Photo by Julia Reis.

Photo by Julia Reis.

The setting sun ushered in a cascade of bottles and rocks set to the tune of shouts and smashing windows in downtown Oakland on Thursday, as a peaceful protest against Johannes Mehserle, the BART police officer who shot and killed passenger Oscar Grant on a crowded BART platform on January 1, 2009, quickly turned violent around 8PM.

An estimated crowd of 1,000 people converged on the corner of 14th and Broadway shortly after four o’clock, when a twelve-person jury in Los Angeles found Mehserle guilty of involuntary manslaughter, a verdict that infuriated many protestors.

“I think it’s an outrage that a cop who cold bloodly murders a black citizen in front of the whole world gets involuntary manslaughter,” said Berkeley resident Chris Taaffe. “This is more of the same kind of police violence against black people and people of color in this world…and everyone in the Bay Area should be out protesting this.”

A protestor who wished to remain anonymous said that they had mixed reactions when the verdict was announced.

“Part of me was [surprised] and a part of me wasn’t,” the protestor said. “The part of me that was surprised was because I thought he was going to get a harsher sentence, but the part of me that isn’t is just, ‘Well it’s just another long line of events where people can get killed and it doesn’t matter. The cops can get away with everything.’”

Oscar Grant Senior, the grandfather of Grant, said he was not particularly shocked by the verdict but that he had been hoping for Mehserle to be convicted of second-degree murder, the highest possible sentencing since Judge Robert Perry took first-degree murder off the table.

“I didn’t expect no more or no less,” Grant Senior said. “I felt he should’ve gotten second degree murder, but then I wasn’t on the jury.”

Grant Senior added that he came to the protest to ask participants to remain calm and peaceful as they voiced their displeasure with the verdict.

“I came down here to try to rally these people together not to tear up this city, not to tear up the Bay Area,” he said. “You don’t tear up where you live in…. Don’t dishonor my grandson by being violent.”

BART Board President James Fang also called for civility in a statement released shortly after the involuntary manslaughter verdict was read.

“Oakland, indeed the whole Bay Area, is one of the best places to live in the entire world,” Fang said. “We must not let the initial emotional reaction of the verdict have long-lasting negative effects on the place we call home.”

Their words were not heeded come sundown, however, as the violence and destruction that the Oakland Police Department had prepared for and that many Bay Area residents and Oakland businessowners had feared for came to fruition.

Shortly after eight o’clock, after the official organized event ended peacefully, a group of protestors, many of whom were later verified as anarchist agitators, began shouting at police and throwing bottles and rocks.

As a result, officers declared unlawful assembly and ordered remaining protestors to vacate the premises or risk exposure to tear gas and arrest.

That did not deter the group, however as they began smashing windows and looting nearby storefronts. Foot Locker and the Far East National Bank on Broadway were amongst the first businesses to be vandalized. Protestors also set off fireworks and set fire to several dumpsters and trash cans in the area.

All in all, 83 people were arrested and booked on a range of crimes, everything from failure to disperse and resisting arrest to burglary and assault of a police officer.

As Oakland businessowners picked up the pieces of their damaged storefronts and Bay Area residents reflected on the night of mayhem that stemmed from a peaceful protest, many people realized that this case is still not over. Mehserle still has to be sentenced on August 6 and faces a possible sentencing ranging from probation to 14 years behind bars. In addition, the U.S. Department of Justice’s civil rights division has announced their intent to investigate the incident.

Protestor Lucille Beaty, who came to represent the Justice Council of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Oakland, said that she intends to get more involved with community outreach in the aftermath of the Grant case.

“[I plan on] working more within in the community and working for justice not only with the criminal justice system but also with the immigrant rights within the city,” Beaty said. “We need to find unity and change in the way the system is right now.”

Meanwhile, Oscar Grant’s grandfather spoke on behalf of his family and the city of Oakland as a whole when he said that one thing will remain true no matter what happens next.

“We gonna survive,” Grant Senior said.

Photo by Julia Reis.

Photo by Julia Reis.

Photo by Julia Reis.

A planned post-verdict protest of the trial of BART Officer Johannes Mehserle, who shot and killed passenger Oscar Grant on a crowded BART platform on January 1, 2009, escalated into violence around eight o’clock Thursday evening.

The rally started off peacefully around four o’clock in the afternoon shortly after Mehserle was convicted of involuntary manslaughter by a twelve-person jury in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom. However, it turned raucous when protestors began throwing bottles and rocks at police officers. Shortly thereafter, looters broke into a nearby Foot Locker and shattered the windows of the Far East National Bank on Broadway and other stores not boarded up for the protest. Break-ins of several other buildings in the vicinity, as well of reports of fires, fireworks and possible gunshots, continue to mount as the evening goes on.

Police in riot gear continue to make arrests and are ordering people to leave the premises, threatening those who don’t with tear gas.

Earlier in the day, Oscar Grant I, the grandfather of Grant, spoke to the crowd of roughly 1,000 people who had gathered downtown at the corner of 14^th and Broadway asking participants to remain peaceful and calm as they voiced their displeasure with the verdict.

“I came down here to try to rally these people together not to tear up this city, not to tear up the Bay Area,” he said. “You don’t tear up where you live in…. Don’t dishonor my grandson by being violent.”

An extended version of this story was later posted and is available on cityonahillpress.com.

On Friday, June 18, just when people were bouncing off for the weekend, ITS announced a new update to the online campus directory, the web-based application used for looking up publicly available student and staff directory information. Depending on how much you care about the online directory, this update is either kinda nifty or really boring.

The new system sports a unified directory and search system for both students and faculty. The biggest change of all, though, is the ability to modify and add to your online entry using your CruzID and Gold password.

There’s a pretty extensive listing of biographical information you can add, including other email addresses, departments you’re affiliated with, your websites, awards, honors, and your personal interests. If you’re looking for a convenient way to control the publication of your academic life at UCSC, it’s a welcome feature.

For the privacy-minded out there (yes, I’m looking at all of you with your pitchforks still pointed at Facebook), you can get your information removed from the campus directory by changing your privacy settings in… uhh… MyUCSC? Well, that’s a weird jump between applications, but at least there’s an FAQ. You’ll want to look for “Release to Campus Directory” and set that option to “no” to opt out.

If, on the other hand, you’re interested in setting up your web profile, we’ve got a step-by-step walkthrough over this way.

So, you heard about the recent changes to the online campus directory and were totally like “Sweet, dude! I always wanted a UCSC profile! It’s like Facebook, but all academic and stuff!” then we’re here to help. This how-to tells you how to set up your Campus Directory page, as well as lets you know of a couple of pitfalls to look out for. Without adieu, here goes…

Setting Up Your CruzID Gold Password

A snapshot of the CruzID Manager.

Unless you’ve printed something in the library, you probably don’t have a CruzID Gold Password. The most common CruzID password is a Blue password, used with SlugMail, ResNet, CruzNet, and in the computer labs. Practical uses for your CruzID Gold Password (for now, at least) include printing in the library and… well… editing your campus directory entry. So, yeah….

But we’re not here to debate why on Earth there’s two passwords; we’re here to get you hooked up with a Gold password, because you’ll need it to access the campus directory.

Head on over to the CruzID Identity Manager at cruzid.ucsc.edu. You’ll be prompted to log in with your CruzID Blue password. Once you’ve logged, you’ll see a selection of options, but the one we’re looking for is “Set CruzID Gold Password.” Click that link, enter the last four digits of your SSN and your new password, and submit the form. Assuming all goes well, you’ll get a message saying your new password has been set. Huzzah!

If you’ve set up your CruzID Gold Password before, you’ll see a link that says “Change CruzID Gold Password.” As the link suggests, click that to change your Gold password. You’ll need to know your current Gold password to change it, though. If you forgot your password and didn’t set up security questions, you’re going to need to contact ITS to get that fixed.

Setting Up Your Directory Entry

The Edit Entry screen of the Campus Directory, featuring lots and lots and lots of fields.

Now that we’ve got our CruzID Gold Password, let’s go set up our campus directory profile. To begin, go to campusdirectory.ucsc.edu. You’ll see a link that’s labeled “Update Your Directory Information Online.” Click that link and log in with your CruzID Gold Password. If all goes well, you’ll see a long page with fields you can fill in with your information.

There are a couple of pitfalls worth noting that you’ll want to take into account when creating your profile. First, many fields in the form have length restrictions, some as tiny as 255 characters, with others as large as 5000 characters. The system won’t cut you off while you’re typing if you go over the limit, but if you attempt to submit the form with a given field over the character limit, it will reject your submitted information and ask you to edit the offending field. To give yourself some time to write your responses (and so you can have a convenient word count), try writing your responses in a word processing application first, then copy and paste it into the web form.

Arguably the more annoying pitfall is you can’t edit any information whatsoever without adding a department affiliation in your profile. The system will reject your entry if it doesn’t include a selection for “Department,” and once you add it, you’ll be able to change your department affiliation entry, but you won’t be able to remove it completely. Probably not a big deal (it’s not like it’s your SSN or anything like that), but it’s something you should be aware of going in.

Okay, so once you’ve entered all of your information, don’t forget to click “Save Changes” at the bottom of the page or your information won’t be saved.

And that’s it!

But Why Would I Want to Do This?

Of course, it’s always up to you to decide how much information you’d like to share on the internet, and the best rule of thumb I’ve followed is not to share anything online you wouldn’t want public. Or, at the very least, check a website’s Privacy Policy before submitting information to it. If you don’t want any trace of your enrollment at UCSC online, you’re best off restricting the publication of your info to the campus directory (here’s an FAQ on how to do that).

There is something to be said, though, about being active in controlling one’s web presence. With the new features, you can kinda think of the new campus directory as a mini-resume of your work at UCSC. Best of all, it’s now a public entry you can edit and control. If you don’t have a presence on the web already and want to create one, this could work well as a basic starting point. For the more adventurous, you can set up a small personal website for your academic work on your UCSC account, then link to it from your campus directory entry.

Ultimately, if you’re looking for a simple tool for creating a public academic profile, the new campus directory is here for you to use. And while it’s basic, it gets the job done.

When he visited California State University Monterey Bay to appear in the fourth and final installment of the Panetta Institute Lecture Series, a handful of other UC Santa Cruz students and I were fortunate enough to represent UCSC in the audience amidst a sea of high school and college students from the surrounding counties.

The Panetta Institute, located on CSUMB’s campus, has historically partnered with the university to bring in guest speakers and implement programs that encourage involvement in public policy.

Although by now we’re all familiar with Gore’s 2006 documentary and accompanying book, “An Inconvenient Truth,” anyone who predicted that Gore’s approach to the issues of global warming and climate change would be stale four years later was proven incorrect. The issues he addressed were made more relevant than ever by the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Of the 90 million tons of CO2 we put out daily, 30 million are absorbed by the ocean, causing marine acidity to rise and the wildlife to dwindle. The recent oil spill has had an uncannily similar effect on the ecosystem.

“Here’s one difference between the oil spill and the CO2 spill,” Gore said. “Oil you can see … CO2 is invisible.”

Although an unfortunate and lasting incident, the oil spill serves as a useful analogy for the other environmental crises facing the world. Gore referred to it several times to explain the grave consequences that will arise from denying the severity of these issues.

“That much pollution is being pumped into the atmosphere every three seconds,” Gore said. “They told us it was safe to drill into the ocean. They were wrong about the Gulf; they’re wrong about this. [Global warming] masquerades as an abstraction … gives us the illusion that we have the luxury of time.”

He referred to the oil drilling platform responsible for the spill as a “rat’s nest,” and emphasized that the nest ought to be cleaned out, alluding to “corruption in that part of the government.”

Gore also spoke about multibillion-dollar corporations that try to prevent people from demanding change, comparing companies that deny the validity of global warming and climate change with the pro-smoking ad campaigns of the 1950s.

“The response [to the dangers of smoking] was delayed almost 40 years by creating doubt,” Gore said.

I was pleased to see a famous politician and public figure speak so candidly about an issue — any issue — and indeed, Gore pulled no punches. Judging by the raucous applause the former Vice President received every 30 seconds or so, the rest of the audience was equally enthused.

In response to the question of where students should go to seek out the hard facts, Gore recommended the National Academy of Science of any country, professional scientific societies, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“Or,” he joked, “you can listen to Rush Limbaugh. It’s your choice.”

Since he was addressing students — who are in the position of being educated as well as educating themselves and others — Gore emphasized the importance of what he called “sorting through the noise” when it comes to the state of the environment and those who deny the reality of global warming. This was the component of his lecture that I found most profound and most memorable. I would guess that my peers felt the same way.

“Learn about it,” he said. “Empower yourselves with knowledge … If you decide you want to make a difference, you can. You really can.”

For what may have been the hundredth time, the audience broke out into applause again. Whether it was because we were relieved we hadn’t been told the best thing we could do to save our planet was to buy energy-efficient light bulbs, or because it just seemed like the appropriate thing to do, we all clapped over and over again.

There was an energy that pervaded the auditorium, emanating from the applauding hands of the students and the ardor in the former Vice President’s eyes. It hinted at the passion we all have toward our world, a force that might prove to be the ultimate source of alternative energy.

~~~~~

{Campus}

Professor finds suspicious damage to car

May 28, 12:56 p.m. — A professor discovered two lug nuts had been removed, and three others were loose, from his/her car after parking it on campus.

{City}

Man killed by creek in possible drug deal gone bad

May 28, 5:39 p.m. — SCPD responded to the 300 block of Dakota Ave by Branciforte Creek to a report of shots fired and a subject with gunshot wounds. Witnesses told police that two men were talking when one of the men shot the other in the torso and fled on foot. The victim, later identified as a 26-year-old Santa Cruz transient, was flown to a trauma center, where he died the next morning. An SCPD police dog discovered a handgun buried under some brush while doing a sweep of the crime scene. The next day, at 11:45 a.m., neighbors called to report a suspicious person at the scene. SCPD officers found the suspect, a 26-year-old Felton man, in the area where the gun was discovered. The suspect fled, jumping through backyards, and attempted to force his way into a residence. He surrendered when officers arrived with a police dog. Officers took him into custody on suspicion of homicide. Based on drugs found at the scene, SCPD believes the motive of the killing was a drug deal gone bad or a possible robbery. Both the victim and the suspect had prior drug-related arrests.

Cat dies after being shot with arrow on Westside

May 30, 2:30 p.m. — A resident of Walk Circle on the Westside called 911 to report a black and white male cat with an arrow through its back that was dragging its rear legs. An animal control officer responded and was able to take the cat to a veterinarian, but the cat was euthanized due to the severity of the injury from the one-and-a-half-foot-long arrow. The cat did not have a collar or chip to identify an owner. Animal Services, along with SCPD and the California Department of Justice, are working with DNA testing on the arrow to find the shooter. The unknown suspect faces charges of animal cruelty and weapons charges for using a bow and arrow within city limits.

Illustration by Megan Laird.

What’s summer without thoughts of Mark Yudof? Some may say pleasant. But, as finals dwindle down and memories of cramped classes fade, students should resist letting all of their thoughts wander to travel, relaxation, or that new lucrative summer job. Without chanting crowds at the base of campus as a visible reminder of all that we’ve lost to state budget cuts this year, it’ll be easy to forget what’s still at stake in the future. But when students — at least those who haven’t dropped out because of increasing costs — return in the fall, classes will still be full, libraries still closed, and lecturers still being laid-off. And, in November, Californians will put a whole new set of decision makers in office — people who could seal the fate of public education for many years to come. It’s too crucial a time to forget about higher education now.

When class is out for summer, that won’t mean UC administrators will take a break from making decisions that affect the whole system. According to a calendar on the UC website, the Commission on the Future, a group created to re-imagine the future of the UC system, will present its final recommendations to the UC regents in early fall. The recommendations include proposals that could drastically alter the UC, including three-year degree programs, increased online courses, multi-year fee increases, and increased admittance of out-of-state students.

This summer may be the last few months in which students can comment on these recommendations before some become set in stone. Administrative decisions also happen on a smaller scale on individual campuses during the summer. Last summer, UC Santa Cruz eliminated the position of Marlene Olson, Student Media Director, while members of student media who benefit from her position were not around to advocate for the position.

On a bigger scale, this summer is important because it precedes the November election, which will bring California a new governor and new representatives in the legislature. As much as we students bemoan Yudof and the regents’ faults state lawmakers, especially the governor, have even more power over our educational opportunities and those of future generations. It also might be important to note that a handful of candidates have been the regents that previous generations of students bemoaned.

The first step is to vote. People between the ages of 18 and 24 are the least likely of any age group to cast their ballots, which is also why our voices are considered less important to many politicians interested in re-election.

Write letters to the gubernatorial candidates and legislative candidates — ask them what they plan to do to fix California’s broken educational system. Students should also talk to their families, friends, grandparents, co-workers — you don’t even have to share your political ideologies.

All you have to do is share with them your experience in public education — you can tell them that its quality has declined, because that’s the truth. As much as people may hear it from news outlets, they may feel differently after hearing it from you.

Summer is our time off, and students don’t have to be constantly watching CNN. But this year has shown that, when we talk about it — or yell about it, rather — lawmakers do hear us. Governor Schwarzenegger increased funding for higher education in next year’s proposed budget, even though the state is still in the red, and he cited March 4 student protests as a reason for his decision. That might not be enough, but it’s not nothing. So keep talking about it. We can’t let ‘em off the hook yet.

Illustration by Rachel Edelstein.

As a candidate for president, Barack Obama promised to undo the injustices of the Bush administration. He pledged to close the Guantanamo Bay prison and ensure that those detained in Bush’s “War on Terror” were allowed to see their days in court.

As president, Obama’s pledges have fallen flat, and he is beginning to look like George W. However, under the Obama administration instead of forcing prisoners to wallow in Guantanamo Bay prison without rights, the prisoners are now stuck in palaces like Bagram prison in Afghanistan.

Recently, the Obama administration argued in federal court that these detainees at Bagram prison had no legal rights in the American courts. The three-judge appeals court, in a unanimous decision, agreed with the administration’s lawyers, ruling that enemy combatants in foreign war zones do not deserve the same human rights as U.S. Citizens. But the refusal to afford due process to detainees is a violation of both the United States Constitution and the international Geneva Convention.

The decision allows detainees to be arrested anywhere in the world, and then shipped to Bagram prison in Afghanistan, where they can be held indefinitely with no right to a lawyer or a trial.

In 2008, the Supreme Court found that detainees had the right to petition their imprisonment. Soon after, the Bush administration began importing suspected terrorists to Bagram prison, following the same procedures ruled unconstitutional at Guantanamo Bay — no lawyers, no appeals, no justice. The Bush administration claimed that the detainees couldn’t be afforded due process because they were enemy combatants, a term used to describe people who take up arms in a conflict but are not part of national army or resistance force.

The adoption of this reasoning is straight out of the Bush administration’s playbook on indefinite detentions of suspected terrorists. Barack Obama was elected on a platform of rejecting this logic, and his victory shows that the American people agree.

The injustices at the Bagram prison may soon become Obama’s Guantanamo. Such encampments are an embarrassment to a nation built of laws and justice and a call to arms for al-Qaeda and anti-western extremists.

One of Obama’s first promises as president was to shut down Guantanamo Bay within a year. The one-year anniversary of this claim passed months ago and Guantanamo is still open. Obama’s administration now must distance itself from the mistakes of the Bush administration. If these alleged terrorists are guilty of a crime, they will be found guilty in a courtroom, just like criminals in the United States are. President Barack Obama should embrace his campaign’s promise to end denial of due process to suspected terrorists and disavow the Bush administration’s unconstitutional policies.

{August/September 2009}

A man smoking on Pacific Avenue points out the law. The smoking ban, seen on the sign, went into effect on Oct. 20 after a one month grace period. CHP Archives.

The Lockheed Fire

About 10 miles up Empire Grade from UC Santa Cruz in Bonny Doon, an unattended campfire started an 8,000-acre blaze on Aug. 12 that took nearly two weeks, $26.6 million, and more than 2,000 firefighters to contain. The fire was the first of two in the county in 2009. Just four months later, the Loma Fire erupted near the Santa Cruz-Santa Clara county line in October and burned 485 acres.

Smoking Ban

On Sept. 8, the Santa Cruz City Council voted unanimously to pass a public smoking ban, which prohibited smoking on Pacific Avenue, Beach Street, and West Cliff Drive, as well as within 25 feet of any door or window of city buildings open to the public. The ban went into effect on Oct. 20, and after a one-month grace period, anyone caught smoking in restricted areas was presented with a $25 citation. Two months later, the city of Santa Cruz got a “D” for the year of 2009 from the American Lung Association for overall efforts to control tobacco.

{October 2009}

Tragic Stabbing

On Oct. 16, 16-year-old Tyler Tenorio was killed in a gang-related stabbing in Santa Cruz near Chestnut and Laurel Streets, near the Laurel Street 7-Eleven. Tenorio and friends exchanged words with two gang members. They attempted to escape when the argument turned violent and more suspected gang members arrived. Tenorio died on the street, having been stabbed 16 times. One suspect, an alleged gang member, was arrested, while a second suspect is believed to have fled to Mexico.

Take Back Santa Cruz

In response to gang-related killings, Santa Cruz resident Analicia Cube founded the organization Take Back Santa Cruz on Oct. 31. The group encourages Santa Cruzans to become active in preventing crime in the city, and held several ‘positive loitering’ events in 2009-10.

{November 2009}

Santa Cruz on the Food Network

Local hotspot Santa Cruz Diner made headlines when Food Network’s Guy Fieri featured the restaurant on his show “Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives.” In March of 2010, Fieri was back, this time to film at Aldo’s Harbor Restaurant, giving Santa Cruzans another 15 minutes of culinary fame.

{December 2009}

CHP Archive.

Annual Lighted Boat Parade

In the Santa Cruz Harbor on Dec. 6, the boat parade celebrated its 24th year. The parade is organized by the Santa Cruz Yacht Club in cooperation with Santa Cruz Port District.

{January 2010}

Murders in the New Year

The year 2010 started off on an ominous note in Santa Cruz, with the Jan. 1 murder-suicide of 24-year-old 7-Eleven salesclerk Nichole Schrock and her 42-year-old ex-boyfriend Illya Cavlan. This was followed up by the double homicide of 21-year-old Alejandro Nava-Gonzales and 18-year-old Oscar Ventura at an apartment complex on Canfield Avenue. Jamie Galdalmez-Guevara, 18, is suspected of pulling the trigger, and was apprehended in the Central Valley. He is currently awaiting trial.

Veterans Hall Closes Indefinitely

After conducting a safety inspection of the building, county officials announced the indefinite closure of the auditorium, due to concerns that it would not be structurally sound in the event of an earthquake. The Vets Hall, which is a registered historical landmark of Santa Cruz, previously served as a venue for concerts, as well as providing much-needed services for veterans.

{February 2010}

Surf’s Up!

Twenty-four of the world’s best surfers braved the 50-foot swells at Mavericks on February 13 to compete in the renowned surfing competition. Chris Bertish of South Africa took home first place, with Santa Cruz resident Shane Desmond earning second place.

Bar Brawl

Four men were wounded and two arrested after a gang-related altercation on Feb. 13 outside the Red Restaurant and Bar near the intersection of Cedar and Locust Streets. This incident turned out to be one of several local gang-motivated crimes that occurred throughout the academic year.

{March 2010}

From Free to Fee

On March 1, two previously-free downtown Santa Cruz lots became pay lots. The Cedar and Church Streets Parking Garage and the Cedar and Cathcart Streets Parking Lot now cost $.50 an hour, or $5 a day for parking in order to generate additional city revenue.

Keeping Tabs on Crime

The Santa Cruz Police Department announced the team-up of the city of Santa Cruz with the website crimemapping.com. The site offers real time information to make it easier for the community to keep track of crime in and around Santa Cruz.

{April 2010}

Erik Lippman, a 30-year-old autistic man, disappeared in April but his body was later found at Marina State Beach after a county-wide search. CHP Archive.

Gang-Related Homicide of Carl Reimer

On the evening of April 24, 19-year-old Santa Cruz High School graduate Carl Reimer was shot and killed by alleged gang members at Grandview Park after going to retrieve a skateboard and bike that he and his friend had left there earlier. Reimer had been close friends with 16-year-old Tyler Tenorio, who was stabbed and beaten to death in October 2009. Much like the murder of Tenorio, Reimer’s death prompted outrage and concern in the community over increasing gang violence, and prompted Take Back Santa Cruz to host a Positive Loitering event at the park where he was killed.

City Council Approves Installation of Homeless Meters

The Santa Cruz City Council passed an idea proposed by the Downtown Association to install refurbished 1950s parking meters to benefit the homeless. The program, called Imagine Positive Change, will allow people to deposit change that will go toward helping local homelessness projects in the city. It was met with mixed controversy from activists who fear it may discourage panhandling.

Erik Lippmann Disappears

The 30-year-old autistic man was reported missing on April 21, prompting a county-wide search by family members, friends, and volunteers and the creation of a Facebook group dedicated to finding him that acquired nearly 6,000 members. The search came to an end, however, on April 29, when Lippmann’s body was found at Marina State Beach. The coroner determined Lippmann had died from accidental drowning.

{May 2010}

May Day Riot

What began as a dance party in support of labor rights quickly escalated into a separate riot on the evening of May 1, when a group of alleged anarchists began throwing jugs of paint at police cars. They smashed storefront windows and tagged buildings with anarchist symbols and anti-capitalist phrases. By the time riot officers from the SCPD and neighboring agencies arrived on the scene, 18 businesses had sustained estimated $100,000 of damage. Since then, two transients have been arrested in connection with the riot, and the FBI has gotten involved in the investigation. The anarchist café SubRosa, located on Pacific Avenue, has been accused of having ties to the riot, because one of the two individuals arrested admitted to picking up a flier for the dance party there. However, the café has repeatedly denied any involvement with the event or the subsequent riot.

Tour of California Rides Into Santa Cruz

The 6th annual AMGEN Tour of California finished the third stage of the renowned bike race at the Boardwalk in front of a crowd of 20,000 people. The race, which featured seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong and 2009 AMGEN Tour winner Levi Leipheimer, came to Santa Cruz for the second year in a row. This year contestants finished at the Boardwalk instead of in downtown (as was the case in 2009) in order to accommodate more spectators.

Santa Cruz Surpasses 2009 Homicide Total

Shortly after bringing in the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement Unit (ICE) to help combat gang and drug violence in Santa Cruz, a 26-year-old transient was shot and killed on May 28 in an apparent drug deal gone bad. The homicide marks the fifth of 2010 for Santa Cruz, which surpasses the 2009 mark of four. Both in 2009 and so far in 2010, three of the murders have been gang-related.

{June 2010}

Fate of Night Owl to be Decided

On June 25, the Santa Cruz Metro board will decide whether or not to cut late-night service between UCSC and downtown, as well trim down or eliminate more than 20 other routes. A Facebook group entitled, “Emergency: Save Metro UCSC Night Routes” has already gained more than 1,300 members in support of keeping late night buses running. UCSC has recommended keeping the Night Owl service and paying the Metro more to operate it.

Public Forum on Gang Violence

The Santa Cruz Police Department will host a meeting on Wednesday, June 9 at the Santa Cruz Police Department from 6:30-8:30 p.m to discuss its efforts to curb gang violence with local, state, and federal resources. Mayor Mike Rotkin, SCPD representatives, and city councilmembers are expected to be present at the meeting.

{September 2009}

Photo by Morgan Grana.

September 8

The Commission on the Future, a group established to make recommendations on the future of the UC assuming continual fiscal difficulties, holds its first meeting. The group’s recommendations, released in March, include some controversial proposals, such as accepting more out-of-state students, increasing the proportion of online courses for graduate and undergraduate programs, designing three-year major programs, cutting major requirements, and increasing student fees. The commission plans to present their finalized recommendations to the UC Regents in early fall of 2010.

September 24 Walkout

On Thursday, September 24, bus routes to campus were rerouted, while faculty, students andworkers conducted the year’s first protests of the UC’s budget shortfalls. The University Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE) union at UC Santa Cruz led the walkout to protest the elimination of staff for research programs and the UC’s budget shortfall. Student protesters then occupied the Graduate Student Commons above Joe’s Pizza and Subs in Quarry Plaza for one week.

{November 2009}

Regents Meeting: Fee Increases and Reactions

Facing a $637.1 million dollar cut in funding from the state of California, the UC Regents voted to pass a 32.5 percent increase in undergraduate student fees. Protesters marched at both the Regents’ meeting, at UCLA’s Covel Commons and on UCSC, shutting down the campus.

The first of the fees would begin in the Winter 2010 quarter and would consist of a system-wide fee of $585 and the second increase would begin in the 2010-11 school year, increasing student fees by $1,344. Overall, the UC educational fee was raised to a yearly total of $10,302 a year.

November Kerr Hall Occupation

In response to the UC Regents approval of a measure to raise student fees by 32.5 percent, 150 students occupied Kerr Hall, the building that houses UCSC administration and the Chancellors office. The occupation lasted for 66-hours, causing damages that administrators say totaled up $34,992.02. Thirty-five students were held responsible for the occupation and charged $944 each to cover the cleanup for the damages to Kerr Hall.

{March 2010}

Photo by Isaac Miller.

March 4

About 1,000 students, teachers and supporters of education converged at the state capitol in Sacramento to protest state cuts to schools from K-12 to universities. At the “educate the state” rally on the Capitol steps, everyone from teachers to legislators and parents spoke about the value of education.

At UCSC, protestors successfully shut down campus by blocking both main entrances, resulting in all classes being cancelled for the day as well as campus services such as dining halls being closed. Hundreds of students, parents and teachers demonstrated at UCs, CSUs, elementary and high schools and community colleges around the state.

In Sacramento, UC Davis students attempting to block I-80 were stopped by a police blockade, while in Oakland demonstrators successfully shut down the I-880 for about an hour.

{April 2010}

April 6

The UCSC Academic Senate’s Committee on Educational Policy (CEP) announced that the community studies major will be suspended as of next year, citing disorganization and disagreement within the department as reasons for the decision.

The department, which comprised the community studies major and Social Documentation Graduate Program, had been subject to budget cuts in recent years which many postulate could have contributed to the suspension.

The major, which took an interdisciplinary and hands-on approach to social justice, will be reevaluated in two years time and could be reinstated but as of now, it is barred to incoming students.

{May 2010}

Photo by Rosario Serna.

May 18th-19th

Crowds of UCSC students, workers and educators gathered at the two main campus entrances for an event titled “Walk-Out to Education” in support of higher education.

Professors and lecturers held sections outside while others read poetry to the crowd.  Signs adorning the main campus entrance read, “Talk to Us,” “Democratize the Regents,” and “Dondé Está Mi Dinero.” Robert Meister, a Professor of Social Sciences and Political Thought, who was present at the demonstration, said, “A tuition-dependent UC is a UC dependent on private borrowing. There is something better than the best private education, and it is the best public education.”

Illustration by Joe Lai.

For some, this past Memorial Day was just as much about looking forward to the future as it was about remembering the nation’s fallen soldiers. Among those who will graduate from UC Santa Cruz this year, garbed in cap and gown will be a handful of the school’s few student veterans.

The path to graduation for these students has been anything but easy.

Luis Padilla, one of four student veterans graduating this year, described his transition from military life to academics as an abrupt one.

“As a reservist in the Marine Corps, I was sent to Iraq in the middle of the school year,” Padilla said. “I came back the following year on Jan. 4, and classes resumed on Jan. 5. It was a culture shock to just wake up and go to class thinking ‘what the hell do I do now?’ For me, that was the hardest part.”

Student veterans face a number of troubles unknown to the rest of the student body. The changes in their social environment, anxiety over receiving their Government Issue (GI) Bill benefits, or simply just trying to connect with their student peers — the uphill battle for a cap and gown is a little steeper for student veterans.

“I was a little hesitant about UCSC because of the anti-military stereotypes associated with the school,” said Erica Ronquillo, a transfer student and veteran. “I didn’t want to talk about my service with the Marine Corps. It can be hard figuring out how the other students feel about it.”

However, while every student veteran’s troubles are personal, they are also relatable. The network of support provided by UCSC’s Veterans Services program (VETS), such as peer-to-peer mentoring and counseling with fellow student veterans, is exactly what some need to earn their degrees.

“When you come here as a student veteran, you’re in need of information,” Padilla said. “You can take what your instructors and peers say with a grain of salt, but it’s easiest to take to heart what other advice student veterans have to say.”

Founded in 2008, the VETS program, under the Services for Transfer and Re-Entry Students program (STARS), has worked to provide support services, as well as educate veterans about their benefits under the GI Bill. While the number of enrolled student veterans is small in comparison to the greater UCSC student body, VETS Supervisor Dani Molina does everything he can to ensure that every student veteran’s graduation leads to a greater story of success.

“There’s about 80 or so student veterans taking advantage of the GI Bill here at UCSC,” Molina said. “Ever since VETS saw its first graduate in 2009, we’ve been gaining a lot of support for veterans returning to school.”

Support either in the form of grants from the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) or simple friendly gestures from their student peers, has been a huge relief for student veterans like Erica Ronquillo.

“I did not expect the amount of support that is here,” Ronquillo said. “UCSC turned out to be an excellent environment for student veterans. My perception of Santa Cruz was completely turned around. There’s a lot of good opportunities here for student veterans.”

Now, at the cusp of graduation, UCSC’s graduating veterans are looking forward to bringing their degrees and military experience to the workforce.

“This year, we are looking forward to seeing four more student veterans graduate,” VETS Supervisor Molina said. “Every student veteran who graduates from UCSC goes on to do something amazing with their life — working at the Pentagon, Ernst & Yung, investment companies, all of it.”

As the school year comes to a close, having exchanged their firearms for pens and their helmets for tassels, UCSC’s student veterans take pride in their accomplishments and are confident of their futures. Padilla, who will be graduating with a degree in history, was accepted into an internship in Washington D.C.

“My military focus and discipline has enabled me to work hard to get what I want,” Padilla said. “Now I want to do some government work, maybe international relations. I’d like to eventually work for the state department … [and] I would like to keep helping student veterans after I graduate.”

Illustration by Joe Lai.

A few years ago, advocate for the homeless Linda Lemaster knew a family in Santa Cruz that couldn’t afford a traditional home. Instead, the family members lived and slept in their bus. Soon they couldn’t afford to keep the bus either, and were forced to sell it and split up: mother and daughter went to a shelter, father and son lived under a bridge.

“The whole family came apart,” Lemaster said with a sigh, her voice cracking with tears. “The father was really resourceful, but nobody has what it takes to run a household without a place to be, without plumbing, you know?”

The cost of living was made more difficult for the family of four by parking fines they incurred — which included fines for sleeping in their vehicle between 11:00 p.m. and 8:30 a.m., made illegal in Santa Cruz by law 6.36.010. The law also bans camping, sleeping, and using blankets on public property during those hours.

This ordinance, in conjunction with the lack of emergency shelter, makes finding a good night’s sleep a difficult task for Santa Cruz’s homeless population.

6.36.010

In April, the Santa Cruz Police Department listed 122 service calls regarding illegal camping. Of these, 22 resulted in citations, usually including a fine of around $20 — though subsequent citations can add up to over $100.

“There are approximately 1,000 to 1,500 homeless people in the Santa Cruz area, so it’s a pretty small number, and that’s because the police are really only citing people when they’re in very visible, problematic places,” said Councilmember Don Lane of the per capita number of citations among the homeless population. “It’s not like they’re going out and looking for people to give tickets to.”

Still, the “sleeping ban,” as it has been dubbed by activists, is an issue keeping both homeless people and sympathizers up at night. The ban went into effect in 1978, and has been stirring up controversy ever since.

Santa Cruz is certainly not the first or only California city to have a sleeping ban. This year, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is pushing to get a similar law passed, which would forbid sitting and lying on sidewalks for most of the day in California’s city by the bay, much to the chagrin of local and national activists.

Los Angeles did not allow people to sit, lie, or sleep on any public sidewalk until Jones vs. City of Los Angeles in 2006 ruled that this was unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. Despite the attention sleeping laws receive, not one Santa Cruz City Councilmember has proposed repealing the sleeping ban.

Activists from Santa Cruz’s Homeless United for Friendship and Freedom (HUFF), as well as the Human Rights Organization, have held protests and debates for over a decade with the hopes of repealing the ordinance. They have had no luck to date.

Robert Norse, founder of HUFF, suggested the ban might be an effort to make the city look more appealing.

“There’s a concerted effort to drive homeless people out of sight, at least, if not out of town,” Norse said.

Lane cites public opinion as the driving force behind the sleeping ban’s creation and longevity.

“I don’t think the majority of the people in the community want [sleeping laws] to be changed …most people have a sense that we don’t really want people to just be able to sleep anywhere,” Lane said. “It’s a real problem … there aren’t enough legal places for everyone to sleep, but the question is, does that mean people should just be able to sleep anywhere?”

Vice Mayor Ryan Coonerty suggested that because Santa Cruz residents support homeless services in other forms, repealing the sleeping ban could actually harm the community.

“Santa Cruz provides more services for homeless people than any other community in California or the country,” Coonerty said. “One of there reasons we do that is that we have community support, and a very quick way to dry up the community support is to allow people to start camping on the streets or in parks.”

Coonerty said the city offers a variety of services, including food distributions and counseling for homeless community members.

“We provide services that other cities are unwilling to provide. … In turn, we have a larger homeless population, and then, because we’ve done the right thing, we’re not allowing people to camp,” Coonerty said. “Whereas the communities that actively drive homeless people out of their communities and give them no tools to turn their lives around, aren’t criticized for having a camping ban there, because they’ve driven all the homeless people out of their community.”

Activist Lemaster said that the ban itself took a toll on the family she knew that was trying to sleep in their car.

“Little things like that ate up their ability to live as a family,” she said. “Homeless families are so at risk, there’s so many things that could go wrong to destabilize them. … One ticket can be a year’s worth of hell. I’ve just seen families pulled apart.”

Hope for Compromise?

“What’s ironic about this whole thing is that it doesn’t have to be this way,” Robert Norse said, his voice rising with passion and anger. “[Santa Cruz] needs to set up areas where homeless people can sleep and park their vehicles.”

Having specific camping and parking areas is an approach that has been tried before.

In 2000, Linda Lemaster led the Homeless Issues Task Force in Santa Cruz. The task force researched and discussed different issues plaguing homeless people in the area, then presented the City Council with a list of suggested actions it could take to help curb these problems. Among the findings was an idea to have a designated area where people can legally sleep at night without being harrassed, a so-called “Tent City,” a goal that never fully came to fruition.

“We got kind of a cold shoulder from the City Council to most of these recommendations,” Lemaster said. “Maybe they did whatever they had to formally, but they didn’t even discuss it … because most of [the recommendations] were either controversial, or the city thought it would cost something.”

Don Lane cites a different reason for not currently having designated sleeping areas in Santa Cruz.

“There have been [homeless camping sites] in the past, and, every time that the city has tried to do that, it ended up being pretty much a disaster and in disorder,” Lane explained. “Even the majority of homeless people who were staying in those camping areas started moving away from them themselves.”

According to Ryan Coonerty, the chaos would put a strain on the city and present insurmountable challenges.

“If you set up an area like that, then you are responsible for maintaining public health and safety … you’re screwed,” Coonerty said. “You’re basically telling people ‘it’s OK to camp here, and you’ll be safe,’ which is a big responsibility … both the health and safety of people was compromised.”

In spite of housing woes, there is hope for those who can’t put a roof over their heads. Shelters in Santa Cruz do offer some relief.

Shelter for Some

During easier times, Jane Cooper* lived in a rental house with her 13-year-old daughter and three sons, aged 11, five, and 10 months. Then one day, the house burned down.

“We lost everything. Pictures, keepsakes, my animals,” said Cooper, sitting in a cozy meeting area in the Santa Cruz Homeless Services Center. “We just left with what we had on. … I still have nightmares, they [the children] have nightmares all the time about the fire.”

The family didn’t have renters’ insurance, and Jane had trouble finding work as a veterinary technician. As a result, the Cooper family was forced to stay in a slew of hotels, and then an empty rental house owned by Jane’s aunt — “We were sleeping on a hardwood floor,” Cooper said.

On Feb. 17 of this year, Jane got onto the waiting list to stay at the Rebele Family Shelter in Santa Cruz, part of a complex of shelters run by the Homeless Services Center. After a couple month’s wait, the Cooper family moved in during early April. They have been living there ever since.

“I love it here. I love it. It’s been very, very positive for me and my kids,” Cooper said with a smile. “It’s a lot of burden off our shoulders, just knowing that we have a place to lie down and food to eat. And everyone’s been really supportive.”

The Rebele Shelter, which receives funding from the federal, state, and city level, as well as private donations, houses families like the Coopers for between three to six months, usually around 28 families at a time. The families come from a variety of different situations.

“We get families who are sleeping in their cars, who are couch surfing, who are in hotels, who have a family member to stay with. So it really depends on the family,” said Sonya Goodpaster, a case manager for the shelter. “Part of the case plan here is getting sustainable, long-term housing, so we work with different agencies for that. … We’ve also had a couple of families who faced different barriers, as far as immigration and employment and whatnot, and have had to go to different shelters.”

Shelter Director Letita Schwarz said that about 85 percent of families do find secure housing after leaving. She also noted one condition required to stay at any of the Services Center’s shelters, which include the Paul Lee Loft Shelter and the Page Smith Community House, along with the Rebele Family Shelter.

“We do require that this is a clean and sober place,” Schwarz said. “So, if they have prior drug history, I will drug test them before coming into the shelter.”

Advocate for the homeless Becky Johnson said that this policy unfairly discriminates.

“Food, shelter, and sanitation should be provided for anyone who is without, just out of basic human dignity,” Johnson said.

Despite the success of the shelters, Goodpaster emphasized that Santa Cruz lacks adequate emergency shelter.

“You get people who call the shelter wanting emergency housing, like ‘I need a place tomorrow night or tonight.’ And, unfortunately, our program is a waitlist,” Goodpaster said. “I think one of the obstacles that I’m facing today is a single father with a 15-year-old son. … He calls all the places and they’re all full, he wants to know where he can go.”

There is the Santa Cruz National Guard Armory, which provides emergency shelter, but only during the winter months, and Schwarz said it’s currently lacking funding.

Vice Mayor Coonerty said it is unclear how much of Santa Cruz’s population is without housing, and called the statistic “difficult to calculate.”

“Some homeless people are sleeping on couches, or hotel rooms, or other places,” he said.

Coonerty also said that no one can receive citations for camping or sleeping in their vehicles on nights when shelters are completely full.

According to the City of Santa Cruz Municipal Code, however, “Any citation issued for a violation of this chapter shall be dismissed by the City Attorney in the interest of justice if, at the time of citation issuance, the winter shelter at the Santa Cruz National Guard Armory is filled to capacity.” This means that campers only have this particular legal protection in the winter months.

Additionally, Linda Lemaster said that because many homeless people do not know this information, they end up getting tickets anyway, and don’t have adequate information to contest the charges.

“If they call the Homeless Resource Service Center, and they say ‘No, we have no beds’ … then those people’s tickets get dropped,” Lemaster said. “But how many [homeless people] know that?”

“Not One Face of Homelessness”

Cooper hopes to rent a house when she leaves the Rebele Shelter in a few months. Until then, she says she’s realizing more every day that being homeless is not always the individual’s fault.

“Everybody has their different stories. Some people lost their homes to foreclosure, some people lost their homes [from being] laid off, our house burned down,” Cooper said. “I mean, we’re all normal people,” she added with a laugh.

Rebele Family Shelter Director Letita Schwarz said that people don’t always end up on the street because of poor decisions, and that, sometimes, it’s simply a matter of “unforseen circumstances.”

“There’s not one face of homelessness,” Schwarz said.“There’s not one picture of who that person is, or what that person looks like, or what their circumstances have been. I think there’s a lot of misconception that someone has done the wrong things or made the wrong bad choices, and that’s why they’re here.”

The debate over the sleeping ban will most likely continue for years, and shelters will do their best to accommodate people in need. Meanwhile, activists will keep working to see that every homeless person has a safe place to sleep legally. According to the Washington Post, the average life expectancy for homeless people in the U.S. in 2006 was 51 years, compared to 78 for the average American.

“The homeless death rate [in the U.S.] is almost 20 years premature,” activist Johnson said. “Robbing a homeless person of sleep ultimately deprives them of life.”

~~~~~~

*Name has been changed.

Illustration by Rachel Edelstein.

“What are you doing after you graduate?”

Whether fielding the dreaded question from curious friends, concerned parents, or well-meaning relatives — without a definite plan, giving an answer to this question is complicated. As over 2,300 UCSC seniors prepare for graduation in a little over a week, the topic on everyone’s minds is the future.

After graduation, students have the freedom to choose what to do with their lives, which is simultaneously liberating and disconcerting.  Graduation is right around the corner, along with a lot of uncertainty, but if there is ever a time to take risks and do something crazy, this is it. Many students are going abroad to take advantage of their newfound freedom in the attempt to avoid cubicle confinement for as long as possible.

Life After College

Stephanie Bouret, a fourth-year design major at UC Davis, has been spending the last couple of weeks researching and day dreaming about the future, when she admits she should be focusing on her final projects.  This is because, at the end of August, Bouret is embarking on a trip that will take her all of the way around the globe.

First, Bouret plans on spending ten days couch surfing in Zurich, Switzerland, before flying to Tanzania to volunteer in an orphanage for two and a half months.  Bouret always knew she wanted to go to Africa after graduation, and found a program through International Volunteer Headquarters (IVHQ), which places volunteers in any of 14 countries.

“I don’t even know where they are going to place me yet, I don’t really know what to expect, but that is kind of what interests me about it — not really knowing what I’m going to experience there, just a culture shock, more of a global perspective on things,” Bouret said.

Armed with her ‘round-the-world plane ticket and anti-malaria pills, Bouret is excited to travel by herself and become immersed in multiple different cultures.

Round-the-world plane tickets enable travelers to fly through up to 16 stops, including layovers, provided they visit at least two destinations in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres and don’t backtrack along their journey. After Tanzania, Bouret plans to travel for at least a couple more weeks, or as long as the money she has carefully saved will hold out.

“I’m done with everything being really sheltered, and I really want to have my own experience,” she said. “You just have to take some risks in traveling and in life, and we’ll just see what happens.”

Despite Bouret’s excitement about facing the unknown, for many, anxiety is often paired with the possibility of adventure.

Margarita Azmitia, Ph.D., is a professor of developmental psychology at UC Santa Cruz. Part of her research has focused on the ways individuals adjust to major life transitions, such as the transition to adulthood.

“[Graduation] causes anxiety for a variety of reasons,” Azmitia said. “Anytime you make a transition — whether it is to adulthood or whether it is to junior high, you are going to have anxiety, because it is a new context. … You have to make decisions about what adulthood is going to look like for you, what kind of jobs you are thinking about, what kind of relationships — all of that is a little bit unsettling.”

Students about to graduate can use this time as an opportunity to learn about themselves and use their new experiences to help them decide what directions to take in the future. According to Azmitia, the jump from college into the real world is made easier by being flexible and open to change.

“This is the time when you don’t have [many] responsibilities, you don’t have a family, you don’t have a job that you have to stay at, so this time is a great opportunity to see other things. You probably won’t have this kind of opportunity again in your life,” she said. “You just have to be open to new experiences, and let things also emerge so that you can see new things. Most people don’t end up doing what they planned, at least initially, and that’s OK.”

April Goral is no stranger to students who are apprehensive about the future. The UCSC career center advisor for arts, humanities, and life and health sciences estimates that more than half of the students she sees on a daily basis have no idea what career path they would like to pursue. Goral helps to guide these students by listening closely to their interests and giving information about the various opportunities open to them.

Goral said that many students do not choose to go to graduate school immediately, and that there are benefits to trying out different options before deciding what to do in the long run.

“Graduate schools are about specialization, and, if a student doesn’t know what it is that they want to specialize in, then they need to go into the world of work and explore and find it out for themselves,” Goral said. “Many of the MBA programs prefer students who have had at least three years of work experience before applying. They want them to bring something to the table.”

For graduates able to travel, this can be a perfect challenge, and a way to learn to be fully independent. Goral said college graduates can further their education in locales other than the classroom, and that their recently discovered capabilities could help them land their dream jobs.

“One of the main traits that employers are looking for are team players, and the team players are not all going to be from the same geographic location or have the same kind of mentality,” she said. “Being flexible, being adaptable, that willingness, and the interaction that they have with a greater diverse population are wonderful skills that they would be bringing to any kind of position or toward grad school.”

“If there is any opportunity to travel abroad,” Goral added, “I tell students, why not?”

Off the Beaten Path

In 2008, the UC Experience Survey questioned seniors about their plans following graduation. Of the graduating students at UCSC, 30 percent planned to go to graduate school, while another 32 percent had plans to get full-time jobs — but what about the rest? Taking time off during a ‘gap year’ is a well-established custom in countries like Great Britain, and now many recent graduates are attempting to make it a trend in America.

Traveling is one of the best ways to become immersed in different cultures and new experiences.  Professor Azmitia said those who are unsure of their abilities to survive in the real world can benefit by going abroad.

“For students that are able to do something completely different, whether it is through traveling or trying your hand at something you have never done before, it is a really good experience to just really … figure out who you really are and see if you can really make it,” Azmitia said.

The main obstacle faced by students who want to travel is the expense involved. However, the Internet is full of opportunities to work in exchange for food and a place to stay.

Workaway.info, the website created by David Milward, is one option for students looking to travel and gain unique work experience while spending as little money as possible.  A first visit to the website featured volunteering in return for accommodations at either a bed and breakfast in the Australian outback or a yoga retreat in the Andalusia region of Spain.

“Everyone should have the opportunity to travel,” Milward said. “It opens your eyes to different cultures and lifestyles, you learn so much, not only about other countries … but about yourself and who you really are.”

Other international networking websites, like couchsurfing.com, allow travelers to find people in other countries who are willing to let them crash on their couch for free. In addition to a free place to stay, these locals will often show their guests around and help them to avoid notorious tourist traps while taking them to places off the beaten path.

World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) is another organization based around the concept of work exchange.  With national WWOOF organizations in 50 countries, “WWOOFers” work with other eco-conscious locals on farms, in return for food and a place to stay.

Joshua Cowan, a fifth-year UCSC Oakes student, used WWOOF in New Zealand to get more out of his trip than the usual tourist experience.  For the last three months of his trip, Cowan traveled around New Zealand, sometimes staying at houses or hostels registered with the WWOOF network. His stays involved either helping in small, personal gardens or with various household projects.

“I saw it as a really cheap way to travel and also get to see what the Kiwi, or the New Zealand, culture was like,” Cowan said. “I saw it to really get that experience — what it’s actually like to live as a New Zealander.”

Embracing Culture Shock

Other recent graduates take the opportunity to visit or live in as many countries as possible, creating the new generation of global citizens. Some choose to teach English abroad as a way to live and work in different surroundings.  This enables the traveler to see a country from a much different perspective than they would gain from a short stay.

When Jordana Miller describes all of the places she has been, her enthusiasm for travel is infectious. She stayed in Costa Rica for a month with a friend who taught surfing for a living.  More recently, she returned from a trip to Mexico, and is leaving soon to travel to Israel through Taglit-Birthright Israel, a program that provides trips to Israel for Jewish young adults. After Israel, she plans on stopping off in Egypt before returning home.

After graduating from San Diego State in 2007 and finishing an internship, a friend convinced Miller to teach English in South Korea — she left a few weeks later. Miller originally committed to staying in South Korea for six months teaching students aged two to 14, but eventually decided to extend her stay to almost a year and a half.  Even though she said teaching was overwhelming at first, Miller learned a lot about herself in the process.

“The first week I felt like I couldn’t breathe because I was so overwhelmed – you literally just go and you figure it out,” Miller said. “The best  part of Korea were the people I met. Everyone that goes is a little bit crazy because you’ve gotta be a little bit crazy to just leave your life and go commit to living in Asia for a year.”

Now Miller can’t get enough of traveling. While teaching in South Korea, she was able to visit Japan, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. She loved her experience and wholeheartedly recommends teaching abroad as a way to see another country.

“I would say even if you are just thinking about it and entertaining the idea, just do it,” Miller said. “Absolutely 100 percent do it, just go with yes. I was bit by the travel bug before Korea, but after Korea, it’s like a drug, I need to leave the country.  Anything that involves my passport, I’m there.”

(from left to right)

“Yes, but only by my biological disposition of 3.5 billion years of evolution.”
Colin Ziegler
Fourth-year, Cowell
Psychology

“Yeah, I love it because it’s lovable.”
Alyssa Ammarin
Second-year, Kresge
Environmental Studies

“No, because it sucks and is tacky.”
Hossein Shenasa
First-year, Kresge
Psychology

“Yes, I do. I love it because it feels right.”
Gillian Hegarty
Third-year, College Ten
Community Studies & Sociology

Compiled by Rula Al-Nasrawi & Kathryn Power

Illustration by Louise Leong.

So I really, truly love baseball. That’s kind of an abstraction, I know, but it’s the truth. I love baseball because it means spring and summer. It means short sleeves and blue skies and lazy Sunday afternoons at the ballpark. It means the simple intricacies, like watching an outfielder make a great diving catch or standing up to cheer for a pitcher with a 3-2 count on the batter and two outs in the inning. It means thinking back to when you were a kid, playing catch with a family member in the backyard or hitting a ball off a tee with a whiffle ball and a plastic bat. It means hope and second chances, a clean slate for underdog and overachieving teams alike. But over the past few years, baseball has developed an even deeper meaning for me that transcends all of this.

I think about this every time I go to a Giants game with my older brother Ryan. I value every chance I get to spend with him, maybe more so than most people do with their siblings. That’s because I’m still getting to know him — I met him a little less than three years ago. My parents had him in 1975 while they were still in college — two years before they got married — and due to extenuating circumstances, decided to give him up for adoption. Almost 32 years later, my mom decided to try to find him, and, as the saying goes, “the rest is history.” He came home from a Boston trip to catch the Giants at Fenway Park with his now-wife in June 2007, and found a letter from my mom in his mailbox, introducing herself and our family and expressing her hopes that maybe we could make a late start and become a part of each others’ lives.

From the start, my brother and I developed an instant connection with baseball. In our first e-mails, before we even talked on the phone or met in person, we were talking about the Giants, analyzing the tough losses that were mounting up, Barry Bonds’ home run chase, and the prospects of a new young pitcher named Tim Lincecum. During the time we spent trying to fill in the blanks of each others’ pasts, we talked about baseball. It was our mutual common point, a shared interest that we could use to make it past the initial awkwardness of a newfound sibling relationship.

Almost three years after he became a part of my life, we’re closer than I could have ever hoped, especially considering I wasn’t confident that we would ever meet. We talk through e-mails, Facebook, or we send text messages almost every day about sports, music and everything in between. We don’t get to see each other as often as I’d like, but with baseball season now underway, I’ll get to see him relatively often, as he plans to come down to the Bay Area for games once or twice a month. The fact that I am fortunate enough to be able to share the experience of going to a game with my brother gives me another reason to love baseball, to count down to Opening Day far in advance every year.

Thinking about my brother and our mutual love of the game has made me come to realize the unity that exists in sports and how it goes beyond that of players on the same team. There aren’t that many opportunities in society where people of completely different backgrounds, political views or values can all connect — that’s why a sport can be so magical.

Sports can bring together cities and countries, with millions of people pledging allegiance to their country’s flag along with the colors of their favorite team’s uniforms. It evokes strong emotions that few other venues can — a team can tear your heart out by trading your favorite player, have you cheering until your throat is raw, or break your heart by losing a postseason elimination game. As a fan of your home team’s stadium, arena, or field, your voice is an echo to the shouts, applause and boos of other fans around you. It is where the noise of the crowd can become as loud as a 747 Boeing jet, where even the most soft-spoken individuals can be found yelling their voices hoarse. It is where miracles happen — the birthplace of the bottom of the ninth, the Hail Mary, the buzzer-beater. And it is the venue that has brought my brother and me closer together, and where we will be this summer when the Giants play the Red Sox. It will be almost three years to the date after he came home from seeing them play each other in Boston to find the letter from our mom in his mailbox.

Illustration by Patrick Yeung.

This past weekend, after witnessing the glittered car wreck that was “Sex and the City 2” — which at over two-and-a-half hours is about two-and-a-half hours too long — I found myself experiencing the menopausal foursome of Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha in a startlingly new light. While I was once able to appreciate the over-the-top extravagance that comes with the misadventures of the formerly fab foursome, I found myself fearful this time around. They suddenly represented something far worse than the vagaries of terrorism or the intangible threat of the recession — an event these particular females seem to know nothing about. Everything they stood for this time around, everything the film preached with vigor, suddenly felt dangerous — their hoarding of designer clothes, their desperation to attain a perfect marriage, their insensitivity in regards to Middle Eastern culture. And, in the process, the film justified every negative thought that anti-“Sex” honchos have been shouting for years.

To be fair, “Sex and the City” has always walked the fine line between progressive and oppressive. Often it would find itself faltering in regards to the righteousness of womanhood: more shopping, less roaring. The series’ willingness to display the most profound of secrets — that women, too, enjoy having sex — always made the show seem slightly more interesting, and more important than it really was. But at its core was a story about friendship that runs deeper than relationships, and an inherent desire for female independence. There is some of that this time around in the sequel, but it’s steeped in products, and the film suddenly reeks of capitalist extremism. Solidarity with the single gal was sold in favor of a diamond ring, and any blow for the feminist movement was traded in favor of the latest brand name to hit the catwalk. Why are we allowing a film to preach the necessity of extravagance during a time when its primary audience is thinking twice about being able to afford ticket prices?

Some may cite this reaction as far too vigorous. This is, after all, a series that has always basked in escapism — as a fellow columnist, scenes of Ms. Bradshaw typing away diligently in her multi-million dollar New York City brownstone reeked of fantasy. But, if “City” is allowed to be proclaimed as progressive when it shows the bare basics of female discourse, then its offenses should be taken with that same earnest seriousness.

And this film is offensive. It manipulates the fans who have come to accept these characters as the pinnacle of female liberation, as if admitting a favorite sexual position is the equivalent of “The Feminine Mystique.” These hollow excuses for both characters in any medium and women on any continent serve as cinematic representations of female castration.

Even if the film can claim ignorance in regards to its serious faulting of forty-something womanhood (hell, women of any age should take offense), there is no denying that placing four overgrown Barbie dolls in the trenches of the Middle East (“It’s the new Abu Dhabi,” purrs Samantha, right before a requisite sex pun) is begging for trouble.

In one barely-there subplot, Carrie finds that The New Yorker has panned her latest book, “I Do. Do I?” (a groan-inducing title if there ever was one), and manages to twist the bashing of her authorship into an anti-feminist power play on behalf of… the source is never really explained. She then goes on to align her scathing review with the pains of female oppression at the hands of Islamic fundamentalism, which is quickly followed by the four girls singing a karaoke cover of Hellen Reddy’s “I Am Woman.”

They gasp at the beauty of their surroundings and the kindness of the people they’ve met while strutting across the desert, unaware that husbands are legally allowed to beat their wives in “the new Abu Dhabi.” But I doubt this was included in the girls’ private jet brochures.

Where once there was the hope that these four represented the bourgeois bohemian culture that lamented the very culture they take part in, they have instead, here, been resigned to nothing more than mindless mannequins with an expense account and a hazy view of Middle Eastern relations.

And, in the penultimate blow for womanhood, four veiled Muslim women save the friends from the hordes of angry Muslim men, who are chasing the girls for over sharing their sex lives. Once safe, the women remove their oppressive garb to reveal that underneath, they are just like their new American friends: drenched head-to-toe in designer wear. This is the moment of profound female camaraderie, the realization that they are not that different from the desert sisters after all — I mean, they’re both wearing Chanel. Somewhere I can hear Susan B. Anthony rolling over in her grave.

“At least it saves money on Botox,” murmurs Samantha, giving even the most liberal viewer the thought that maybe this whole “women aren’t allowed to speak” thing might have more weight to it than initially assumed. I am, of course, joking. This film, however, is not. It truly believes that dressing up these Muslim women in Dior and Dolce is a stand against even the darkest corners of female fascism. But all it is is an affirmation of America at its most materialistic, the pinnacle of its absurdest assumption that all women want is to look good and look at things that look good. And this message is simply dangerous.

Is this offensive for women? Women moviegoers? Middle Eastern women? Middle easterners everywhere? To quote Ms. (I’m sorry — Mrs.) Bradshaw herself: “I couldn’t help but wonder.”

Freshmen AThletes Brooke Atkinson and Salvatore Lacavera III pose for a close-up outside the Stevenson Cafe. Photo by Andrew Allio.

Men’s volleyball outside hitter Salvatore LaCavera III, and women’s soccer center midfielder Brooke Atkinson, both freshmen, came to UC Santa Cruz in very different boats. LaCavera III was a highly-touted volleyball prospect, while Atkinson still needed to make the soccer team. Hard practice earned Atkinson a spot on the traveling squad by midseason, and she won real playing time by the end of the year. By season’s end, both LaCavera III and Atkinson were impact players on their respective squads.

Atkinson scored two goals this season, while LaCavera III earned the American Volleyball Coaches Association Division III Newcomer of the Year award, a spot on the second team D-III All-American squad and a place on the Molten D-III Final Four All-Tournament team. City on a Hill Press had a chance to meet two of UCSC’s most talented freshmen athletes at Stevenson Café this Tuesday to ask them a few questions.

~~~~~~

City on a Hill Press (CHP): You two were both great high school athletes. How was the change from being star athletes at your old schools to being the new kids on the block at UC Santa Cruz?

Brooke Atkinson (BA): It was kind of a big transition, actually. I dealt with it and pushed myself a lot harder, and I’ve definitely seen improvement.

Salvatore LaCavera III (SL3): For me, it was a pretty easy transition. I mean, it definitely had its difficulties, but the seniors and upperclassmen on our team fought to have a mutual respect on the team, instead of this huge unbalanced seniority. That just made it really easy to play, and I think that is part of the reason why we did so well this year.

CHP: How do you two plan to help incoming freshmen with the move to Division III athletics next year?

BA: I’m definitely going to be really motivational and talk to them a lot, because coming here and seeing the seniors was super intimidating at first. Then, once you get to talk to them, you’re like, okay they’re real people — they’re not scary seniors. You want to get that comfort level, so you can build that team chemistry.

SL3: And just the whole freshman jitters thing. I think you just have to say, ‘Calm down, it’s just a game.’ If you just tell them to just have fun, talk to them about the game, you’ll take their mind off the pressure and the fear, because that’s just one of the things that comes along with being a freshman at any level.

CHP: Both of you are lucky enough to have three years of NCAA eligibility left. What are your aspirations for these next three seasons?

BA: Definitely to get a lot more playing time next year, because we lost a lot of seniors, so a lot of the freshmen this year are going to have to step it up. I’m hoping to be one of [them] and really help my team out.

SL3: Ours is a team goal. We’ve been trying to win the national championship for the past 10 years, so for us to actually do it in the three years that I would be here would be really special. It didn’t work out this year, so next year we have to go harder.

CHP: Right now, sports are not really a focal point at UCSC. How do you think the athletics at the school will change by your senior year?

SL3: I hope we can change it.

BA: Yeah, I hope we can just get the campus a lot more excited about our sports. No one knows about us, really. We’re like, ‘Hey, we have a game today, come out and watch us’ and no one really supports us at all. It’s kind of a bummer. I’m hoping that by senior year maybe we can get some funding to make some T-shirts to give out to the campus. Everyone can have slug shirts, slug wear — something to support us and support athletics.

SL3: The problem is just the funding. Did you guys have to pay for your season?

BA: No, we didn’t have to pay for anything, but we had to put in 40 charity hours.

SL3: Oh, see, we have a bill at the end of the season, which, I mean, I’m willing to pay, I’m willing to work harder, but it’s not a real collegiate program, in that sense.

CHP: If I were to have this interview with you guys three years down the road when you are graduating, what direction do you think you’ll be headed in?

BA: I’m planning on going to med school, so I’m working toward that. I know it is going to be difficult while playing soccer at the same time. It is a lot of commitment to be a health science major and to play soccer, so I’m hoping to keep playing for all four years. That’s my goal.

SL3: I’m actually looking to go to law school. Really solid academics and athletics will take us really far after graduating, because that definitely helps on your résumé. It shows that you are able to cooperate with others, that you are goal-oriented, and that you will do anything to win. That’s really important.

(from left to right)

“Where the hell else are they going to sleep? I mean, it is essentially telling the homeless that it’s illegal to sleep, so it doesn’t make a lot of bloody sense, right?”
Andrew Delunas
Fifth-year, Graduate
Philosophy

“Yes, because where else are they going to sleep? It’s kind of a dick move to prosecute people just for sleeping, when they’ve got nowhere else to sleep.”
Josh Brett
Fourth-year, Porter
History

“They have nowhere else to sleep. Where else are they going to sleep?”
Mary Moretti
First-year, Stevenson
Linguistics

“I guess it depends on where they are sleeping, I mean, who cares if they are sleeping in their cars? What are they going to do, make them walk around all night? I don’t think that’s a good law. They should give them more help instead of just saying, ‘no, you have to not sleep.’”
Kelly Huth
Fifth-year, Cowell
Neuroscience

Compiled by Joey Bien-Kahn & Andrew Allio

Dancers take the stage in performances showcasing the diversity of Asia. Photo by Andrew Allio.

Despite the rain on the night of Tuesday, May 25, approximately 400 students packed the Stevenson Event Center for this year’s Cultural Celebration Night (CCN) to enjoy an evening of free food and performances. The night showcased the heritage of the Asian-American and Pacific Islander community at UC Santa Cruz.

CCN is an annual event put on by the Asian-American and Pacific Islander Resource Center (AAPIRC) to share the culture and heritage of Asian-American and Pacific Islander students with the greater UCSC community. The performance-centered event is a collaboration of the AAPIRC, ethnic student organizations, and Greek societies on campus.

Arthur Chen, a second-year business management major from College Ten, volunteered at the event through his fraternity, Lambda Phi Epsilon.

“We help set up tables, greet everyone who comes through the door, serve food, and basically make sure everything runs smoothly,” Chen said. “I enjoy seeing so many of my friends spending time to acknowledge how wonderful our culture is.”

This year marked the first performance by the Indian Student Organization at CCN. As the hip-hop-infused Bhangra beat blasted out of the event center’s sound system, dancers clad in flashy, yet traditional, outfits moved to the cheers of the entire audience.

Isha Kakkar, a second-year legal studies major from College Ten, performed with the Indian Student Organization’s Bhangra dance group.

“I thought it was amazing. We had a pretty good time on stage,” Kakkar said. “We really enjoyed the cheer at the end and all the applause. It was a very high-energy crowd, and we love that feedback.”

Fellow Bhangra dancer Amandeep Singh, a third-year information systems management major from Crown College, reflected on the impact of the show’s cultural diversity.

“When you say ‘Asian,’ there is one type of community most people think of, but there is more than one type of Asian community,” Singh said. “There’s not that many shows that bring together all these different communities, so it’s great that we can all come together and share our cultures.”

Carmen Chan, an intern at AAPIRC, was in charge of the committee that planned the event. Her role included booking performers and securing a date and location for the event. In addition, she was also one of two emcees for the evening’s program.

“The committee chose two people to emcee and I happened to be one of them. It was my first time speaking in front of an audience that big,” Chan said. Despite her lack of experience, Chan caught on quickly. “At first, it was pretty nerve-racking, but, as the night went on, I got more comfortable and didn’t need the script. I learned how to improvise and just go with the flow,” she said.

The evening’s program included performances by numerous ethnic student organizations, such as the Vietnamese Student Association, the Filipino Student Association, and the Chinese Student Association, as well as a raffle with prizes ranging from bags of rice to skimboards.

With the exception of a jazz combo that performed while students took their seats, the performances were all dance routines. While their medium was the same, the content of each act reflected the diversity of the ethnic organizations involved.

AAPIRC had originally intended for the event to take place later in the week, so that students would not be worried about school the next day, but due to conflicts of availability, was forced to hold CCN on a Tuesday night.

Carmen Chan said that despite her fears of a lower turnout because of the heavy rainfall and the event’s place early in the week, the CCN planning committee is proud of the event.

“In the beginning of the night, one of the people on my committee came up and asked me where I wanted the extra chairs put, because the [seating] we set up wasn’t enough,” she said. “We really didn’t expect to need extra seating. That made me feel like we had accomplished our goal.”

(from left to right)

“3-D movies are awesome. I think it’s an evolution in terms of technology, and I love 3-D movies. I only wish real life was a 3-D movie.”
Gilbert Van Der Feins
Third-year, Kresge
Literature and Film/Digital Media

“It depends on what aspect of the cinema. Visually, it is a huge improvement, and that’s really neat, but it seems like it’s over-emphasized at the expense of other parts of the movie.”
Allison Leonard
Third-year, Merrill
Health Sciences

“Definitely degrading! The focus isn’t on the substance anymore, just on the presentation. Everyone thought ‘Avatar’ was really great, but I almost felt insulted by it at times.”
Spencer Thomas
Third-year, College Nine
Biology and Environmental Studies

“There’s 3-D porn, man. It is definitely an improvement!”
Crash Bertacchi
Second-year, Crown
Neuroscience and Behavior

Compiled by Patrick Rooney & Nita-Rose Evans

~~~~~

{Campus}

Student detained, found in violation of an outstanding warrant

May 23, 2:27 a.m. — A 20-year-old Crown student was arrested at the Crown-Merill apartments, after being detained by residents who accused him of breaking a window at their apartment. A record check revealed that the student had a warrant for his arrest and he was booked for the outstanding warrant.

False information to Police

May 20, 9:42 p.m. — A 20-year-old non-UCSC affiliate was arrested for giving false information to a police officer.

Anarchist Graffiti found

May 21, 9:21 a.m. — An anarchist symbol was found spray-painted on the staircase between the Science and Engineering Library and the Sinsheimer Lab.

{City}

Man arrested for attempting to kidnap and antagonize children at Seymour Marine Center

May 21, 4:45 p.m. — A 40-year-old Santa Cruz man who was already in Santa Cruz County Jail was booked at Main Jail by UCSCPD for additional charges. The man, who allegedly led SCPD on a short chase on May 18, was later found to be under the influence of methamphetamine and was taken into custody. SCPD later revealed that the suspect was in possession of two realistic-looking BB guns and several masks and wigs. According to UCSCPD, the same suspect allegedly tried to entice children at the Seymour Center at the Long Marine Lab to come over to his car around 11 a.m. on May 18, a few hours before leading police on a chase through the Westside. The suspect was booked for attempted kidnapping and antagonizing children.

Shots fired during fight Downtown

May 21, 2:00 a.m. — Officers responded to the 700 block of Pacific Avenue for the report of a fight with subjects falling through a storefront window. While surveying the scene, an officer heard a gun shot from the area of Spruce Street and Pacific Avenue. While he was not struck, a 20-year-old Santa Cruz man, sustained injuries from falling through a window. The victim had been arguing with the suspect, described as being a light-skinned African-American male adult, in his late 20s or early 30s, 6 feet tall with a thin build, wearing blue jeans and a black sweatshirt. During the argument, the suspect and the victim fell through the window, and the victim was later shot at while fleeing on Spruce Street.

(from left to right)

“I wish the seafood buffet happened, but I wish the crabs had stayed.”
Ian Chartrand
Fourth-year, College Ten
Modern Literature

“I wish I ran into my one of my TAs and got married to him really hammered. … But he wouldn’t remember, but I would.”
Stephanie Bastiaans
First-year, College Nine
Psychology

“That movie ‘The Hangover.’ That was the worst movie I’ve ever seen.”
Daniel Brown
Fifth-Year, PH.D. Student
Music

“Well, I lost my shoe in Vegas at a club. I don’t know how I got home without it. So, I guess that stayed in Vegas.”

Jerimiah Jimeno
Fourth-Year, Merrill
Film and Digital Media & Sociology

Compiled by Jacob Pierce & Devika Agarwal

To: Chancellor Blumenthal

From: Renya Ramirez (CAAD member, American Studies, Associate Professor).

Bettina Aptheker (Feminist Studies, Professor),

Amy Lonetree (American Studies, Assistant Professor),

Carla Freccero (Chair, CAAD, Literature, Professor),

Raquel Prado (CAAD member, Applied Mathematics and Statistics, Assoc. Professor),

Pradip Mascharak (CAAD member, Chemistry, Professor),

Steve Knipp (Chair, National Education Association, American Indian Caucus),

Simón Sedillo (Community Rights Defense Organizer),

Nicholas Hartlep (AERA, Fellow at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee),

Colin Hampson (Stanford Law School alumni and tribal lawyer),

Winona Simms (Stanford, Associate Dean and Director American Indian/Alaska Native/Native Hawaiian Program/Native American Cultural Center),

Marta Frausto (California Otomi Coordination Project),

Janeen Antoine (Director, American Indian Contemporary Arts),

Michael Duran (Counseling Director, Indian Health of SCV, UCSC alumni),

Laverne Roberts (President, American Indian Alliance of Silicon Valley),

Micah McNeil (UCSC Native Alumni, SANAI Co-founder)

Mirasol Ramirez (UCSC Alummi, AIRC Co-founder),

Andrea Smith (UCSC Alumni, AIRC Co-founder, Media and Cultural Studies),

Irene Vasquez (UCSC Alumni, SANAI Hunger-striker),

Lela Cast (UCSC Native Parent, AIRC)

Tomas Alejo (Sociology, AIRC intern, Undergraduate),

Amalia Coronado (Language Studies, AIRC intern, undergraduate),

Cristal Olivas (LALS, undergraduate, AIRC),

Madana Cast (Health Sciences, AIRC intern, undergraduate student),

Juan Ramirez (American Studies, AIRC, undergraduate),

Soma De Boubon (History of Consciousness, AIRC, graduate student),

Chris Cuadrado (undergraduate, El Centro Intern),

Esmirna Perez (Community Studies, UCSC alumni),

Pablo Viramontes (UCSC alumni, former SANAI member, AIRC volunteer),

Noah Tamarkin (Anthropology graduate student),

Cynthia Dorantes (UCSC undergraduate student)

Andrew Coppens (Psychology, graduate student),

Alexander Hirsch (Politics, graduate student),

Aimee Garza (Anthropology, graduate student),

Edward Noel Smythe (History, graduate student),

Stephen Wiard (American Studies, Politics, undergraduate student),

Miye Tom (University of Coimbra, Portugal, doctoral candidate, UCSC Native alumni), Kirsten Moore (Health Sciences, undergraduate student),

Katya Adachi (UCSF Native Medical student),

Lisa Rofel (Professor, Department Chair, Anthropology),

James Clifford (History of Consciousness, Professor),

Lisbeth Haas (History, Professor),

Rob Wilson (Professor, Literature),

Judith Habicht-Mauche (Professor, Anthropology),

Mark Anderson (Anthropology, Assistant Professor),

Melissa Caldwell (Anthropology, Associate Professor),

Michelle Erai (UC Riverside, UC Office of the President, postdoctoral fellow),

Daniel Guevara (Associate Professor, Philosophy)

Shelley Streeby (UCSD, Literature, Professor),

Lori Liawa (UCD, Native grad student)

Araehana Sharma (Wesleyan University, Anthropology, Associate Professor)

Kathleen Coll (Stanford Lecturer, Anthropology, Feminist Studies)

Sarah Cerdenak (Assistant Professor, African American Studies, UNC, Greensboro)

Joo Kim (UCSD graduate student, Literature)

Jon Daehnke (Stanford Humanities Post-Doctoral Fellow)

Mark Francis (Nebraska Accountant)

Curtis Marez (UCSD, American Quarterly Editor, Ethnic Studies, Associate Professor),

Inez Hernandez-Avila (UCD, Professor, Native American Studies),

Deborah Miranda (Chumash/Esselen, Washington and Lee College, Associate Professor), and Robin Butterfield (Native American educator).

We as the UCSC Native American community, including Native students, and faculty, and our allies, are concerned about the “Managing Director, Resource Centers” position recently posted. The American Indian Resource Center Director will be expected to manage the American Indian Resource Center along with five other Resource Centers. This position gives the American Indian Resource Center 50% less staff time than other Resource Centers, and therefore is inequitable. This is especially difficult when there are so very few resources available for Native students. Indeed, a Managing Director of Resource Centers position is redundant. Lastly, Native faculty and students were not officially or broadly consulted in the development of this position. In the following, the major concerns will be discussed in more detail.

1)Reducing the American Indian Resource Director position to a 50% position is an inequitable use of resources as compared to the other racial groups, including African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latinos. This decrease of 50% in staff time is inequitable and unfair.

2)As a Native American community on campus, we have very few resources allocated for Native students. Other groups on campus have multiple areas of support and resources, including staff in EOP, research centers, events, and courses that are relevant to their communities’ needs. The American Indian Resource Center is one of the few culturally relevant sites available to them. Indeed, the American Indian Resource Director must act in a central role, because there are so few resources on this campus for Native American students. Hiring an American Indian Resource Director who must also manage five other centers will be an extremely difficult job, and Native students can very easily be lost in the shuffle.

3)This position, some argue, is an efficient use of resources, since it “doubles up positions.” However, adding another layer of administration to manage the Resource Centers, duplicates the duties of other positions, and is therefore redundant.

4)Native American students and faculty were not formally or broadly consulted in the development of this job description. Because of the administration’s top down nature of the job description’s development, it is similar to the paternalism used by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in working with Native Americans. Indeed, we have heard that the establishment of this position is “honoring” the Indigenous people of the area. “Honoring” is about respect and working in collaboration. It is not about paternalism.

The UCSC Native American community needs an American Indian Resource Center Director who can devote 100 percent time of his or her time to the Native students. We as the Native American community, including Native faculty and students, hope to work in collaboration with administration in the future in order to develop a job description and serve on the hiring committee to hire an American Indian Resource Director that focuses all of his or her time to fulfill our Native students’ needs. We as members of the Native American community at UCSC would like to meet with you, Chancellor Blumenthal, to discuss this very important issue.

Illustration by Louise Leong.

Elimination of Night Owl metro routes 16N and 19N may soon become a reality, but students will still need to get to campus after midnight.

Santa Cruz’s metro service is looking at cutbacks, and some of the heat is falling on students stranded either downtown or up on our mountain campus.

It takes 40 minutes to walk up to the base of UCSC from Pacific Avenue — and without the Night Owl routes, all of those minutes will be in the dark, post-midnight Santa Cruz jungle.

Students work downtown, live downtown, watch movies downtown, and rarely adhere to a midnight curfew. Cutting the routes isn’t a practical solution for the community, except maybe for late-night hiking enthusiasts. An Olympic long-distance runner could run the 2.35 miles between downtown and campus in nine minutes or less, but most students aren’t quite at that level yet.

The problem with cutting these particular routes is that there is no alternative transportation if a student misses the last midnight bus.

Students will party and be off-campus, whether or not there is a bus to take them back up, and may be forced to make some dangerous decisions. Driving drunk will be a more tempting offer if the alternative is walking, and the inebriated will partake in drunk walking and drunk biking as well.

It is growing consistently more dangerous around Santa Cruz. There have been 22 stabbings so far in Santa Cruz County this year, and walking around after midnight is a valid safety concern. The Dial-a-Ride service is also experiencing cuts, leaving students completely high and dry after 12 a.m. There has to be some service available for students to get around after midnight — it would even be acceptable to cut the schedule back to a skeleton crew of one or two buses.

We understand that there isn’t a lot of money circulating right now. However, sometimes a rider watches two to three daytime buses blow past within the five-minute walk to a bus stop, only to wait around for half an hour for the next. Students would be better served by the cutting of a couple of the day buses, instead of the last chances to avoid walking or hitchhiking to their destinations later at night.

The metro service has suffered from decreased ridership, as well as from decreases in revenue from California’s sales tax, brought on by lower consumer spending. In addition to the two night routes, some other services that will be eliminated are routes to Davenport, Cabrillo, and Dominican Hospital.

According to the Santa Cruz Metro Transportation Department, there were 5,013 riders on the Night Owl service for the month of February, 2010.

5,013 isn’t nothing.

Cutting routes during the day is acceptable — the inconvenience of leaving an hour early to class can be borne, and there are a solid handful of alternative routes running from 7 a.m. to 12 a.m. However, cutting the only transit service to serve campus after these hours is a dangerous mistake.

Illustration by Rachel Edelstein.

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when Daniel turned to me and asked for a cigarette. We’d been driving 90 mph for the last six hours and only had a few smokes left. The sun sat two fists above the horizon but the air blowing through the open windows was still scorching.

“We must reach Vegas before the sun sets,” I said.

Daniel grunted and passed the black Ford Bronco that was in front of us.

The Vegas that we were racing the sun to see was not a city, but an idea. We didn’t care about Penn and Teller or The Blue Man Group. Our Vegas was owned by Hunter S. Thompson and Frank Sinatra, Bugsy Siegel and Michael Corleone. It was a sinner’s Disneyland — the Mecca of disheveled decadence. Our pilgrimage began at 2 p.m. and we’d been heading south ever since.

The fact that we were dead set on reaching Las Vegas before the sun set displayed how little we truly understood the city. In reality, the sun is irrelevant in Las Vegas. The city is always open, so the delicious depravity can be enjoyed anytime.

We noticed the low-lit clouds were stained blue up ahead and soon we found the cause — huge neon lights began to rise from the desert monotony. Through the car stereo, Jerry Garcia sang, “You know you’re bound to wind up dead/ If you don’t head back to Tennessee Jed,” but we didn’t heed his warning. We were in Sin City.

We grabbed our luggage, a 30-pack of Budweiser, and a fifth of Jim Beam from the trunk, and walked to the front lobby to meet Taco, Christian, and Carter, three friends from high school. After some hugs and well-wishing, the five of us put on suits and started throwing down drinks. We finished the beer and poured some whiskey and Red Bulls for the walk to a nightclub called XS at the Encore Hotel.

After waiting in line in the hotel lobby, we walked through a dark hallway that opened onto a giant dance floor surrounded by tables and stripper poles.

But the real gem of XS is outside, where there are two long bars and VIP beds surrounding a giant pool. In the center of the water is an island with a third bar and blackjack tables. We ordered a round of shots to celebrate Taco’s 21st birthday, but, when the bill came to $60, we were rudely reminded that we were not high rollers. No, we were students in a city we could not afford. But we were also crafty and wearing suits, so the town could still be ours.

Through shrewd pre-gaming and the goodwill of the excessively wealthy, all five of us were sufficiently drunk throughout the night, and, when we finally stumbled away from the Encore at 4 a.m., we were all smiling. Still, we were not content to let the night end. Vegas is not a city for the easily contented.

Unfortunately, free (“comped”) drinks and the festive attitude of a craps table at 5 a.m. do not mix well with smart gambling. After a couple of hours of sinful glee, the dice showed seven for the final time we could bare. Each of us had lost $60.

In Vegas, nights don’t end. They simply melt into hot, bright, debt-filled mornings. Hangovers never last. Greasy buffets kill your queasiness, morning drinking can chase your headache away.

Hollywood would have you believe that trouble finds you at every corner in Vegas. We learned this wasn’t the case. Really, the five of us had to actively look for all the sin we found. In modern Vegas, for every gangster or call-girl, there are 50 harmless tourists. But we drank and smoked and gambled our weekend away because we had not driven eight hours to enjoy the shows.

Sometimes art imitates life, sometimes life imitates art.

~~~~~~

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the hangover began to take hold. Over our four days in Vegas, we had consumed 72 beers, 20 shots, six fifths, five cigars, four cans of Sparks, three packs of cigarettes, countless comped mix drinks, and a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20. We had slept a total of 14 hours and eaten only six meals. We had all lost money at the tables and spent even more at the clubs.

I turned to Daniel, who was lying back in the passenger seat, and said, “Remember that line in ‘Fear and Loathing’ about a bunch of used-car dealers from Dallas hunched over a craps table at four in the morning, still ‘humpin the American Dream?’”

He was already asleep.

We’d tried to hump the American Dream, and it had humped us right back. Now, delirious from debaucherous decadence and sleep depravity, we were finally headed home.

Julia Simone finds inspiration for her folk pop tunes in people and human emotion. Courtesy of Julia Simone.

Upon entering her Cowell apartment room, it is clear Julia Fogelson is a music buff. Every inch of the once-white walls are plastered with band posters: The Beatles, Jack Johnson, Bob Marley. Under the stagename Julia Simone, Fogelson recently released her first demo — her mellifluous voice flows smoothly with her guitar, as if her vocal chords are doing the strumming. We sit down at the dining table in her apartment as she peels back the foil of a yogurt container, pours in some granola, and begins to tell me how it all started.

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City on a Hill Press (CHP): Have you always been a singer?

Julia Simone (JS): I was always interested in singing. My family has some videos of me writing songs off the top of my head — I loved improv singing — and dancing around on the fireplace. I had a bat mitzvah when I was 13, and got a lot of money as gifts, so I decided to buy a karaoke machine. I had all these country CDs, so I would sit in my room and sing Faith Hill and Shania Twain. I think that actually helped my voice. My mom finally enrolled me in voice lessons in a lady’s living room when I was 14. But I think I only stuck with it for like a year.

CHP: What would you say most inspires you when you’re writing your songs?

JS: Emotions. Human emotions and people. Not all my songs are sad. “Wishing Tree,” which is the new one, is about just really, really liking someone, and the uncertainty of whether or not it’s going to work out. I added fiction in that song. It was inspired by going to the Wishing Tree [in upper] campus. I read a note there that said, “I wish I could respect my girlfriend Emily more.” And I thought it was so sad and remembered it and began writing a fiction story about the guy who wrote the note. But then it took a different route to be partly truth about myself. So, I weave in fiction and truth together. But I’m mostly inspired by people.

CHP: How does your songwriting process usually work?

JS: It’s really changed over the years. It used to be that I would have a poem and then I would put the poem to music and find out where the verses were and the chorus and everything. Now, I kind of find a riff that I like with a few chords that sound well together, and I like to improv over it. … Usually when I start a song I’ll try to finish it in a couple days. I’ve got a lot of started songs. So, if I don’t finish them quickly, I’ll just forget about them.

CHP: Where do you record?

JS: My friend Jonah and I talked last year about recording together. He’s a music major, and he’s a genius with music and music programs on the computer. He has a studio in Bonny Doon, where he lives, and his housemates are all musicians, too. So we laid down one of my songs and his housemate played drums to it. … One of the songs [on the CD] I had recorded when I was 14 with my guitar teacher. Sometimes I record on GarageBand on my Mac, but I have to borrow a mic from my housemate. It doesn’t compare to when Jonah does it.

CHP: Do you listen to your own music?

JS: Only the songs I like. But I mostly just listen to them thinking, “Do I sound good?” I really like the ones I recorded with Jonah, and I’m not in love with the ones I recorded when I was younger. I’ve just come into my own style now.

CHP: What would you say your style is?

JS: Folk Pop. I just came up with that a couple weeks ago. I mean, my songs are pretty poppy and traditional. But I like the whole female singer/songwriter thing. It’s very organic with just a guitar.

CHP: Where do you want your music to take you?

JS: I would love to get picked up by a label and be given the opportunity to just have everything handed to me. A label that would help me get covers made, distribute my music, [and] send it out to college radio stations. I also hope to continue playing shows. I’ve finally developed stage presence, and I’ve become really comfortable on stage and it’s easier to talk and make little jokes.

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Julia Simone’s Myspace: myspace.com/juliasimone
E-mail: juliasimonemusic [at] gmail.com

Journalist Maria Hinojosa was the keynote speaker at the César Chávez Convocation last Thursday night. Photo by Morgan Grana.

Award-winning Mexican-American journalist and author Maria Hinojosa captivated the audience at the Seventh Annual César Chávez Convocation. She touched the crowd with personal stories relating to Latino culture and reiterated the great need for social activism in light of the recently passed laws in Arizona.

Hinojosa helped to honor the memory of one of her heroes, civil rights activist César Chávez, and his formation of the United Farm Workers (UFW) last Thursday at Colleges Nine and Ten. Hinojosa presented Chávez as an example for activists, commending his passion for social justice. Many in the UC Santa Cruz community have taken notice.

“[Maria] asks the difficult and probing questions, and is at the same time dedicated to documenting important issues affecting Latina and Latino communities with a keen sense of compassion and dignity,” said Rosa-Lina Fregoso, professor of Latin American and Latino studies.

Hinojosa is anchor and managing editor of National Public Radio’s (NPR) Latino USA, a weekly national program reporting on news and culture in the Latino community. She also has her own talk show in Boston called “One on One with Maria Hinojosa.”

Hinojosa’s efforts have been recognized by various groups, including the National Council of La Raza, which awarded her the Ruben Salazar Award, and the Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors, which gave her their Lifetime Achievement Award.

At the convocation, she spoke of personal experiences as an immigrant from Mexico and of her struggles growing up in Chicago, Illinois, as well as working as a Latina journalist. She recalled feeling “invisible,” partly because of her ethnicity, but soon discovered the value of her voice as she discovered the power in sharing interviews from individuals whose stories are seldom told.

“My role in journalism was to be visible and not to be quiet,” Hinojosa said.

She has interviewed a wide variety of people throughout her extensive career, including influential politicians, white supremacists, and even gang members. However, she focuses the majority of her attention on stories and issues affecting the Latino community and surrounding immigration rights and reform issues.

Hinojosa also spoke of the need to fight for undocumented people’s rights, especially after the passing of the SB 1070 law and the banning of ethnic studies in the state of Arizona. She said feelings of self-doubt and a lack of belonging are occurring among Latinos in the United States as a result of these current events.

“We are living in a moment of history that is frankly quite devastating,” Hinojosa said in her speech concerning the future of immigrants. “This is a dramatic situation. There’s a lot of ignorance, and this ignorance has been reared into hate. That’s where it gets really ugly.”

Some audience members said that the convocation and the content of Hinojosa’s speaking could not have been more appropriate in light of what is going on in Arizona.

“I thought the event was really inspirational and that the message [Maria] was giving everyone, particularly the youth in the audience, was very motivating,” said Wendy Baxter, associate college administrative officer (ACAO) of co-curricular and college programs at Colleges Nine and Ten. “She stressed the urgent nature of what is going on in this country right now.”

The event attracted many who wanted to honor Chávez and listen to Hinojosa speak.

“This is one of my favorite events that I look forward to all year,” said Helen Shapiro, provost of Colleges Nine and Ten. “The spirit and energy is incomparable.”

The event was planned by Shapiro, College Ten co-curricular programs, the Chicano Latino Resource Center (El Centro), and CARE: Community and Resource Empowerment. The groups shared the task of planning and setting up for the event.

“Everyone was working double and triple-time,” Shapiro said. “I’m pleased people are still working to make this event possible.”

Throughout her speech, Hinojosa continually urged the people in the crowd to continue fighting for immigrants’ rights, and considered the ability to promote dialogue invaluable.

“To be an American is to question and participate,” Hinojosa said. “It is the simple acts of protest that ignite the fire. Activism is organic, you have to trust it.”

Attendees were engaged by Hinojosa’s words and said the journalist related well to the audience.

“I felt really lucky to be there,” Wendy Baxter said. “She was so brilliant and thoughtful and personable, and connected so effectively with all of us. It felt like you were listening to a friend. I think she is something special.”

As the convocation came to a close, Hinojosa stressed the importance and need for openness and compassion in humanity. She said that, when people see each other equality, mutual respect and understanding will be the result.

As she stated, “This is the vision that I have for America with activism that comes from the heart.”