Twelve UC Santa Cruz students from the school’s CALPIRG (California Public Interest Research Group) chapter will meet with Senator Diane Feinstein on Friday, March 12 at her San Francisco office to tell their healthcare horror

stories. They will present her with a 5 foot tall “Get Well Soon” card filled with over 200 stories from individuals who have felt the wrath of an unjust healthcare system. In a March 8 press release, the group said, “UCSC

students have been greatly affected by the lack of health care reform and are tired on inaction in Washington D.C. It is critical that legislators hear from their student constituents on this issue which usually thought of as an issue affecting primarily the elderly and those with families.”

So its finally come to this. Anyone who’s been keeping up with the fallout after DC’s Final Crisis wrapped up back in 2008 has seen some less than subtle changes in Gotham City. The murder of Bruce Wayne at the hands of his old pal Darkseid forced Dick Grayson (the original Robin) to step in and don the cape and cowl. Being forced to team up with a noob boy wonder with a not exactly bright and shiny past has led to more than a few disagreements between these caped crusaders. And now the tension is being taken to the next level.

Batman and Robin are about to get it on and not in the way you’re thinking.

Participants in the March 4 UCSC protests share their stories
“I am a language teacher!” UC Santa Cruz Italian lecturer Giulia Centineo screamed into the loudspeaker during a March 4 protest at UC Santa Cruz. Centineo held the microphone up to her lips and addressed the crowd, her hand trembling, perhaps out of nervousness or simply passion. “For years the administration has been shoving down our throats the idea that students are clients. No, students are students! I don’t sell Italian! I teach Italian!”

Our intrepid reporter follows up on newly implemented parking fees

March has arrived and, with it, new downtown parking fees. From the talk about town and the impassioned comments in response to Good Times’ Feb. 18 article, “Pay to Park,” it appears that Cruzans are up in arms over the charges.

I spoke with Les Gripkey, who created a website in response to the parking fees that provides the contact information for city council members and some “Free Parking Talking Points” (gripkeys.googlepages.com/parking). A Boulder Creek resident who regularly shops in Santa Cruz, Gripkey says his main goal in starting the page is to dispense information.

How does the proposed “gas tax flip” affect local transportation and how does it fit in to current budget negotiations?

The “gas tax flip” proposed as part of Gov. Schwarzenegger’s budget would eliminate the sales tax on gas and, instead, increase the excise tax on gas resulting in a 5 cent per gallon price reduction at the gas pump. However, the end result would have a devastating impact on local transit: an estimated $6.5 million annual loss to the Santa Cruz Metro Transit District. This 20 percent decrease to Metro’s budget would require a reduction in the number of bus routes offered, a reduction in the number of Para Cruz shuttles, which transport people with disabilities, and the loss of more than 200 union jobs that include health benefits.

Protesters didn’t exactly win over hearts and minds when they shut off Westside streets last week. When protesting UC Santa Cruz students cut off necessary access to campus, when they break car windows, when they intrude on others’ lives, they actually work against their goal.

Protests are a time-honored tradition, certainly an exercise in free speech. And since the ’60s, protesting has become the tool of activists everywhere – even by those tea party folks on the right.

But are protests effective?

Local youth gets recognized for his commitment to animal rights work

Whoever thinks teenage boys are too busy playing video games to do anything productive obviously has never heard of Beau Broughton. The 17-year-old honor student at San Lorenzo Valley High School founded the SLVHS Animal Rights Club earlier this school year, and has been busy organizing local protests and guest talks by animal rights activists ever since. His group has held a vegan bake sale to help raise relief funds for Haiti after the earthquake, collaborated with Saturn Café for a benefit for the Farm Sanctuary, and much more.

Thousands participated in statewide Day of Action to defend public education

At the Capitol

By April M. Short
In solidarity with the nationwide protest against the State’s increased budget cuts to education, a large crowd stretched out from the front steps of the building and across expansive lawns.

College students, professors, parents and kids as young as 5-years-old raised signs with messages such as,  “Educate our State,” and “Last Generation College Student,” in front of the California state capitol building in Sacramento on Thursday, March 4.

Speakers ranging from assembly members to students, parents, and professors pleaded for restored federal aid to education by any means necessary, and rallied supporters from a microphone at the foot of the capitol steps.

How Bands Should Write an Inquiry Letter to Book a Show

There are people in the world who make your job easier and those who make it harder. In order to write a successful booking inquiry, you need to be the former—be the band that makes the booker’s job easier.

This isn’t rocket science, but it should take some brain power to produce. If you are zapping off your booking inquiry from your cell while riding your bike and checking the waves, you are not giving it enough attention.

In order to get into the zone, I humbly suggest you set aside an hour and put yourself in the booker’s shoes. Assume that they have never heard of your band and that your e-mail will end up next to 30 other similar requests awaiting their fate.

If someone had told me two years ago that I would become a runner, I would have told them they were crazy. I did not grow up in a fitness-focused family. My dad and my brother were sports boys, playing baseball and soccer. But I did not have a female fitness role model. My mom’s workout routine consisted of jumping on a trampoline to bad ’80s music. This is what I learned in my childhood years: To lose weight, you diet.

As I got older, I tried for years to “become” a runner. I remember being 12 years old, “running” at my grandmother’s beach condo in Monterey during my summer vacation. I think I made it a mile and crashed. Although I was an active dancer, there is a cardiovascular difference between dance class and running a mile. I could feel it in my bones, my muscles, my lungs—and I quit before even trying. I repeated the “try and fail” technique for the next 15 years, going full force and then burning out.