Feature Archives

The first annual Earth First! California Roadshow will be traveling through the state this month to build connections between bioregions and different ecological resistance groups, and to promote the upcoming Organizers' Conference and Winter Rendezvous in Santa Barbara. About a dozen events are scheduled, including stops in Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa and Fresno.

A poorly researched article on California water, the "New Dust Bowl," is online and appeared in the November-December edition of Mother Jones magazine, a publication known for its investigative reporting. Dan Bacher, an Indybay contributor and editor for Fish Sniffer, critiques the article, stating, "The 'New Dust Bowl' sounds just like a headline from the Sean Hannity Show or Fox 'News' - and the article reads like a propaganda piece for growers on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley."

For reasons unknown, Cannabis Culture Magazine's Facebook page has been disabled by the popular social networking site. The page, which had over 25,000 fans, disappeared on December 23, 2009. Shortly afterward, administrators of the page received an email notification stating that the page violated Facebook's terms of use. According to Cheryl Shuman, Executive Director of Beverly Hills NORML 90210, her Facebook account was removed the same day.

Having received a $465 million low-interest loan from the US Department of Energy, Tesla Motors will soon be deciding on a site to locate their electric car manufacturing plant. On December 10th worker safety activists visited Tesla's world headquarters in San Carlos to report on the continuing contamination and dangerous working conditions at a site in southern California under consideration. They asked that Tesla not choose the site in Downey for their new plant.

On November 19th the University of California Board of Regents approved a 32% fee increase in undergraduate fees, pushing fees to over $10,000 a year. "The UC administration say it is the state that is to blame," notes gazuedro group. "They tell us to bring our fight to Sacramento to demand a bail-out for public education. To that we say, THAT’S YOUR FUCKING JOB! In fact, we don’t want a bail-out as it does nothing to fundamentally change the unjust structure of the UC system at large."

On Thursday, Novemember 19th, Superior Court Judge Morris Jacobson ordered that Johannes Mehserle's trial for the murder of Oscar Grant be moved to Los Angeles County. In the hearing to decide if the venue should be held in San Diego County or Los Angeles County, the determining factors were: pretrial publicity, relative hardship to parties, conservation of judicial resources and public funds, and demographics.

Saturday, November 21, 2009 - Students at CSU-Fresno took over the university library, keeping it open for 24 hours from Friday - Saturday morning. About 100 students and supporters occupied the second floor of the Madden Library, demanding that more university resources go towards keeping the library open for more hours. Ali Espinoza, one of the student leaders who helped organize the takeover, said the university keeps their bowling ally and pool hall open more hours than the library.