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As I write this, I am forced to listen to the Monterey television news. Would you like to know an absolutely sure sign you're hearing news from a small town? When at the top of the hour the announcer says "And our top story today, the sanctions that will affect every athlete at Salinas High School."
And when they assume that every viewer knows what the CCS is (the Central Coast sports leagues, who manage all the meets and games and playoffs and things for I think most of the middle school and high school team sports), and cares. The story is this: the Salinas football team was very badly behaved for a very long time, including fights and rac.vial epithets at games, and last straw: they appeared, in uniform, at the Salinas High School football field, in a commercial for a mortgage company. So, while the Salinas High School teams are allowed to compete against the other teams in the region, they are not allowed into the playoffs this year, and the football team is not allowed in the playoffs next year.
The newsworthy aspect of all this is that this is the top news story of the local television station. At least I think so. We have strikes and near-strikes, wrangling over land use policy, water use and conservation, logging, gang fights, a scandal of epic proportions at the University of California, and the top story is the sanctions handed out to Salinas High School.
They've repeated all the details of the story five times now, and they're promising more at eleven.
The scandal of epic proportions. I've mentioned this before, right? The last chancellor but one was paid a huge signing bonus, given an amazing moiving allowance and specially-invented highly lucrative jobs for her girlfriend and her girlfriend's son (or was it nephew?), and mortgage payments on an extra house (I believe the one she had lived in before she moved into the University House, which is, as every student knows from the Chancellor's Tea thing they have for new students, amazingly luxurious and beautiful and includes a panoramic view of the Bay) So as the story unfolds it turns out there has been this pattern of overcompensating the top administrators, not just at UCSC but throughout the UC system, while financial aid gets inexorably cut more and more each year, outreach and development programs are cut, fees are raised, and teaching and support staff are cut back. It's of a piece, right, with the overcompensation of upper management in all industries, and the grinding of the workers. Oh, the Regents have called for an investigation, as if they weren't at the core and root of it all in the first place.
More about the University. One of the oddities of the state is that the University is a law to itself, and doesn't have to meet local zoning, planning, land use, building, water or fire protection regulations. This naturally creates some tension as the campus has been growing steadily in the firty years it has been open, and there are inevitable impacts on the community. Lately the University has been a little less cavalier about these things and is attempting to work with the locals, but so far there's not been much confidence generated. The newsy part? The Mayor of Santa Cruz, who is a prominent professor, has called the University's report on its growth plans "a sham." The City is demanding a new environmental impact report, among other things.
One little sensational event was a stabbing on Pacific Avenue -- the main drag, more or less, of town, that is a restaurant and bookstore and nightclub heaven, not the seat of government or bread-and-butter business (though there's some of that, tucked away in upstairs offices). The sensational thing was a van cruised down the street and a bunch of guys with uniformly buzzed skulls leaped out of the van, grabbed a man emerging from the big movie theater, and began beating and stabbing him -- he was apparently not dangerously hurt before they left again. The Downtown Association would like you to know that they still consider the street to be generally safe (I do too, but I thought it was funny that they felt they had to say so).
Other sports news: it's Mavericks season, when the big waves happen and a bunch of top surfers walk around with pagers to let them know when the big waves are right for the surfing contest to happen during which they will be lifted by helicopter out to the beginning of the waves and they ride these huge things (one of four or five biggest surfable waves in the world). But that's all I know this year: there was the obligatory picture of Flea Virostko and some other guy, and the obligatory nod to Mark Foo, who died there a dozen years ago. And our boxing contender, Carina Moreno, is on the front pages too.
Oh, and the county got declared a state of emergency again because of the storms last week. You have to realize that while the county gets that declaration often, it's mostly due to the political and economic savvy of our politicians: what "state of emergency" means is "heavy economic impact from weather or geological events or fire, which is officially recognized and due to which locals can make insurance claims and get government grants." The latest estimate on the storm damage is 2.4 million dollars.
Mushroom hunters found the skeleton of a man. Not us. The man seemed to have wandered off from a group home for the mentally ill and I suppose he died of exposure. The sherriff's deputy who spoke to the paper said "Mushroom hunters find a lot of things for us."
Okay, that's it. There's more stuff about the housing crisis, wild pigs, and the usual Pentecostal minister found guilty of child molestation, but I'm done. There's always more.
. . .
On the personal front: my father does not have sciatica. He has metastisized lung cancer which has invaded his adrenal glands and spine. He's going back on opiates for the pain, and they're designing a radiation and chemotherapy program for him. On a happier note, they've given him an oxygen machine and he's feeling rather spry and perky. My son is spending four days a week in the City, helping my stepmother with her post-stroke physical and speech therapy.
I'm not getting much writing done.
And when they assume that every viewer knows what the CCS is (the Central Coast sports leagues, who manage all the meets and games and playoffs and things for I think most of the middle school and high school team sports), and cares. The story is this: the Salinas football team was very badly behaved for a very long time, including fights and rac.vial epithets at games, and last straw: they appeared, in uniform, at the Salinas High School football field, in a commercial for a mortgage company. So, while the Salinas High School teams are allowed to compete against the other teams in the region, they are not allowed into the playoffs this year, and the football team is not allowed in the playoffs next year.
The newsworthy aspect of all this is that this is the top news story of the local television station. At least I think so. We have strikes and near-strikes, wrangling over land use policy, water use and conservation, logging, gang fights, a scandal of epic proportions at the University of California, and the top story is the sanctions handed out to Salinas High School.
They've repeated all the details of the story five times now, and they're promising more at eleven.
The scandal of epic proportions. I've mentioned this before, right? The last chancellor but one was paid a huge signing bonus, given an amazing moiving allowance and specially-invented highly lucrative jobs for her girlfriend and her girlfriend's son (or was it nephew?), and mortgage payments on an extra house (I believe the one she had lived in before she moved into the University House, which is, as every student knows from the Chancellor's Tea thing they have for new students, amazingly luxurious and beautiful and includes a panoramic view of the Bay) So as the story unfolds it turns out there has been this pattern of overcompensating the top administrators, not just at UCSC but throughout the UC system, while financial aid gets inexorably cut more and more each year, outreach and development programs are cut, fees are raised, and teaching and support staff are cut back. It's of a piece, right, with the overcompensation of upper management in all industries, and the grinding of the workers. Oh, the Regents have called for an investigation, as if they weren't at the core and root of it all in the first place.
More about the University. One of the oddities of the state is that the University is a law to itself, and doesn't have to meet local zoning, planning, land use, building, water or fire protection regulations. This naturally creates some tension as the campus has been growing steadily in the firty years it has been open, and there are inevitable impacts on the community. Lately the University has been a little less cavalier about these things and is attempting to work with the locals, but so far there's not been much confidence generated. The newsy part? The Mayor of Santa Cruz, who is a prominent professor, has called the University's report on its growth plans "a sham." The City is demanding a new environmental impact report, among other things.
One little sensational event was a stabbing on Pacific Avenue -- the main drag, more or less, of town, that is a restaurant and bookstore and nightclub heaven, not the seat of government or bread-and-butter business (though there's some of that, tucked away in upstairs offices). The sensational thing was a van cruised down the street and a bunch of guys with uniformly buzzed skulls leaped out of the van, grabbed a man emerging from the big movie theater, and began beating and stabbing him -- he was apparently not dangerously hurt before they left again. The Downtown Association would like you to know that they still consider the street to be generally safe (I do too, but I thought it was funny that they felt they had to say so).
Other sports news: it's Mavericks season, when the big waves happen and a bunch of top surfers walk around with pagers to let them know when the big waves are right for the surfing contest to happen during which they will be lifted by helicopter out to the beginning of the waves and they ride these huge things (one of four or five biggest surfable waves in the world). But that's all I know this year: there was the obligatory picture of Flea Virostko and some other guy, and the obligatory nod to Mark Foo, who died there a dozen years ago. And our boxing contender, Carina Moreno, is on the front pages too.
Oh, and the county got declared a state of emergency again because of the storms last week. You have to realize that while the county gets that declaration often, it's mostly due to the political and economic savvy of our politicians: what "state of emergency" means is "heavy economic impact from weather or geological events or fire, which is officially recognized and due to which locals can make insurance claims and get government grants." The latest estimate on the storm damage is 2.4 million dollars.
Mushroom hunters found the skeleton of a man. Not us. The man seemed to have wandered off from a group home for the mentally ill and I suppose he died of exposure. The sherriff's deputy who spoke to the paper said "Mushroom hunters find a lot of things for us."
Okay, that's it. There's more stuff about the housing crisis, wild pigs, and the usual Pentecostal minister found guilty of child molestation, but I'm done. There's always more.
. . .
On the personal front: my father does not have sciatica. He has metastisized lung cancer which has invaded his adrenal glands and spine. He's going back on opiates for the pain, and they're designing a radiation and chemotherapy program for him. On a happier note, they've given him an oxygen machine and he's feeling rather spry and perky. My son is spending four days a week in the City, helping my stepmother with her post-stroke physical and speech therapy.
I'm not getting much writing done.
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