On Monday morning, 24 hours after Santa Cruz County sheriffs dismantled Occupy Santa Cruz’s courthouse protest and 36 hours after Santa Cruz police evicted Occupy squatters from a vacant bank building downtown, a few diehard protesters turned out once again to their old spot on the courthouse steps.
News
Pajaro Valley Health Survey Finds Few Surprises
Many in Santa Cruz County assume that Santa Cruz is more health conscious and more physically fit than the southern part of the county. According to the results from a recent survey commissioned by the Pajaro Valley Community Health Trust, they’re right.
How Retail Analysis Might Reshape Santa Cruz
Redevelopment presented its tips on vamping up Santa Cruz to the city council in a Nov. 29 study session. Councilmember Tony Madrigal presented his ideas on Christmas lights and wireless internet.
My Career as a Cartoon Vandal
So Bil Keane is no more. At age 89, this celebrated and beloved cartoonist has gone to meet Winsor McCay and Charles Schulz. The creator of The Family Circus, a redoubt of simpler times for more than 50 years, died Nov. 8.
Few among us have not gloried in the world’s most widely syndicated one-panel cartoon, or chuckled over the gentle, homey foibles of Bil, Thelma and their four rambunctious kids, Billy, Jeffy, Dolly and young P.J., as well as the grim specters “Ida Know” and “Not Me.”
Reassessing the Bailout in Santa Cruz
Occupy Wall Street, like the right-wing Tea Party movement, focused a large share of its anger and energy railing against the bailout. There are pieces missing in the bailout narratives from both the left and right, though. Money loaned to big banks has been paid back, while many of the smaller banks and credit unions—the ones who give loans to the little guy—are still being kept afloat by bailout funds.
Protesters Take Hahn Student Services at UCSC
If news aggregates tried tracking down the word of the year for 2011, “Occupy” would be near the front of the pack. Perhaps in that spirit, a group of UC–Santa Cruz protesters decided to occupy a university building on Monday, Nov. 28 at about 5am. The group wants to raise awareness about rising tuition—with the most recent increase of 8 percent approved earlier this month—and a controversial pepper spraying incident at UC Davis.
PLATED: Espresso Yourself on Pacific Avenue
The all-new, urban gigantic oasis of coffee, pastries and abundant seating opened at the top of Pacific Mall in downtown Santa Cruz last week. Three separate barista stations form a service peninsula that juts out into the wraparound seating/schmoozing/studying areas. Windows allow vistas out onto both Front Street and Pacific Avenue. Repurposed antique wood siding lines the walls, sharing space with huge splashy oil paintings and little retail islands.
Reasons to Love Small Business Saturday
Smack in between “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday,” “Small Business Saturday,” on Nov. 26, promotes the locavore’s alternative to America’s holiday shopping spree. American Express created the national event in hopes of shifting consumer spending toward small businesses—you know, the ones President Obama called “the backbone of our nation’s economy” in 2008.
Scott Kennedy: A Peaceful Warrior
Right up to the sudden end, Scott Kennedy was a fount of energy and ideas about how to make a better world. Last Friday, Nov. 18—just hours before his death early Saturday, most likely of a heart attack—he spent a long lunch talking with Mark Primack, his old ally on the Santa Cruz City Council.
Gift Guide: The 12 Crazes of Christmas
The fad gift phenomenon may seem like little more than a horrifying distillation of American consumer culture. There are the high prices, the long lines and those family members who went to bed early on Thanksgiving night only to wake up early and strangle the other toy-grabbing moms the next morning in a show of how much they love their kids. But the fad trend is bigger than that.
