Thursday, December 31
Amnesty program brings scofflaws back to county libraries.
County Librarian Jayante Addleman says that in November and December,the cash-strapped library system decided to forgo the some $10,000 in fines and fees it takes in every month to help patrons get through tough economic ...
Wednesday, December 30
Off the Charts
Seaside's Chartwell School earns top green building honors.
Chartwell School in Seaside has earned more accolades for its cutting-edge green and sustainable building. On Dec. 22, it received the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for the Built Environment 2009 Livable Building Award. Judges ...
Renewable energy businesses fret over potential costs of marine spatial planning.
The newest idea in ocean management seems like a no-brainer. Marine spatial planning (MSP) attempts to get the most economic and ecological bang out of the ocean’s buck by mapping out zones in the ocean: ...
Showing Initiative
A series of new proposals targets an end to the gridlock era in Sacramento.
Agaggle of good-government activists aims to turn California’s ongoing budget crisis into an opportunity for reform in 2010. Fat-cat corporations, political gadflies, grassroots campaigners and the state’s richest foundations are in the mix, with more ...
Famine, No Feast
Cali food stamp requirements are onerous, but local agencies try to ease the pain.
Monterey County is making food stamp applications easier for the growing number of people who can no longer afford to feed their families, while tough state eligibility requirements still keep many hungry Californians out of ...
Opinion: One man’s take on his culture’s stereotypes
¡Ask a Mexican!
SPECIAL YEAR-END EDICÍON Dear Mexican: Why in the hell does everything have to be in English and Spanish? I ride the bus/train to work and every time someone requests to stop, you hear “Stop Requested,” ...
Get Involved
Public Citizen
ONGOING SALVATION ARMY FOOD DRIVE | MONTEREY COUNTY – The Salvation Army collects non-perishable food items for needy families. Salvation Army, 1491 Contra Costa St., Seaside. 899-4911. 2460 North Main St., Salinas. 443-9655, www.tsamonterey.com. DONATE ...
Faces and places
A view of 2009 in Monterey County through the lens of staff photographer Nic Coury.
Watch Video It was a year of hope, marked by the election of a new president, and of despair, as crime continued to stalk Salinas and the ravages of the recession took their toll. The ...
The Buzz
TRUCE FOR CHIEF…The city of Seaside and Police Chief Steve Cercone have reached a settlement that ends the months-long saga that began in August, when City Manager Ray Corpuz placed Cercone on paid administrative leave. ...
Brezsny's Astrology
Free Will Astrology
Aries (March 21-April 19): One of my favorite landscape painters makes a livable wage from selling her art. She has had many gallery showings and has garnered much critical acclaim. That’s the good news. The ...
Danny I's Grill
Midday Destiny: Danny I’s delivers lunch values in a strategic spot.
Lunch is a time for rejuvenation. But in the hustle-bustle of a 10-hour workday, it’s a meal that’s regularly lost in a sea of e-mails, paperwork and business meetings – or given a cursed cubicle ...
Silver Bullet
Public concern buries Big Sur cloud seeding plans, for now.
F at Joe and the Monterey County Water Resource Agency have this much in common: They both want to make it rain. But MCWRA’s proposal to “seed” clouds of the Big Sur coast is less ...
Tasting Time
Trying to swallow what 2009 served up is no easy feat.
Along with Chocolate Rain, Charlie Murphy and the saturation of sub-prime, iPhones, over-updating and Client No. 9, OMGs, WMDs, and flus avian and swine, something else emerged ’tween Y2K and ’09: Food porn. Chefs rose ...
Bloom Boom
Behind the scenes at the world’s biggest potted orchid farm – in Salinas.
When this particular prehistoric bumblebee met its fate, trapped by tree resin, it was unaware of the story it would share with a distant future. Its minuscule wings, preserved in fossilized Miocene amber, carried an ...
Uni-Kool Project advances, dodges backlash
Enviro critics worry about consequences, but city cites economic benefits.
A 257-acre agricultural industrial park that is expected to generate more than 4,000 jobs is quietly making its way through Salinas City Hall. This month the Planning Commission, on a 6-1 vote, recommended the City ...
Problematic proposals for California’s budgetary woes.
Change – and frustration – are in the air. Some of the outcry about the compromises in the health care bill that’s likely headed to President Barack Obama’s desk has been directed at the ability ...
What was your most memorable moment of the decade?
Asked at Coffee Mia in Marina.
Follow-up: What’s the most unrealistic New Year’s resolution you’ve ever made? CHRIS GONZALES | After-school Counselor | Marina A: The war: 9/11 and Afghanistan and Iraq – it was a shock watching it unravel before ...
The Young Victoria
Eminent Victoria: Latest bio-pic of Princess Victoria getting busy before ascending to the throne is a little staid, but has its moments.
How young is young Victoria? At the film’s beginning, she’s just 17, with all the sullenness you would expect from a shut-in future queen fending off attack from her mama and prospective suitors cherry-picked by ...
Squid Fry for Dec 30, 2009
Squid Fry for Dec 30, 2009
BUTTERFLIES AREN’T FREE… Squid knows what it’s like to be misunderestimated, what with being a literate eight-armed cephalopod-about-town who knows what’s what. But maybe it’s nothing that a little $30,000 re-branding campaign couldn’t cure. Squid ...
Art Listing for Dec 30, 2009
Art Listing for Dec 30, 2009
HAPPENING THIS WEEK Alternative Café Photographer Tom G. O’Neal: The music icons of the gallery’s Euterpe show (Latin for “musical muse”), which opened Dec. 18, was a hit, drawing fans of art and music to ...
Letters to the Editor for Dec 30, 2009
POT PROPOSAL As a long time proponent of legalizing marijuana (and other recreational drugs), it’s my belief that society should proceed with the utmost caution given the many pitfalls not mentioned in your article (“A ...
Real Estate
By The Numbers
$795,000 Recent Sale 4038 Mora Ln., Pebble Beach Built: 1955 Size: 1,803 square feet Features: 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, 2-car garage Amenities: Peek of the ocean, large fenced yard, wood-burning fireplace Seller: Vavra Trust Buyer: ...
Tuesday, December 29
Monning Scores
Central Coast Assemblyman earns a 100 percent green voting record for 2009.
Both the Sierra Club California and the League of Conservation Voters gave Central Coast Assemblyman Bill Monning (D-Monterey) A-pluses on his pro-environment votes in 2009. Monning scored 100 percent on both assessments by voting in ...
Monday, December 28
Traffic cops to swarm Marina
Drivers beware: Traffic cops will be saturating Marina streets, including commute route Imjin Parkway, from 7am to noon tomorrow. As part of the Monterey Regional Strategic Traffic Operations and Prevention Program, (STOPP) officers from various ...
LULAC files sheriff's complaints with feds, grand jury
Local civil rights leaders, including NAACP President Ben Jealous, announced a three-tier probe into excessive force allegations against Monterey County Sheriff's deputies at a Saturday press conference. The North Monterey County chapter of the League ...
Friday, December 25
Colinas Ranch easement donated to Land Trust
The Stoney family has donated a conservation easement on the 1,107-acre Colinas Ranch in the Gabilan foothills to the Big Sur Land Trust. "This action by the Stoney family will ensure the protection in perpetuity ...
Thursday, December 24
The Yearly Grind
Christmas tree recycling gets underway.
Christmastime brings lots of opportunities to recycle. Plastic product packaging, wrapping paper, cardboard boxes, wine bottles and more can be placed in curbside recycling bins--and Christmas trees can go right beside them in the green ...
Wednesday, December 23
The Buzz
NUMBER 29…An 18-year-old man was shot and killed behind Hartnell College on Central Avenue on Dec. 16, marking Salinas' 29th gang-related homicide of the year. Salinas Police said Brian Beecher was shot multiple times in ...
Letters to the Editor for Dec 23, 2009
LEFT WING DUDE Hey, left wing dude. I read your blurb in the Weekly (“Local Spin – Finishing the Job,” Dec. 3-9) and it gave me the giggles. You, are a leftist that probably just ...
It's Complicated
Simple Solutions: Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin find marital reunion, if not bliss, in 'It’s Complicated'.
Nothing too complicated about It’s Complicated – it’s just as much an entertainment formula as the Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, the main difference being that it’s aimed at that audience’s grandparents. Jane (Meryl ...
Public Citizen for Dec 23, 2009
Public Citizen
All Ongoing SALVATION ARMY FOOD DRIVE | MONTEREY COUNTY – The Salvation Army is collecting non-perishable food items to assist needy families. Salvation Army, 1491 Contra Costa St., Seaside. 899-4911. 2460 North Main St., Salinas. ...
Broadband On The Run
Stimulus package may spread Wi-Fi to underserved areas in Salinas Valley, Big Sur.
A $50 million initiative to expand broadband Internet access to the Big Sur coast, Salinas Valley corridor and link to hubs in Santa Cruz and San Benito counties is getting a strong Wi-Fi signal. The ...
Taking healthy first steps to getting our house in order.
Amidst the generally lousy frame of mind most people are in these days about the state of the economy, and of the planet, it was interesting to note the collective response to major events that ...
The Short of It
This year’s 101 word short story contest winners do more with less in weird and wonderful ways.
They emerge from the cracks of Castroville, the pelican pouches of Pacific Grove and the side streets of Seaside once a year. They spout accounts of cats and love, death and disaster (see sidebar, p. ...
¡Ask A Mexican! for Dec 23, 2009
One man's take on his culture's stereotypes
SPECIAL NAVIDAD GIFTS EDITION Dear Mexican: Can you recommend a solid, accessible history of California and Arizona so I can learn what really happened when the U.S. gobbled Aztlán? --La Chica Confundida Dear Wabette: The ...
First Inning
P.G. Council, developer take a tentative step toward a Holman Building hotel.
Inside the dank and spacious Holman Antique Plaza on Pacific Grove’s Lighthouse Avenue, Nader Agha works his magic: schmoozing with customers, steering employees, and selling five figures’ worth of Chinese relics in the space of ...
Sherlock Holmes
Elementary Perfection: Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law rock the house with new interpretations of Sherlock Holmes and his iconic sidekick.
Sherlock Holmes is one of the great characters: impossibly Byronic, with his superior intelligence and (apparent) imperviousness to the fairer sex; impossibly misanthropic, with his disdain for almost everyone in the world but his amanuensis, ...
Big Ten
Counting down top ways to rock away the decade.
Britney and Paris minus-panty moments, Christian Bale’s psychopathic rant, Nick Nolte’s mug shot, David Hasselhoff’s drunken cheeseburger wrestling match – if we’ve learned anything in the decade that ends New Year’s Eve, it’s that there’s ...
What is the thriftiest and/or most creative gift you’ve given?
Asked at Peet’s Coffee in Monterey.
Follow-up: What is your family’s weirdest holiday tradition? AMY SMOOT | Translator | Monterey A: A couple of years ago I used plain clear glass Christmas bulbs and got some glass paint and painted them ...
Art Listing for Dec 23, 2009
Art Listing for Dec 23, 2009
HAPPENING THIS WEEK CAMALDOLI HERMITAGE This monks retreat in the Big Sur mountains offers new attractions – a bookstore and gift shop, and an art exhibit featuring Dan Cronin’s White Series of acrylics and mixed ...
Ceasing Fire
Salinas cops try offering soft services to gangbangers, as well as more tough talk.
With Salinas surpassing its highest body count on record in 2009 – 29 gang-related homicides – police officials have set pressing New Year’s resolutions: focus on proven peace strategy Ceasefire and target the gangs carrying ...
Flavor Celebration
Understanding holiday taste – and how to make two original festive treats.
Ritual and celebration at solstice time has been the norm around the world long before the commercial “holiday season” was recognized. Many cultures, including Pagan, Norse, German, Native American and Japanese, have solstice-related symbols and ...
Real Estate
By The Numbers
$775,000 Recent Sale 248 Del Mesa, Carmel Built: 1968 Size: 1,762 square feet Features: 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1-car carport Amenities: Deck, vaulted ceilings, fireplace, landscaped yard, community pool and tennis courts Seller: Burt Trust ...
Gifted Artists
Robert Meade and a stacked Surfrider benefit concert keep the holidays humming.
With two stellar shows on Saturday, it may still feel a little like Christmas in Monterey for live music fans. Singer-songwriter Robert Meade – who plays the London Bridge Pub at 9:30pm – received a ...
Waiting for Help
Seaside High gets low marks on academics as site conditions suffer.
Seaside High is a sprawling campus on a ridge so close to the bay that you can smell the salt air. But for many students and teachers, the natural beauty is overshadowed by the school’s ...
Different Spokes
Deals for bicycling diners, sweet gifts and mushroom madness.
Something’s happening to a primo pork sandwich near you (at Curly’s Barbecue). Same for a bomb crab Benedict (Sandbar & Grill) – and the county’s best cashew sauce (Fishwife), kebabs (Amir’s Kabob House) and beignets ...
Squid Fry for Dec 23, 2009
Squid Fry for Dec 23, 2009
GANGSTER CHIC… Sometimes Squid thinks Squid is a gangster. And it goes beyond the Godfatherly sandpaper whisper Squid makes in the mirror every morning (“Make him an offer he can’t refuse”) and Squid’s Scarface strut. ...
Brezsny's Astrology
Free Will Astrology
Aries (March 21-April 19): What influences do you really, really need to say goodbye to? The next six months will provide you with ample motivation and opportunity to finally bid those farewells. What long-term cycle ...
Always Greener
Foreclosure and drought spawn a strange local business: lawn painting.
On the corner lot of a once-pleasant, palm-studded neighborhood in East Salinas, an ash-colored tabby steps furtively across a dead and prickly lawn. Crouched low, triggered to pounce, he advances across a minefield of rotten ...
Tuesday, December 22
Truce for Chief and City
City of Seaside, Police Chief Cercone reach settlement.
The city of Seaside and on-leave Police Chief Steve Cercone have reached a settlement agreement that effectively ends the months-long saga that began in August, when City Manager Ray Corpuz placed Cercone on paid administrative ...
Bailey tapped to lead Steinbeck Center
Colleen Bailey is officially leading the National Steinbeck Center into the New Year. The Steinbeck Center's board recently appointed Bailey executive director. She filled in as acting director after former CEO Steven Hoffman resigned in ...
Monday, December 21
Seaside City Hall closed through New Year.
Seaside residents hoping to get city business done over the holidays will have to wait: Seaside City Hall is closed from Dec. 18 through Jan. 1, to re-open Jan. 4. The extra-long vacation, which includes ...
Gunfire erupts during Salinas peace vigil
A 21-year-old man was shot while riding his bike near Closter Park in Salinas on Saturday at the same time family members of homicide victims were holding a vigil for their lost loved ones. Attendants ...
Friday, December 18
Stamp of Approval
Judge rejects Carmel's motion to disqualify attorney in Jane Miller case.
An attorney who formerly advised the city of Carmel has the green light to represent Jane Miller, a Carmel employee who is suing the city. On Dec. 18, Monterey County Superior Court Judge Larry Hayes ...
Silver Bullet
Water Resources Agency shelves this year's cloud seeding plans for Big Sur coast.
Bowing to public calls for a robust environmental review, the Monterey County Water Resource Agency canceled plans to disperse silver iodide by plane off the Big Sur coast in an effort to increase precipitation this ...
Castroville LULAC wants Department of Justice investigation
Local civil rights groups announced today a press conference (on the day after Christmas) to discuss the filing of a complaint with the Department of Justice concerning "alleged abuses" by the Monterey County Sheriff's Office. ...
Thursday, December 17
18-year-old slain near Hartnell College
An 18-year-old man was shot and killed behind Hartnell College on Central Avenue last night, marking Salinas' 29th gang-related homicide of the year. Salinas Police said Brian Beecher was shot multiple times in the upper ...
Dan Baldwin to lead Community Foundation
Dan Baldwin, president/CEO of a foundation in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, will replace longtime Community Foundation for Monterey County leader Todd Lueders in March 2010, the foundation announced today. Baldwin, who runs the Greater Cedar Rapids ...
Out of the Flames
Seaside Fire Chief announces retirement.
After 26 years of public safety service, the last eight as chief of the Seaside Fire Department, Jerry Wombacher plans to hang up his hard hat Dec. 26. "Chief Wombacher has guided the Seaside Fire ...
Obama Thanks You
Seaside's Martin Park volunteers receive Presidential award.
President Obama has his hands full with the war in Afghanistan, a Nobel Peace Prize and the climate talks in Copenhagen, but still he took the time to recognize the volunteers cleaning up Seaside's parks. ...
Season’s Psychos
A trio of rowdy bands from across the country rile up Giovane’s.
Longtime promoter Meana Sanchez-Verducci is hoping to serve Monterey County a new platter of music – seasoned with punk, rockabilly, psychobilly and surfabilly. Tonight’s “Rock N Roll X-mas Show” at Giovane’s – featuring La Plebe ...
Public Citizen
Ongoing “FOOD FOR FINES” | MONTEREY PENINSULA – Until Dec. 31, the Monterey and Pacific Grove public libraries are accepting donations of non-perishable food as an alternative to payment of overdue book fines. Monterey Library, ...
The “Bo-Tax” factor in health care reform puts a new wrinkle on an old problem.
During the Senate’s debates over who should bear the cost of the nearly $900 billion health care bill, there emerged a surprising suggestion: plastic surgery patients. A proposed tax, dubbed the “Bo-Tax” after the wrinkle-reducing ...
The Messenger
Dead on Arrival: 'The Messenger'' examines the ordeals of an Army casualty notification unit.
Like Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, which focused on a bomb disposal unit, The Messenger looks at another highly specialized type of soldier working for the American military during the Iraq War. Rather than being ...
Southern Comfort
South Carolina native and San Francisco up-and-comer Elliot Randall visits Monterey.
Americana singer-songwriter Elliot Randall says the vibe of his music stems from a single childhood memory: sitting on a wall in the backyard of his grandparents’ Charleston, South Carolina home, watching the Ashley River go ...
News That Remains News
The Buzz
POLITICAL CHAIRS…Sen. Jeff Denham announced Dec. 11 he’s withdrawing from the lieutenant governor race and running for the state Assembly 25th District seat. Denham, who is termed out in his 12th District Senate seat, switched ...
The tangled legacy of the psychedelic movement.
Drugs, sex and rock ‘n’ roll – it seemed like such a good idea at the time, at least to some of us. But like most slogans (with the possible exception of giving peace a ...
Elevating the Debate
When will medical marijuana get the high sign in Monterey County?
Tall, freckle-faced Daniel Maniscalco swings open the door of his black 1992 BMW and the pungent aroma of fresh Grapefruit Kush and Purple Haze fills the air. Maniscalco, 26, runs a fledgling medicinal marijuana delivery ...
<b>What’s the best drug out there? </b>
Asked on Lighthouse Avenue in Monterey.
Follow-up: What celebrity would you want to get stoned with? NANCY YORK | Shop Manager | Pacific Grove A: A good book. I like murder mysteries because they’re challenging, they keep you reading till the ...
Carmel Choices
Former EPA official Jason Burnett throws hat in the ring for City Council run.
Carmel Valley native Jason Burnett, the 33-year-old grandson of Hewlettt Packard founder David Packard, has tested the political waters in Carmel-by-the-Sea. He’s pounded the pavement, sipped coffee with locals, and even engaged a pollster friend ...
Coastal Commission sinks Sand City “ecoresort” proposal – again.
Bright green designs didn’t impress the California Coastal Commission, which has once again denied a coastal development permit for Monterey Bay Shores, a proposed 341-unit hotel/condominium and conference center on the Sand City shoreline. At ...
Brezsny's Astrology
Free Will Astrology
Aries (March 21-April 19): I don’t understand why the astronomers responsible for naming new-found objects are so devoid of flair. Here’s a prime example: They found a blazar, or blazing quasi-stellar object, in a faraway ...
Squid Fry for Dec 17, 2009
Squid Fry for Dec 17, 2009
Grinch Alert… Although Squid’s favorite publication detailed the espresso highs and financial hangover lows of Morgan Christopher and the Ol’ Factory Café (“No Ordinary Joe,” Nov. 12-18), Squid still runs into friends befuddled by the ...
Dance Czars
Two dazzling Russian immigrants lift Monterey Peninsula Dance.
The thing they loved most was no longer fun. “Sometimes you dance five, six hours a day to train yourself,” professional dancer Olga Agafonova says. “And then for a competition, eight to nine hours every ...
Abel’s Ready
State politicians aren’t sure about Maldonado’s chances for lieutenant governor.
If the governor has his way, State Sen. Abel Maldonado, who represents coastal Monterey County, will be in the lieutenant governor’s chair in February, leaving Democrats and Republicans to engage in a rare battle for ...
Avatar
Biological Diplomacy: In 'Avatar', director James Cameron takes you on a mindblowing trip through outer, and inner, space.
If there’s one thing science fiction fans might agree on, it’s that we long for another world. That’s what James Cameron has given us in Avatar: a gift to anyone who takes science fiction seriously. ...
A Cottage fit for a lyricist
P.G. searches for a poet-in-residence to make the city a literary landmark.
father sits at the kitchen table smiling mother and child are mixing up batter father feels a poem coming on. Thus Robert Lewis, former Pacific Grove Cultural Arts Commissioner, envisions a family enjoying the newly ...
Holiday Seasoning
Festive treats fit to eat - from fresh crab to a new farmers market.
Bowls of cioppino bristling with crab legs, mussels, clams, scallops and squid. Plates of expert crab enchiladas too tasty to make it around the table. Heavenly halibut fried ever-so-lightly. Steaming blackened scallops surrendering tenderly to ...
Letters to the Editor for Dec 17, 2009
SAVE THE HORSES We have a magnificent window of opportunity to save our noble friend, the horse, from slaughter in the U.S. Senate. The Equine Cruelty Prevention Act would prevent horses from being slaughtered in ...
¡Ask A Mexican! for Dec 17, 2009
One man's take on his culture's stereotypes
Dear Mexican: I’m an Asian female, and for some time now I’ve been fascinated by the Mexican culture. I find Mexican males to be very attractive. Their food, language and music are just amazing! How ...
Towards a Greener Marina
New venture capital plan aims to grow clean tech jobs.
Silicon Valley venture capitalist Rock Clapper wants to turn green cards into green jobs in Marina. Clapper is applying to make the city a hub for a foreign national investment fund that could grow to ...
Art Listing for Dec 17, 2009
Art Listing for Dec 17, 2009
HAPPENING THIS WEEK Alternative Café Euterpe: Drawing on seven artists’ wildly diverse journeys through popular culture, Euterpe celebrates the colorful, nostalgic and radical art inspired by Rock and Roll icons like Neil Young, Steppenwolf, and ...
In the Red
Red Dot Gallery fills empty space in City Center, Sand City-Seaside art scene.
Seasiders knew it as “that little old building next to the car wash.” But this year the Seaside-Sand City Chamber of Commerce building, sandwiched between the self-serve car wash and Jose’s Fine Mexican Food at ...
Third Time's a Charm For Farm Aid
Stimulus package boosts Salinas Valley’s Clinica de Salud.
Stimulus bucks have come in big for Salinas Valley’s Clinica de Salud this year. The Obama administration recently awarded the health clinic $2.3 million to build a new King City center, the group’s third American ...
The Restaurant at Ventana
After a disastrous fire, the re-minted Restaurant at Ventana only amplifies its flavor.
The restaurant at Ventana Inn, Cielo, was destined to perish. After triumphing over the Basin Complex Fire, Cielo reopened for just one week when a kitchen fire destroyed the 34-year-old interior. It took a year ...
Tuesday, December 15
COS in Copenhagen
Oceans Day educates in midst of discouraging climate talks.
On Monday, Dec. 14--Oceans Day in Copenhagen--scientists with the Center for Ocean Solutions and Stanford University kept up their effort to educate policy-makers and the public about the impacts of climate change on the sea. ...
Monday, December 14
New theatre program announced for East Salinas
Hartnell College’s The Western Stage and the Alisal Center for the Fine Arts are joining forces to bring a theatre arts program to East Salinas, the college announced today. "Supported by a lead grant from ...
Burning Man blazes on Monterey beach.
Burning Man's annual Monterey beach burn spun out Del Monte Beach Saturday, Dec. 5. Zee Labega, video producer for the annual Thriller Dance in Salinas, posted the mini-doc on YouTube: Watch Video
ABA Basketball
California Sea Kings play their first home game of the season.
It was a rainy Sunday evening in Salinas, but inside Hartnell College's gym, semi-pro basketball heated up the floor. The California Sea Kings, a team in the American Basketball Association (A.B.A.), played their first home ...
Friday, December 11
Organizers of the Blue Ocean Film Festival decide to locate future events in Monterey Bay.
After debuting this past June in Savannah, Ga., the organizers of the Blue Ocean Film Festival had been deliberating over which city—Savannah or Monterey—to locate the future home of the sprawling festival of films and ...
Denham announces bid for Assembly, drops out of lieutenant governor race
Sen. Jeff Denham announced today that he is withdrawing from the lieutenant governor race and running for the state Assembly 25th District seat. "Over the course of the last few days I've had countless discussions ...
Stanford scientist sounds off on climate skeptics.
In a dispatch from Copenhagen, Stanford scientist Dr. Stephen Schneider argues for immediate action on climate change. In turn sarcastic and urgent, he slams the foot-dragging advocated by climate skeptics. As posted on the Center ...
Thursday, December 10
Former concert promoter Joe Fletcher aims to bring big Hollywoood bucks back to Monterey County.
From Here to Eternity was filmed in Monterey County. So was Basic Instinct and Play Misty for Me. But it's been a while since a major film production filled the area's restaurants and hotels and ...
Carmel Bach Fest Names New Music Director
The Carmel Bach Festival has announced Paul Goodwin as its Music Director and Conductor. Goodwin, who succeeds Bruno Weill, is the fourth Music Director in the 73-year-old festival's history. Goodwin will be planning in spring ...
House funding bill includes cash for Central Coast causes.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed the fiscal year 2010 Consolidated Appropriations Act today. With help from Rep. Sam Farr (D-Carmel), Central Coast projects got a boost from the funding bill. Among the anti-violence beneficiaries: ...
Door Closes
After a year of fine art shows, Sand City's "fine art base" decides to give up its gallery space.
It opened earlier this year with subdued, stylish flair, as in the lower case name and industrial/mixed use location. But, following the ominous shuttering of Ol' Factory Cafe, referred to by residents as "the heart ...
San Benito County's only breeding female condor dies of lead poisoning.
Another condor is casualty to the toxic legacy of lead ammunition. Condor 303, also known as Lucia, was treated at the L.A. Zoo after biologists noticed her odd behavior. She'd apparently been poisoned by eating ...
Real Estate
By The Numbers
$441,000Recent Sale 45130 Palomino Rd., King City Built: 2002 Size: 2,332 square feet Features: 4 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, 3-car garage on more than 2 acres Amenities: Large patio with hot tub, gourmet kitchen, fireplace, landscaped ...
Get Involved
Public Citizen
Thursday 12|10 EAST SIDE DREAMER |SALINAS – Writer Art Rodriguez discusses how he went from gangster to successful businessman and how others can do the same. 5pm. Cesar Chavez Library, 615 Williams Road, Salinas. Free. ...
Art Listing for Dec 10, 2009
Art Listing for Dec 10, 2009
HAPPENING THIS WEEK Alternative Café Small Wonders: This is the last weekend of three world renowned artists with very unique styles. Anne Faith Nicholls, renowned for her freelance art and illustrations, draws inspiration from surrealism, ...
Learning to Count to 350
How the protest movement is changing the political temperature in Copenhagen.
At the climate change summit in Copenhagen, the wealthy nations that produce most of the excess carbon in our atmosphere will almost certainly fail to embrace measures adequate enough to ward off the devastation of ...
Roots and Branches
Country singer/songwriter Lacy J. Dalton combines roots music with contemporary sounds.
Western music has always encompassed story songs about gunfights, roundups and serious saddle time sung by real working cowboys and cowgirls. And country singer/songwriter Lacy J. Dalton says she has always loved the unique Western ...
Squid Fry for Dec 10, 2009
Squid Fry for Dec 10, 2009
EARTH, CUBED… Squid has always prided Squidself on Squid’s little feet. (Tentacles, technically.) And we all know what little feet mean: little footprints. So you can imagine Squid’s dismay at learning the average American’s carbon ...
Murder Mystery
Seaside violence raises questions from supporters of ousted police chief Cercone.
Gunshots shattered the relative still in Seaside Dec. 1, when witnesses reported hearing up to 20 shots fired on the 1400 block of Kenneth Street. The bang-up left 20-year-old Christopher Joaquin Glenn dead, and marked ...
Meatball Metaphor
A lesson on loan from Baja and a Salinas-Congo connection.
She had the sun’s smile in her eyes and mysterious meats in her saucy pots. Her kitchen was a three-sided square created by textured rocks. The only thing near, beyond her small cauldrons of homemade ...
Tectonic Shift
Marcia McNutt on her move to the U.S. Geological Service, and California’s role in the climate debate.
Dr. Marcia McNutt has trained in underwater explosives with the Navy, studied nuclear physics and run what may be the world’s most sophisticated oceanic research institute at Moss Landing’s MBARI. But her latest gig makes ...
Two steps in the right direction for environmental change.
The international climate talks in Copenhagen are certain to generate headlines, heated rhetoric, and finger pointing. Developing countries will say the historical problems originated with developed countries. Developed countries will point out that most of ...
¿El Wal-Mart de Seaside?
Hispanic small business owners protest Mi Pueblo grocery chain.
Omar Corres dropped the W-bomb at the Dec. 3 Seaside City Council meeting. Speaking on behalf of two dozen Hispanic-owned bakeries, restaurants and groceries, Corres, whose father owns La Chiquita Market, asked the council to ...
Copenhagen, California
Central Coast delegation floats ocean science to the Denmark climate talks.
Just a few days before their trip to the international climate conference, Adina Abeles and Arlo Hemphill take a moment to acknowledge their own carbon footprints. All three of us of us had driven to ...
News That Remains News
The Buzz
Violent Weekend…A 30-year-old woman was shot and killed on Dec. 5 as violence continued to erupt in Monterey County. Veronica Gallegos and another woman were shot early in the morning at Greenfield’s Pueblo Inn. Also ...
Letters to the Editor for Dec 10, 2009
MISSING THE TARGET Both Paul Wilner in his editorial (“Finishing the Job,” Dec. 3-9) and Robin Urevich in her article (“Tough Love – NPS Professor: Is the U.S. doomed to replay the Vietnam War in ...
Young people may not be as illiterate as you think – or as snobbish pundits like to maintain.
Pundits often fret about how kids today can’t write – and technology is to blame. Facebook encourages narcissistic blabbering, video and PowerPoint have replaced carefully crafted essays, and texting has dehydrated language into “bleak, bald, ...
Ultimate Esper-ience
Espers leads a three-band paranormal bill at Fernwood.
In 2006, the psych-folk collective Espers played under a blanket of faux constellations and comets at Fels Planetarium in Philadelphia. The setting was quite appropriate for a Philly-based sextet whose sound resonates with intergalactic drones, ...
Nice Pitch
A ground-breaking Carmel woman shares prank-laden stories from L.A. Dodgers locker room.
She was a wide-eyed witness to history, a charmed pioneer working in the male-dominated arena of professional sports, a regular foil to some of baseball’s largest stars. And now, 50 years after Carmel’s Flo Thomasian ...
Opinion: One man’s take on his culture’s stereotypes
¡Ask a Mexican!
SPECIAL VIRGIN OF GUADALUPE EDITION Dear Mexican: As a Chicano/Mexican, I’ve lost my faith in God. While they take pride in their country like everyone else, and like to make frequent jokes, Mexicans are generally ...
East meets West(on)
Carmel and Monterey exhibitions mix worldly and spiritual themes.
One party won entry to the U.S. from Nepal by visa lottery. The other followed his artistic muse to India’s rich colors. Both lay the artistry and scenery of each exotic land at our feet, ...
Finding its Sea Legs
Monterey Maritime Museum restructures, seeks better financial footing as it tries to sail into the future.
The Monterey Maritime Museum plans a metamorphosis from a funky collection of seafaring memorabilia to a tourist magnet potentially rivaling the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Pam Crowe Weisberg, who recently took the helm at the museum, ...
Carmel Tagine
Whoah Morocco: Carmel Tagine gives the Peninsula a memorable taste of the North African land.
Fate can be a cruel mistress. Yet for some, she can pave the way to greater things, as in Zin Elyoussoufi’s case. Getting laid off from his high-tech job during the economic downturn led him ...
Brezsny's Astrology
Free Will Astrology
Aries (March 21-April 19): “Indignation is one of the most rewarding of emotions,” writes Theodore Dalrymple, “as well as one that automatically gives meaning to life… There is nothing like irritation to get the juices ...
Invictus
A Whole New Ball Game: Clint Eastwood tells the story of Nelson Mandela’s political and personal triumph through the unusual prism of a sports saga.
Hoorah! Nelson Mandela united South Africans, black and white, and overcame their long-held suspicions and hatred and bigotries in the post-apartheid upheaval by getting them to refocus their hate on Australia and New Zealand. Or ...
Salinas Slayings
Community members, police struggle for answers after 26th homicide.
Jose Espinoza’s neighbor recalls jumping out of bed when shots rang out at 5:30am on his north Salinas street. He heard the 25-year-old scream and was there alongside Espinoza’s mother and sister feeling for a ...
The Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day
Saints Protect Us: This Tarantino-style Boston mobster knock-off fails to deliver except as a campy exercise in style over content.
Director Troy Duffy’s wickedly bloodthirsty and strangely humorous The Boondock Saints was a cult hit waiting to happen that somehow didn’t. As a post-post-Quentin-Tarantino hipster-shoot-’em-up, it seemed oddly dated back when it received a micro-release ...
How do Santa Cruz and Monterey compare?
Asked at Café Pergolesi in Santa Cruz.
Follow-up: How would you describe Monterey in five words or less? ROSIE STEVENSON | Student | San Francisco A: People are more accessible here than in Monterey. They’re more interesting and open. City Planning: It’s ...
Jiving Turkeys
An animal-loving band, covering everything from the Stones to Judas Priest, is heading to London Bridge for a free gig.
The first time Matt Brem and Greg Carey jammed, a group of wild turkeys congregated outside Carey’s Corral de Tierra home. The band Wild Turkeys was born. “We looked out the window and saw about ...
Wednesday, December 9
Another man shot and killed in Salinas
Salinas police officers responded to reports of shots fired in the area of Sutter Street and Trinity Way at about 11:13am this morning and found Jesus DeHaro Gutierrez lying on the curb with one gunshot ...
Dead body found in Pebble Beach
A badly decomposed body was discovered in the Pebble Beach Forest, the Sheriff's Office announced today. The Coroner's Unit knows the male's identity but is not releasing his name until next of kin is notified. ...
Tuesday, December 8
Oaks Delayed
Heritage Oaks hearing continued
The Monterey County Board of Supervisors today continued an appeal of the Planning Commission's denial of the Heritage Oaks development, after the applicant's attorney submitted a 150-page document that staff didn't have time to review. ...
Local rainwater guru makes home water harvesting easy.
After a false start in October, the rainy season is finally kicking in this month, and Roger Manley wants to help locals tap the precious liquid running off our roofs. During a free public workshop ...
Monday, December 7
Salinas to close facilities for holidays
City of Salinas facilities, including City Hall, the Community Center and Aquatic Center, will shut down for two weeks during the holidays, City Manager Artie Fields announced today. Fields said the closures, running from Dec. ...
Power Down
Downtown Monterey nightclub, Doc's Dance Lounge, closed its doors this past weekend.
This past weekend found Doc's Dance Lounge (formerly Doc Rickett's Lab) closed and the front doors chained, and the adjoining restaurant, Croce's East Coast Eatery, formerly owned by the same proprietor, restaurateur Sean Croce, also ...
Homicide hits Greenfield, shootings continue in Salinas
A 30-year-old Greenfield woman was shot and killed this weekend as violence continued to erupt in Monterey County. Veronica Gallegos and another woman were shot early Saturday morning at the Pueblo Inn in Greenfield, according ...
Thursday, December 3
Human Rights Luncheon
Benjamin Jealous to speak at UN Association luncheon
Benjamin Todd Jealous, the Pacific Grove-raised president of the NAACP, will be the featured speaker at the county's 2009 Human Rights Day Luncheon this Saturday. The youngest president in the history of the NAACP, Jealous ...
Tough Love
NPS Professor: Is the U.S. doomed to replay the Vietnam War in Afghanistan?
Naval Postgraduate School Professor Thomas Johnson is one of the nation’s top Afghanistan scholars, but for him, the battle-scarred nation is no academic enterprise. It’s the object of a lifelong fascination that began when he ...
Squid Fry for Dec 03, 2009
Squid Fry for Dec 03, 2009
FIRST-CLASS FIRING… Around this time of year, Squid starts getting the good stuff in the mail: holiday cards, cookie packages from Mom. No such luck for on-leave Seaside Police Chief Steve Cercone, who got a ...
Everybody's Fine
Fine, Not Dandy: Robert De Niro stars as the patriarch of a troubled family in an in-depth portrayal of dysfunctionality and connection.
Everybody’s Fine, an oft repeated and rarely true idiom spoken by distant family and friends for the ease of unemotional conversation, is the perfect ironic title for a story in which nobody is fine. This ...
Art Listing for Dec 03, 2009
Art Listing for Dec 03, 2009
HAPPENING THIS WEEK AROMAS Open House: Eight artist galleries of the Aromas Artisans group invite the public to explore their creative spaces to see firsthand as they create works of art and explain their unique ...
Obama, and the rest of us, face grave choices in Afghanistan.
It’s probably the most important decision of his young presidency. The fate of American troops – and the lives of Afghani men, women and children – rest on the outcome of Barack Obama’s speech this ...
ARID AROMAS
Developer, residents dispute water source for long-stymied project.
A decade-old North County land use fight will go through another round Tuesday, Dec. 8. The Board of Supervisors will play referee between Heritage Oaks developer Wayne Holman and Aromas Citizens for Planned Growth. Cathy ...
School Maze
Proposed Bay View closure draws ire.
Bay View school is the kind of place where it’s easy for a shy 5-year old like Nathan Binder to make friends, and where all the teachers know his name. That’s according to his dad, ...
Stirring Soup Kitchen Zen
With a new meditation center, Buddhist priest Rick Slone helps Dorothy’s Place breathe easier.
Ahungry crowd stirs in Dorothy’s Place’s day room, anxiously awaiting the opening of the bright yellow doors for lunch. An adjacent hallway is a frenzied runway: chattering guys asking for shaving cream, calling out for ...
Brothers
Home Front: 'Brothers' is a timely and artful movie about military madness – and the complications of family life.
I hate that because movies about the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have failed to catch the interest of audiences, I feel like I have to say, “Oh, don’t worry, Brothers isn’t really about ...
Ingestible Insights
Noodles, boba and froyo, crazy good cheese and other local glory.
Good news for those traumatized when a chock-full counter at the Noodle Bar (392-0210) delays their pho fix: A nephew of the family behind the tiny coffee-bar style kitchen is putting together Chopstix just a ...
Brezsny's Astrology
Free Will Astrology
Aries (March 21-April 19): When Carolee Schneeman was a kid, her extravagant adoration of nature earned her the nickname “mad pantheist.” Later, during her career as a visual artist, she described her relationship with the ...
Popular Front
Grass roots group targets improving farmworkers’ health.
Lupita Miranda and Ulises Foronda want to reclaim their neglected neighborhood park from prostitutes and drunks and turn it into a gathering place for children and families. The residents of Roosevelt Townhomes in East Salinas ...
News That Remains News
The Buzz
Chief Turnaround…While Seaside's police chief and city manager lock horns, their counterparts in Pacific Grove are getting cuddly. Three and a half months after announcing he’d quit in January—a decision he blamed on budget cuts—P.G. ...
Next Big Swing
Dizzy Burnett and Grover Coe stir up a swooping dance night at Cibo.
In the late ’90s, a swing revival hit this country hard, transforming legions of wallflowers into dipping, stepping, spinning dancers. Locally, the house band for this music and its accompanying dance craze was the Dizzy ...
Letters to the Editor for Dec 03, 2009
THE PINE CONE CONNECTION Squid probably doesn’t agree with the Pine Cone’s Paul Miller on many things, but they are both promoting a Carmel High grad competing to be a Victoria’s Secret Model (“Squid,” Nov. ...
Warming Pattern
Hot Club de Watsonville gets London Bridge Pub’s new lounge cooking.
Paris in the 1930s was bursting with art, literature and music. A stroll along the city’s famed Champ-Elysees could uncover a black-clad Jean-Paul Sartre scribbling existential musings in a battered notebook at a café or ...
Guadalajara Grill
Gas Station Gourmet: The new Guadalajara Grill is the culmination of a taco-trailer triumph.
The five Casillas brothers of Salinas have more than a dozen jobs and businesses among them, including joint ownership of the Beacon gas station on Highway 68 near Hitchcock Road, a catering truck on that ...
Real Estate
By The Numbers
$1,200,000 Recent Sale 24702 Cabrillo St., Carmel Built: 1971 Size: 1,620 square feet Features: 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1-car garage Amenities: Fireplace, Brazilian cherry hardwood floors, mahogany doors, patio area, landscaped yard Seller: C. Diel ...
Water Torture
Seaside’s future is hostage in the Peninsula’s water battle.
W ith roughly half of the Peninsula’s unused water credits, the city of Seaside could be especially screwed by a state ban on new water hookups. Seaside has about 45 of 97 untapped acre-feet in ...
What is the weirdest thing that turns you on?
Asked at Hula’s Island Grill in Monterey.
Follow-up: What is the corniest thing you’ve ever done in the name of love? MIKE PAWLOWSKI | Electrician | Monterey A: Women covered in mud. Not So Well Versed: I wrote a song, it was ...
Opinion: One man’s take on his culture’s stereotypes
¡Ask a Mexican!
I’m half-Hispanic and half-white. I’m really opposed to illegal immigration and any type of free health care to illegals because, as a health care worker, I see too many Americans who can’t afford it. I’ve ...
Get Involved
Public Citizen
ONGOING FOOD FOR FINES | MONTEREY PENINSULA – From Dec. 1-31, the Monterey and Pacific Grove public libraries are accepting donations of non-perishable food as an alternative to payment of overdue book fines. Monterey Library, ...
Street Fight
LULAC disputes police tactics used in Castroville anti-gang operation.
Complaints of excessive police force in Castroville – including accounts of authorities smoke-bombing an 80-year-old woman’s family and forcing an eight-months-pregnant woman to the curb – have resurfaced in an ongoing dispute between the League ...
To the Letter
PacRep delivers a clever but cartoonish '25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.'
William Finn handled the music and lyrics and Rachel Sheinkin wrote the book (narrative) for this musical farce, which they adapted from Rebecca Feldman’s improvisational play, C-R-E-S-P-U-S-C-L-E. And it maintains strains of open-ended improv: Audience ...
Wednesday, December 2
NPS Professor gets kudos from Foreign Policy
Naval Postgraduate School Professor John Arquilla got a congratulatory phone call from Foreign Policy magazine on Wednesday December 2. He is one of the journal's top 100 global thinkers on a list that is headed ...
Monterey County cities roll out first Peninsula SWAT team.
Eight Monterey Peninsula cities and Cal State Monterey Bay are joining forces—literally—to launch a so-called special response unit, complete with SWAT team, hostage negotiators, and tactical medical personnel who would be equipped to treat injuries ...
Salinas' homicide tally jumps to 26
Early this morning a 25-year-old Salinas man was shot and killed, marking the city's record-breaking 26th homicide of the year and the second slaying in four days. At about 5:30am Jose Epinoza was walking to ...
Seaside shaken by second homicide in less than three months.
Gunshots rang out in Seaside last night on the 1400 block of Kenneth Street; witnesses reported hearing up to 20 shots fired. When officers arrived around 9pm Dec. 1, they found 20-year-old Christopher Joaquin Glenn ...
Cercone Canned
Seaside Police Chief's contract won't be renewed.
Seaside Police Chief Steve Cercone has received a letter from City Manager Ray Corpuz informing him that his employment contract will not be renewed when it expires in May. “I would obviously like to go ...
Tuesday, December 1
OK, I'll Stay
P.G. Police Chief Darius Engles withdraws resignation notice.
While Seaside's police chief and city manager lock horns, their counterparts in Pacific Grove are getting cuddly. Three and a half months after submitting his resignation, which was to take effect in January, P.G. Police ...
