''t a recommendation for triple X-rated movie releases--this is just a small sampling of the kind of combustible condiments that will ...
A guide to making your home your castle.
Fences loom large in the human experience, defining what we are and are not. The Chinese built the biggest fence ever, known popularly as the Great Wall. The Germans giggled as they drove around that ...
Character is a timeless tale of familial feuding with a Dutch twist.
For a country famous for its chocolate, legalized prostitution, and other pleasures of the flesh, the Dutch film Character, this year''s Academy Award winner for Best Foreign film, is a surprisingly passionless affair. Envisioned by ...
Mi Casita Taqueria
Taquerias might not be as well-known in other parts of the country, but around California they've become a mainstay in the gimme-something-good-and-make-it-snappy food scene. And there are probably just as many styles of taquerias as ...
Youthful Noise--Concerts featuring and benefitting youth music highlight the weekend in jazz.
On the sunlit terrace surrounding the pool at Esalen Institute in Big Sur last Friday, Roy Hargrove stepped back after a stirring trumpet solo and turned to face the Pacific Ocean. The late afternoon sun ...
Cowgirl and Indian --The offerings this week conjure blue skies and smoky lodges from times gone by.
With any luck, someday there''ll be a better balance between men and women on stage. Most weeks, of course, area music offerings--both from local and touring groups--flow from the testosterone pool. But a couple times ...
Renovation of an existing home is much like a concert or play.
In playing a familiar piece of music or performing a well-known play, the artists involved are required to develop a rendering that is true to the composer/playwright''s original intent, as well as being heartfelt and ...
We're never prepared for being widowed, but local experts can help.
Laughter filled the room as the group of 10 women, meeting together for afternoon tea, related incidents and stories that had happened since they last met as a group. Tears of laughter were brushed away, ...
Dream garden gone bad? Maybe it's time to call for reinforcements.
All too often, the patch of earth you dreamed of nurturing into a vibrant garden around your house becomes simply a yard with a struggling lawn and a tree or two. You know that your ...
Big Sur Marathon--On Your Feet
Although storm damage has altered its route a bit, the nation''s favorite (and most beautiful) marathon gets underway this weekend in Big Sur. For all those alpha-dog runners, this event is long-awaited. Sedentary spectators feel ...
Prop. 224 aims to change how state contracts are awarded to private firms.
Californians are paying through the nose for costly state engineering contracts awarded to private firms who have given millions to Governor Pete Wilson''s election campaigns. So say backers of the so-called "Competitive Bidding Initiative," Proposition ...
Thursday, April 16
Meet the judge who gives Ken Starr everything he wants.
If you are wondering right about now how Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr''s Whitewater investigation has spun out of control, skittering from its original, narrow mandate to investigate the Clintons'' political and financial ties to ...
Environmental group votes on whether to support immigration reduction.
This week, half a million members of the Sierra Club, the nation''s oldest and one of its largest environmental organizations, vote on whether to support reducing legal immigration in the name of environmental protection. To ...
Monterey County's coast redwoods face challenges from logging, tourists.
If there is a tree associated with California, it must be the coast redwood. With its tall, ramrod-straight trunk stretching majestically hundreds of feet into the skies, the coast redwood symbolizes the limitless horizons of ...
Letters
Dead Wrong No wonder I had so many calls asking if I was OK. When I picked up my copy of Coast Weekly at lunch time and turned to page 13 (April 9,"Bring out Your ...
Why Ration?--Cal-Am explains restrictions in a wet year.
The question that is asked is, "Why in 1998, when we are experiencing the wettest rainfall season in the history of the Monterey Peninsula, is Cal-Am proposing to file a water rationing plan with the ...
Foresters keep municipal trees alive and well.
To a novice, "urban forestry" seems almost like an oxymoron. But ask a city forester, and suddenly the idea begins to make a lot of sense. "An urban forest is any green space in a ...
Earth Day--Are You Green Enough?
It''s Earth day and Monterey''s air is looking good compared to the smog-drenched skies of LA. Recycling is hip, but are we doing enough? Michael Brenner Resides: Monterey Occupation: Computers Age: 39 What''s the biggest ...
The Big Sur JazzFest brings musicians together in support of a battered community.
Music''s greatest power is its ability to bring together disparate elements. Just as it combines notes, rhythm, melody and instruments, it has the ability to bind audiences, musicians, communities, and ease the path for cultural ...
Disease and development threaten the Monterey Pine.
In the competitive world of tree-hugging, the Monterey Pine is often overlooked, a plain-Jane extra in an environmental theater of majestic redwoods and stately cypress. This slight is certainly undeserved when one considers the magnificence ...
The Cottage Restaurant
It's a funny thing, the restaurant business. You can spend your whole life in it and then suddenly you're an overnight success. Or at least it seems that way, sometimes. "It was funny how it ...
Primordial Soup
If you stop to think about it, the archaeology of soup is pretty impressive stuff. By the time somebody figured out that the first concave mud pies--formed out of just the right kind of clay ...
Chickmoviechickmoviechickmoviechickmoviechickmovie.
The estrogen level in the theater where I saw City of Angels was so high that by the movie''s end I was in serious danger of lactating. City of Angels, a remake of Wim Wenders'' ...
Independent bookstores look for ways to compete with chain retailers.
Over the last 25 years, the face of retailing in the United States has dramatically changed as one after another small business closed its doors in the face of competition from large, chain retailers. The ...
Valley oaks face an uncertain future.
When the earliest Spanish and European settlers first gazed upon the oak-studded hillsides and valleys of Central California, they encountered a wildly beautiful, fertile land that embodied their conception of the New World as paradise. ...
Group forms to support accused MPC counselor.
A Monterey Peninsula College counselor who this month faces criminal charges in Monterey County Superior Court for allegedly threatening a student with a concealed weapon is "the victim of an institution" that "has a long ...
The Forest For The Trees
"A tree is a tree--how many more do you need to look at?" --Ronald Reagan A report issued last week by the World Conservation Union detailing the results of its 20-year, international survey of plant ...
Retail/housing/movie complex coming to Monterey.
The last undeveloped, city-owned property in downtown Monterey will finally be put to use, with a six-screen movie theater, low-to- moderate income housing, and retail shops. The Osio Plaza project, named after the nearby Osio ...
Author/lawyer Andrew Vachss fights for the rights of children in the pages of his books and in the courtroom.
It''s a sordid world inhabited by Burke, the protagonist of 11 noir novels by Andrew Vachss. Rapists, pedophiles and other sexual predators slum cheek-by-jowl with skinheads, underground arms merchants and cops paid to look the ...
Of Snails and Sheriffs
All Those In Favor of a Job, Say Aye It''s always a little weird working as a county employee for a boss who gets elected every four years. On the one hand, you''re working for ...
Thursday, April 9
Housing and land preservation are key issues in District 3 Supervisor's race.
It is Monterey County''s largest, most economically powerful and culturally diverse supervisorial district. It boasts a population of approximately 85,000 residents and stretches over 1.5 million acres, from the southernmost end of the county, north ...
Director John Sayles' multi-layered fable packs political punch.
Maverick filmmaker John Sayles had one of his greatest successes with Lone Star, but he continues to follow his own renegade path with Men With Guns (Hombres Armados), a kind of detective story that partakes ...
A look at America's ever-evolving dance with the Grim Reaper.
How long, I would ask, are we to be subjected to the tyranny of custom and undertakers? --Lord Essex On March 10, the state Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) revoked the business licenses of a ...
Brine Food
Stand by for the latest breaking news on the edible frontier: The haute-est of haute, the current culinary cause celebre, the most bandied-about cocktail party repartee overheard among the gatherings of gourmands for 1998 is ...
Getting Juiced--Former members of popular local bands set to make their mark.
Could the band Juice have chosen a more fitting debut than St. Patrick's Day? By the time my friends and I arrived at Viva Monterey that night, the band had warmed up to a bubbling ...
Letters
The United Nations? On March 13, AMBAG gave a program in Monterey on the so-called "Sustainable Development," which I believe is nothing more than a clever con-game being foisted on the unwary public by the ...
From The Editorial Desk
At age 15, I lay in a coffin for the first (and last) time. As an after-school delivery boy for a flower shop, I made daily rounds to local funeral homes, pinning carnations on corpses ...
Taxes--Alms for Uncle Sam
Tax season is upon us, Uncle Sam''s got both palms open and an expectant look upon his face. How do Monterey County residents feel about handing over their hard-earned dollars, and the way the government ...
Local schools react to Jonesboro killings.
On March 24, Americans recoiled in horror at the televised carnage that came to us from Woodside Middle School in Jonesboro, Ark., where a jilted 13-year-old and his 11-year-old friend gunned down four fellow students ...
Alternatives to an expensive funeral.
So you don''t want to shell out $5,000 for a funeral? You don''t have to. According to Jerri Lyons of the Natural Death Care Project (NDCP) in Sebastopol, there are many funereal steps you can ...
Nothin' says lovin' like an organ donation.
Why throw away a perfectly good body when you can recycle it? In an operating room at the Monterey County Coroner''s office in Salinas, the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) Medical Center "harvests" ...
Few frills attend the internment of MoCo's indigents.
"A visit to El Carmelo Cemetery [in Pacific Grove] will favorably impress anyone with the beauty of the location for a city of the dead," wrote Irvin A. Engle for the Pacific Grove Review in ...
Ready to move up from the EZ form and a crayon? Here's the latest on tax prep software.
It''s the scariest night of the year and it''s happening soon. The sweating, the screaming, the cursing--midnight, April 15, looms like the term paper deadline from hell. The date has become an icon of adult ...
Watching Our Language--Unz initiative would take away steps we teachers are making.
It is rather ironic that the Pacific Repertory Theater is performing the play Inherit the Wind, about the trial of a teacher teaching a controversial subject, in this case evolution. With the 21st century approaching, ...
Rio Grill
They call the menu at Rio Grill 'regional American with a Southwest flair.' That's the problem with trying to sum things up: while it might be accurate, it's sometimes not adequate. This is a menu ...
Notes or Soul?--Santa Cruz County Symphony delivers one but drops the other.
Can we agree that Mozart''s music is more than notations on manuscript paper? If not, the Santa Cruz County Symphony performance of Mozart''s celebrated Symphony 40 in G Minor last Saturday night would have pleased ...
Something Different--Check out some roots music of a different type in some unusual venues.
You say you want roots music, something that cuts close to the bone before soaring to the heavens; something that has some meaning beyond silly little songs? Something that can touch your soul and make ...
Roundup, Shoot Up, Pay Up
And Ken Starr Would Still Think His Investigation Should Continue I received an intriguing e-mail this week titled, "A Village of 100, a Message of Conscience from Rod Diridon:" If we could shrink the earth''s ...
You can't take it with you, but gravestones let you leave a message behind.
They loom eerily over the smoothly manicured grass of the cemetery, yet grave headstones are the final loving markers of a person''s life. Gravestones encapsulate the vital information and perhaps favorite words of the deceased. ...
Thursday, April 2
Violence in Schools--Open Season?
Just last week an 11-year-old and 13-year-old boy in Arkansas shot and killed four people at their school and wounded seven more. Recently there have been other such incidents in schools. So who''s to blame ...
Republicans vie for a chance to lose against Keeley in November.
This political season is exceptional only in its lack of fire. With the economy going gang-busters, voters just don''t seem very interested in politics right now. Whether it''s Washington scandal or local skirmish, the status ...
The Real Thing--Dave Van Ronk brings real music for real people to Monterey County.
There''s a pile of newspaper articles about Dave Van Ronk sitting on my desk. The writers all coo and bill about Van Ronk''s history, they all manage to use the word "legend" (usually superfluously), and ...
From The Editorial Desk
There is no denying the irony that for all the criticisms of the negative impacts of television and video games in the lives of children, it is kids' familiarity and fascination with electronics that have ...
Monterey County schools stake their future on high technology.
When the Cesar E. Chavez Elementary School first opened its classroom doors to students in the fall of 1996, Alisal Union School District officials knew they were facing a unique set of educational challenges. Of ...
Winning Ways--Carmel Music Society piano competition crowns trio of winners.
A recent spate of winning local concerts concluded last Saturday, with cash prizes for the winners of the Carmel Music Society''s annual competition. For the eight piano finalists (all California residents), the nerve-testing event sported ...
CSUMB unveils international mural project dedicated to promoting world harmony.
Next week, the Visual and Public Arts Institute at California State University Monterey Bay unveils its most challenging creation yet. Although "The World Wall: A Vision of the Future Without Fear" is only about half ...
Window Seat--can Of Worms
Marco Polo might not have realized it at the time, but when he let it slip that he ''discovered'' pasta while knocking around China, he opened up a real can of worms. The interpretation of ...
Chef Profile--nico
If you ask someone why they chose the restaurant business, it's almost guaranteed that you will never hear it's for the easy hours. Or for buckets of money. With a large measure of luck and ...
Love and Death on Long Island illustrates how anyone can succumb to all-consuming obsession.
With shades of Thomas Mann''s Death in Venice, British newcomer Richard Kwietniowski tackles the ever-plumbable depths of obsession, longing and desire in his skillfully understated feature, Love and Death On Long Island. Giles De''Ath (John ...
Lack of science funding leaves local teachers frustrated.
An oscilloscope is a critical part of any physics lab. It shows on a screen the flow of alternating electrical currents in wave form, helping students understand the laws of physics. But because an oscilloscope ...
What Price Democracy?--Marina City Council election stirs debate.
On April 14, the residents of Marina will have an opportunity to elect a city council member to replace the late Zaruk (Tak) Takali. The sudden loss of Tak late last year was a shock ...
Seaside Woes, Pac Rep Clothes, Pi-an-oes
To Meet Or Not To Meet The Seaside City Council still hasn''t drafted a formal response to the Grand Jury report blasting the city for incompetent management. But it''s not that they haven''t tried.After Mayor ...
Assessor's departure generates a flurry of interest in bean counter position.
Only a number cruncher could love this job. You read charts and tax manuals, are governed by state laws, and have virtually no hope of ever making or changing policy. But when Monterey County Assessor ...
Rough Life--MoCo ain't San Francisco but it keeps a writer on her toes.
Boy, oh boy. I drove back to Monterey last Thursday after spending two nights in San Francisco, out on the town, checking out some of the clubs I hadn''t seen before. Had a blast at ...
Letters
Alternative Medicine Regarding your "Best Of Monterey County" poll: You had a "Best Pharmacy" category, but where is your "Best Alternative (or Complementary) Medicine store?" By declining to provide such a category, you are contributing ...
