County Treasurer Fred Keeley is taking a harder line with JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America starting right about now. “They rigged the marketplace,” says Keeley. “Apparently with big banks, there’s nothing they won’t do. I’m not going to do business with them anymore.”
News
The Physical Web
In the future, everything will be chipped. Groceries will contain chips that identify an object, its price and expiration date. Shoppers won’t have to stop at a checkout line—the store will recognize that a person has walked out with a gallon of milk and automatically transmit a signal that sends a charge to that person’s phone. Ten days later, the refrigerator will note that the milk has gone bad.
Fieldworkers’ Nutrition Problem
Elia Fernandez walks cautiously to the middle of the room and glances at the exit sign before turning towards the 40 strangers awaiting her story. She stands behind the translator, Ann Lopez, and waits to be announced.
Frances Moore Lappe on Discovering the EcoMind
Frances Moore Lappé became a leading environmental figure in 1971 with the publication of her bestselling book Diet for a Small Planet. Four decades and seventeen books later, the message of her newest release, EcoMind: Changing the Way We Think, to Create the World We Want, is still relevant.
Three Sisters: All in the Family
When Anton Chekhov opens his play Three Sisters the Prozorov family’s youngest daughter, is celebrating her Saint’s Day with family members and townspeople. She is young, fresh-faced and beautiful. The house and garden are garlanded with pink and white flowers, and almost everything about the occasion speaks to youth and renewal. But there’s a twist.
Glitz and Nostalgia in Kander & Ebb Tribute
One warm summer night last August, I found myself in Greenwich Village in a group crowded around an old upright piano while dozens of glistening Broadway enthusiasts sang “Maybe this Time,” the flamboyant tune from the musical Cabaret. Moving my lips just enough to feign that I actually knew the words, I looked around and realized that few of these people fit into any sort of stereotype I might have had about who would enjoy such things; sure, there was the token bald gay guy with his plastic square-rimmed glasses, but there was also the big black lady in the corner managing a reasonable harmony and the burly man with a leather jacket keeping down the bass line. And so I realized the beauty of show tunes: with just a little opening up to them, they have the power to make anyone want to burst into song.
Why Two-Way Pacific Came to Screeching Halt
If last week’s turn of events is any indication, the two-way Pacific Avenue plan that activists had criticized for moving too fast might have been doing just that. Last week, the Downtown Association withdrew its fast-tracked $20,000 proposal to re-design the street for a two-way traffic trial run that would have launched during the holiday season.
Faces of Occupy Santa Cruz
I was already homeless and sleeping here before the protestors came, so it was kind of a natural thing to do for me to get involved. I was here with a lot of my friends, who were homeless too. We’ve had a very interesting integration time with the Occupy people.
Faces of Occupy Santa Cruz
When I originally came down to Santa Cruz, about three weeks ago, I was sleeping in my car because my friends and I didn’t really have very much money and there was nowhere to camp. It’s pretty much illegal to sleep anywhere here—you get arrested or ticketed and things like that. And parking’s ridiculous, too—you’ve got to get up every couple of hours just to feed the meter so you don’t get ticketed for that, too.
PLATED: Drink up!
After the opera last week, we headed for Oswald for something cold and wet. Behind the bar was owner Keet Beck-Brattin with just what the doctor ordered (in this case, the doctor was me). It was something called “the Cooler” involving Sapphire Bombay gin, muddled fresh cucumber and a generous squeeze of lime. A tiny bit of sugar took the highest edge off the lime and a slice of cucumber completed the bracing picture. A thoroughly adult, i.e., not sweet, cocktail, it was soothing and refreshing—especially after four hours of Handel and the drive up and back from the City.
