Posted inOpinion

What Oppenheimer didn’t tell us

Oscar-winning Oppenheimer fails to depict the experience of the Tewa people with the Trinity test. Using First Peoples and the land and water they protected as sacrifice for atomic testing, just weeks before the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the U.S. government poisoned the air, water, and sacred land of the Tewa—communities that for more […]

Posted inOpinion

A fuller look at history reveals that the intrepid ‘pathfinder of the West’ has a complicated reputation

The 2024 election is hurtling toward us like a runaway train. The far right has launched a full-scale attack on alleged “indoctrination” of political correctness that they claim to find throughout public education, from kindergarten through high school and especially in colleges. I’m a retired history teacher with 20 years’ experience in our local secondary […]

Posted inOpinion

Dinosaur messes

The dominos are finally beginning to visibly fall for Big Oil on the Central Coast. Dinosaurs like the Phillips 66 refinery in Nipomo are on their last legs—thanks in part to massive environmental outcry over the projects proposed to keep them humming.  SLO County’s 2017 decision to deny P66 a rail spur extension on its […]

Posted inMusic, Arts & Culture

New Flicks: Chosen Family

Chosen Family What’s it rated? Not yet rated When? 2024 Where’s it showing? The Fremont Theater in SLO on Saturday, April 27, at 5 p.m. Writer-director Heather Graham (Half Magic) helms the very funny new dramedy Chosen Family, about Ann (Graham), a yoga instructor with bad luck in love and with an impossibly difficult family […]

Posted inNews

Political Watch: April 25, 2024

• U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara) visited the future site of more than 30 new studio apartments and a health clinic in downtown Santa Barbara, and presented a ceremonial check for $1 million, an investment he secured in this year’s federal budget to support the project, according to an April 16 statement from Carbajal’s […]

Posted inNews

Nipomo’s Phillips 66 refinery is taking steps toward demolition

Oil giant Phillips 66’s San Francisco Refinery in Contra Costa County no longer processes crude oil—a change that’s impacted the Central Coast. Aimee Henry, the company’s communications director, told the Sun that the transformation aligned with the state’s environmental goals and market conditions. “The Rodeo Renewable Energy Complex [formerly the San Francisco Refinery] supports demand […]

Posted inNews

Santa Ynez high school district names full-time principal/superintendent

Kimberly Sheehan will be taking the helm as Santa Ynez Valley Union High School’s new principal/superintendent starting July 1 after the school board unanimously approved her contract during its April 16 meeting. “I’m just really excited to join an already established team, an already very well-run school district,” Sheehan told the Sun. “I know for […]

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