SANTA CRUZ – In order to help large-scale water consumers, the City of Santa Cruz Water Conservation Office will now be providing monthly Water Use Reports to select customers—mostly businesses, schools, homeowners associations, city and county parks, golf courses and “other areas with large irrigated areas,” according to a July 29 press release. The new conservation program was launched in July and aims to help these big water users monitor their usage and costs, and, they hope, conserve more effectively.

Sexual misconduct by teachers is a growing problem in the yoga industry. Why are they getting away with it?
Put a man at the front of a room packed with adoring females and trouble lurks nearby. Churches, college classrooms and campaign trails notoriously breed sex scandals. Although a place of solace and growth for most, the yoga studio is no exception. From celebrity yogis having multiple affairs with students, to allegations of forced sex within global yoga franchises, to gurus getting grabby in class, yoga is no sanctuary from scandal.

UCSC scientists win grant to study toxic algae blooms along California coast
A curious event happened in the summer of 1961.  One foggy night, birds began acting confused, suicidal, even violent. Hundreds of sooty shearwaters are said to have crashed into buildings and power lines across Capitola in the middle of the night. Residents who ventured from their homes found themselves attacked by some of the birds who seemed drawn by their flashlights. The next morning streets and rooftops were found littered with the bodies of the birds, and those avian creatures that survived the night filled the streets, noticeably confused and disoriented.

Can you give a brief report on this fiscal year’s county budget?
Though it wasn’t easy in these difficult economic times for county government, the board was successful in minimizing the reduction to community programs—the nonprofits in our community that provide essential safety-net services. While a 20 percent cut was proposed (on top of a significant cut the previous year), the board was able to decrease the cut to 10 percent so that these vital programs, which provide assistance to the needy and vulnerable in our community, will be there for those who need them.

Illegal immigration. Make it easier for the people who have been here contributing to society to become citizens. And get rid of the gangsters.

Sue Whitney
Santa Cruz | Sales/Advertising

What I tried not to learn from ’60s TV
There we were at Bookshop Santa Cruz, Art Boy, me, and a crowd of fans, listening to my friend and colleague Wallace Baine read from his new book of essays, “Rhymes With Vain.” Wallace launched the event with one of his vintage Sentinel columns “Jed Clampett, Molder Of Men,” his ode to the male role models provided to impressionable youth on 1960s TV shows.

Actor Corey Jones takes a deep look at his Shakespearean character
It takes one passionate actor to agree to play the same role twice, but when Artistic Director of Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Marco Barricelli, asked Corey Jones if he would star as Othello for the second time in his career, Jones jumped at the opportunity.

A resident actor at the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts in Santa Maria for the last three years, Jones earned his acting chops with a wide variety of roles ranging from Max Dettweiler in “The Sound of Music,” to Macbeth, to Aslan in “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” But it was not until he scored the role of Othello at PCPA, that he discovered his true passion for Shakespeare.

Once again Santa Cruz has thrust itself into the limelight. The brainchild of Homer Henard developed out of his sheer interest to make surfing relevant again, bridge the gap between surfers and skaters all while promoting world peace. The white-hot YouTube video below (produced and directed by Chris Killen for Ruse Entertainment at press time was recorded at 1.5 million views) has taken the internet by storm, inspiring thousands of kids across the planet to Tarp Surf.

Last week I visited several towns along the Northern Coast: Booneville, Fort Bragg, Mendocino, Philo, Westport, Santa Rosa, Napa and Sonoma.  I ended up spending three days in Mendocino, two days longer than expected, because there were so many people of interest to interview.  Two that come to mind are Sharon Peterson, owner of the Highlight Gallery and Jessica Norris, director of the Mendocino Art Center.

The Highlight Gallery on Main Street started as many galleries here have, as a cooperative gallery with an emphasis on fine woodworking.  Mendocino, a former Mill Town has been host to some of the finest woodcrafters in the world and has had a close relationship with the nearby College of the Redwoods. The college offers a variety of community-based classes, including its world-famous Fine Woodworking Program started by master woodworker James Krenov.Sharon, an artist who showed me some of the finest examples of woodworking I have seen in a long time.  Because, there is a long-standing relationship between Mendocino and Santa Cruz, some of the work was by Santa Cruz artists.

The Mendocino Art Center was established on the grounds of the former Preston mansion, which was featured in the James Dean movie East of Eden. When the mansion burned to the ground in 1957, Bill Zacha acquired the entire park-like property with a $500 deposit. By 1959 the remaining carriage house had been converted to the nucleus of the Art Center, while other outbuildings and animal sheds became the first studios.  Now the Art Center is an educational and exhibition facility as well as home to Mendocino Theatre Company. Needless to say, for a small Mill Town there is a lot going on in the arts.

Searing tragedy of intolerance reduced to melodrama in ‘Agora’ |

There’s a fascinating, heartbreaking, infuriating true story at the center of Agora, a sumptuous drama of ancient Alexandria from Spanish filmmaker Alejandro Amenábar. But even as the female scholar protagonist lectures her students that every system in the universe must revolve around a center or it will collapse, Amenábar clutters up his narrative with so much bombast and portent, it’s own center finally cannot hold.