Arguably the world’s most popular flightless bird had its coming-out party at the Santa Barbara Zoo last week. After about seven weeks in quarantine, nine Humboldt penguins made their first public appearance last Friday to mark the official opening of the new Crawford Family Penguin House.
At SOhO, Tuesday, May 23.
I lost my car keys last Tuesday night and showed up 30 minutes late to the Coalition of the Willing show at SOhO. It had been a while since I had felt the sweaty panic and jaw-clenching frustration of searching for something that “f*&*ing vanished 10 minutes after I put them on the goddamn kitchen table!” Similarly, it had been quite some time since I had felt the sweet rush of relaxation you get after you find your keys stuffed in some weird corner of your house, sitting under a hanging window curtain as if that was where they belonged all along.
One week before the democratic gubernatorial primary, current state controller and governor hopeful Steve Westly pressed the flesh in Santa Barbara as part of a nine-day, 17-city tour. Traveling in a bright orange bus emblazoned with the motto, “Meeting real people where they live and work,” Westly, 49, dropped into Santa Barbara’s favorite affluent liberal hangout, Restaurant Nu, for a happy hour loosely styled as a town meeting.
State Street is no longer the only place where Santa Barbarans can catch a glimpse of the endangered steelhead trout. Live fish-an approximately 16-inch adult and several juvenile smolts-were recently spotted in a stretch of Mission Creek near the downtown area. The sightings-which have been enjoyed by neighborhood residents and several city council officials in recent weeks-mark the fifth time in the past seven years that the embattled steelhead has been seen swimming in Mission creek.
The horse race for District Attorney had been agreeably bland to this point, with most forecasters picking current Assistant DA Christie Stanley to win in a relative landslide. But bland took a turn for the bizarre last week for DA hopeful Gary Dunlap when former Santa Maria City Council candidate Anthony Romero, an ardent Dunlap supporter seen lately driving a 40-foot RV plastered with “Dunlap for DA” signs, was stabbed in the chest on the evening of May 18 while standing outside his parked RV in Santa Maria.
The three-ring circus that is AVP volleyball made its annual stop on the sandy shores of Santa Barbara’s West Beach last weekend, in the 50th local installment of the tournament. The action was hot and heavy, despite the fact that most matches-including the highly anticipated men’s final-were plagued by unseasonably wet and dreary weather.
Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Phil Angelides (pictured) stopped in Santa Barbara on Monday as part of his statewide tour leading up to the June 6 primary election. A sun-soaked Goleta Beach Park provided the perfect backdrop as the current state treasurer tooted his own environmental horn.
Our Annual Blue & Green Guide
In one of our region’s oddest years of weather ever, this year’s cold, wet winter slipped into the June gloom we all know before we even entered May. But sunshine actually broke through for a few hours last week, offering us a glimpse of a hopefully bright summer to come. So it’s with perfect timing-fingers crossed-that we unveil our annual Blue & Green Guide to the great outdoors.
Several hundred people turned out on Mother’s Day for a special installment of the weekly Arlington West war memorial. The three-month-old MotherHearts organization-a group of local women dedicated to promoting peace and restoring the original anti-war sentiments of Mother’s Day-held its first official public event Sunday on the sand by Stearns Wharf.
According to authorities, saber rattling between two Eastside gangs is responsible for the recent rash of violence on the lower Eastside. Two young men, ages 16 and 18, were admitted to the Cottage Hospital emergency room last Thursday afternoon with stab wounds from an alleged gang fight near the Cacique Street footbridge. The younger of the two was in critical condition due to a thigh wound that nicked an artery.
