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Swept away
It started with a simple question: “Where are they now?” But it turns out finding the whereabouts of 11 reported Mexican nationals arrested in a February sweep by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Santa Maria is no small task. This reporter was soon lost in the bureaucratic black hole of the immigration…
Teach your children well: Be kind to animals
Be Kind to Animals Week is May 1 to 7, and it’s the perfect time to encourage the young animal lovers in your life to put their compassion into action. Relating to animals’ feelings helps kids develop empathy and grow into responsible, caring citizens. There are countless ways to encourage kids to show kindness to…
What’s your favorite drink?
Frank Cantelmi mechanical engineer “Perrier water. I like the carbonation and no sugar.” Abel Ritter baseball player “Orange soda, because it’s my favorite color—but my real favorite color is blue.” Taryn Miller painter “I like Dr. Pepper, because my dad always drinks it.” John Green industrial sales “Red wine, because it makes the end of…
Earth rocks!
It’s a beautiful, gauzy Saturday in El Chorro Regional Park, where a few hundred people have gathered to celebrate the fact that we haven’t completely destroyed Earth yet. Vendors and info tents are scattered across the meandering park, and attendees wander from booth to booth, learning about stuff like Fun Ride, a local car…
Get rid of Welfare today
I read 50 percent of Americans now work for the other 50 percent who are on Welfare, food stamps, Section 8. I guess government is doing a better job than churches, charities, neighbors, friends, and family did in the past (right!). This is just wrong! These people all can work; just ask the 20 million…
Make needs–not wants–the base of our economy
We have to grow our way out of the economic recession! Nobody would argue with that. We need to create jobs! Nobody would argue with that either. Do we do it by expanding the economic engine we have and allowing the millionaires and billionaires to continue what they do and hope a few more jobs…
Face the harsh nuclear reality
It will take only one catastrophic incident at Diablo to cause untold long-lasting genetic and environmental damage, no matter what the cause of such a disaster. The moving audio narrative of photographer Paul Fusco at inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/chernobyl, documents the devastating consequences of Chernobyl 25 years ago. Those of us living in the shadow of Diablo, in…
Please explain this homeless situation to me
Let’s see if I have this straight. The April 6 edition of the Trib’s article, titled “Proposed homeless facility gets big boost from county,” states that our board of supervisors (three years after the 86-page plan for the “Ten Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness” was written) has declared 1.1 acres off Prado Road as…
Be more like me, Bill Denneen
Compliments to New Times for printing the excellent commentary “Reduce our footprints now” (April 14) . Our culture is over consuming its resources. This over consumption will terminate the America culture if not reduced ASAP. I have made my life very sustainable—more people should follow my example. I heat my house from wood grown on…
Give us a better way to opt out, PG&E
I have attended a number of city council meetings regarding the “automatic” installation of SmartMeters, none of which answered some very important questions. PG&E’s SmartMeter opt-out option (“SmartMeter opt-out plan is here,” March 30) is grossly unfair for ratepayers who have already paid in excess of $2.2 billion for the SmartMeter program—which they never asked…
Bring in the big birds, San Luis Obispo!
Thank you for Robert McDonald’s article “Hello, big birds” (April 21). Having larger jet liners should help, not harm, San Luis. This recession will eventually end, and San Luis could serve more and bigger jets to more destinations by more airlines than before. I applaud the prospect of nonstop routes to Denver, Portland, Seattle, Spokane,…
Look what the ‘birther’ issue leads folks to do
In regards to the letter “Birther blather is blatantly racist” (April 21), obviously the “birther” issue is whipping Cambria’s lunatic fringe into murderous frenzy. In regards to the letter “Look into the bullying Republican Party” (April 21), thanks, Scott. You’ve made my day. Now I can add one more person to my supposed hate list.
Central Coast Flute Circle
NEW TIMES What is the Central Coast Flute Circle? ALICE REINHEIMER A group of people who are enthusiastic about Native American flutes, who teach others to play these instruments and, importantly, have fun. NEW TIMES What is a standard meeting like? REINHEIMER At first, everyone splits into small groups. Each group learns a song…
The Doobie Dozen
Get your hot dogs—made out of nine percent real meat! All right, all right, maybe it’s more like two percent. But nine sounds so much better. And get your foam fingers, crafted in my very own basement—ahem, my mother’s basement! Old Shred’s got a get-rich-quick scheme selling swag themed after the fast-approaching pot trials that…
Beware of the soulless corporations
The vast majority of wealth and many politicians in our nation are owned by for-profit corporations. But rarely are some aspects of for-profit corporations discussed. Five decades ago, a wise old law professor told his corporations class: “In this class, you will learn how to create a legal person, a person potentially immortal, a person…
Big acts in the little cities
It’s hard to tell what the biggest show is this week. I guess it depends on your tastes. Country fans won’t want to miss the Pozo Stampede with Dwight Yoakum, while blues fans are going to want to check out Charlie Musselwhite. For those suffering from ’80s nostalgia, The Motels are here, and then there’s…
A valentine to the world
“Awash in grief three weeks after the sudden death of the love-of-my-life, I stumbled on a tangle of secrets. My husband, with whom I had shared my bed, my body, my heart and soul, had had another life, a sex life with men.” So writes Vermont author Sally Ryder Brady, whose book on love, marriage,…
Play along with Peggy
Experienced from a church pew, The Fourth Wall is all the more surreal, all the more weird. Peggy, played by Jean Miller, is an upstate New York housewife so disturbed by Bush’s presidency that she’s rearranged her living room furniture in protest. All of it now faces a single, unadorned white wall—incidentally, the imaginary wall…
Calling all Beatlemaniacs
It’s the Beatles like you’ve never seen them before: defying murder, cancer, and old age to be here, on stage, reenacting the story of themselves! OK, so it may not be the real John, Paul, Ringo, or George, but this is likely the most spot-on form of Beatles tribute to ever hit the Central Coast.…
Clubs
Goin’ South … THE CLIFFS RESORT: 2757 Shell Beach Road, 773-5000 or cliffsresort.com. F. MCLINTOCKS SALOON: 750 Mattie Road, Pismo Beach, 773-1892 or mclintocks.com. Live music every Fri.-Sat., 6-9pm. Tennessee Jimmy Harrell, Doc Stoltey. GATHER WINE BAR: 122 E. Branch St. in the Village of Arroyo Grande, 474-4771 or gatherwinebar.com. Music, event, and winemaker lineup: 4/28: Rocky Logue,…
Confused about food trucks?
I ’ve discovered that many Central Coast locals aren’t familiar with the latest dining trend: mobile food trucks. There are virtual fleets of them in major cities like Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, and they have devoted followers. Unlike the cheap taco trucks of yesteryear, these new gourmet food trucks are owned and operated…
Qupe 2010 Los Olivos Cuvée
This cuvee always provides a great choice for value and quality from this consistent producer in Santa Maria Valley. A blend of 53 percent Syrah, 25 percent Grenache, and 22 percent Mourvedre, each varietal is aged separately for nine months. It’s blended then aged four months in neutral (previously used) barrels and bottled unfiltered. Classic…
Laurent Reverdy 2009 Sancerre Verdigny-en-Sancerre
A real value for French Sauvignon Blanc, it’s tasty and refreshing. It offers earthy mineral flavors that are nicely balanced by subtle notes of citrus and melon. It’s easy-sipping alone, but better with dishes like wild mushroom and goat cheese bruschetta, Caesar salad with prawns, or risotto with garlic shrimp, lemon, and goat cheese. Available…
Cougars & Mustangs
Who knew horses could swim so well? The Mustangs are once again making a major splash in the pool. The Cal Poly Women’s Water Polo Club recently won the Pacific Coast Division Championship and advanced to the Collegiate Water Polo Association National Championships. The Mustangs, the three-time defending club water polo national champions, are the…
A tale of two jails
The physical distance between the California Men’s Colony (CMC) and the San Luis Obispo County Jail is little more than the four lanes of Highway 1 between Cuesta College and San Luis Obispo, but there are drastically different worlds behind the facilities’ respective tall walls and barbed wire. CMC was originally designed to hold 3,884…
Gamers unite!
Good Game recently opened a new location in downtown San Luis Obispo and is striving to bring local online gamers out of isolation and into a more social, competitive gaming environment. Basking in the glow of supersized computer monitors, row upon row of online gamers sit with headsets firmly attached to their crowns, grinning ear…
Down–but not out
A massive public turnout at a discussion on possible dispensaries in Morro Bay—as well as national media attention for one of the Central Coast’s most controversial figures—indicates that the medical marijuana debate is alive and well in San Luis Obispo County, if not the United States as a whole. But nearly two years of discussion…
Temple faces foreclosure
Temple Beth David, San Luis Obispo County’s largest synagogue, is facing foreclosure if its members can’t come up with $2.3 million by May 5. The building, completed in 2006, contains a 337-seat worship space as well as classrooms, a library, and gift shop. It’s a state-of-the-art building that has won numerous awards for being on…
Water rates rise for local cities
The recently completed Nacimiento Water Project is bringing more than drinking water to its customers: Big bills are heading out, even for those who won’t be getting the lake water for years. While all of the project’s “partners” have to pay for construction of the project, only one recipient, San Luis Obispo, is actually getting…
Diodati resigns
A Morro Bay planning commissioner who vowed to arrive a half-hour late to two upcoming city meetings in order to keep a promise to his son’s Little League team has resigned instead of allowing himself to be fired. Former commission chair John Diodati spoke briefly at the April 26 Morro Bay City Council meeting, just…
Sheriff’s deputies nab hate vandal suspects
San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s deputies arrested three former Mesa Middle School students on April 25 in connection with a hate incident at the school. According to a Sheriff Department’s report, two 15-year-olds and a 14-year-old were arrested in Arroyo Grande, Santa Maria, and Nipomo. All three were booked on charges of burglary, vandalism, criminal…
Quarry bids go out again
On April 26, San Luis Obispo County supervisors were verbally slammed for upending what should have been a blasé process. Originally scheduled as a consent item on the supervisors’ agenda, county planners made a last-minute move to withdraw a contract for environmental review of the proposed Las Pilitas Quarry in Santa Margarita. Proposed by Las…
Cambria’s fired up over the fired fire chief
Cambria residents are grabbing their pitchforks and crying for blood after the abrupt firing of a popular fire department chief by an increasingly unpopular Community Services District general manager. An abundance of makeshift signs reading “Bring back the chief” and “Mark Miller is a good guy” have sprung up around town, setting the tone for…
