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Rare and Endangered Torrey Pine Trees Should Be Tested for Aluminum Poisoning

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By Dale Williams

Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve just north of San Diego is a majestic wilderness with views to the ocean, scenic sandstone cliffs and is home to one of the world’s rarest pine trees, the Torrey Pine. Anyone who has visited Torrey Pines Reserve in the past two years will have seen the large numbers of trees that died. You see them along both sides of the main road to the visitor center, along Guy Fleming Trail, and several other locations. As I watched them die, I wondered why nobody was testing the soil, analyzing tree samples, or doing anything that might help determine the cause. I wanted to do something but didn’t know what.   [Read more…]

Laying the Groundwork of Groundwork Books

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By Groundwork Books Collective

At the open house at Groundwork Books during alumni weekend our classic sign got a new layer of paint. A photo was posted online and we learned that the logo was designed by Charyn Segal and Lincoln Cushing.

It was Lincoln Cushing humself* that shared that bit of knowledge. Lincoln, a political poster designer and archivist, was involved in the original Groundwork Books project starting back in 1973.

Wanting to learn more about the groundwork of Groundwork Books (see what I did there mhmm) I reached out to Lincoln and he was happy to share some details.   [Read more…]

Humanizing the Maestro: Hershey Felder as Leonard Bernstein

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By Yuko Kurahashi

Hershey Felder’s Maestro (directed by Joel Zwick), one in a series of solo shows on famous composers, was staged at the San Diego Repertory Theatres’ Lyceum Stage from July 6-17, 2016. Capturing key moments in Leonard Bernstein’s life, Felder offers a truly memorable piece that humanizes the world-famous American conductor and composer. It gives voices to people who influenced Bernstein directly or indirectly, including his parents, George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, Demitri Mitropoulos, Serge Koussevitzky, and his wife of 27 years Felicia Cohn Montealegre.

Highlighting key events in Bernstein’s life, Hershey focuses on: Bernstein’s Jewish heritage, his encounters and relationships with world-renowned composers and conductors; his marriage to Felicia and homosexuality, his ambitions and successes as a composer, and failures as a composer. He ties these all together to his love of music and life   [Read more…]

Haitian Storytelling: The Last Tiger in Haiti at the La Jolla Playhouse

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By Yuko Kurahashi

The La Jolla Playhouse, in partnership with Berkeley Repertory Theatre, presents Jeff Augustin’s The Last Tiger in Haiti, a play about “restavek” (child slavery in Haiti), directed by Joshua Kahan Brody, at the Mandell Weiss Forum through July 24, 2016. The playwright Augustin, of Haitian descent, chose to use the traditions of Haitian storytelling as a vehicle not only to expose child slavery but also question traditional and contemporary “story-telling” and its power.

Augustin depicts child slaves making up stories about their lives in a competitive way, shaping the stories in response to the comments of the listeners. In Haiti, the tradition is that a storyteller says, “krik” if one has a story to tell. Then the “listener” says “krak” if they are willing to listen. Using this set of call and response the stories in the play are comingled with folktales and religious traditions, while they also introduce the audience to the tragic reality of child slavery.   [Read more…]

Ben Cohen of Ben and Jerry’s Dishes Up Some Ice Cream for Bernie in San Diego

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Actress Rosario Dawson* will be at two of today’s events

By Staff

Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream will be campaigning for Senator Bernie Sanders at UCSD at noon today and in Hillcrest at 2:30. He will be joined by Black Men for Bernie at the Valencia Park Market at 3:30. Ben will be dishing up free ice cream and explaining why he and Jerry are feeling the Bern. As Ben says “Just like there’s nothing is so unstoppable as a flavor whose time has finally come, there’s nothing as unstoppable as a leader whose time has finally come”.
  [Read more…]

UC San Diego Faculty Call on Regents to Divest UC Funds from Fossil Fuels

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Academic Senate votes in support of divestment resolution

UC San Diego Academic Senate

UC San Diego’s Academic Senate announced the passage of a resolution calling on the UC Regents to divest the University of California’s investment portfolio of stocks in companies whose primary business concerns the extraction and sale of fossil fuels. According to its 1868 charter, governance of the University is shared between the Regents and the Academic Senate. The vote by tenure-track faculty and academic leadership took place electronically over a two week period ending May 11.

The resolution recognizes the threat of global warming and UCSD’s pioneering contribution to climate science. It also acknowledges the risk to the UC endowment and pension funds from the prospect of falling fossil fuel stocks.   [Read more…]

Whose University? UCSD’s Racial Climate and the Making of Student Minorities

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By the Lumumba- Zapata Collective

On the night of Friday April 8th, the University of California, San Diego campus was covered with anti-Mexican slogans chalked by supporters of presidential candidate, Donald Trump. Following a string of similar events throughout the country (including incidents at UC Berkeley, Santa Barbara, and Riverside), slogans supporting Trump have persistently coincided with xenophobic attacks against underrepresented communities, specifically Latino, Black, Arab and Muslim students.

The recent chalking incident at UCSD specifically targeted incoming admitted students of Mexican descent.   [Read more…]

Ed Ruscha ‘Then and Now’ Opens at Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego

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The Museum of Contemporary Art opened their new exhibit Friday evening January 29th at the La Jolla location. The paintings of Ed Ruscha and Alvaro Blancarte were presented in the Museum’s two main galleries.

The opening reception was crowded with an eclectic mix of members and non-members. Jazz sounds by the New Jazz Trio were only interrupted by speeches and acknowledgments by Museum staff and the artists themselves. The bar had three lines all evening although drinks were not allowed in the exhibition spaces.

It’s always curious what people experience or are seeking at an art opening in a museum.   [Read more…]

Geo-Poetic Spaces: Winter In La Jolla

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Between storm fronts

Winter rappels down cliffs
tumbling into Pacific

Walks along beach alone
surveys
fish swimming in boulders
a leaf blown into rock
before La Jolla was a gem
and human eyes saw shores   [Read more…]

#MillionStudentMarch and the Soul of Higher Education

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By Andrew J. Mackay

The Million Student March emerges from a long-running crisis. A public good, an educated citizenry, is being misclassified as a private luxury in the name of profit. It emerges from growing mass resistance to what higher education has become- expensive, corporatized, exploitative.

115 marches are planned for this Thursday, November 12. They span the entire country, from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa to Montclair High School in New Jersey. Institutions private and public, small and large, famous and obscure.   [Read more…]

C.H.E. Cafe Makes SOHO “10 Most Endangered List” for 2015

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By Monty Kroopkin

The Save Our Heritage Organization (SOHO) has announced its 10 Most Endangered List for local historic sites for 2015. The C.H.E. Café is on the list. The list was revealed at SOHO’s annual People In Preservation (PIP) dinner on May 21, 2015.

According to SOHO President Jaye MacAskill, it was explained during the PIP Awards dinner that “Ché Café is one of those beloved, old hangouts at UCSD that devoted students and alumni will always want to revisit. It may be the last remnant of 1960s counterculture on this campus, and a symbol of free speech served up with an earthy menu. Which is to say, Ché Café is beloved not at all by the university. SOHO supports students and others who argue that history, ‘even history rooted in revolutionary ideas and discourse’ deserves a place at the increasingly crowded UCSD table.”   [Read more…]

Restaurant Review : The Marine Room

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I don’t remember the last time I went to a restaurant where I felt that I needed to dress up before entering their door. But last night one of my first Foreign Language Students – Corinne – graduated with her Ph.D and she wanted to celebrate. “After all,” she said, “I won’t be getting another degree any time in this lifetime.”

To say that I was nonplussed when she told me that she had made reservations at the Marine Room for the celebration I was stunned. I figured eating there would only add to the student debt that she must have incurred over the past 3 years.   [Read more…]

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