Northern Santa Barbara County is known more for its barbecue and wine than for its haunted houses or eerie cemeteries, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some ghoulish ghost stories worth telling. To get in the trick-or-treat spirit, the Sun writers each researched and wrote a local urban legend. Read below, if you dare, and […]
Cover Story
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‘Just a pawn on a chessboard’
Engaged in a battle for his life, a Santa Maria Army veteran speaks out about Iraq, Afghanistan, and the war within
Head shorn and wearing a light blue jumpsuit, Silas Kanady shuffles into the Santa Barbara County Jail visitation room, led by an armed guard. His heavily tattooed arms rest behind his back, though they’re not cuffed. He takes a seat on a metal barstool behind double-paned glass and picks up the receiver of the jailhouse […]
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The cost of exposure
Creative types are often asked for work in return for the promise of exposure, but does it pencil out?
Creativity is a gift everyone possesses, though every person’s level is unique. Some people are truly gifted. Others? Not so much. Some people can create when they feel the urge or when they’re called upon to create, and others feel like they’re almost possessed with a spirit to compulsively make stuff. It’s something they have […]
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Digital afterlife
The dead are the newest group to gain followers online
Peggy was dying. She had battled cancer for years, but at the age of 45 she was losing her fight. A wife and stay-at-home mother of three children in Ventura, Peggy had caught the online bug and couldn’t stop writing about what was happening to her and the effect the disease had on her family. […]
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In the dog house
The down economy is causing animals to suffer, too
Jack is a 9-year-old terrier-Corgi mix with floppy brown ears and a giant pink tongue. In human years, he’d be a member of the Baby Boomer generation. Ideally, that’s the time when a person—or family pet, for that matter—should get to retire from the hectic buzz of the working world, pull up a big comfy […]
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An age-old question
As more seniors join the job hunt, many of them wonder: Is ageism still an obstacle?
For the last three months, John has been pounding the pavement, searching in vain for a job. He’s currently on food stamps and depends on friends for housing and transportation. He’s teetering on the verge of despair. “I’m very depressed, very worried about the future,” he said, the frustration evident in his voice. “All my […]
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Food on the go
Specialty food trucks may be the current culinary trend, but some trucks began before the buzz
When George Zarate pulls into the parking lot of an industrial complex, everyone knows it. It’s the familiar honk of his El George Grill truck horn. Employees in nearby buildings quickly come milling out of their offices, and George opens for business. He flips up the side of the truck and a line quickly forms […]
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Pencils ready, citizens
How relevant is our citizenship test to everyday life, and how would you fare?
On Wednesday, Sept. 7, an estimated 1,200 people were scheduled to gather together in San Francisco to be sworn in as United States citizens. It’s an event that occurs every three months in the state’s cultural capital, as well as a number of other cities around California. San Francisco alone naturalizes about 25,000 people per […]
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Techno wizards
Leaders of Quintron, a local communications company, look back on 40 years of technology development–from Vandenberg to NASA and beyond
It’s a quarter to 1 on a recent Friday afternoon, and a small caravan of white cars is making its way along sandstone bluffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean. As the caravan moves east through the milky gray fog, the passengers inside catch glimpses of a metal tower looming in the distance. The weathered structure stands […]
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I, the People
A local man fighting a recent misdemeanor charge brought up a point more people seem to be making these days: The U.S. government isn’t what you think it is
Who’s in charge here? This is America, after all. Land of the free. Our ancestors fled life under a crown for the ability to pursue life, liberty, and happiness unfettered by tyranny among all those amber waves of grain and majestic purple mountains. We learn this in elementary school, tracing the curling script of the […]
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All that glitters
Gold is king of the market right now, but not everyone thinks it will stay on top
In a small workroom in the back of Medina’s Jewelers in Santa Maria, shimmering gold submits to the long, thin flame of a hand-held torch, melting quick and smooth in a fiery orange crucible. The air smells the way tin sounds, thin and metallic. The only sign of resistance are a few brief flashes of […]