Cover Story
Small frontiers carry big possibilities
Marie Curie said that scientific progress must be pursued “for itself, for the beauty of science.” # More than 20 years later, physicist Robert Oppenheimer said that “physicists have known sin, and this is a knowledge they cannot lose.” Because science, in the hands of man, can be all of these things sin, beauty, destruction,…
Supervisors talk Johnson Avenue land
A 31-acre parcel of county-owned land near the former General Hospital is slated to be sold for development. The county Board of Supervisors talked about the issue at its Sept. 25 meeting, after hearing from its consultant about how to maximize the value of the property before selling it. Current plans call for 27 single-family…
Carrizo’s future is in the spotlight
A recent meeting of the new advisory committee for the Carrizo Plain National Monument was described as “very positive” by Johna Hurl, monument manager for the Bureau of Land Management. The calm atmosphere at the Sept. 22 all-day meeting at the Carissa Plain Elementary School was a sharp contrast to earlier conflicts over the management…
Patience required!
Last week, local newspapers warned that inclement weather could “severely damage” the winegrape crop, and they quoted a veteran winemaker in Santa Ynez Valley who described it as # every winemaker’s “worst nightmare.” I feared that ill-informed readers would think local wineries needn’t bother harvesting grapes this year. Of course, the storm turned out to…
Music to commit suicide to
Imagine a dilapidated double-wide trailer, a rusted Ford truck growing out of scrub brush like the hulking carapace of some giant insect, a hound dog so old and tired it doesn’t bother to bark at strangers anymore, a stop sign riddled with buckshot that’s what Scotland Barr & the Slow Drags sound like. # The…
Faces of the Festival
About five dozen artists will converge on the area for the San Luis Obispo Art Center’s Sixth Annual Plein Air Festival. Here’s a glimpse at a handful of their histories, preferences, and strategies. # Scott Lloyd Anderson, Cary, Ill. NEW TIMES Have you always painted plein air? ANDERSON Yes, from the start. I like being…
Letters
Here’s the tally The SLO City Council votes again. First the Nacimiento Pipeline, now the Downtown building height expansion. Special interests 2, Citizens 0. Terry Mohan San Luis Obispo Jim’s part of a dying breed In response to Jim Baxter’s letter (“The bomb’s brutal lesson,” Sept. 13) I’d like to say thank…
Not politics as usual
It turns out it’s the health care system, stupid! Oh, and the war. During Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich’s stops throughout SLO County he’s the first Democratic candidate to visit the county since Walter Mondale in 1983 time and again he tried to separate himself from the other Democratic candidates by pointing out how their…
I am the law
You ought to hear it from me first: My biological clock is ticking with a thump that would rival Edgar Allan Poe’s telltale heart. Unless my tadpole-like nature results in some asexual reproduction pronto, the entire Shredder line will wither on the vine with me. Then who will be left to inherit my first-generation Atari…
Chinatown plan shrinks
The Copeland family submitted a scaled-back version of the multi-use development project known as Chinatown to the city of San Luis Obispo on Sept. 19. The revised plan cuts the scope of the project by almost 25 percent. The more modest version of the project came just three weeks after a letter from the city,…
Fast facts
Peet’s Coffee and Tea is holding a grand opening celebration Oct. 6 and celebrating with free coffee and tea all day. The new location is at 1075 Court St. (the former home of Mo’s Smokehouse BBQ). As part of a chain, Peet’s serves high-quality beans hand roasted in Santa Barbara. Customers can also receive a…
Court upholds SLO County rent control
A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena has upheld SLO County’s rent control ordinance, in the latest step in a long-running court battle. The voter-approved rent control ordinance for residents of mobile home parks has been challenged by the owner of Sea Oaks Mobile Home Park in Los Osos, Equity…
The world’s fastest Vincent
In 1953, a short, stocky motorcyclist raced a thundering blue British Vincent across the Bonneville Salt Flats and into the pages # of motorcycle history books, setting a world land speed record that endured for 20 years. This month, that same legendary motorcyclist, Marty Dickerson who’s now 80 years old did it again, roaring across…
Halo 3 debuts with midnight sales in SLO County
Hundreds of hardcore gaming fans waited outside of GameStop in San Luis Obispo early the morning of Sept. 25 to get their copy of what’s being called the most anticipated video game ever: Halo 3. Apparently, the midnight sales event wasn’t enough for SLO County’s gamers because GameStop reopened its doors only six hours later…
‘Too cheap to meter’
“Too cheap to meter” I practically whistle this jaunty refrain from the post-war era as I sit with checkbook and pen, paying my monthly electric bill. Full disclosure: I am single, live in a small house, and don’t have an air conditioner, so my bill isn’t that expensive. However, I live 11 miles from a…
Strike oil in San Luis Obispo
# From Napa to Santa Barbara, California wines have developed as one of the state’s most coveted agricultural products. But there’s more to the fruits of the Golden State than just grapes. People in the know indulge in olives. California now produces some of the finest olives and oils in the world including the locally…
