Cover Story
Missing the mark
On a pre-selected Monday morning, teachers in every single fifth grade English classroom in the Paso Robles School District will approach the board and write: “Describe how a narrator’s or a speaker’s point of view influences how events are described.” The children will read the sentence aloud, probably in a robotic and creepy monotone, before…
Skydive Pismo Beach is given a Dec. 30 deadline
UPDATE: According to a Skydive Pismo Beach employee, the business will not shut down its skydiving operations. Though permits for the structures at the Oceano Airport are set to expire, Skydive Pismo Beach will move its business operations to a new location. For more information, call Skydive Pismo Beach at 481-5867. Wanna jump out of…
What a turkey!
I’m not usually invited to my family’s Thanksgiving dinner, mostly on account of the fact that I typically use the gathering as an opportunity to peddle knock-off Mary Kay products and float conspiracy theories about what the government may or may not be pumping into our water supply. This year, I received the rare invitation…
There’s got to be a morning after …
It’s Saturday, Nov. 26, and I feel like I’m wrapped in gauze. A dog licks my face, but I’m too wounded to move. What happened? I stumble out through the living room and into the kitchen, where it looks like a category 5 foodnado swept through, flattening bowls of salad and distributing hors d’oeuvres along…
Rave Steve!
If you’re wondering what happened to the rave scene, the answer is it’s changed its name to Steve. No, that’s not quite right. “Glenn,” wrote Collective Effort Events promoter Johnny Kenny, who can’t spell my name, but no biggie, “if you haven’t noticed there is a ‘dance music movement’ sweeping the nation and the world,…
The Village knows cheer
Generally speaking, it’s hard to beat the Village of Arroyo Grande in the adorability department, but especially not at Christmastime, when cuteness levels get cranked up to 11. The Village’s Christmas Concert and Parade already happened (overachievers!) but in case you missed it, or are just looking for more cheer, the following is a compilation…
The opulent, obligatory Nutcracker
The Nutcracker is the lifeblood of Civic Ballet. On Saturday, Dec. 10, the company will have performed the show for 34 consecutive years. The ballet—adapted by a French writer from a German children’s story and scored by a Russian composer—has perhaps enjoyed its most enduring success in the United States, and the Central Coast is…
Spirit and spectacle
Let’s face it: December is a hard month to live through. Aside from the chilly weather and seasonal affective disorder (abbreviated SAD), there’s not much to do that doesn’t directly involve holiday spirit: holiday concerts, holiday sale events, holiday-related art shows. The carols begin to infiltrate every store you enter, and will soon do the…
It’s a dog’s life
Have you ever wondered why dogs will go to such lengths to secure food from the trashcan? Have you ever stopped and questioned why some dogs will literally jump through hoops of fire just for a biscuit? With nagging questions like these, it’s always good to go straight to the source. New Times sat down…
Rodney Strong 2010 Chardonnay Sonoma County
This Chardonnay impressed me, especially considering its value-price of $13.50 retail. Sixty percent barrel fermented, the oak doesn’t overwhelm the tasty fruit flavors, but adds pleasant notes of spice and vanilla. The other 40 percent was cold-fermented to retain its natural fruit flavors. I enjoyed the forward green apple, sweet pear, and bright lemon aromas…
Rodney Strong 2010 Chardonnay Sonoma County
This Chardonnay impressed me, especially considering its value-price of $13.50 retail. Sixty percent barrel fermented, the oak doesn’t overwhelm the tasty fruit flavors, but adds pleasant notes of spice and vanilla. The other 40 percent was cold-fermented to retain its natural fruit flavors. I enjoyed the forward green apple, sweet pear, and bright lemon aromas…
Sharing the finer things
During my 23-year history of working in the business of wine and food, I’ve always found there’s nothing wine aficionados love more than sharing a special bottle of wine among friends. No matter how expensive the bottle nor how precious (it may be the last one in the cellar!), there’s sweet satisfaction in sharing it…
DEREK SHULTZ
NEW TIMES What sparked your interest in metal? SHULTZ I grew up hearing a lot of jazz, ambient music, and, of course, classic rock material such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, the Doors, and Neil Young. When I was in fifth or sixth grade, one of my best friends threw on some CDs from his…
Let golf carts on the streets
Environmentalists could get air pollution reduced immediately by several percent by having a state law passed to allow adults to drive electric golf carts within 10 miles of their homes on streets with 40 mph limits. Here in our senior community, more and more members are driving these non-polluting vehicles within our park. Not only…
Didn’t you notice those big piles of sand?
So what happens when no humans, much less a single vehicle, are permitted on the dunes and there is still dust blowing across the farmland onto the mesa? Who you gonna blame then? If you build next to a pig farm, you can’t ask the pig farmer to move, and if you did not see…
Thanks from a college student
As a 20-year-old college student, I would like to thank the Tea Party for all they have done for my generation. Take, for example, fighting to “wean me off” of Social Security, so I can die of starvation, rather than something boring like cancer. Also for fighting to eliminate the debt by cutting spending, killing…
What do you want for Christmas?
Dennis Steinke student “Hot buttered rum. It makes my family more tolerable.” Alexis Caso student “Snow in SLO!” Allegro Alphonso, Jr. guard dog “Thumbs and a back scratcher.” Dane Plasmyer deli employee “Beer, because it makes Christmas that much more merry.”
The Super Committee shell game
The Congressional “Super Committee” was an anti-democratic maneuver by Obama and the top Dempublicans and Republicrats to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid without having to vote that way in open session. Democrats are selling out their base again by even considering cuts to these vital programs. No one seriously believes that the bloated “Offense…
Super committee gives up
So, the best and brightest (supposedly) of our leaders in Congress, given a critically important job, couldn’t solve a problem in three months? Imagine if they were execs at a big, successful corporation—Apple, Ford, GE, Google, etc.—and came back to their CEO to say they had given up. They’d all be looking for new jobs.…
Use pesticides wisely
As a lifelong organic gardener, I never thought I’d see the day when I would come to the defense of herbicides. But it was actually my love of native plants and wildlife that forced me to challenge my blanket opposition to the use of any herbicides. I came to realize they were a necessary tool…
Pass some rubles
Thank you for your excellent coverage of recent water problems in North and South County. When I moved here 30 years ago, it was soon apparent that the county is like a sagging mattress held up in the middle with both ends dragging. The fact that Nipomo voters were short-sighted and failed to opt-in to…
I’ve got a question, too
In commenting on Robert McDonald’s story, “The wrong man” (Nov. 24), the Shredder asks, “Justice or payback?” Shred needs to add another question: If we have an administratively sustained “bad cop” judgment on a deputy sheriff who’s still on the county payroll and still working the streets, how long will it be until civil suits…
Regarding those downtown SLO city blocks
The City Council doesn’t have a clue on what it is doing! There is absolutely no need to improve on what is not broken. SLO has higher rent than Santa Barbara already, and this will only drive the cost higher. If I wanted to live in a city like Santa Barbara, I’d move! Do the…
Thanks for the novel approach
Compliments and congratulations to Matt Fountain, Jeff Chang, and the SLO New Times for a very creative and well executed approach to telling the story of Operation Green Sweep (“Operation Green Sweep,” Nov. 17). I have not seen anything like this in the regular or alternative newspaper market and found it to be engaging and…
Eucalyptus crowd out natives
I must respond to Dane Jones’ commentary regarding removal of the eucalyptus grove in the new addition to Sweet Springs preserve (“Do not tamper with Sweet Springs,” Nov. 24). He opines the herbicide glyphosate will volatize after being painted on the stumps that remain after the trees are felled, but fails to mention the quantity…
Post-turkey recovery
The remnants of Thanksgiving gluttony leer at me from the fridge: a cup of cranberry sauce, some mashed potatoes, a candied yam. The turkey has long since been stripped bare. Houston: We’ve reached carb-only leftovers.* That means it’s time. Time to shake off the week of gluttony, to try and burn off some of the…
Cougars and Mustangs
In a move that will help monitor the state’s Marine Protected Areas, a state grant of $720,000 was awarded to Cal Poly’s Center for Coastal Marine Sciences early in November. The winning proposal, developed by Cal Poly Marine Science Professor Dean Wendt, Biological Sciences Professor Royden Nakamura, and attorney Melissa Locke, displayed the necessary partnerships…
Convenient occupation
Say what you will about the Occupy San Luis Obispo group members, but they are nothing if not polite. As Occupy movements around the country are being redefined by pepper spray and rubber bullets, SLO’s group is applying for a permit. Regardless of some bright red hair, bull-ring nose piercings, and studded-leather jackets, Occupy SLO…
Hail to the chief
The diet Cantil-Sakauye spoke of is four years of financial hits to the California judicial system, which lost $350 million in state General Fund support in the 2011-12 fiscal year. She relayed the message to a crowd of court officials, police, attorneys, and local judges who gathered for a special meeting in the SLO County…
Don’t 86 me, bro!
You’ve likely heard the stories: After a night of soaking suds, late-night bar patrons go traipsing through neighborhoods, get behind the wheel, or even go waltzing into someone else’s home and pass out. These are some of the problems San Luis Obispo City officials want to curb. After two years of study, the City Council…
A turn to explore
Stepping into the gift shop/toy store/learning center that is Turn to Nature, I felt the reverence a science enthusiast would feel upon entering a laboratory. Or maybe it was more akin to the joy an anachronistic lover of ye olde world curiosities feels upon the discovery of forgotten relics. Whatever it was that gripped me,…
Correction
In a Nov. 23 article, “Small figures in a vast expanse,” PierceModern Gallery’s street address was incorrectly listed. The correct location is 617 12th St. in Paso Robles.
Initiative would end state nuclear power
If successful, a measure proposed for the November 2012 election would prohibit nuclear power generation in California until the federal government approves a method for disposing of nuclear waste, as well as constructing facilities to reprocess nuclear fuel rods. In response to the proposal, the state’s non-partisan Legislative Analysts Office (LAO) released a report on…
Say goodbye to the Chevron marine terminal
A former oil tanker loading terminal at Estero Bay, between Morro Bay and Cayucos, is being decommissioned by the Chevron Environmental Management Company, with strict conditions proposed to prevent pollution of the ocean and the adjoining beach. The Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board’s Dec. 1 meeting agenda includes a proposed permit regulating the…
Local rabbi found dead
Police are still investigating the cause of death of a local rabbi who was found in his car. Scott M. Corngold, formerly of Long Beach, N.Y., was found dead in his car, parked near Cave Landing Road in Avila Beach on the morning of Nov. 26, according to a San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Department…
Med pot in Nipomo, part deux?
Shunned Republican politico Abel Maldonado put a screw in the latest proposal for a medical marijuana dispensary in Nipomo. The second medical marijuana proposal to hit San Luis Obispo County in the last three months ran into a snag when the Maldonado family denied any knowledge of the proposed use of a building on the…
