Feature Archives

"Surf City Revolt!" writes: When the flooding happened, seeing fully submerged cop cars brought smiles to our faces. Now, Capitola police are trying to use this as an opportunity to move out of a building that "has not been adequate for the department's needs for a long time." Likewise, the Santa Cruz County Sheriff-Coroner is looking to spend $44 million out of a $75 million redevelopment budget on a more centrally located Sheriff's Center.

April 20, aka 420, is the international day to gather with friends and strangers to celebrate cannabis. Thousands of people converged on Porter Meadow at UC Santa Cruz. People adapted to the drizzle throughout the afternoon and took shelter in the woodlands and under redwoods surrounding the meadow. As in past years, UCSC police and administration restricted access by only allowing people with UCSC identification to drive onto campus.

The Internationalist Platform for Resistance and Self-Initiative Weaving Autonomies (PIRATA) organized a brigade for the observation and documentation of the violation of the rights of native peoples in the municipality of Santiago Xanica, Oaxaca, México. The brigade traveled through the municipality from March 14 to March 21, 2011. The task that the International Brigade set for itself has been to listen, understand, relate, and make public what is happening in the community of Santiago Xanica.

On Monday, April 4th, the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination, local coalitions participated in nationwide actions to support Wisconsin workers, public services and the middle class. Organizers of the rally at the Santa Cruz County Government Center stated, "Dr. King was killed in Memphis, TN, where he had stood with sanitation workers who were struggling for the right to bargain collectively. The actions by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker to eliminate collective bargaining – and the gradual eroding of the American middle class - only undermine that struggle."

On Saturday, April 2nd, Dr. Mazin Qumsiheh, a Palestinian author and activist, will speak about militant nonviolence and the Palestinian struggle at three events in Santa Cruz. Viewpoints will galvanize around the following topic of discussion: "Given the current turmoil in Egypt, the impasse in making progress towards a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the prominent role that the U.S. government plays in the Middle East region, what should be the priorities of U.S. Middle East policy and why?”

On March 19th, thousands of people took to the streets to demand an end to U.S. war and military intervention abroad and funding for peoples' needs at home. Demonstrations took place in San Francisco, Fresno, Santa Cruz, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and many other cities across the United States and the world. At the opening rally in San Francisco, speakers condemned the launching of a new war against Libya, which had begun just hours before.

Because of agricultural discharges from Salinas Valley farms, the lower Salinas River has been found to have one of the highest levels of nitrates of any river in the world. During the summer, the river is bright green with a thick mat of toxic algae. The fertilizer doesn’t just impair the Salinas River. When the first rain comes in the fall, a huge pulse of sediment and fertilizer flushes out into Monterey Bay. This pulse has been associated with toxic algae blooms that sicken or kill sea otters, sea lions, and sea birds.