Plus Letters To the Editor It used to be that champions of privacy on the Internet were often treated as paranoid, or somehow against technological progress. Who were they to stand in the way of the New Economy, or viral dancing-baby videos or inspiring photos of unlikely animal friends? The fact that big tech companies were...

Films this WeekCheck out the movies playing locallyReviews Movie Times Santa Cruz area movie theaters > New This Week THE DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL: We know that teenage boys think about sex every minute of every day: but teenage girls? Finally, a film that explores the possibility that young females...

Make peace with myself, which would allow me to be at peace with others. Diane Fisher, Santa Cruz, Network Engineer           Go hide out in a cabin in Big Sur with my two loves, a man and his dog, and eat a lot of oysters. Claire Conklin, Santa Cruz, Librarian    ...

Win tickets to see Black Uhuru on SantaCruz.com See if these names sound familiar: Don Carlos, Junior Reid, Michael Rose, Sly and Robbie. Aside from being the beginning of a list of reggae superstars, it’s also a list of some of the standouts that have been in the Grammy-winning band Black Uhuru. Formed in 1972 by...

What happens when four teachers and a principal get together in a garage one night? No, there’s no punchline—it’s local Americana/rock band Crooked Branches’ origin story. “We were all buddies first, before we knew anybody played an instrument,” says guitarist/vocalist Manny Steffen. “We got together as an outlet. We’d get together in my garage and sit...

Author + reporter = brainy talk in ‘End of the Tour’ Even if you’ve never read anything by the late American author David Foster Wallace, you might be intrigued by The End of the Tour. Based on a nonfiction memoir by journalist David Lipsky about a few days he spent on the road with Wallace on...

Michael Simons, owner and winemaker of Comanche Cellars, once had a trusted steed called Comanche, which was part of his paper route and his rodeo circuit, from the tender age of 10. In memory of this beautiful horse, he named his winery Comanche, and Comanche’s shoes grace the label of each handcrafted bottle. Friends came over...

Farm to Fork benefit dinner for UCSC’s Agroecology Center, plus a zippy salsa from Teresa’s Salsa that loves every food it meets I know you’ve been loading up on all the Romano beans, peaches, cippolini onions and dry-farmed tomatoes you can fit in your bag at our farmers markets—including the one that opens every Tuesday and...

Richard Blum’s fortune grows on the ruins of the American dream   And now let us pause to contemplate Richard Blum’s participation in the destruction of the American dream at the hands of a new phenomenon known as the “Wall Street landlord.” Blum’s wife is U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein. The California legislator’s latest financial disclosure report,...

Community gardeners of Beach Flats wonder what’s next Upon entering through a rickety wooden gate, visitors of the Beach Flats Community Garden step into a different world—they can barely see the metal of the fence behind the beans and chayote, a trellising Latin American vegetable in the gourd family, and large corn stalks stretch high, throwing...