Feature Archives

The Watsonville Brown Berets presented the 7th annual Youth & Power Conference consisting of music, activism and organizing tables, art, dance, culture, speakers, free food and more. This year's conference took place at the Vet’s Hall in Watsonville on August 14th.

On June 30th, Bakers without Borders and Co-optation Watch pied Medea Benjamin at the US Social Forum. Bakers without Borders and Co-optation Watch state that they took action "to demand accountability from a self-appointed "spokesperson" whose actions further the commodification of resistance and sabotage our movement's sustainability and credibility. This person's actions benefit the NGO Industrial Complex at the expense of real democracy and solidarity."

Michael Moore's movie "Sicko" opened Friday June 29th at movie theaters around the US. The movie focuses on the problems in the US health-care system. It highlights several countries that do not have these same problems since their health systems are not based around the profit motives of insurance companies, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies. On opening night, raging Grannies, doctors, nurses, and patients engaged theater-goers at the Century 16 in Mountain View California, passing out over 1,000 leaflets and collecting postcards that demanded a single payer health care system for California.

On June 15th, one day after the Yes Men made a joke announcement in Calgary at Canada's largest oil conference that ExxonMobil plans to turn billions of climate-change victims into a brand-new fuel called Vivoleum, the Yes Men's upstream internet service provider shut down Vivoleum.com, the Yes Men's spoof website, and cut off the Yes Men's email service, in reaction to a complaint whose source they will not identify. The provider, Broadview Networks, also made the Yes Men remove all mention of Exxon from TheYesMen.org before they'd restore the Yes Men's email service.

From now until July 15, the work of Miguel Zafra will be on display at Alma Gifts and Culture in Santa Cruz. Zafra is a gifted artist who works in black and white and hand-colored black and white. He has also mastered infrared film. Zafra is of Mixtec background from the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. He says he picked up a camera for the first time at the age of 20, but began dreaming in black and white as a child.

On March 18th, Shannen and Patricia of the group DobaDoza performed in San Francisco at the International ANSWER rally and demonstration to commemorate the 4th anniversary of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Both Shannen and Patricia are members of the Watsonville Autonomous Chapter of the Brown Berets. They were joined by a young member of the Berets, a middle school student who also DJ's, raps and sings for fun in his free time.

Rico writes: Sarah, who I met in Boston, an artist with old found stuff right up my alley, told me that if you don't document art, any newcomer in town is not going to know that Santa Cruz has a vibrant art community that exists largely outside of the gallery grind. Document, she said, and the artists in town, new and old, will have a sense of momentum -- a sense, that in spite of the lack of art galleries, art buyers, art patrons, art grants, art money, that this town has a lively habit of blurring the boundary between art and life.

The Santa Cruz Art Conspiracy (SCART) is an attempt to share and document some of the creative efforts of artists in Santa Cruz, California working to blur the lines between art and life, and between the personal and the political. The focus is on the cathartic process of creating art, collaboration and community, conceptional art and performance. Non-commercial, non-institutional, SCART believes in the importance of DIY (do-it-yourself). Read More

see also: Fight tyranny! Resist oppression! Join Trash Orchestra!