C-2012-04-12 by News & Review

BIRD WATCHING

How an innocent man got caught up in Chico’s most famous stabbing case

See MUSIC, page 29

LESSONS OF A LOCAVORE See GREENWAYS, page 15

POP-UP MUSEUM See ARTS FEATURE, page 22

BY DAVID WADDELL PAGE Chico’s News & Entertainment Weekly

Volume 35, Issue 33

Thursday, April 12, 2012

PROGRAM INSIDE See SPECIAL PULL OUT

2 CN&R April 12, 2012

CN&R

Vol. 35, Issue 33 • April 12, 2012

OPINION Editorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Guest Comment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 From This Corner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Letters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Streetalk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

James S. Nagel, MD

NEWSLINES Downstroke. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Sifter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

HEALTHLINES The Pulse. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Appointments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Weekly Dose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

COVER STORY

ARTS & CULTURE

GREENWAYS EarthWatch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 The GreenHouse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 UnCommon Sense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Eco Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Arts Feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 This Week . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Fine Arts listings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Bulletin Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Chow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 In The Mix. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Music. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Reel World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Nightlife . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Arts DEVO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

REAL ESTATE

CLASSIFIEDS

BACKSTOP From The Edge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Fifteen Minutes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Brezsny’s Astrology . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 ON THE COVER: PORTRAIT OF PHILIP DENNIS BY ROBERT SPEER PHOTO ILLUSTRATION AND DESIGN BY TINA FLYNN

Our Mission To publish great newspapers that are successful and enduring. To create a quality work environment that encourages employees to grow professionally while respecting personal welfare. To have a positive impact on our communities and make them better places to live. Editor Robert Speer Managing Editor Melissa Daugherty Arts Editor Jason Cassidy Calendar/Special Projects Editor Howard Hardee News Editor Tom Gascoyne Greenways/Healthlines Editor Christine G.K. LaPado Staff Writer Ken Smith Contributors Catherine Beeghly, Craig Blamer, Alastair Bland, Henri Bourride, Rachel Bush, Vic Cantu, Matthew Craggs, Kyle Delmar, Jovan Johnson, J. Jay Jones, Miles Jordan, Leslie Layton, Mark Lore, Sean Murphy, Jaime O’Neill, Anthony Peyton Porter, Claire Hutkins Seda, Juan-Carlos Selznick, Willow Sharkey, Alan Sheckter, Matt Siracusa, Scott Szuggar, Karl Travis, Evan Tuchinsky Interns Kyle Emery, Dane Stivers Managing Art Director Tina Flynn Editorial Designer Sandra Peters Design Manager Kate Murphy Design Melissa Arendt, Brennan Collins, Priscilla Garcia, Mary Key, Marianne Mancina, Skyler Smith Advertising Manager Alec Binyon Advertising Consultants Brian Corbit, Jamie DeGarmo, Laura Golino, Robert Rhody Senior Classified Advertising Consultant Olla Ubay Advertising Coordinator Jennifer Osa Events Intern Alina Chavera

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Send guest comments, 400 words maximum, to gc@ newsreview.com, or to 353 E. 2nd St., Chico, CA 95928. Please include photo & short bio.

BMA needs LaMalfa’s help For 56 years the Bidwell Mansion Association has been working

Protecting vulnerable children A pelled to respond to the article “Fighting for their families” (Cover story, by Meredith J. Graham, March 22). My response

them with other family members. Again, this cannot always happen either. I am aware of other counties, such as Sacramento, that have been widely criticized is not to the individual case highlighted in the article, but to our for a tragic death of a child after they chose county as a whole. Yes, we have a high incidence of child not to remove a child from his or her parent. There is no crystal ball that allows a social removal in this county. Unfortunately, worker to know what the future will bring. our county also suffers from an incrediOften there are no decisions made that don’t bly high rate of drug abuse. There is a have a combination of good and unfortunate high correlation between these two facts. consequences. I, personally, would rather see If we want to lower the incidence of an error made on the side of removing children from removing a child than to do their families, we need to nothing and possibly have to create communities with There is no crystal ball that by live with a child’s death. less drug use/abuse. It is allows a social worker to know George Siler Butte County’s Children’s easier said than done. what the future will bring. Services Division has many I do know that a few The author is caring and dedicated staff who years ago Butte County executive director of had well over 750 chilonly want to look out for the Youth for Change, a dren placed in out-of-home care, so to best interests of the children they are charged nonprofit service to protect. Do people, at times, make misnow have fewer than 600 is a dramatic agency that operates takes? Yes, but it isn’t because they aren’t more than a dozen decrease. trying to do the right thing. These are tough As executive director of a nonprofit programs in Butte decisions with potentially huge conseagency serving children and families, I County, including Family Resource quences. am familiar with many of the programs Centers in Oroville and services (some of these are recogWe would all love to see every child living and Paradise and the nized as statewide models) that have in a safe and supporting home with their par6th Street Center for been developed in this county to help ent(s). It is all of our responsibility to ensure Youth in Chico. the safety and well-being of all the children keep children safe and, whenever possiin Butte County. ble, in their homes. Unfortunately, this Please support those who work tirelessly cannot always happen. When children to ensure the safety of vulnerable children. Ω are removed, an effort is made to place s a longtime resident of Butte County, I am com-

4 CN&R April 12, 2012

to support Chico’s most iconic historic building. Not only did the BMA raise the funds needed to preserve and restore the building’s interior, including the original kitchen, and build its Visitors Center, the group also reconstructed the carriage shed, restored Annie’s piano, funded historical research on the Bidwells’ lives, and worked for eight years to establish the Bidwell Mansion State Historic Park, among many other contributions. Most recently, when it became apparent early last year that the mansion was on the state’s closure list, members of the BMA worked tirelessly to raise funds and lobby public officials to keep it open, leading the fight long before formation of the Bidwell Mansion Community Project coalition in November. All along the BMA was working to resolve an inadvertent technical problem regarding its tax status with the IRS. Its partner agency, California State Parks, was fully aware of the glitch and continued working with the BMA for many months. Then, suddenly, just before Thanksgiving, local State Parks officials, citing the tax problem, notified the BMA that they were severing their 48-year association and seizing BMA’s accumulated funds, more than $140,000. They also demanded such items as the BMA’s computer and dinnerware, and sent two armed rangers to the home of BMA treasurer Dianne Wrona to seize a binder of BMA minutes. This treatment of the BMA was stunningly heavy-handed, to say the least, especially after five decades of cooperation between the two agencies. In addition, our analysis of the tax problem is that it was so minor that the only conclusion to be drawn is that State Parks officials were using it as an excuse to get rid of the BMA, for reasons only they understand. Fortunately, Assemblyman Dan Logue was able to obtain a 30-day extension of the contract dissolution in order to negotiate a reconciliation. This is essential because State Parks’ plan to establish a nonprofit to replace the BMA simply won’t work. Given its tainted origins, the new nonprofit wouldn’t garner the community support needed to raise funds. State Sen. Doug LaMalfa played a pivotal role in keeping the mansion open by convening the community meeting last November that gave rise to the Bidwell Mansion Community Project. Since then, however, he’s largely absented himself from the discussion. He should become re-engaged. Working together, he and Logue could quickly resolve this matter in a way that works for everyone. Ω

Council should take a stand Is it appropriate for the Chico City Council to consider taking a

stand on corporate personhood? Some say no, that it’s a national issue and the council shouldn’t be wasting time on it. We disagree. Council meetings have long served as a community forum in which citizens can discuss a wide range of issues, from the Vietnam War in the 1960s to climate change in recent years. And the council routinely passes resolutions recognizing various causes and accomplishments. Besides, corporate personhood affects everyone. Giving corporations the same rights as individuals redefines what it means to be a citizen. And, as we’ve seen in this election year, the Citizens United case, which is based on the notion of corporate personhood, has given corporations unprecedented power to influence elections—more than is good for democracy. The only way corporate personhood can be overturned is by passage of a constitutional amendment that will need the approval of 38 state legislatures. The City Council, by taking a stand on corporate personhood next Tuesday (April 17), can send a message not only to Washington, but also to Sacramento that corporations are not people and should not enjoy the rights of people. Ω

FROM THIS CORNER by Robert Speer roberts@newsreview.com

Two sides of Ron Paul I was covering a City Council meeting last week when Ron Paul came through town, so I missed his appearance, sad to say. I like his libertarianism, particularly on social issues. For example, of all the candidates, including President Obama, he’s the only one with a sane approach to the drug war, which is to end it and treat addiction as an illness. But I also remember the Republican presidential debate early on when Paul, asked what should happen to a man in a coma who didn’t have health insurance, said in so many words that it was the man’s fault—that he took the risk and was paying the consequences. It was a strange thing for a doctor to say, though I suppose it makes sense if you believe that the government shouldn’t be involved in health care in any way, as he does. I credit him with consistency. He believes the proper role for government is defense, a court system, a police system and little else. And his notion of defense does not include the operation of more than 800 military installations around the world, nor the conduct of wars in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. He’s for a limited defense designed to protect American soil, and no more. Otherwise he’s a free-market ideologue who would abolish Medicare and gut Social Security, eliminate most federal agencies, and in effect take government back to the 19th century. It’s a nostalgic notion, but it wouldn’t work. I’m all for the judicious trimming of federal bureaucracies, but we need the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration, among others. Also, I don’t think Paul is being honest about the newsletters he published in the 1990s that have drawn so much criticism. Behind that grandfatherly mien is a reconstituted racist. According to Wikipedia, Paul and his associates published the newsletters as a business, earning in excess of $900,000 a year. “A number of the newsletters … contained material that later proved highly controversial, dwelling on conspiracy theories, praising anti-government militia movements, and warning of coming race wars,” The New Republic has reported. Among other things, the newsletters called Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. a “pro-communist philanderer” and “a lying socialist satyr,” equated his national holiday to a “Hate Whitey Day,” suggested that 95 percent of the black males in Washington, D.C., were “semi-criminal or entirely criminal,” and quoted Paul saying that “in my little town of Lake Jackson, Texas, I’ve urged everyone in my family to know how to use a gun in self defense. For the animals are coming.” Paul has said he didn’t always know what went into the newsletters. But in January 2012, according to Wikipedia, “the Washington Post reported that several of Paul’s former associates said that Paul … had allowed the controversial material to be included as part of a deliberate strategy to boost profits. Paul’s former secretary said, ‘It was his newsletter, and it was under his name, so he always got to see the final product.... He would proof it.’”

Robert Speer is editor of the CN&R.

Send email to chicoletters @ newsreview.com

More on the mansion Re “Much ado about the mansion” (Newslines, by Ken Smith, April 5): I’m upset and angry at State Parks’ false and misleading characterization of the Bidwell Mansion Association. The implication that the BMA was hampered in its ability or derelict in its dedication to keep Bidwell Mansion open is completely untrue. Since the announcement of the mansion’s potential closing last May, I’ve been personally involved in the “pink postcard” campaign, in which citizens filled out postcards that the BMA mailed to state legislators LaMalfa, Logue and Nielsen, asking for their assistance in keeping Bidwell Mansion open. More than 1,500 postcards were mailed. In addition, the BMA paid for and distributed “Keep Bidwell Mansion Open” bumper stickers, obtained oversized postcards addressed to Governor Brown and placards stating “Closing State Parks Is Bad for Business,” and provided copies to the Chico Chamber of Commerce and Downtown Chico Business Association. We manned a booth at many community events, including the Thursday Night Market, Patrick’s Ranch, Ice Cream Social, Avenue 9 Paint-Out, Wednesday farmers’ mrket, Facebook Reunion, Fun Run, and more. Also, because the state did not have personnel to do it, the BMA has for the last 18 months managed the inventory, ordering, setup and display of the “General’s Store” in the Visitor Center. We are dedicated to keeping the mansion restored and in use as a continuing historical and education resource. That is why the BMA was created. GLORIA VEITH Chico

How much money has BMA raised in the last 10 years through fundraising? As I understand it their assets are from growth in funds. Did the BMA notify its membership that it was without a nonprofit status for 10 months? I don’t think we are hearing both sides of the story here. ELKE RIST Chico

A dialogue on pot Re “Why risk it?” (Letters, by Ashley Hardin, April 5): Why risk it indeed? Yes, Ashley, I totally agree. The problem is county’s policy of no safe access, other than growing. She is given no option. I would suggest that where kids are involved the county dialogue with the city of Chico for a “public option” that would give these ladies relief from the danger of growing. I must also say that it takes the business out of the medicine. Her other option is to join the Chico Cannabis Club, which is the fastest-growing option to dispensaries. LETTERS continued on page 6

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Abusive invasions Re “Green light for abuse” (Editorial, April 5): The conservative Supreme Court justices are doing a great disservice to those they are sworn to protect from unconstitutional abuse. By siding with those making a police-state mockery of our legal system with overzealous enforcement of drug possession and presumptions of guilt, they rationalize warrantless searches of innocent Americans. Considering the difficulty and infrequency of using body cavities to hide contraband, it would seem more likely that innocent persons are subjected to abusive, invasive and demoralizing denial of constitutional privacy and due-process provisions. RICHARD MAZZUCCHI Los Molinos

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“Tom Gascoyne, we bless you in the name of Jesus, and may God have mercy on your soul, as you have been led to assist in doing the devil’s will to persecute God’s people.”

Re “Mortgage scam fallout” (Newslines, by Tom Gascoyne, April 5): First of all I want to say: Don’t believe everything you read in the newspapers or hear on the television news. Both of these sources, like law enforcement and our judicial system in this nation, are corrupt and influenced by demonic spirits—yes, the devil. He (the devil) doesn’t want people to believe that he exists, but he does. He works through people, and people run these institutions, and they are all demonically influenced. The Bible says that the god of this world blinds the minds of those who believe not. That’s what’s really happening to Mrs. Haynie: The god of this world (the devil) hates her, so he sends his demons who work through people to do his will. Tom Gascoyne, we bless you in the name of Jesus, and may God have mercy on your soul, as you have been led to assist in doing the devil’s will to persecute God’s people. People who believe everything you read and hear, wake up and know that your government and its laws and law enforcement agencies and courts are not for you, but against you, especially if you are of color. You don’t stand a

chance being black with an allwhite jury. Mr. Tom Gascoyne, why don’t you report that! I suppose the devil who influences you will not allow you to tell the truth, huh? VINCE HAYNIE Chico

Connelly should apologize Re “Connelly’s ‘funny’ email” (Downstroke, March 29): Apparently, Islamophobia is alive and well in Butte County and in the halls of our elected officials. A tiny minority of Muslims would do what is described in the joke (shout anti-American slogans), yet when such images are perpetuated, they contribute to the ignorant perception that such behavior is true of all or many Muslims. I cringe with shame as I think of my Muslim friends who must endure such stupidity and keep smiling so they won’t be accused of being “anti-American.” Connelly owes Muslims living in Butte County, and all of the residents of this county, an apology and an acknowledgement of the many gentle people of the Muslim faith residing among us. EMILY ALMA Chico

Stay true to employees The recent news about the contract renegotiations for large grocery store chains like Save Mart, Safeway and Raley’s will negatively affect many people and their families. Raley’s in particular wants to take a huge chunk of benefits away from its current and retired employees. My father worked so hard for Save Mart for 30-plus years before he retired a few years ago. When he retired he got to keep his amazing benefits for himself and our family. The thought of these companies taking away health-care benefits for retired employees has put my family in a state of panic. These huge companies are turning on their employees during the hard times of trying to keep up with stores like Walmart. I find

this funny because these grocery stores would not be where they are today without their incredibly hard-working employees. They need to take care of their past, present and future workers if they really plan on getting through these hard times and being successful in later years. After all, who is going to continue supporting a company who stops supporting its employees? EMMA MEAGHER Chico

Sign the GMO-labeling petition I would like to urge your readers who have not already done so to support efforts to require that genetically engineered (GE) foods be labeled in California. Many people have already signed the petition to get the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act on November’s ballot. Thank You! If you have not yet done so, please make sure your signature finds its way to a petition before April 22. This is the last day signatures can be collected. Advanced polls indicate that over 75 percent of Californians support their right to know what is in the food they eat. Thousands of signatures have been collected throughout the state thus far, but we remain shy of the 800,000 signatures needed to ensure this ballot initiative is put before the voters. The California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act is simply an effort to improve consumers’ ability to make informed choices in the foods they buy. This act would not ban or promote GE foods, only require they be labeled. We have not always required calories and nutritional value information to be labeled on foods, but we do now, and consumers use these labels to make better-informed decisions. GERAD DEAN Mount Shasta More letters online:

We’ve got too many letters for this space. Please go to www.newsreview.com/chico for additional readers’ comments on past CN&R articles.

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CN&R 7

UNIVERSITY HOSTS ANNIVERSARY

In celebration of its 125th anniversary, Chico State is hosting a community open house this Saturday, April 14. Chico State Expo 125 will feature more than 60 tours, showcases and performances, including games for kids, from 1-5 p.m., rain or shine. Admission to campus museums, including the Gateway Science Museum, will be free during the event, as will tours of Bidwell Mansion and the Albert. E. Warrens Center (aka the President’s Mansion). The anniversary celebration is on the same day that the campus is welcoming prospective students and their families for its Choose Chico! event (formerly Chico Preview Day). It’s an important occasion, since 80 percent of Chico State’s students come from outside of its service area. Joe Wills, Chico State’s director of public affairs, said the preview succeeds in drawing students: About 70 percent who show up actually enroll.

Professional signature gatherer Nicolas Guillermo has come to town from the Bay Area to gather signatures, including for the petition to put a measure on the ballot that would require the labeling of food products that contain genetically modified organisms. PHOTO BY TOM GASCOYNE

DA BLAMES REALIGNMENT FOR CRASH

An allegedly intentional head-on collision by a suspected Chico car thief into a Chico police car April 3 may be fallout from the state’s new realignment law, District Attorney Mike Ramsey contends. The bill, AB 109, reduces prison overcrowding by transferring lower-risk state prisoners to county jails. The high-speed chase of Chico transient Joseph Stephens, 26, along Highway 99 and subsequent crash in an orchard caused damage but no serious injuries. Two weeks earlier, Stephens was arrested for a nearly identical high-speed evasion in another stolen car, minus the crash. Ramsey says Judge Kristen Lucena initially released Stephens on his own recognizance—over the DA’s objections—five days before the second incident because the Butte County Jail was full. Stephens faces a preliminary hearing April 12 on charges of felony evading, assault on a peace officer, vehicle theft and committing a crime while out on his own recognizance.

GRUBBS CLOSER TO GETTING HER HALL

For nearly 20 years Butte County ClerkRecorder Candace Grubbs (pictured) has been trying to get the county to build a hall of records in which to store safely the thousands of invaluable county historical documents now being kept in several warehouses under less-thanideal conditions. This week the county took a big step in that direction. By a unanimous vote Tuesday (April 10), supervisors gave county administrators permission to apply to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for an $8 million loan to construct a new facility near the corner of Second Street and Nelson Avenue estimated to cost $9.5 million. Ultimately construction will be paid for out of fees collected by the ClerkRecorder’s Office and a fund that has been set aside to build the facility. When completed, it will house the Clerk-Recorder’s and Elections offices, freeing up space at County Center, as well as the hall of records.

Safeway says no Grocer tries to stifle signature gatherers’ efforts on GMO-labeling petition

S an initiative that would require the labeling of food containing genetically modified organ-

ignature gatherers hoping to qualify

isms have reported confrontations with the managers of local Safeway supermarkets. Chicoan Pamm Larry, who’s been traveling the state to organby Tom Gascoyne ize the effort, said a local organizer reported last month that the tomg@ manager of the East Avenue newsreview.com Safeway “blasted her, was very rude and told her if she were seen anywhere near the store he would call the police.” The fine print: That was after Amanda BossMore than 50 countries chart had filled out permission currently have forms and received the go-ahead prohibitions or from the manager to place volbans on unteer signature-gatherers in genetically front of the store for the next 18 modified organisms. The days. But on the first day, seven United States and Canada do not; hours into the effort, an assisnor do those tant manager approached a volcountries require unteer named Marirose Dunbar the labeling of and said she had to go, that she food products that contain wasn’t allowed to be there. “We had applied and they GMOs.

gave us approval, but all of a sudden the manager is telling us that the corporate office is telling them to get us off the property,” Bosschart said. “They were really clear that we were not allowed on the property. Apparently, Safeway owns that shopping center.” Over at the Safeway on Mangrove, signature gatherers also met some resistance. Nicolas Guillermo, a petitioner from the Bay Area pushing a stack of state measures, including the GMO petition, said he was approached by the store’s manager on Friday, April 6, and told to disperse. Ready for such a challenge, he pulled out some documents reflecting state law to show that he was legally entitled to gather signatures at such a venue. The next day a sign appeared on the sidewalk near where Guillermo was working. It reads: “Valued Customers. Solicitors or petitioners are here without our permission. To encourage them to leave, please do not contribute money or sign petitions. Thank you, Store Management.”

Butte County District Attorney

Mike Ramsey said the law states a store like Safeway “can do a requirement for reasonable time, place and activity restrictions” when it comes to signaturegatherers soliciting customers. “If it goes to court, then it’s up to the judge to decide if it is reasonable,” Ramsey said. “If they camp out right in front of the door, impeding people coming in, or a say a sign twirler doing his thing just to the side of the door endangering small kids who risk getting cut with the propeller-like twirling, well then that’s another thing.” But generally, Ramsey said, a shopping center is considered a town hall or town square where people come and go, and is open to the public. Art Campion, the manager of the Mangrove Safeway, said he could not comment on the matter and referred all inquiries to corporate headquarters; more specifically NorCal Public Affairs. A woman named Patty at the NorCal Public Affairs number directed questions to an email address for Wendy Gutshall, the office’s manager of public and gov-

8 CN&R April 12, 2012

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ernment affairs. A response to the CN&R’s email was not received by deadline. For her part, Larry is leading volunteers across the state looking to collect the required 850,000 signatures by April 22 in order to qualify the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act initiative for the November ballot. Such foods, the initiative states, are those in which the genetics have been altered through techniques that don’t occur naturally. That includes foods engineered to resist pesticides as a way to increase crop yields, such those created by Monsanto that can endure a spraying of the herbicide Roundup. The initiative is intended to let consumers know if certain foods have been unnaturally altered. A group called Stop the Costly

Food Labeling Initiative is opposing the ballot-measure effort. SCFL supporters include the Grocery Manufacturers Association, of which Safeway is a member. The group argues that a labeling regulation is unfair to California farmers and would drive up food prices. Larry said the purpose of the initiative is to inform consumers. “It appears that Safeway [locally] doesn’t want its customers to know what they are selling,” she said. “Other Safeways are allowing us to gather signatures, and Raley’s has been most welcoming and inviting.” “S&S [Produce and Natural Foods] doesn’t usually allow signature gatherers in front of their store, but they did allow us to for this,” she continued. “These people are volunteers and they don’t want to fight. They are giving up their time to do this. Other stores have been supportive as well. Stores like Trader Joe’s, S&S, [Chico Natural Foods] all support healthy foods.” She said a booth will be set up at the Thursday Night Market tonight and April 19 to collect signatures. “That is, if the farmers’ market folks will let us,” she joked. Bosschart said the goal for local volunteers is to gather 10,000 signatures. At this point, she said, they have collected about 7,000. She is confident at this point that enough valid signatures will be gathered in time to qualify the measure for the November ballot. “I’ve never been involved with anything like this, and was surprised at how many people are out there gathering signatures for different causes,” she said. “I got involved in this because I’m a longtime advocate for healthy food and against GMO foods and Monsanto.” Ω

The lone Democrat

Corning olive rancher runs for 3rd District Assembly Charles Rouse is a soft-spoken man with a streak of self-deprecating humor. He’s running for the newly drawn 3rd District Assembly seat against Dan Logue, the incumbent, and Tehama County Supervisor Bob Williams. Rouse is a Democrat; his opponents are Republicans. The candidates will face off in the June primary election, and the two top finishers will go at it in the November general election. There is some controversy in the race, in that the Tehama County Republican Club endorses Williams, while the state party endorses Logue. The new district is 42 percent Republican, 34 percent Democrat, and slightly more than 20 percent non-partisan or decline to state— virtually the same demographics as the preredistricting 3rd Assembly District Logue won two years ago over Democrat Mickey Harrington. During a recent interview at the CN&R offices, Rouse’s wife and campaign manager, Angelica, slipped into another room to answer her cell phone. Rouse stopped in the middle of answering a question, searching for a certain statistic. “You’ll have to excuse me,” he finally offered, gesturing over his shoulder with his thumb. “My memory is sitting out in the other room.” Rouse is a retired postal worker who served for 20 years as the rural carrier in Gerber. His wife is a semi-retired Tehama County court clerk who still works part time as a Spanish-English interpreter.

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He’s making his first run for office at the age of 68, he said, to help rural citizens who make up the district “regain their once-proud place in the workforce of the six counties I aim to represent.” Those counties are Tehama, Glenn, Sutter, Yuba and portions of Butte and Colusa, making up a district that runs 200 miles north to south and is 75 miles wide. He says on his webpage that he will “work with families to gain a living wage, help create local jobs and vigorously promote funding for education so our youth can remain and work in our communities.” When asked about opponent Logue’s political slogan, “Jobs, not taxes,” that appears on the large blue campaign signs dotting the region, Rouse smiled and shook his head at the vague statement. “I’m not exactly sure what that means,” he said. “Do you?” Rouse was born in the Los Angeles

County community of Glendora. He served in the Air Force and attended Citrus College in Glendora before transferring to Occidental College, a school in L.A. that’s been referred to as the “Princeton of the West.” Someone named Barack Obama also attended the college for two years, though Rouse is quick to point out that they went to the school decades apart. And he’s written a book about this time in his life, which he said was very difficult as he tried to adapt back into civilian life. The book is titled Two Years at Occidental College in the Late Sixties. Rouse also worked for Kaiser Steel and remains a member of the United Steelworkers union. He and Angelica, who’ve been married more than 40 years, moved to Corning in 1976 and purchased an 11-acre olive farm, which he said he still operates, though one of his two sons does most of the farm labor

Government

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Your taxes at work

Interest on Debt

14.5¢

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International Affairs 1.2¢

4.4¢ Food & Agriculture

4.3¢

April 17 is income tax day. What the heck does that money buy? The chart above shows how the federal government spends its tax revenues, as broken down per dollar, according to the National Priorities Project. The NPP is a self-described “national non-profit, non-partisan research organization dedicated to making complex federal budget information transparent and accessible so people can prioritize and influence how their tax dollars are spent.”

Democratic candidate for state Assembly Charles Rouse. PHOTO BY TOM GASCOYNE

these days. Rouse is a member of the Tehama County Democrats and vice president and director of the Corning Healthcare District, a nonprofit that promotes rural health care. Rouse said education is high on his list of priorities. “Indeed, it is in a state of genuine crisis,” he said. “The state is great because it has an educated citizenry. If we can’t educate our children, we don’t have much of a future.” Protecting the district’s water is also important, the candidate said. “I say this as a farmer. Water supply and water rights are high priority. The other state legislators are jealous of the North State water rights. I say no more freshwater commitments for North State water. We are overcommitted right now. But, that said, of course, we have to honor the contracts and laws on the books right now.” Honoring those contracts, he said, also means having some say in sending water south of the Bay Delta. “The Delta itself is not a very efficient conveyance,” he said. “And there are objections to the peripheral canal because pumping the water leads to depredation of the Delta smelt. Now they are talking about a Delta pipe installation, which seems to me like an exotic and questionable piece of engineering. I have my doubts. And it looks expensive.” He says the state’s prison realignment, which incarcerates some state prisoners in county jails, needs to be assessed to see if it is working as intended. Rouse said he and Angelica are no strangers to politics; he worked with Democratic congressional candidate Jim Reed two years ago and has worked with local political activist Michael Worley. But he has yet to meet state Democratic adviser Bob Mulholland. “This is a grassroots campaign,” he said. “We are learning as we go. The Democratic activists are going to go out to get the vote and do mailings. Our campaign is really just starting. The Democratic activists have been enthusiastic, friendly and welcoming.” “This is not our first rodeo,” he summed up. “Just the first one I’ve actually ridden in.” —TOM GASCOYNE tomg@newsreview.com

NEWSLINES continued on page 10 April 12, 2012

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Overtime blues

Police department reorganizes to slash spending for the rest of the fiscal year

Sgt. Rob Merrifield has been the the programs he oversaw. go-to guy for Chico media over the The same is true for a commupast two years. The veteran cop nity services officer who was and former detective has issued the switched from traffic to patrol. bulk of the Chico Police DepartFor Merrifield, both moves ment’s press releases, fielding place additional administrative inquiries into everything from tasks, such as reviewing parking 804 Broadway (Corner of 8th & Broadway) minor thefts to high-profile murder tickets and conducting taxicab and Downtown ChiCo • 342‑4788 investigations. In general, as the tow-truck inspections, in his bailipublic-information sergeant, he’s wick. Thus, he’s left without time helped keep the community to consult with media. informed about crime in the city. And the changes don’t end But as of this week Merrifield, there. who is part of the Special OperaCapt. Kirk Trostle, who will tions section, has taken on addistep into the role of interim chief of tional duties and is no longer a police next week when Chief Mike press liaison. In fact, that role is Community Sunday 11 am Maloney retires, said two traffic left vacant. And he’s not the only Join us for our weekly service to inspire officers have been moved to patrol. one within the department whose conscious awakening and compassionate Additionally, two street-crimes job description changed this week. action in our lives and in the world. detectives and one gang-crime The switch-up is part of a plan Rev. Jill Lacefield, Director Power of Intention detective headed to patrol. He said to reduce the department’s overSUNDAY, APRIL 5th CPD’s command staff went time pay by 25 percent for the rest “through every facet of the organiof this fiscal year. It’s an adjust“Whether You Think You Can ment stemming from the city’s cur- zation to shift resources.” or Can’t, You’re Right” The goal, of course, is to mainrent budget deficit, which is track830 Broadway • Chico • 894-8115 tain the core services. The departing about $900,000 over budget. ment will do that, Trostle said, by To reduce the overtime expendiwww.CSLDowntownChico.org tures, a majority of which are asso- keeping a minimum staff of five officers and one supervisor per ciated with the core service of shift on patrol. That’s down from patrolling Chico’s streets, the prior years’ staffing levels of seven department has pulled several officers. employees from special units, Trostle said he recognizes that assignments and programs and the budget affects every city placed them into patrol. department, not just the Police “The accessory functions are Department. the things [the community is] City Manager David Burkland going to lose out on,” Merrifield also noted that the reductions said. aren’t focused on the CPD. He For example, Tim Truby, a explained that the city’s expendicommunity services officer who tures have run a little high, while focused on crime prevention and fewer revenues than expected have education (he worked with local come in, and that overtime budgets Neighborhood Watch programs n e w s &ther local eview b u s 15 i n e s s uthroughout s e o n l y all city departments and conducted Every The Chico News & Review is looking Minutes drunk-driving at ss designer issUeprograms dATe 03.10.11 ACCT eXeC ljg schools, among many for journalism students who want to FiLe nAMe reV dATe 03.09.06 ironmtleather031011r1 other things), is now build their résumés and gather great assigned to review patrol.your No one please carefully advertisement and verify the following: clips. The CN&R’s summer internship will fill his position or run

JOURNALISM STUDENTS:

Got the write stuff? program offers an opportunity to take college skills to the professional setting. We are seeking newshounds, features writers and savvy photographers who are currently enrolled in college (spring 2012 graduates may also apply). Interns are paid per assignment. For application information, contact Melissa Daugherty at melissad@newsreview.com. Application deadline is Friday, April 20.

10 CN&R April 12, 2012

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Chico Police Sgt. Rob Merrifield last September at the corner of Bruce Road and Highway 32, near where Chico resident David Yang was murdered a few days earlier. PHOTO BY MELISSA DAUGHERTY

face the 25 percent reduction. (As the city’s largest department, CPD’s budget accounts for close to half of the city’s entire $46 million general-fund budget.) Burkland emphasized that the cuts relate only to the time between now and the end of June (the end of this fiscal year). Meanwhile, since the beginning of the calendar year, city staff has been working on a plan for the next fiscal year. Right now, there’s an anticipated shortfall of $2.2 million. To help tighten the gap, CPD will not fill certain vacated positions, including those of two retiring police officers, Trostle said. A proposed budget will be distributed in May followed by an allday City Council budget session in June. By that time, Trostle said the department should know whether some of the reorganization measures taken this fiscal year are temporary. Trostle noted that the department had already been grappling with staffing reductions, resulting in longer response times for lowerlevel crimes. He expects that trend to continue but said the community can count on a swift response for emergency calls. As the former chief of the Oroville Police Department, Trostle said he’s been through budget reductions before. And while it’s certainly not the easiest time to take charge of a department, he welcomes the challenges that lie ahead. He acknowledged that the current reorganization has affected morale. “It’s been sullen,” he said, referring to the mood in the department. “The staff has been understanding; they’ve been professional, but it’s difficult.” —MELISSA DAUGHERTY melissad@newsreview.com

It took about an hour for fire crews to douse the flames at this house north of campus. PHOTO BY KEN SMITH

Burning down the house

Chico State students torch house while allegedly making drugs Three Chico State University students were left homeless after an alleged attempt to prepare a batch of “honey oil” went sour Saturday night (April 7). A house at the intersection of Warner Street and West First Avenue was badly damaged in a fire investigators say started when the residents attempted to use flammable chemicals to extract tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) from marijuana. Housemates Nicholas Glasco, 21, Devin Murphy and Cheyenne Havens, both 19, were arrested on charges of manufacturing a controlled substance with bail set at $100,000 each. Chico State University Police Officer David Bird was passing by in his patrol car and reported seeing flames at about 10:15 p.m., according to the Chico Police Department. Four fire engines and more than a dozen Fire Department personnel battled the blaze—which took about an hour to contain—as officers blocked nearby streets. Eyewitness Joanne Romaniuk, who lives across the street from the burned home, told Chico State’s student newspaper, The Orion, that flames reached as high as 60 feet. All three residents escaped the house unharmed, and no injuries were reported. Fire personnel found evidence of drug manufacturing and contacted the Butte County Interagency Narcotics Task Force (BINTF). Chico Police Sgt. Ted McKinnon, who heads up the BINTF’s north office, was on the scene and said it was fairly obvious what the residents were up to. Honey oil, also known as hash oil, is

concentrated THC oil extracted from marijuana. This is accomplished through the use of household solvents, most commonly butane. Though McKinnon was reticent to provide much information on its manufac-

ture, the Internet is full of instructions and how-to videos. Several contain warnings, advising that the process be done outdoors and away from open flames. McKinnon said local law enforcement has encountered only a handful of cases of honey-oil production, as they tend to be small-scale operations done for private use instead of bigger operations intended for distribution. He also said Proposition 215 allows for possession of marijuana only and does not legally protect people who engage in chemical processes to get higher concentrations of its psychotropic chemicals. Manufacturing honey oil is a felony offense, he noted. “We usually hand marijuana offenses off to the Sheriff’s Office, but are involved in this case because of the manufacturing aspect,” he said. BINTF’s concerns lie more with methamphetamine production, which is more commonly associated with drug-related explosions. “Surprisingly, we are seeing a great deal less meth labs recently,” he said. “But trends like that are funny; we could have a big bust tomorrow and it could all change, and it doesn’t mean the drug problem is going away.” McKinnon said his team has done its part in the case by gathering evidence at the scene, and it’s now up to the courts to determine whether and how the damage to the house will affect prosecution and punishment. The students may also have consequences on the academic front, said Joe Wills, Chico State’s director of public affairs. “It is possible for students to face consequences at the university for incidents that take place off campus, particularly when serious criminal charges are involved,” he said. Wills didn’t know whether the university was looking into the incident. He said the Office of Student Judicial Affairs would decide whether to investigate and take action. “There’s no cookie-cutter approach in these situations,” Wills explained. “It’s not like we say, ‘If you are convicted of this crime you receive these penalties.’ It’s looked at on a case-by-case basis. If action is taken, the students would get a chance to give their side of the story and the whole situation is closely examined.” —KEN SMITH kens@newsreview.com

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CN&R 11

THE PULSE

HEALTHLINES

BIG MONEY FOR STATE NURSING PROGRAMS

As part of a plan to further develop California’s health-care workforce, 17 registered-nurse education programs received a total of $2,799,939, which includes $105,000 to Chico State. The funding was awarded through the SongBrown Health Care Workforce Training Act, which was established in 1973 to increase the number of available slots in established medical schools, according to a press release from the state’s Health and Human Services Agency. “The Song-Brown Program has been dedicated to providing financial support to California’s health-care professions workforce programs … committed to graduating health-care workforce professionals that are willing to work in California’s underserved areas,” said Stephanie Clendenin, acting director of the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development.

Great minds think alike. Doctors R. Douglas Matthews and Joseph Matthews. PHOTO COURTESY OF ENLOE MEDICAL CENTER

FDA NIXES BPA BAN

In early April, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration denied a proposed ban on the hormone-disrupting chemical bisphenol A (BPA), despite a petition claiming it is toxic to humans, especially infants. The FDA rejected a petition filed in 2008 by the Natural Resources Defense Council, which maintained BPA represents a serious risk to human health, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. BPA is a synthetic estrogen used to make polycarbonate plastic used in bottles and other common products, as well as an epoxy resin used to line metal cans. The Environmental Working Group, which has lobbied for BPA to be removed from products like baby bottles and formula, is among many activist groups criticizing federal regulators for giving preferential treatment to scientists paid by the chemical industry. While thousands of studies have linked BPA to miscarriage and other forms of reproductive failure, annual revenue for the chemical industry from BPA is estimated around $6 billion.

MEDITATING MAKES PEOPLE HAPPIER, NICER A study that put 82 female schoolteachers through a short, intensive meditation regimen found the test subjects were less depressed, anxious or stressed, and more compassionate and aware of other’s emotions. The study, led by researches at UC San Francisco and published in the April issue of the journal Emotion, incorporated three forms of meditation—concentration practices focusing on a specific mental or sensory experience, mindfulness practices involving examination of one’s feelings and body, and directive practices intended to develop feelings of empathy toward others, according to a UCSF press release. Earlier research has linked meditation to positive improvements in blood pressure, metabolism and pain, but less is known about meditation’s effects on emotional and social behavior. “The study is particularly important because opportunities for reflection and contemplation seem to be fading in our fast-paced, technology-driven culture,” said lead author and UCSF professor Margaret Kemeny. 12 CN&R April 12, 2012

Like father, like son Former firefighter follows in his father’s footsteps and becomes a local colorectal surgeon by

Evan Tuchinsky ideacultivators@aol.com

F Matthews repeatedly heard one message from his father, Chico colorectal suror most of his life, R. Douglas

geon Joseph Matthews. “I kept telling him, ‘Doug, you don’t want to be a doctor,’” the elder Matthews recalled. Joe Matthews said this while Doug was growing up. He said it again in the 1990s, when Doug worked as a seasonal firefighter for CalFire. He said it when Doug left the fire service and attended Santa Clara University. He even said it when Doug had become a doctor after graduating from Boston University School of Medicine in 2003. The life of a doctor isn’t for the faint of heart. “You marry the profession as well as your wife,” Joe Matthews explained, and his son is both a husband and a father. Moreover, economics and bureaucracy

make health care a challenging field for an independent physician not employed by a major medical center. Doug didn’t listen, of course. “Next thing I knew, he was going into surgery,” Joe Matthews said. “I think he had some grand plans; he just didn’t include me in them.” Not at first, anyway. Doug Matthews completed a six-year residency at the University of Utah, in Salt Lake City, in 2009.

He went on to a year-long colorectal surgery fellowship at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical Center in New Brunswick, N.J., before heading back Chico in 2010 to become a colorectal surgeon like his old man. Now Doug is following in Joe’s footsteps—and in close proximity. He joined the private practice his father shares with HEALTHLINES continued on page 14

APPOINTMENTS CHINESE ACUPUNCTURE DISCUSSED The Humanities Center at Chico State will host acupuncturist Michel Czehatowski, who will present an introduction to acupuncture and Chinese medicine and reveal some of the secrets surrounding this mysterious system of medicine. The lecture will be held in Trinity Hall, room 100, on Wednesday, April 18, at 5 p.m. Call 898-6147 for more info.

Meet Dr. Vang Ask physicians and staff at Oroville Hospital

“The days that I work, it’s pretty busy,” Dr. Vang

about what makes the medical center

says, “but it’s working out well. Oroville Hospital

distinctive, and you’re bound to hear “family”

is able to provide me with the space to provide

and “community” in their answers. The

the care that the community needs. I take care

medical center boasts a close-knit collection

of my patients here in the hospital and also

of caregivers dedicated to serving their

continue to take care of my patients out in the

neighbors.

community, so I think I am having the best of

No one cares more about family and community than Dr. Nhia Kash Vang, a native

both worlds being able to do both things.” Oroville has been home to Dr. Vang’s family

of Laos who grew up in Oroville. Entering his

for more than 20 years, since leaving Laos

second year at the hospital, Dr. Vang is the

when he was a child. Dr. Vang graduated from

only Hmong physician in the area and plays

Chico State University and got his medical

a particularly significant role in this culturally

degree at UC Davis before completing

diverse corner of the North State.

the Stanislaus Family Medicine Residency

Dr. Vang specializes in family medicine. He is

program in 2006.

a hospitalist—a hospital-based physician—but administrators also set up an office so he can care for patients on an ongoing basis. “I think I have an advantage coming from the Hmong community; when there is a Hmong patient, I am able to explain things to them from a

“My parents are here. I grew up here. I know the people here and I love the area.”

culture perspective so they are able to understand a little bit more,” Dr. Vang says. “It just

“When I ﬁnished with my training, I came back here,” Dr. Vang says. “My parents are

makes the hospital stay a

here, I grew up here, I know the people here

little bit easier for them.

and I love the area. It’s a small town, family-

“But the other doctors

oriented, nice and quiet. When I was growing

do just as good a job in

up I saw that there was a need, especially in

taking care of them. All of

this community, so that’s why I went into family

the physicians here are

medicine.”

very culturally sensitive and very competent in their ﬁelds, and that makes taking care of the patients much easier.” Dr. Vang spends most of his time in the hospital. His family medicine practice is part-time, yet particularly important to him. When he came to Oroville Hospital in 2009, after three years in a local

Dr. Vang has a brother ﬁnishing dental school at UCLA who’s “probably going to be coming back here, maybe in the summer,” Dr. Vang says, “and I have a couple of younger siblings who are interested in the health care ﬁeld.” In terms of health-care needs and education, Dr. Vang has been an ambassador of medicine in the Hmong community. “It’s been rewarding. I’ve been happy about returning to Oroville.”

clinic and the hospital in Yuba City, he had a number of patients whom he wanted to continue to follow.

2767 OLIVE HIGHWAY • OROVILLE, CA • (530) 533-8500 � April 12, 2012

CN&R 13

HEALTHLINES

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14 CN&R April 12, 2012

Dr. Kevin Dorsey-Tyler. The doctors Matthews even perform surgeries together. “I’m having a ball working with my son,” Joe Matthews said. “Fortunately we’ve always been able to talk to each other. It’s been working very, very well.” Doug agrees: “We’ve been a very productive team.” The younger Matthews decided to work with the elder to gain the benefit of his father’s experience. “I’d have someone as a mentor before his retirement,” Doug explained, adding: “My mom was thrilled because she heard the word ‘retirement.’ I don’t think she realized we’d enjoy working together so much that retirement isn’t on the fast track.” Said Joe: “I’m a kid in the toy shop with all the new techniques he’s brought with him. New techniques have really blossomed.” The big buzzword in colo-

rectal surgery, as in other surgical disciplines, is “minimally invasive.” Many operations that used to require large incisions and weekplus hospital stays now can be performed with small cuts, reducing the risks of complication and infection along with reducing recovery time. Doug Matthews learned, practiced and mastered minimally invasive techniques for colorectal surgery while in postgraduate training. Joe Matthews found he not only was a mentor to, but also a disciple of, his son. “Between his techniques and my wisdom, we’re doing really well,” Joe quipped. The procedures themselves aren’t radically different when performed with minimally invasive techniques, which Joe Matthews explained as “the same surgery without opening the abdomen.” Instead of a cut 10 to 14 inches long, the surgeon now just needs to make a 2-inch incision below the belly button. Technology has progressed to the point where physicians can see inside the abdominal cavity with fiber-optic tools known as laparoscopes and can utilize more slender instruments to repair or remove tissue. The operation itself may actually take longer with the new equipment, but the average recovery time for the Matthewses’ patients is four days, and some patients leave the hospital in two days. “It’s very dramatic,” Doug Matthews said. “Technology itself is moving people along quicker.” Joe and Doug Matthews perform their surgeries at Enloe Med-

continued from page 12

ical Center, where Joe has served on the Board of Trustees. Both are excited about the Century Project expansion that will include modernized operating rooms hardwired to accommodate new technology. Currently, the Matthews duo utilizes the same laparoscopic equipment used to perform gallbladder surgeries and to remove appendixes. Joe Matthews said Enloe is considering an upgrade. Doug Matthews made the

switch from one life-saving career to another in 1999. He’d worked two years as a dispatcher, following four as a firefighter, and feared the job path in firefighting would “promote me out of what I loved doing.” Leaving the fire service proved a difficult decision, but then things began to slide into place for his new career. He knew he wanted to be a surgeon when surgical rotations in medical school really piqued his enthusiasm, and once he

The doctors’ office:

The private practice of Drs. Joseph M. Matthews, R. Douglas Matthews and Kevin Dorsey-Tyler is located at 2 Governors Lane, Suite A. Phone: 891-4523.

decided to be a surgeon, he knew he wanted to specialize in the lower abdomen. “It’s a niche market,” Doug explained. “The colorectal surgical field is underrepresented because many surgeons don’t want to deal with the colon and stool.” Neither he nor his father shares that aversion. Consequently, they’ve developed a symbiotic relationship. “Certainly I need the wisdom of people of my father’s generation,” Doug said. “They provide the safety and the ‘why’ [we do things the way we do]. We also need people of my generation to provide the ‘how.’” Ω

WEEKLY DOSE Bloodless HIV testing The Butte County Public Health Department recently announced the adoption of a new form of rapid HIV (human immunodeficiency virus, which causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or AIDS) testing that doesn’t require pricking one’s finger to draw blood. Patients taking the new oral HIV test, which gives results in as little as 20 minutes, are asked to swab their outer gums with an absorbent pad which is then tested for HIV antibodies. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately one out of five Americans with HIV do not know they have it, as symptoms can remain hidden for months to years. “Testing is one of the most important means of stopping the spread of HIV and getting HIV-positive people into early care and treatment,” according to Dr. Mark Lundberg, Butte County’s health officer. “It’s important that individuals know that a positive test result is no longer a death sentence; however, finding out is critical to living a long and healthy life despite the infection and for preventing the spread of HIV to sexual partners.” Testing is available at the Butte County Public Health clinics in Chico and Oroville Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Testing is free for Medi-Cal/CMSP or Family PACT patients; private-pay also available. Call 879-3665 (Chico) or 538-7341 (Oroville) for a same- or next-day appointment. Go to www.buttecounty.net/publichealth for more info.

EARTH WATCH

GREENWAYS

Locavore king

NO SIMPLE FIX FOR THE DELTA

A team of researchers assigned with analyzing the environmental state of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta concluded there is no easy way to reconcile the growing conflict between endangered species and water demands. The new study, released by the National Research Council, was conducted over two years by 17 scientists who found a multitude of reasons for the Delta’s decline rather than one single cause, according to The Sacramento Bee. The Delta, which is a source of water for 25 million Californians, has been strained by water diversions, pollution and invasive species. Since 2002, populations of nine native-fish species have decreased dramatically, prompting an unprecedented closure of commercial fishing. “We’re trying to give our fellow citizens a wake-up call that water scarcity is not simply limited to drought situations, but is more or less a constant characteristic of the emerging water situation,” said Henry Vaux, one of the study’s co-authors.

URBAN SPRAWL THREATENS ENVIRONMENT

Worldwide urban sprawl is on pace to consume an area the size of France, Germany and Spain within the next 20 years. At the “Planet Under Pressure” conference in London in late March, experts estimated about 932,000 square miles will be developed to accommodate the rising global population, which is on pace to hit 9 billion by 2050, according to Reuters. The majority of the growth is expected to take place in urban centers as more rural residents move into cities. “The way cities have grown since World War II is neither socially nor environmentally sustainable, and the environmental cost of ongoing urban sprawl is too great to continue,” said Karen Seto, associate professor of the urban environment at Yale University. “The North American suburb has gone global, and cardependent urban developments are more and more the norm.”

COAL EMISSIONS RESTRICTED

New power plants in the United States will have federally imposed caps on greenhouse-gas emissions for the first time, it was announced recently, though no restrictions have been placed on existing coal-fired plants. The rule, issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on April 3, drew the ire of Republicans and the coal industry, though energy analysts predict low natural-gas prices will prompt energy companies to move away from coalfired plants in the future, according to The Washington Post. The limit will require new plants to emit no more than 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) per megawatt hour of electricity produced. The average coal plant emits 1,768 pounds of CO2 per megawatt hour of electricity, while naturalgas plants emit 800 to 850 pounds per megawatt hour.

Joel Salatin with his pigs on Polyface Farms in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. PHOTO COURTESY OF JOEL SALATIN

Virginia sustainable-farming champion Joel Salatin brings the ‘local-food tsunami’ to Chico story by

Claire Hutkins Seda cmh.seda@yahoo.com

P acronyms? 1.) CAFO; 2.) HFCS; 3.) LFTB. (Answers to follow.)

op quiz: Can you decode these

For the uninitiated, the task of decoding the lingo of industrial agriculture can seem daunting. Luckily, local-food-movement guru Joel Salatin is coming to Chico on April 16 to set us straight on all things edible, as well as the associated inedibles like manure, fast food (yes, that counts as inedible), strange-sounding industrial-agriculture acronyms, and our modern lifestyles that disconnect us from our food. “It’s the first time that any culture has been able to extract itself so utterly and completely from the responsibility of land stewardship, water stewardship, energy stewardship,” Salatin said recently in his signature high-energy chirp by phone from his legendary Polyface Farms in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Salatin, who spends a third of his time doing “educational outreach” via speaking engagements across the United States, said

he found the young people of our nation have a startling “lack of knowledge and lack of visceral relationships—the mundane requirements of life. “They’ve never made a dinner from scratch. All they know is the microwave, the can opener, and take-out,” Salatin said. So he set out to write his latest book, Folks, This Ain’t Normal, in which he defines our abnormalities in everything— from a lack of chores for kids, to spending money on televisions and designer jeans, to supporting charities serving Africa, which he claims often causes more trouble than good by undermining the efforts of local farmers and businesspeople. Say you give up the TV and start gardening and canning instead. What’s the benefit of reconnecting with this normality? “The benefit is you realize that I’m not

Talkin’ local:

Joel Salatin will be speaking at Neighborhood Church (2801 Notre Dame Boulevard) on Apr. 16. Doors open at 5 p.m.; the talk begins at 6 p.m. Cost is $12 per person. Go to www.salatinchico.eventbrite.com for more info and to buy tickets. Head to www.polyface farms.com for more info on Salatin.

the center of the universe. And that we are totally and utterly dependent on an ecological umbilical”—the Earth—that, with limited resources, might not be able to sustain us the way we are expecting it to, he said. What Salatin calls “egocentric hubris”—a symptom of the profound disconnect our society has from the mechanisms of the universe that feed and clothe us—is bound to bring our current way of living to an end, he said. “When someone looks at me and says, ‘But it’s so hard to change,’ I look back at them and say, ‘But you don’t understand—what we are living in right now is a change, a profound change, from thousands and thousands of years of what we know about human history.’” Salatin’s April appearance will

come a little more than a year after his first visit to Chico, when all 700 tickets sold out in 10 days. This time around, sponsors Chaffin Family Orchards and the ChicoButte Valley chapter of the Weston A. Price Foundation are betting that the fiery, hilarious sustainable farmer can pack the Neighborhood Church of Chico, with stadium-style seating that can fit 1,500. The evening appearance is a fundraiser for his GREENWAYS continued on page 17 April 12, 2012

CN&R 15

Earth WWEEk SpEcial EvEntS Free electronic drop-o drop-oFF Thursday, April 19th • 9am–2pm at The Shop, 752 Mangrove Ave

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Saturday, April 21st • 9am–2pm at CSUC, A.S. 4th and Cherry Street COMPUTERS FOR CLASSROOMS

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315 Huss Drive, Chico • Open 9-5 Weekdays We accept donations during business hours Open to low-income families such as Medi-Cal, Section 8 Housing, Healthy Families, Free or Reduced lunch qualified and SSDI. Cash sales only. CFC is Microsoft Registered Refurbisher and R2-Certified Recycler. All hard drives are wiped completely or destroyed.

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SLIMEWATCH, CONT. Last week, a CN&R reader (and “third-generation meat processor and prominent blogger for Chico Locker & Sausage Co., Inc.,” as she described herself) named Jennifer Dewey wrote in, taking issue with comments I have made (or quoted) in this paper on two occasions concerning the widely used ammonia-treated ground-beef filler popularly known as pink slime (pictured), or “boneless lean beef trimmings” (BLBT) or “lean finely textured beef” (LFTB), as the meat industry refers to it. It’s no secret that countless grocery and fast-food chains across the United States have stopped offering the stuff due to pressure from those not wanting to eat it (it is banned in Canada and the UK, incidentally). In fact, the mass exodus of consumers away from purchasing pink-slimeladen beef recently caused major pink-slime producer Beef Products, Inc. (BPI) to announce the closure of three of its plants. Ms. Dewey questions the characterization I presented of pink slime as being “basically the fatty offal swept up off the slaughterhouse floor” (see GreenHouse, Mar. 29, 2012), a paraphrase from a direct quote I included in an earlier column (see GreenHouse, Aug. 12, 2010) that described pink slime as “fatty sweepings from the slaughterhouse floor,” and was attributed to a Grist.org article. Grist writer Tom Philpott’s extended quote actually read that pink slime is “the cheapest, least desirable beef on offer—fatty sweepings from the slaughterhouse floor, which are notoriously rife with pathogens like E. coli 0157 and antibiotic-resistant salmonella. Beef Products, Inc. (or BPI) sends the scraps through a series of machines, grinds them into a paste, separates out the fat, and laces the substance with ammonia to kill pathogens.” A recent Reuters article (visit http://tinyurl.com/slimescience to read it) described pink slime as “the unlabeled and unappetizing bits of cartilage and other chemically treated scrap meat going into U.S. ground beef” and “a mix of fatty beef by-products and connective tissue, ground up and treated with ammonium hydroxide.” Additionally, in her Chico Locker blog (head to www.chicolocker sausage.com to read more) Ms. Dewey says, referring to my August 2010 column, that But should you eat it? “[n]othing is ever mentioned whatso-ever [sic] about our products and how NONE of our products contain LFTB (‘pink slime’).” This is simply not so: I specifically advised readers to buy a chuck roast at Chico Locker & Sausage and “[g]rind your own fresh, gunk-free beef.” (I even called Chico Locker for a recommendation of the type of meat to use for grinding). I’m sorry if you did not interpret “gunkfree” as meaning “pink-slime-free,” Ms. Dewey, but that is precisely what I meant—it was an endorsement of the LFTB-free beef that Chico Locker & Sausage sells (which I am familiar with as one of your customers, and therefore did not feel the need to inquire more about it).

APR. 14 EVENTS: Cultivating Community NV’s “Creating Community Gardens” free

panel discussion and slide show will be held from 1 to 2:30 p.m. at the Murphy Commons Community Building (1290 Notre Dame Blvd.). Call Stephanie at 354-1646 for more info. The free World in Crisis—Connect the Dots conference, hosted by Occupy Chico, will take place at Trinity United Methodist Church (285 East Fifth St.) from 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., and will feature an array of activities, including speakers (Teach Peace Foundation’s David Dionisi and former Chico State polisci professor George Wright), discussion groups, entertainment and free food. Call Leslie at 518-9992 to learn more.

EMAIL YOUR GREEN HOME, GARDEN AND COMMUNITY TIPS TO CHRISTINE AT CHRISTINEL@NEWSREVIEW.COM

16 CN&R April 12, 2012

GREENWAYS continued from page 15

keynote speech to be held earlier that day at the much-anticipated Local Food Summit at Lundberg Family Farms’ new conference center in Richvale. The summit, organized by Brad Banner of the Butte County Department of Environmental Health in partnership with Chaffin Family Orchards, will bring together local food producers and food and health regulators from all over the state, in an attempt to find common ground between the two groups, which have long been at odds over issues from raw milk, to farm-tofork events, to local meat processing. Salatin is thrilled that the summit may “get government regulators to appreciate some of the issues that surround local-food movements.” One of those issues—which Salatin covers thoroughly in his latest book—is that food regulations are written for the big guys. “Regulations that are written for large industrial, centralized outfits are often inappropriate, unnecessary and actually sometimes prejudicial toward local, transparent, direct farmer-to-consumer trade channels,” causing smaller farmers unnecessary obstacles to selling their products to a willing market, Salatin said. Those large-scale, industrial businesses are the antithesis of Salatin’s own sus-

ECO EVENT OF BEES AND FLOWERS The Chico Area Recreation District (CARD) will host the third lecture in a five-part series themed “Butterflies, Bees and Bats: Native Pollinators of the North State.” Entomologist Gordon Frankie of UC Berkeley will present “Bees and Flowers, the Love Affair Continues” at the CARD center (545 Vallombrosa Avenue) on April 18 at 7:30 p.m. Admission is $3. Call 895-4711 or visit www.chicorec.com for more information.

tainable methods of raising a variety of animals for meat and eggs, which requires little more than movable electric fencing for rotational grazing, and lots of planning, compared to the massive, stationary, concentrated animal-feeding operations, or CAFOs, that are the industry’s mainstay. “I find it amazing that mainline agriculture is still running pell-mell toward concentrated animal-feeding operations,” Salatin said. His rotational-grazing technique utilizes electric fencing to regularly move grazing cows to new pasture. Following those cows are the chickens, who pick larvae out of

UNCOMMON SENSE Spring cleaning, the green way Are you ready to get rid of the dust bunnies that have been building up here and there all winter long? Yep, it’s just about time for spring cleaning. But before you go out to buy chemical products, consider using the nontoxic ingredients you probably have lying around, such as distilled white vinegar and baking soda. Here are a few easy-to-make cleaning concoctions: • Clean windows and other glass surfaces by mixing 1/4 cup vinegar and one quart water. Instead of paper towels, use newspapers or old cloth rags. • Add 4 cups of vinegar to a gallon of hot water for a good floorcleaning solution. Mix in a few drops of lemon oil for a nice scent. • Clean wood furniture with a mixture of equal parts olive oil and the juice of a freshlemon (minusthe pulp).

Earth Girl Art would like to give a shout out and HUGE thank you to these Supporters and Contributors to the Eclectic Artisan Festival Broadway Heights, Tong Fong Low, Morning Thunder, Mom’s, Jon & Bon’s, Scrambles, Bellachinos, Pita Pit, Beach Hut Paradise Lions Club, Chico Eagles Club, California Dream Week, Chico News & Review and KCHO 91.7fm radio And to our Performers ReBellyon Dancers, Live Music by Andrew Rush, Massive Sound by Jordan Mcardle, Hoop Dancers by Sierra Chic, Groovy Booth by Pleasant Valley High School Photos by Brittni Zacher http://britt-kneezy.blogspot.com/ And to all of our Artisan Talent: see the website for pictures and names. thAnk you from eArth Girl Art~ We love you! Earth Girl Art (behind the Chico Home Depot) | www.earthgirlart.com or facebook Earth Girl Art

the cowpies, mimicking the egreton-the-rhino’s-back symbiosis of nature. His website calls this “a symbiotic, multi-speciated synergistic relationship-dense production mode,” in typical long-winded, even silly-sounding Salatinese. But the methods are far from silly— they’ve been adopted by farmers across the country, and most notably they’re utilized by Chaffin Family Orchards, the co-sponsor of both Salatin events. Salatin and his farm have been featured in Michael Pollan’s bestselling book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, as well as in widely known “foodie” movies, Food, Inc., Farmageddon and FRESH. Salatin is thrilled by what he calls “the local-food tsunami. … I feel like we’re on a surfboard riding this crest right now, and it’s kind of different to be all your life the ugly stepsister, and then wake up one morning, and suddenly you’re chic.” But he recognizes that we have a long way to go. “What has become normal food in our culture right now is completely aberrant food. We’ve never had high-fructose corn syrup [HFCS]” he said. “We’ve never had food that wouldn’t mold on the table at room temperature.” And what about lean finely textured beef (LFTB)—or “pink slime”—that’s been making headlines across the nation? “Well, it’s just more of the same. It’s a mishmash of a fabricated slurry that we’ve never eaten before.” “We eat sugar, we eat junk [and] unpronounceable food, and assume that the pharmacy’s going to take care of us,” said Salatin. “We have a much closer relationship with the latest belly-button piercings of Hollywood celebrities … than we have with what’s going to become flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone.” Ω

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CN&R 17

RUSH TO JUDGMENT Two years after the high-profile stabbing of Joseph Igbineweka an innocent man is still tarnished by suspicion

About the author:

David Waddell retired in December after 15 years as the adviser to the multiple-award-winning Chico State newspaper, The Orion. Before that he was a working journalist at the Redding Record Searchlight. He now teaches part time at Chico State.

18 CN&R April 12, 2012

by David Waddell dwaddell@ csuchico.edu

ixty hours had passed since the savage and shocking stabbing of Chico State student body President Joseph Igbineweka near campus. Chico’s mayor, Ann Schwab, deeply troubled by the attack, had shuffled the City Council’s April 20, 2010, agenda to get a report from Police Chief Mike Maloney “so that everyone in the community understands what happened.” Schwab noted that police had characterized the attack as a hate crime and attempted murder. “Very serious in our community,” the mayor said somberly. Police had arrested a 19-year-old Butte College student, Barry Sayavong, a mere two minutes after the attack was reported at 2:17 a.m. on Sunday, April 18. Given the relative prominence of the victim, the seriousness of his injuries and the hate-crime label, the incident garnered considerable media attention and provoked an outpouring of community concern. Joe Wills, chief spokesman for Chico State, told a CNN news website: “This is a hate crime and a very big deal.” University President Paul Zingg denounced the attack as a symptom of racism that is “deep-seated and widespread and getting worse,” including on college campuses, reported the CN&R. Chico State’s Academic Senate drafted a resolution that read: “The scars from the attack … will persist with [Igbineweka] physically and to the reputation of the university and community for years to come.” Maloney began his six-minute presentation by telling the council that Igbineweka, prior to being attacked, “had taken the time to walk a friend home in order to ensure” the friend’s safety. The police chief went on to describe Sayavong as having had “a criminal history that includes past participation in criminal street gang activity, and, in fact, that evening conducted himself in a manner that causes us to believe … that he is still in some way affiliated with a criminal street gang.” Maloney said he expected Sayavong to be arraigned the next day in Butte County Superior Court. “He was arrested … and he has been charged with attempted murder and a hate crime because it appears with the information we have at this point that Joseph was in fact targeted for this brutal assault for no other reason than the fact he was African American,” Maloney said. “The … violent nature of this act, with the added dimension of being a hate crime, is especially concerning to us.” Maloney’s account proved to be incorrect—in big and small ways—beginning with the fact that Igbineweka says he did not walk anyone to safety that night. Of more importance, Sayavong did not actually stab Igbineweka. The assault was not actually a hate crime. And there was no evidence the incident was actually gang related. The police’s public presentation of the stabbing case has left some lingering misimpressions in Internet land—both about Sayavong’s guilt and about Chico being the place where a stunning hate crime occurred. Be that as it may, the police chief has no apologies about any aspect of his department’s performance, including his own. The attack’s aftermath also was a case study in the checks and balances of the

legal system, as well as of the poor reliability of eyewitness identifications. And the attack, now on the eve of its second anniversary, became a defining moment for Chico, in that it directly led to greater attention to diversity in city government. Within two days of the council

meeting, Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey determined there was insufficient evidence to arraign Sayavong, ordering his release from jail April 22. A photo of Sayavong, taken after his arrest, shows no outward signs of someone who had been in a fight, let alone a bloody melee. The Chico Enterprise-Record, quoting police, reported April 20 that the attack was a one-man crime. However, Maloney, even after Sayavong’s release, continued to call him a suspect, according to the ER. The Orion, the university’s student newspaper (which this writer advised at the time), quoted police as describing the suspect as of “Laotian descent”—though Sayavong’s national heritage in relation to the crime had no apparent relevance. Sayavong’s attorney, Tracy TullyDavis of Chico, blasted police for “a rush to judgment.” She insisted her client was at a party—one that authorities say victim Igbineweka also attended but that he says he didn’t—at the time of the assault. “It’s shocking they would arrest him based on one witness’identification without checking his alibi,” Tully-Davis told the E-R.

Joseph Igbineweka speaks from his hospital bed the day after he was attacked. FILE PHOTO BY LESLIE LAYTON

“The mayor of Chico, the Police Department and the press have made him out to be a racist thug. … Nothing could be further from the truth. Mr. Sayavong is a Butte College student doing well in school.” Police described Sayavong as uncooperative and hostile the night of his arrest. After his release, he came with his attorney to the Police Department and agreed to be interviewed by investigators. “He denied being present during the altercation with Joseph,” said Mark Hoffman, a Chico police detective. “I asked him why he didn’t provide this statement to officers that night, and he said because he was angry” about being arrested. When Hoffman asked Sayavong whether, if he did know who stabbed Igbineweka, he would tell police, Sayavong said no. Detectives attribute that answer to not wanting to be viewed as a “snitch” on the streets. Sayavong, now 21, is reportedly still a student at Butte College. In a message relayed via a friend, Sayavong “respectfully declined” to be interviewed for this story. A check of the Butte County Superior Court website shows that he has committed one crime in the county since turning 18: running a stoplight last year. In cop jargon, as a juvenile Sayavong was classified as a “gang associate.” When recently asked what crime Sayavong committed as a juvenile, Hoffman responded that there were more serious issues to focus on in the stabbing investigation “than what Barry Sayavong did when he was 15 or 16.” Sayavong perhaps remains better

known for this crime he didn’t commit than the actual stabber, Jorge Aguilar Ceja, who has been sentenced to seven years in state prison for the assault. Aguilar, 21, turned himself into Chico police in August 2011; a “documented gang member,” according to Hoffman, he pleaded no contest to felony assault with a deadly weapon and guilty to inflicting DNA from the knife used to slash Joseph Igbineweka belonged to Jorge Aguilar Ceja. FILE PHOTO BY MELISSA DAUGHERTY

great bodily injury. The top story in a current Google search of “Joseph Igbineweka” is the CNN story, titled “California college’s student president stabbed; hate crime alleged,” which names Sayavong as the suspect. Plug that same headline into a YouTube search, and what pops up is a news report by Steve Large of KOVR-TV in Sacramento that carries the CNN logo. Large is filmed talking with Igbineweka, freshly out of the hospital, at West Sacramento Avenue and Warner Street, where the victim’s dried blood was still visible on the sidewalk. “This student body president says he will be in court Thursday to face his alleged attacker,” Large dramatically concludes the video. “One man’s battle scars now turning into his own personal battle cry.” Despite his spending five days in jail, Sayavong’s release was evidence of a justice system that worked, his own attorney said at the time. In fact, it could be argued that Sayavong was fortunate that he wasn’t jailed longer. The Innocence Project reports that “eyewitness misidentification is the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide, playing a role in more than 75 percent of convictions overturned through DNA testing.” District Attorney Mike Ramsey agrees that the system worked, adding: “That’s why it’s always ‘alleged’ until they’re convicted.” In fact, “alleged” was nowhere to be found in the Police Department’s rather rudimentary press release, issued before

daybreak the day of the attack. It read in part: “Joseph Igbineweka was walking ... Barry Sayavong approached Joseph and made racial slurs toward him. Barry then pulled out a knife and began to slash and stab Joseph.” According to investigators, Igbineweka left the house party near the intersection of Hobart Street and West Sacramento during the early hours of April 18. Sayavong also was at that party, as was Aguilar; authorities characterize the two as “friends and associates.” Police “don’t have any indication of a problem” occurring at the party that later could have spilled into the streets, Hoffman said. That authorities say the stabber and the victim were at the same party shortly before the attack has not been previously reported in the media. Igbineweka says he never joined the party and actually was next door at a friend’s house after drinking in bars downtown. He recalls people milling around in the street and on the sidewalk. When asked recently whether something could have happened in the neighborhood that provoked the attack, Igbineweka said, “There wasn’t any fighting at the party or any other commotion.” Jonathan Caudill, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Chico State, while not wanting to second-guess the police or in any manner blame the victim, says random acts of violence are pretty unusual. “Especially when you have the possibility for them to have contact previously in a small environment,” said Caudill, not“JUDGEMENT” continued on page 20

April 12, 2012

CN&R 19

“JUDGEMENT” continued from page 19

ing the small sizes of the houses and yards in the area. “It might have been random to Joseph, but it might not have been random to [his attackers].”

Chico State President Paul Zingg denounced the alleged hate crime against Joseph Igbineweka during a campus rally. PHOTO BY JEB DRAPER, COURTESY OF THE ORION

As Igbineweka headed home, he

walked westbound on the south side of West Sacramento near Hobart. Shouts of the “n” word came from a group of young men on the north side of West Sac. Two of the men “crossed the street, began to follow him from a very short distance and continued to taunt him and yell racial slurs,” Maloney told the council. One of the men threw a punch at Igbineweka, prompting him to sock the man in the face in return. “He felt my physical power,” recalled Igbineweka, who is 6-foot-4 and weighs 215 pounds. The second man then entered the fray, and more blows were exchanged. It was only after his two attackers—“the stabber and the non-stabber,” in Ramsey’s words— had fled north on Warner that Igbineweka realized he had been severely cut. He was aided at the scene by a good Samaritan, according to court records, and rushed to Enloe Medical Center. Meantime, Officer Robert Glass, heading toward the scene of the stabbing, spotted four young men near the intersection of West Sacramento and Citrus avenues who fit the first descriptions of the attackers. He ordered them to stop. Initially, all four men started to run, but two quickly halted, and they “were on the ground at 2:20 with a gun on them,” less than three minutes after the assault, said Niels Bringsjord, Butte County deputy district attorney. About six hours later, around 8 a.m. Sunday, a bloody six-inch, single-blade folding knife was found outside a house at the corner of Hobart and West First Avenue. The knife was sent to the state Department of Justice for analysis, but it would be five months before investigators would learn the results: DNA on the knife matched that of two people—Joseph Igbineweka and Jorge Aguilar. Igbineweka’s wounds included “a sixinch horizontal cut to his neck; several cuts to his chest; a puncture mark on his abdomen; a one-inch cut on his left forearm; and a large cut on his inner forearm that was approximately six inches long, three inches wide and exposed muscle and tendon,” according to court documents. Igbineweka today works in San Francisco and lives in Oakland. He confronted some “dark days” through the healing process but feels he is back to normal mentally, he said. Igbineweka did say, however, that he will never regain the full use of the pinky and ring finger of his left hand. Barry Sayavong became the accused

principally because an eyewitness to the stabbing provided what the cops call a “positive identification” of him. Contrary to common public perception, however, eyewitness IDs are generally considered less reliable than circum-

20 CN&R April 12, 2012

stantial evidence, such as a DNA match from blood on a knife, according to legal scholars. “… Numerous psychological studies have shown that human beings are not very good at identifying people they saw only once for a relatively short period of time,” Michael C. Dorf, a Cornell University professor, wrote in 2001. “The studies reveal error rates of as high as fifty percent—a frightening statistic given that many convictions may be based

The attack’s aftermath also was a case study in the checks and balances of the legal system, as well as of the poor reliability of eyewitness identifications. And the attack, now on the eve of its second anniversary, became a defining moment for Chico …

largely or solely on such testimony. “These studies show further that the ability to identify a stranger is diminished by stress … [and] that cross-racial identifications are especially unreliable.” Identifications that cross racial lines are even more problematic because of a difficulty people of all races have identifying people of other races. Caudill, the Chico State professor, also characterized the reliability of eyewitness identifications as “really poor” and that of cross-racial IDs as “terrible.” Aguilar is Hispanic; Sayavong is Asian. Aguilar is about 6 feet tall and weighs 230 pounds, while Sayavong is lighter and several inches shorter, Ramsey stated. Six eyewitnesses to the stabbing generally described to police an attacker who was about 5 feet 8 inches tall and either Hispanic or Asian. Igbineweka told investigators his stabber was 5 feet 7 inches, stocky but not fat, but he was uncertain about race. Three of the witnesses, all young white men, were brought individually to where Sayavong was detained for what the cops call an “in-field show-up.” Beforehand, police admonish a witness that the person to be spotlighted may or may not have been involved in the crime, Hoffman said. Given that the bars had just closed on a Chico Saturday night, sobriety was in short supply in the vicinity of the stabbing. The three witnesses told police they had consumed in the range of four to seven drinks during the night—though it is common for people to underestimate their drinking to officers, Caudill said. When the light was shined on Sayavong, one witness said he was the stabber, another said he wasn’t, and the third said he was 70 percent sure Sayavong wielded the knife. Not exactly a landslide vote, but sufficient to constitute “probable cause” for police to arrest Sayavong, law enforcement officials interviewed for this story agree. “It sounds like the Police Department followed common investigative practices,” Caudill concluded. Detective Hoffman interviewed Igbineweka at the hospital the day after the attack, on April 19. Igbineweka was shown a

“photo line-up” of six Asians that included a picture of Sayavong; the victim picked out two other men as his attackers. The first person quoted in news

accounts as questioning the hate-crime scenario was Igbineweka’s reported girlfriend at the time, Morgan Zakheim. In an interview the day after the attack, she told the E-R: “If a white person had been walking down the street, the same racial language would have been used.” She speculated that the attackers were “just drunken fools,” while Igbineweka believes his attackers were “on a controlled substance.” From his hospital bed, Igbineweka also cast doubt on the hate-crime theory. “I asked him if he believed his assailants were addressing him as ‘nigger’ (or ‘nigga,’ in street slang) due to his race or if they were just using that word as it is commonly used in the street slang that is becoming alarmingly common,” Hoffman said in an email. “Joseph said that his impression was that the assailants would have called anyone they were harassing that word and that it was most likely not being used solely because of his race.” In order to be a hate crime, an offense must “be motivated by animus for another person because of their race” or other protected class, Ramsey said. “Merely calling a person a name is not a hate crime.” Ramsey’s decision not to charge Aguilar with a hate crime was, he said, based largely and “appropriately” on Igbineweka’s account, which was consistent with the stabber’s later denial of racial motives. In fact, Aguilar claimed to be acting in self-defense, pulling out his knife only after Igbineweka started “thumping” on him, Ramsey said. “That word is not as powerful of an indicator anymore,” Ramsey said, “and we’ve had other cases where it just seems that the power of the ‘n’ word has gone away because everyone’s using it, either as a good thing, a cool thing, a hip thing—or an angry thing.” Maloney sees things differently than Ramsey on the hate-crime issue, calling Igbineweka’s feelings about it irrelevant. “Victims don’t determine whether or not it’s a hate crime,” Maloney said. “It’s what can be proven [about the] perspective of the assailant.” One of the first things Ramsey wanted

to determine, in his initial discussions with police detectives, was whether Sayavong had blood on him. “This was obviously a very bloody stabbing, and the arteries … in Joseph’s arm would be spurting blood,” Ramsey said. And because Igbineweka was fighting with a gaping forearm wound, “his arms would be throwing blood. So I expect Barry to be pretty bloody. No blood. That’s a problem” in terms of proving Sayavong’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. Since Sayavong was detained within a couple of minutes of the assault, it is unlikely that

he would have been able to change or discard clothes and clean himself, Ramsey said. Sayavong also had no cuts on his hands of the sort an attacker would likely have sustained using the type of knife that was recovered, the DA said. Maloney also has a different take from Ramsey’s regarding the absence of blood on Sayavong’s clothing, which was eventually confirmed by a state Department of Justice analysis. “I can tell you that things that you think should happen, don’t, and things that you would never expect to happen, do—all the time,” the police chief said. “It would make sense that somebody who would inflict such a vicious injury would have blood on them, but I can’t say the absence of blood would be an indication they were not responsible for inflicting the injury. “I’ll tell you, to this day, from our perspective [Sayavong] was involved in that thing,” Maloney added. “There has never been sufficient information to constitute proof of innocence.” Maloney said he is routinely briefed on the general details of high-profile cases, but he has no recollection of what he was told or by whom during the 2 1/2 days from the stabbing to his council presentation, which was “based on information I was provided at that time,” he said. “I wouldn’t have related that publicly to council if it weren’t related to me. … The information provided to the council was accurate, and it remained accurate.” Ramsey defends the police’s handling of the case—both the jailing of Sayavong for a crime he didn’t commit and the erroneous hate-crime label. He compared “the fog of the crime scene” for officers to “the fog of war” for soldiers. Mayor Schwab recalls her shock

upon learning of the Igbineweka stabbing. He was a student she knew well in her job as a manager in the university’s Community Action Volunteers in Education program. Despite the pain and trauma he endured, Igbineweka remained “unbelievably positive,” repeatedly praising the police, Enloe and the community for their care and support, Schwab said. Five days after the attack, an estimated 900 people attended what was called a unity rally on campus. Zingg and Schwab both spoke from behind a podium to which a hand-lettered sign had been hastily taped. It read: “STOP THE VIOLENCE. STOP HATE.”

These days Joseph Igbineweka lives in Oakland and works in San Francisco. Mentally he’s healed, he says, but doesn’t expect to regain full use of his left hand. PHOTO COURTESY OF JOSEPH IGBINEWEKA

“It was done in a peaceful manner,” Schwab said. “I mean tensions were very high that following week, and I think Joseph’s approach to it helped … keep the peace.” The Igbineweka stabbing was the pivotal event for city government in that it prompted Schwab to propose and push to adoption Chico’s first Diversity Action Plan in July 2011. “I felt the city needed to be a leader and say … that we do value diversity; we do value our whole community,” the mayor said. “Whether this was a hate crime or not, it certainly was a high-profile crime. Here was a student body leader, African [American] … who had really promoted safety in the student area, and who was to me just an outstanding student leader who cared so much for this community,” Schwab said. “It brought to light so many other examples of attacks against minorities.” The stabbing of Igbineweka was not only a high-profile case for the Chico Police Department, but a high-priority one as well. And so when the mayor asked the chief of police, some 60 hours after the crime, to give a public report “so that everyone in the community understands what happened,” she presumably expected accurate and current information. Instead, the community got the same story the police put out a couple of hours after the attack—a rush to judgment centered on one dubious identification from the fog of the crime scene. The same scenario that was dead on arrival at the District Attorney’s Office a day or so later. Maloney defends the veracity of the information that he presented to the public. But when the suspect exchanged his street clothes for jail-issue orange and there were no bloodstains, and when the victim said he didn’t think the attack was racially motivated, those developments would seem significant enough to have altered the police’s public representation of this crime. Readers can draw their own conclusions about Sayavong’s silence, but he has broken no laws in Butte County as an adult beyond one traffic infraction. This much is clear: Sayavong did not stab Igbineweka, in what was a vicious crime but not a hate crime. Yet he remains guilty by association—at least in the mind of Chico’s police brass and apparently until he proves his innocence, which is not exactly the American way. Ω

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Wines from California and around the world. Chilean Reds French Blonds Spanish Tempranillo Australia A benefit for The Butte Humane Society April 12, 2012

CN&R 21

“JUDGEMENT” continued from page 19

ing the small sizes of the houses and yards in the area. “It might have been random to Joseph, but it might not have been random to [his attackers].”

Chico State President Paul Zingg denounced the alleged hate crime against Joseph Igbineweka during a campus rally. PHOTO BY JEB DRAPER, COURTESY OF THE ORION

As Igbineweka headed home, he

20 CN&R April 12, 2012

“photo line-up” of six Asians that included a picture of Sayavong; the victim picked out two other men as his attackers. The first person quoted in news

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Unique Furnishings For Your Home TREMENDOUS SAVINGS THROUGHOUT OUR SHOWROOM AND WAREHOUSE CLEARANCE CENTER!

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Wines from California and around the world. Chilean Reds French Blonds Spanish Tempranillo Australia A benefit for The Butte Humane Society April 12, 2012

CN&R 21

Arts & Culture Waif Mullins (right) poses with his painting, “The Collector (Portrait of Reed Applegate),” and its subject. The painting inside Mullins’ piece, Sal Casa’s “La Zingarella,” is also included in monCA’s inaugural “pop-up” exhibit. Below: Heather Larson’s “Incandescent Four.”

THIS WEEK 12

The collector’s tale

THURS

For monCA’s first public “pop-up” exhibit Reed Applegate gets to do the choosing

HEALING ARTS RECEPTION: An opening reception

Anew artworks to his already large collection, the Museum of Northern California Art (monCA) will t the rate Reed Applegate is adding

have to find two homes for it. One won’t be large enough. When he donated the collection story and photo by to the museum a few months ago, it Robert Speer contained slightly more than 350 works; now it’s up to nearly 400, roberts@ he said. He laughed when he told newsreview.com me this; he’s a little obsessive about art, but in a good way, a wonderful way, really. He’s having fun doing what he loves to do, and his collection will benefit the community for ON THE WALLS: decades to come. The Museum of He and I were chatting during the Northern California opening reception Friday (April 6) Art “pop-up” exhibit shows for monCA’s first “pop-up” show Wednesday-Sunday, of works taken from Applegate’s 11 a.m.-6 p.m. collection, which is being held in (open till 8 p.m. the large empty storefront at 325 April 12, 13, 19, 26), through April 29, Broadway through April. In fact, at 325 Broadway. one of his most recent purchases, purchased just three weeks ago, is monCA “pop-up” included in the show, which Appleexhibit gate himself curated. (temporary That piece is a large, vertical oil location) 325 Broadway painting titled “Incandescent Four” www.monca.org by Heather Larson, a BFA student at Chico State. The painting shows a standing figure, presumably female, draped head to toe in a piece of fine but opaque off-white cloth. She’s in a dancer’s pose, and the fact that no part of her body, including her face, can be seen emphasizes the sculptural aspects of the figure and the classically realistic way Larson has rendered the drapery, with all its folds and other subtleties. It’s 22 CN&R April 12, 2012

remarkable from a technical standpoint, for such a young painter, and it’s easy to see why Applegate liked it. Larson is the youngest artist in a show that, like the rest of Applegate’s collection, includes works dating back to the 1950s in a wide range of styles. What they have in common is that they were all done by Northern California artists, many famous far beyond the region. There are 28 pieces in the show, including several sculptures, so they give only an inkling of the riches to be found in Applegate’s collection. He’s mixed it up here, putting artwork by acknowledged greats in West Coast art (Nathan Oliveira, Robert Arneson, Wayne Thiebaud, Roy DeForest) chockablock with Chico-based artists whose work is perhaps less well known but every bit as good. There’s a terrific piece by Salvatore Casa, “La Zingarella,” as well as one of Ruben Heredia’s masterful charcoal studies of space, texture and form called “Mystery #22.” I also very much liked Elizabeth Newman Kuiper’s large digital photograph, “maxfieldparrishlinda,” which Applegate said was of Kuiper’s sister. It cast her in a richly ethereal light, as suggested by its title. As you might expect, there’s an autobiographical quality to this show, since it’s from Applegate’s collection and he did the choosing. So it’s not surprising that he included “The Collector (Portrait of Reed Applegate),” done in pastels by widely known Chico artist Waif Mullins. The painting shows Applegate standing in front of the very Sal Casa piece that’s included in this show—another fun little autobiographical touch. So what we have is one artist who painted, in his style, another artist’s work in the process of portraying the man who later chose both pieces for the inaugural monCA exhibit of works from his collection. It’s an inside joke, one that I imagine had Applegate laugh-

Art Receptions honoring artists Amber Palmer and Kimmie Ranalla and a celebration of the power of art to make people feel better. Th, 4/12, 4:30-6pm. Healing Art Gallery; 265 Cohasset Rd. inside Enloe Cancer Center; (530) 332-3856.

Music CAMMIES MUSIC FESTIVAL: This year, the CN&R’s annual celebration of local music will be a three-day festival featuring all genres playing the same weekend! We’ll be taking over Chico with the three-day CAMMIES Music Festival, Th-Sa, April 12-14 (four shows a night!) Th,

4/12, 6pm-2am; F, 4/13, 7pm-2am; Sa, 4/14, 7pm-2am. $5/show; $20/all-show pass (Jazz

show and Finale/Awards show on Su, 4/22, are free.) Purchase tickets from Sweetdeals at www.newsreview.com/chico or at the CN&R office. Call or visit website for details, Chico, 8942300 ext. 2242, www.newsreview.com/ cammies.

Theater ARCADIA: Rogue Theatre presents one of Tom Stoppard’s finest plays, dealing with the relationships between past and present, order and disorder, and science and art. Th-Sa, 7:30pm through 4/21. $7 or roll the dice. 1078 Gallery, 820 Broadway, (530) 343-1973, www.1078gallery.org.

THE WIZARD OF OZ: Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tinman, the Cowardly Lion and Toto come to the Chico Theater Company stage. Th-Sa, 7:30pm; Su, 2pm through 4/22. $12-$20. Chico Theater Company, 166 Eaton Rd. Ste. F, (530) 894-3282, www.chicotheatercompany.com.

FRI

Special Events MR. BEAUTIFUL FASHION SHOW: 15 dudes lookin’ like ladies will strut their stuff for a panel of judges and audience members. The event also includes a silent auction, raffle and buffet dinner. Proceeds will benefit the Kiwanis Club of Oroville. F, 4/13, 6:30pm. $30. Gold Country Casino; 4020 Olive Hwy at Gold Country Casino & Hotel in Oroville; (530) 534-9892; www.gold countrycasino.com.

NGAIO BEALUM: Comedian Ngaio Bealum has appeared on the Sarah Silverman Program, Comedy Central’s Comic Justice and MTV’s

Half-Hour Comedy Hour. 4/13-4/14, 7pm; Sa, 4/14, 8:30pm. $10. The Last Stand, 167 E. Third St., 3541936, www.laststandcomedy.com.

RHYTHM IN MOTION: A recital performed by the Paradise Dancers. Call for more information or tickets. F, 4/13, 7pm; Sa, 4/14, 2pm. Paradise Performing Arts Center, 777 Nunnelly Rd. in Paradise, (530) 877-9771, www.paradise performingarts.com.

WORKS IN THE WORKS: The Chico Women’s Club hosts this its annual “Festival of Performance,” featuring a diverse group of emerging artists, including the Unplugged Arts Children’s Dancegroup, the Chico West African Dance and Drum Ensemble, Ghanean Kora master Karamo Susso and many more. F, 4/13, 7pm. Chico Womens Club; 592 E. Third St.; (530) 343-2426.

Music CAMMIES MUSIC FESTIVAL: See Thursday. F, 4/13, 7pm-2am; Sa, 4/14, 7pm-2am. 894-2300 ext. 2242, www.newsreview.com/cammies.

SAMPLES: Samples is a reggae-influenced poprock band from Colorado made complete with a full laser light show. Freddy Todd opens. F, 4/13, 9pm. $15-$20. El Rey Theatre; 230 W. Second St.; (530) 342-2727.

Theater ARCADIA: See Thursday. 1078 Gallery, 820 Broadway, (530) 343-1973, www.1078gallery.org.

RON PAUL: THE MUSICAL Friday & Saturday, April 13 & 14 Blue Room Theatre SEE FRIDAY & SATURDAY, THEATER

FINE ARTS

CSU, Chico campus; (530) 898-6333.

SAT

ELIGH: Eligh, a member of the hip-hop group The

Special Events CHICO STATE EXPO 125: A community open-house featuring over 60 tours, showcases and performances, including art studios and backstage theater tours, arboretum tour of trees on campus and more. Go online for a full schedule of events. Sa, 4/14, 1-5pm. Free. Chico State; W. First St. Plumas Hall; www.csuchico.edu/125.

DANCE AND RAFFLE FOR GENE DUN-

CHORAL CONCERT Saturday, April 14 Harlen Adams Theatre SEE SATURDAY, MUSIC

NING: A benefit for Gene Dunning, a Forest Ranch massage therapist who suffered a stroke and is currently struggling to cover medical expenses. The evening includes music, dancing, food and raffle prizes. Sa, 4/14, 610:30pm. $5. Forest Ranch Community Center; 15807 Forest Ranch Rd. in Forest Ranch; (530) 891-3534. NGAIO BEALUM: See Friday. The Last Stand, 167 E. Third St., 3541936, www.laststandcomedy.com

RHYTHM IN MOTION: See Friday. Paradise GUYS AND DOLLS: The classic Broadway musical

comes to the Birdcage Theatre stage. F, Sa, 7:30pm through 4/14; Su, 2pm through 4/15. $7$15. Birdcage Theatre, 1740 Bird St. in Oroville, (530) 533-2473, www.birdcagetheatre.net.

RON PAUL: THE MUSICAL: An original sketch comedy musical that follows Ron Paul on tour as he voices his campaign through the prevalent musical genre of each city he visits. 4/13-4/14, 10:30pm. Blue Room Theatre, 139 W First St., (530) 895-3749, www.blueroom theatre.com.

THE SECRETARIES: A horror-comedy about a murderous secretarial pool at a lumber mill enacting the ritual execution of a man timed to their simultaneous menstrual cycles. Adult content. F, Sa, 7:30pm through 4/14. $10-$15. Blue Room Theatre, 139 W First St., (530) 8953749, www.blueroomtheatre.com.

THE WIZARD OF OZ: See Thursday. Chico Theater Company, 166 Eaton Rd. Ste. F, (530) 894-3282, www.chicotheatercompany.com.

Poetry/Literature BREAKING THE SILENCE: A NIGHT OF POETRY: An event to raise awareness about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer bullying through spoken word performance and poetry. F, 4/13, 7-11pm. Free. Chico Peace and Justice Center; 526 Broadway; (530) 893-9078; www.chico-peace.org.

WORKS IN THE WORKS Friday, April 13 Chico Women’s Club

SEE FRIDAY, ART RECEPTIONS

Performing Arts Center, 777 Nunnelly Rd. in Paradise, (530) 877-9771, www.paradise performingarts.com.

WORLD IN CRISIS: CONNECT THE DOTS: An Occupy Chico event involving various local organizations in which attendees have the option of participating in discussion group covering topics like civil liberties and human rights, the environment, healthcare, the economy, foreign war and food and water. Includes free food and music by the Doin’ it Justic Choir, Susan Dobra, Chuck Greenwood and Diana Fogel. Sa, 4/14, 10am-7:30pm. Free. Trinity United Methodist Church; 285 E. Fifth St.; (530) 518-9992.

Music 490 CABARET: An evening of musical entertainment with singer/songwriter Tom Haithcock and his band Wounded Pickup. Aaron Jaqua opens. Proceeds benefit the Paradise Grange. Sa, 4/14, 7pm. $10 donation. Paradise Grange Hall; 5704 Chapel Dr. in Paradise; (530) 8722084.

CAMMIES MUSIC FESTIVAL: See Thursday. Sa, 4/14, 7pm-2am. 894-2300 ext. 2242, www.newsreview.com/cammies.

CHORAL CONCERT: ROMANTIC MASTERS: The University Chorus, A Cappella Choir and Chamber Singers perform works by Romantic-era composers. Sa, 4/14, 7:30pm. $6-$15. Harlen Adams Theatre; W. First St.

Living Legends, operates outside the realm of mainstream rap, producing unorthodox beats and lyrics. Amp opens. Sa, 4/14, 8pm. $13. El Rey Theatre; 230 W. Second St.; (530) 342-2727.

A NIGHT OF PARADISE: A music and art festival featuring local acts Voltare, Knowvella, Abandon Theory, Strange Fiction, the Noetics and more with food, art and beer abounding. Sa, 4/14, 6pm. $15. Tuscan Ridge Golf Course; 3100 Skyway Blvd. in Paradise; (530) 624-7006; www.anightofparadise.com.

Theater ARCADIA: See Thursday. 1078 Gallery, 820 Broadway, (530) 343-1973, www.1078gallery.org.

GUYS AND DOLLS: See Friday. Birdcage Theatre, 1740 Bird St. in Oroville, (530) 533-2473, www.birdcagetheatre.net.

ANGELOS CUCINA TRINACRIA: Sal Casa Gallery, some of Sal Casa’s early work depicting classic Sicilian culture. Ongoing. 407 Walnut St., (530) 899-9996.

AVENUE 9 GALLERY: Improvisations, paintings, photography, prints and sculptural ceramics by Maria Phillips, Barbara Morris and Delbert Rupp. Through 4/22. 180 E. Ninth Ave., (530) 879-1821, www.avenue9 gallery.com.

BELL MEMORIAL UNION BUILDING (BMU):

Keeping the Spirit Alive, a collection of artwork from prisoners at San Quentin Prison on display at the second floor gallery. Through 4/20. 2nd St. 305, (530) 898-4636.

BOHO: Stay Up Fly On, artwork by Christian

Garcia. Ongoing. 225 Main St. D, (530) 8953282.

BUTTE COLLEGE ART GALLERY: Give Us Your

Theatre, 139 W First St., (530) 895-3749, www.blueroomtheatre.com.

Best Shot, an exhibition of photography from Butte College faculty and staff. Through 4/12. 3536 Butte Campus Dr. Inside the ARTS Building in Oroville, (530) 895-2208.

THE SECRETARIES: See Friday. Blue Room

CHICO ART CENTER: Creative Fusion 8, an exhi-

RON PAUL: THE MUSICAL: See Friday. Blue Room

Theatre, 139 W First St., (530) 895-3749, www.blueroomtheatre.com.

THE WIZARD OF OZ: See Thursday. Chico Theater Company, 166 Eaton Rd. Ste. F, (530) 894-3282, www.chicotheatercompany.com.

SUN

Special Events HEALING ARTS FESTIVAL & PSYCHIC FAIR: Connect with therapists and practitioners in astrology, hypnotherapy, psychic readings, animal communication and more. Lectures will cover the latest trends in natural healing and psychic development. Su, 4/15, 10am-5pm. $5. Manzanita Place; 1705 Manzanita Ave. Inside Chico Elks Lodge; (530) 345-6783; www.healing artsday.com.

bition of exceptional student art from Chico junior and senior high schools. Through 4/21. 450 Orange St. 6, (530) 895-8726, www.chicoartcenter.com.

CHICO CITY MUNICIPAL CENTER: Joel Collier

Photography, a display of Joel Collier’s photography on all three floors of the City Municipal Center building. Through 7/13. 411 Main St. City Hall, (530) 896-7200.

CHICO CREEK NATURE CENTER: Dragonflies and Damselflies, a photo exhibit by Robert Woodward. Ongoing. 1968 E. Eighth St., (530) 891-4671, www.bidwellpark.org.

CHICO PAPER CO.: Monuments, works by DiGrazia, who manipulates photographs to detach the structure from recognizable surroundings. Through 6/1.California Mountain Series, serigraphs by Jake Early. Through 4/30, 9:30am-6pm. 345 Broadway, (530) 891-0900, www.chicopaper company.com.

ELLIS ART & ENGINEERING SUPPLIES: New

Music BROWN BIRD AND SAD BASTARDS: Brown Bird is a dark, sparse folk music duo who will be accompanied by non-traditional acoustic musicians, the Sad Bastards. Su, 4/15, 6:30pm. $12. Chico Womens Club; 592 E. Third St.; (530) 894-1978.

Work, Reel Surfaces, a special series of collage mixed media drawings by artist Heather Larson. M-Su through 4/30. 122 Broadway St., (530) 891-0335, www.ellisha sit.com.

featuring watercolors by Amber Palmer.

Ongoing. 265 Cohasset Rd. inside Enloe Cancer Center, (530) 332-3856.

HUMANITIES CENTER GALLERY: Make it Work, an exhibition of remade and appropriated objects produced by Cameron Kelly and Rouben Mohiuddin. Through 5/20.Cameron Kelly & Rouben Mohiuddin, concurrent exhibitions by Kelly and Mohiuddin. Through 5/20. 400 W. First St. CSU, Chico, Trinity Hall.

MONCA POP-UP MUSEUM: a temporary art installation in the large, vacant storefront opposite Bird in Hand as part of the Museum of Northern California Art’s project to host “pop-up” art galleries in non-traditional venues. W-Sa, 11am-6pm through 4/30. Contact Pat Macias (530) 8914301, www.monca.org/exhibitions.html for details on this exhibit. 325 Broadway, (530) 891-4304.

NAKED LOUNGE TEA AND COFFEEHOUSE:

Addiction Equals Consumerism, art collection by Sally Hedley in which addiction and consumerism are incorporated to show the dangers of dependence on mass-produced products. Through 4/30. Gallery hours are Open daily.. 118 W. Second St., (530) 895-0676.

PATRICK RANCH MUSEUM: Tank House Jurdied Exhibit, an exhibition of artists interpretations of water tank houses of the North State. Through 4/14. 10381 Midway, Chico Halfway between Chico and Durham, (530) 342-4359.

SALLY DIMAS ART GALLERY: Dance of Spring, watercolor paintings of landscapes by artists Carol Preble Miles, Nancy Sowarby, Anne Pierce and more. Through 4/21. 493 East Ave. #1, (530) 345-3063.

TURNER PRINT MUSEUM: Sustaining Cultures:

Native Peoples, marking the 100th anniversary of the discovery of Ishi featuring contemporary prints by Native American, Inuit and Australian aboriginal artists. Through 4/15. 400 W. First St. Meriam Library breezeway, CSU, Chico.

UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY: Prototypes for

Fictional Souvenirs, an exhibition of work by San Francisco artist Stephanie Syjuco. Through 4/14. 400 W First St. Taylor Hall, CSU, Chico.

UPPER CRUST BAKERY & EATERY: Rachelle

Montoya, over 30 mixed media paintings and pastels by artist Rachelle Montoya.

Through 4/30. 130 Main St., (530) 895-3866.

HEALING ART GALLERY: Current exhibits, by Northern California artists whose lives have been touched by cancer. Currently

PARADISE COMMUNITY CHORUS SPRING CONCERT: The Paradise Community Chorus shows off their pipes in their spring concert. Go online for more info. Su, 4/15, 3pm. Paradise Performing Arts Center; 777 Nunnelly Rd. in Paradise; (530) 872-8454; http://paradise chorus.org.

Theater GUYS AND DOLLS: See Friday. Birdcage Theatre, 1740 Bird St. in Oroville, (530) 533-2473, www.birdcagetheatre.net.

THE WIZARD OF OZ: See Thursday. Chico Theater Company, 166 Eaton Rd. Ste. F, (530) 894-3282, www.chicotheatercompany.com.

FREE LISTINGS! Post your event for free online at www.newsreview.com/calendar. Once posted, your CN&R calendar listing will also be considered for print. Print listings are also free, but subject to space limitations. Deadline for print listings is one week prior to the issue in which you wish the listing to appear.

Art

Kora Master Karamo Susso

THIS WEEK continued on page 25

Chaos/order If you’re going to tackle the best work by one of the best playwrights, you’d better bring in the best players available. And for its production of British playwright Tom StopEDITOR’S PICK pard’s multi-award winning 1993 drama/comedy Arcadia, it appears Rogue Theatre has done just that. Directed by company-member Amber Miller, the play will feature an impressive cast of local actors: Joe Hilsee, Matt Hammons, Hilary Tellesen, Keilana Decker, John Duncan, Shawn Galloway and Sean Green. And they will have their hands full with a narrative that bridges two centuries and a play that is bold enough to strive to be “both an exuberant celebration of the unpredictability of love and sex, and a poignant study of change and decay.” Bring your brain to the 1078 Gallery where Rogue presents its two-week run, through April 21. See Theater, Thursday-Saturday, for details.

—JASON CASSIDY April 12, 2012

CN&R 23

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Tournament Monday, June 18

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Tuscan Ridge Golf Course Shotgun Start: 11 a.m.

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Supporting sponsors: Bartlett’s Hearing Aids Concours Elite Collision Center

Philosophy. Fiction. Art. Relationships. Poetry. Sports. Photography. Economics. A literary and current affairs magazine with the openness and pioneering spirit of the Pacific Northwest, Empirical aspires for truth by boldly introducing thought-provoking points of view and new paradigms. A forum for discourse on contemporary issues, the magazine is ‘radically empirical’ in considering the broad range of human experience.

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24 CN&R April 12, 2012

THIS WEEK continued from page 23

TUES

Theater AS YOU LIKE IT: A one-hour rendition of Shakespeare’s comedy following heroine Rosalind as she escapes persecution from her uncle’s court. In the Arts Building, room 160. Through 4/19, 12:30pm. Donations. Butte College; 3536 Butte Campus Dr. AHPS 125 in Oroville; (530) 895-2511.

WED

Special Events COMEDY NIGHT: Weekly comedy night on Wednesdays inside Spirits Lounge at Gold Country Casino. W, 8pm. Free. Gold Country Casino; 4020 Olive Hwy at Gold Country Casino & Hotel in Oroville; (530) 534-9892; www.goldcountrycasino.com.

Music ALPHA YA YA DIALLO & BAFING: A night of high energy African rhythms, visually stunning dancers and a dynamic percussion section. Bring your dancin’ shoes. W, 4/18, 7:30pm. $20. Sierra Nevada Big Room; 1075 East 20th St.; (530) 345-2739; www.sierranevada.com/ bigroom.

DANIEL MARLEY: Daniel Marley, son of Ziggy and grandson to Bob, carries on the great family traditional of island grooves. Pure Roots open. W, 4/18, 8pm. $10. LaSalles; 229 Broadway; (530) 893-1891.

ESCAPE THE FATE & ATTACK ATTACK: Escape the Fate is a post-hardcore band out of Las Vegas, touring alongside heavy metal rockers Attack Attack. The World Alive, Secrets and Mest open. W, 4/18, 6:30pm. $20. Senator Theatre; 517 Main St.; (530) 898-1497; www.jmaxproduc tions.net.

Theater AS YOU LIKE IT: See Tuesday. Butte College, 3536 Butte Campus Dr. AHPS 125 in Oroville, (530) 895-2511.

THE EVER AFTER: Stagecoach Youth Theatre presents a parody of daytime television in a fractured fairy tale involving all the usual suspects—Cinderella, Snow White and an unfortunate prince slowly turning back into a frog. 4/18-4/21, 7pm. $6. Theatre on the Ridge Playhouse; 3735 Neal Rd. in Paradise; (530) 8775760; www.totr.org.

OFF THE CUFF: Bi-monthly improvisational performances. Every other W, 7:30pm. $5 advance/$8 door. Blue Room Theatre; 139 W First St.; (530) 895-3749; www.blueroom theatre.com.

CHICO STATE EXPO 125 Saturday, April 14 Chico State

SEE SATURDAY, SPECIAL EVENTS

BULLETIN BOARD Community ACUPUNCTURE IN CHINESE CULTURE: FROM PREHISTORY TO THE PRESENT: Acupuncturist Michel Czehatowski will present an introduction to acupuncture and Chinese medicine and reveal some of the secrets surrounding this mysterious system of medicine. W, 4/18, 5pm. Free. CSU Chico Humanities Center, West First St. Trinity Hall, (530) 898-6417.

BOARD OF SUPERVISORS: Regularly scheduled

meeting. Every other Tu, 9am. Board of Supervisors Chambers, 25 County Center Dr. in Oroville, (530) 538-7631, www.butte county.net.

CHICO CONTRA DANCE: Traditional contra dance with music by the Pub Scouts. Sa, 4/14, 6:30pm. $4-$8. Chico Grange, 2775 Nord Ave., (530) 877-2930.

CHICO POLICE COMMUNITY ADVISORY BOARD: Monthly meeting hosted by Chico Police Chief Mike Maloney to discuss community issues. Third W of every month, 5:30-7pm. Seventh Day Adventist Church, 1877 Hooker Oak Ave., (530) 342-7777.

CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOP FOR CANCER SURVIVORS: A workshop designed to help individuals share their life experiences and “embrace life beyond cancer.” Call for reservations or more information. M, 3pm through 4/16. Free. Feather River Cancer Center, 5629 Canyon View Dr. in Paradise, 876-7184.

DANCE SANCTUARY WAVE: Bring a water bottle, drop your mind, free your feet and your spirit. Call for directions. Tu, 6:30-8:30pm. $10. Call for details, 891-6524.

EXPRESS YOURSELF: A workshop introducing the healing and empowering aspects of art and movement and how expression can be used as a form of therapy. F, 4/13, 1:30-4:30pm. $40. Marleau Petersons Healing Arts Center, 562 Manzanita Ave. 10, (530) 410-2567.

GREAT CHICO DEBATE: A series of panel presentations, speeches and debates by Chico State students who have been studying First Amendment issues throughout the semester. This semester’s topic: free speech. F, 4/13, 9am. Free. Chico City Council Building, 421 Main St., (530) 896-7200.

HERBS & SUPPLEMENTS FOR BREAST CANCER: A one-hour lecture covering the use of herbs and supplements for breast cancer with holistic therapist Harry Chrissakis. Th, 4/12, 6:30-7:30pm. Free. Chico Public Library, Corner Of E. First & Sherman Avenues, (891) 891-2726.

INTERNATIONAL FOLK DANCING: Teaching during the first hour, followed by request dancing. No partners necessary. Call for more information. F, 8pm through 5/25. $2. Chico Creek Dance Centre, 1144 W. First St., 345-8134.

MUSEUM WITHOUT WALLS LECTURE SERIES: The third lecture in a five-part series, with a Butterflies, Bees and Bats: Native Pollinators of the North State theme. This week, Gordon Frankie of UC Berkeley presents “Bees and Flowers, the Love Affair Continues.” W, 4/18, 7:30pm. $3. Chico Area Recreation District (CARD), 545 Vallombrosa Ave. Off of Vallombrosa, next to Bidwell Park, (530) 8954711, www.chicorec.com.

PREVENTING HEREDITARY CANCERS: Guest speakers will present a discussion on preventing hereditary diseases like breast, ovarian, uterine and colon cancers. Call for more information. Tu, 4/17, 7pm. Free. Butte County Library, Paradise Branch, 5922 Clark Rd. in Paradise, (530) 872-8967, www.buttecounty.net/bclibrary/ Paradise.htm.

PROJECT HOMELESS CONNECT: The commercial building at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds will be transformed into a service center for homeless or people at risk of being homeless. Services will include health screening and care, housing, mental health, domestic violence, food and clothing, haircuts and showers and more. Call or go online for more info. W, 4/18, 10am-3pm. Free. Silver Dollar Fairgrounds, 2357 Fair St., (530) 895-4474 ext. 208, http://phcbutte.org.

for more Music, see NIGHTLIFE on page 32

John Bidwell Parlor #21 nSGw PreSentS the annual

PROM PROJECT: Prom Project strives to make prom an affordable event for families under financial constraints. Teens can stop by and pick out new and gently used dresses, tuxedos, dress shoes, accessories and more. Call or email for more information. Sa, 4/14, 10am4pm. Youth For Change, 130 West Sixth St. 6th St Center For Youth, (530) 894-8008.

RELAY FOR LIFE BINGO: Chico State’s Relay for Life team hosts their annual bingo fundraiser, including a raffle and refreshment, with proceeds benefiting the American Cancer Society. Email for more information. Su, 4/15, 3pm. $20. Eagles Hall, Mullberry & 20th Streets.

SAMARITAN FREE CLINIC: This clinic offers free basic medical care and mental health counseling. Call for more information. Su, 2-4pm. Free. Paradise Lutheran Church, 780 Luther Dr. Next to Long’s Drugstore in Paradise, 8727085.

Sat, May 5th • 12-5pm

SOUL SHAKE DANCE CHURCH: Drop your mind,

@ Centennial Plaza 1800 Arlin Rhine Dr. (Downtown Oroville)

find your feet and free you spirit at this DJ dance wave to a range of musical styles. No previous dance experience necessary. Su, 10am-noon. $8-$15 sliding scale. Dorothy Johnson Center, 775 E. 16th St., (530) 895-4707.

Sample beerS & aleS from:

STARTING YOUR SPRING GARDEN FROM SEED: A

Feather River Brewing Co. • Lagunitas Brewing Co. • Mendocino Brewing Company Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. • Western Pacific Brewing Co. • AND MORE!

workshop to instruct how to prepare seed trays for planting, caring for seeds and young plants and general garden care. Supplies included. Call to register. Sa, 4/14, 1pm. $25. The Garden Connection, 629 Entler Ave., (530) 342-7762.

live muSic by:

John Pal Guitierrez • Crashed Giraffe • Furlough Fridays • The Brothers Comatose

TicKeTS:

VETERANS COUNSELING AND CLAIM FILE ASSISTANCE: The nonprofit Disabled American

$25 available at Crown Jewelry 1880 Bird St. Oroville Bustolini’s 800 Broadway Chico & Western Pacific Brewing Co. 2191 High St. Oroville

Veterans hosts a clinic to clarify what services and benefits veterans and their families have earned. W, 4/18, 8:30am-4pm. Veterans Hall, 554 Rio Lindo Ave.

WHY CREATIVE PEOPLE SHOULDN’T TRY TO MAKE MOVIES: Robert O’Brien discusses Orson Welles’s lifelong Shakespeare obsession and three films: Macbeth, Othello, and The Chimes at Midnight. Th, 4/12, 4pm. Free. CSU Chico Humanities Center, West First St. Trinity Hall, (530) 898-6417.