Santa Barbara Sentinel Volume 1, Issue #10

IN BUSINESS

Real Estate

MAZZA’S MISSIVE

SB-BASED LESSON PLANET HELPS TEACHERS HELP STUDENTS

CHARMING UPPER EAST STILL A LOCAL FAVORITE

DIAMONDS, SAPPHIRES AND ABALONE, oh my!

MATT TALKS WITH TWO DISTINCT LOCAL JEWeLERS

BY BRUCE ANDERSON, P. 18

BY MICHAEL CALCAGNO, P. 19

BY MATT MAZZA, P. 4

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A Life of STYLE Victoria Imperioli’s flair for the dramatic is on full display at Metropolitan, her new home decoration shop at 1226 State Street (STORY BEGINS ON page 6)

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PRESIDIOSPORTS PAGE 16

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MAZZA’S MISSIVE

ONTENTS

P.4 P.5 P.6 P.8

by Matt Mazza

Mazza’s Missive – Editor-in-Chief Matt Mazza spends a night in Scottsdale for the release of Scott Gauthier’s latest jewelry collection, Mer Tresor, which was inspired by – you guessed it – his new hometown, Santa Barbara. (Thanks Scott, great work and great party.) He’s also impressed with the latest jewelry creations of local favorites Ben Kendall and Ashley Lambert (together, Stowellen), which will be released at Katie McLean’s Latitude Gallery in the Funk Zone next week. (That’s a lot of jewelry-related words for a guy from Santa Rosa, but Matt’s up to the task… we think.)

A Christmas Miracle and then there’s our anniversary and…well, you get the idea.)

This year, as I was considering the pros (potentially many) and cons (likely very few) of stuffing a stocking with something shiny, a wonderful thing happened. The gift of jewelry collided head-on with one of my favorite things to do.

Party.

Behold. It was a Christmas miracle.

The Sentinel’s Take – It’s Crimetime has generated quite a bit of attention over the past couple months – should the Sentinel tone it down? (Spoiler alert: Probably not.) And aggressive winos, er, ah… wine industry executives and others talk straight about SB County’s potential winery ordinance revisions. (Just don’t take the Sentinel’s beloved Carr cab franc, and everything will be fine.)

T he Dish – Wendy Jenson breaks the Santa Barbara debut of Metropolitan, former theatrical set designer Victoria Imperioli’s new State Street-based home décor boutique. Yes, Victoria is married to that Imperioli, Michael, from The Sopranos. But that’s not the story here… Victoria is a real talent and we’re thrilled for her. Now, break a leg, Victoria!

Letters to the Editor – “A Reader” was quite dissatisfied with the tone and substance of It’s Crimetime last week and lets the Sentinel know about it; Judith Ishkanian follows up on Loretta Redd’s article on Smart Meters a couple weeks back; another anonymous writer is very concerned about our national debt; Dr. Edo McGowan discusses life in the time of “clientele capture” – one of government and its cronies’ protectionist mechanisms; and lions in New Zealand? Come on guys…

P.10

Santa Barbara View – Executive Director of the Milpas Community Association, Sharon Byrne, puts a fine point on panhandling and its effects on Milpas Street – this is a terrific and insightful piece, and everybody should read it; Ray Estrada’s Business Beat covers the Santa Barbara Young Professionals Club’s 2012 Young Professional of the Year nominees as well as the Central Coast’s chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council’s efforts to further green building in SB and environs and the present status of Union Bank’s acquisition of SBB&T.

P.12

It’s Crime Time with SBPD – A stolen 2006 Hummer was loaded with diamonds according to its owner (wonder what the insurance company will say about that); domestic violence results from argument over who started a romantic fire in a Santa Barbara living room fireplace; more domestic violence, this time by the hands of an enraged kleptomaniac; a father sends his daughter off to jail for not being drunk or high (huh?); and a man kicks his roommate in the face due to constant talking – at 2:45 am on a Monday morning.

(You get what you deserve… right?)

Scott and Coco Gauthier get a night away from SB—and throw one heck of a jewelry collection party

I

don’t think about jewelry all that often; frankly, I’m just not a huge jewelry guy.

But I do appreciate the art of a uniquely beautiful ring or gorgeous necklace or bracelet. And I must admit that I generally consider jewelry more at this particular time of year than I do at any other. (Except for, say, Valentine’s Day and my wife’s birthday. Oh,

P.18

P.19

Residential Real Estate – Sotheby’s agent Michael Calcagno talks about our charming Upper East and provides a few places that are now listed in a great SB neighborhood. Justin Kellenberger runs the numbers. (Thanks guys, you’ve been in every single issue of the Sentinel and we’ve had lots of interest in your column. Much appreciated.)

P.20 P.22

P.16

P.23

Presidio Sports – The 2012 All-Channel League water polo teams are out, with MVP Evan Robertson leading the way; Santa Barbara Athletic Round Table Athletes of the Week are Santa Barbara High’s Ivette Gil and UCSB’s Alan Williams – both hoopsters – and the inaugural Santa Claus 5K Race and Kids 1-Mile Fun Run went off without a hitch, despite a few raindrops. Check out the Weekend Sports Calendar for some great events this week, too.

Scott Gauthier—remember, the relatively recent addition to State Street and the Santa Barbara community (he and his wife, Coco, and their five kids live in town) who went from jewelry store janitor a few decades ago to hot international jewelry designer?—invited me to come down to his flagship store in Scottsdale, Arizona for ...continued p.15

In Business – New addition and longtime SB resident Bruce Anderson brings a great piece about Lesson Planet, a locally owned, developed and operated educational support business that really provides a fantastic service to teachers that helps them in the classroom. (Thanks, Bruce, hope to see many more from you.)

P.14

The Weekly Capitalist – Jeff Harding harkens back to his Golden Age, a time when people may have been kinder and gentler than they are today in some respects but were decidedly “coarser” in others, and concludes that things aren’t as bad now as people seem to think – even despite the subjectivity of multiculturalism and related breakdown in higher education. (Wow, Jeff, that’s a lot of ground you cover this week.)

Jewelry Inspired

by Santa Barbara

Goleta Girl – Jana Mackin bids farewell to her beloved Jim Mackin in a piece that takes readers from their meeting in New Orleans, their (wonderful) life in Butte, her time teaching English to university women in Saudi Arabia and Jim’s concurrent heartbreaking death. All of this led Jana to return to Goleta after forty years away, and ultimately to the birth of our own Goleta Girl. (Much love, Jana, much respect. Straight up.)

Plan B – Briana Westmacott gets out of town for a three-day concert with a few SB girlfriends and inadvertently discovers her own fountain of youth in a muddy field in Texas… rather than in some magic anti-ageing potion. (Sounds like fun, Briana, maybe next year we can take a Sentinel field trip – we could all shave a few years for a long weekend.)

LOVEmikana – Wine & Dine bird Eve Sommer-Belin talks pork, hog and pig in a great feature on the Royal Bacon Society; and go check out LOVEmikana’s one-day pop up shop collaboration with The Good Capitalists on December 12 at Pali Wine Company in the Funk Zone. LOVEmikana’s Weekend Guide helps you plan your weekend, too.

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take

Cops and Robbers Make Controversial Fodder

W

hen we started writing “It’s Crimetime” ten weeks ago, we had no idea it would generate so much attention. All we wanted was to have an informative but humorous accounting of local crime.

It hasn’t exactly turned out that way.

Here’s a little secret—as we went back and forth about what the column might look like in the weeks prior to our first issue, we were very close to calling it “Good Cop/Bad Cop” and really focusing more on SBPD than the criminals. But as we ran through a few mock columns, we soon realized that the interesting part of the vast majority of the stories wasn’t police conduct; it was the criminals’ behavior, and the consequent and often quite negative impact on the people and businesses of Santa Barbara.

So that is what we’ve been focusing on.

And we have seen a real divide in our readership’s perception of Crimetime. On one hand, there is a reasonably large group that sees humor and irony in tough situations and admittedly colorful language; on the other hand, there is a reasonably large group that seems offended—primarily by the language and terminology used to describe the offenders and their misconduct—by the whole notion of the column.

We have come to see the column as a way to discuss subjects that many other outlets—print, online and otherwise (and not just media)—refuse to touch…most likely precisely because of the risk of being deemed offensive. We are trying to do that in an approachable and hopefully humorous way in an effort to get people talking about some of the less glamorous issues facing us Santa Barbarians. (Homelessness and the impact of the local homeless population has been the issue du jour, for sure, but we could have focused and may still focus on domestic violence or other crimes, if appropriate opportunities present themselves.)

This is the fourth straight week of letters we’ve received related to Crimetime, some pro and some con. We’ve read them. We’ve considered them (we’ve also considered the countless comments we’ve received on the streets and over the phone). And rest assured, we’re learning, adapting as we go.

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But… crimes were committed last week, like they are every week.

And we are going to keep writing about them.

Aggressive Winos The Aggressive Winos subhead above is not a reference to the belligerent and intoxicated among us. Instead, we’re referring – in an admittedly tongue-in-cheek and perhaps sophomoric way – to one of the paper’s most favorite (and locally important) industries.

That, of course, is the wine biz.

Santa Barbara County’s Board of Supervisors is considering revising its roughly eight-yearold ordinance governing wineries and tasting room operations (among other related things).

Eight years may not sound like much time but quite a bit has changed in the SB County wine industry in those years. (For context, Sideways was released in 2004.) And if you’ve spent any time driving Highway 29 or Silverado Trail in the Napa Valley in, say, July or August (or any time around harvest), you’ll start to get a feel for what’s potentially at stake.

So the Santa Barbara County Planning and Development Committee has invited all interested persons to participate in a series of meetings in an effort to gather as much information as possible so that any updates to the present ordinance can be considered and potentially adopted outside the bureaucratic vacuum that might otherwise exist.

The first meeting took place a couple weeks back. It dealt with Tasting Rooms – their purpose (“education,” insiders said; “intoxication,” concerned residents said), appropriate locations, product sales, volume and even social responsibility. People were generally respectful, made intelligent comments (there were a few conspiracy theorist-types but most participants were thoughtful and forwarded productive commentary and ideas) and listened to others. It turned out to have been both informative and revealing.

The wine business is important to Santa Barbara on many levels, and everybody from the Funk Zone and Urban Wine Trail all the way to the country roads of our lovely valley should be involved in ensuring an efficient and effective ordinance review process.

The next meetings about different topics are coming soon, so go check them out: Food Service: Thursday, December 13, 2012, 11am – 1pm, Santa Ynez Valley Marriott Special Events: Thursday, January 10, 2013,11am – 3pm, Santa Maria Public Works Conference Room Neighborhood Compatibility: No date, time or location yet Winery Ordinance Structure, Permitting and Monitoring and Enforcement: Thursday, February 21, 2013, 3 – 5pm, SB County Board Conference Room Now…where’s one of those bottles of that Carr cabernet franc we always keep on hand?

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by Wendy Jenson A former magazine editor, Wendy worked at

Harper’s Bazaar, Glamour, and Us Weekly in NYC, before moving west with Santa Barbara Magazine. Currently a public relations consultant, she relishes being out and about working on this column. (photos by Bella Juliana)

Metropolitan Debut

Statement-making interior designer Victoria Imperioli outside Metropolitan, her new boutique at 1226 State Street.

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former theatrical set designer, Victoria Imperioli, has a flair for the dramatic. Metropolitan, Victoria’s new home décor boutique, is a stage for her extraordinary style.

Victoria is new to town. Prior to moving here, she and her husband Michael Imperioli (the actor, writer and director) visited for the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Michael is best known for his Emmy-winning role as Christopher Moltisanti on the Sopranos. The pair felt drawn to the Central Coast. “Live in beauty.

It will impact your life,” says Victoria, a devout Buddhist along with Michael.

Married 17 years, the Imperiolis have three children: two boys and a girl. The family moved from New York to Santa Barbara in June, 2012.

Bold best describes Victoria’s interior design style. Her aesthetic is not for the timid. She takes risks and doesn’t shy away from color. In Victoria’s world, rooms are yellow and red (her signature shade). She’s a fan of drapery, wallpaper in powder rooms, art deco and the classic, describing Greco Roman as “masculine and gorgeous, but clean. Not too many curlicues.” Modern is far from a favorite.

With so much happening design-wise, it’s a good thing Victoria has a keen eye and deft hand. Everything is in proportion.

Look closely, it’s likely there’s a unified color palette or other cohesive element.

The function of a room and the occupant’s lifestyle are always taken into consideration.

Victoria can create a space around a color or object. Her good taste was celebrated by none other than Architectural Digest, the arbiter of all things decor. The Imperiolis’ New York home (a four-story loft building in Tribeca) appeared in AD’s hallowed pages.

Of the boutique’s name, Victoria says, “I told Michael, ‘You’re the writer. Come up

Victoria’s dining room at home. The handsome Baker chest on the left holds her many well-used tools.

with something!’ And he did, Metropolitan.

It just fits.” Victoria knew the block on which she wanted to set up shop – State St. between Anapamu St. and Victoria St. The neighborhood is certainly an up-and-coming hub. She chose 1226 State St. for its lighting, New York-loft feel, and proximity to the gorgeously renovated Granada Theatre.

Metropolitan is set up as four rooms or vignettes, each with a different style. Space is delineated by columns, screens, draperies and the like. Primarily, it’s a showroom of Victoria’s design for private clients. There are custom pieces, antiques, and an eclectic offering of beautiful objects and treasures. In the back, there’s a mini gallery and Victoria’s workshop with its scary saws and hard-core carpentry equipment. Victoria modernizes antiques. She searches for pieces with “great bones” and then gives them another 50 years of life! “Redo, recycle,” she says of the process.

“A lot of people think an interior designer

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Sunburst mirror, $450.

Victoria also loves antique chandeliers and there are several in the shop.

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is just a shopper,” says Victoria. “But it is someone who can take a stripped down, naked room and turn it into a beautiful space.” In just six months, Victoria has decorated most of the new house, including several outdoor areas. “There’s some finishing work to be done,” she says.

Victoria’s dad, Richie, a master carpenter, will do much of the remaining

work. Her parents (mom’s name is Raisa) moved to Santa Barbara mere weeks ago.

The timing with Hurricane Sandy was coincidence. Victoria personally rescued her folks from a New York apartment lacking heat and electricity.

A tour de force, Victoria is not one to sit idle. Sedentary she is not. There are plans to convert the attic into a guest room, and create a small exercise room for the family.

The latter would double as a music room for jamming. How pleased is Michael with Victoria’s work on the new home? He has to remind himself to leave the house to take a walk.

Born Victoria Chlebowski in the Ukraine, she moved to New York in 1976.

Always she had style. Her first place had only a futon and books on the floor, but she gave it a strong monochromatic look with black floors, gray walls, and white moldings and fireplace. Coming from theatre – where budgets are tight yet an entire set is expected – she is a master of affordable luxury. Having owned an antique store in Manhattan, Metropolitan is Victoria’s second retail enterprise.

Metropolitan is located at 1226 State Street; 805-845-7571. It’s a soft opening now, with plans for a grand opening in January.

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Letters

Although you might not believe it, we actually want to hear from you. So if you have something you think we should know about or you see something we've said that you think is cretinous (or perspicacious, to be fair), then let us know. There's no limit on words or subject matter, so go ahead and let it rip to: Santa Barbara Sentinel, Letters to the Editor, 133 East De La Guerra Street, No. 182, Santa Barbara, California 93101. You can also leap into the 21st century and email us at letters@santabarbarasentintel.com.

Going Too Far

I

don’t quite understand how the same mind that brings us the “gift” of articles like the one about Milpas Street decorations can bring us the “lump of coal” that continually occurs in a few other editorials and constantly with “It’s Crimetime.” The conversational style that you have adopted often goes awry and nowhere has it gone further awry than in “Hapless Holiday Happenings.”

What’s perfectly okay to say when talking with your “buds” is not appropriate in a public forum and in print. (In fact, the art of conversational style in print is subtler than simply writing things the way you would say them.) “It’s Crimetime” has the feeling of an online blog and has the same coarseness and self-indulgent rantings that I see way too much of in public online forums. (Quite frankly, these bloggers are a little scary in their out-of-control ravings; perhaps it’s cathartic, but I don’t need to be an audience for their pent-up purgings.)

The disdain and disgust for homeless individuals, which comes through in the sarcastic comments, is not humorous. Quite frankly, the words you choose to describe the actions and the name calling like “stinky

drunk guy,” are sophomoric in the extreme.

You put yourself in the gutter along with the people you talk about.

You obviously are an intelligent human being, if not a particularly compassionate one – at least, you don’t come across that way. (May I suggest finding a production of A Christmas Carol?) I believe the saying is “Hate the sin, love the sinner.”

I’m sure you recognize that homelessness in Santa Barbara is a complex issue, and while I believe that as a community we shouldn’t tolerate certain behaviors or enable them, I am also sure that yelling (see “We get it, homeless folks…”) at the segment of the homeless population that perpetrates these degrading acts has no value and offers no solution. Your tone comes across as flippantly critical; you seem to be venting frustration with a complicated issue and your word choice is common and coarse. None of these have a place in serious print media.

It’s fine to have opinions and to place before your readership issues that other media sources ignore. I welcome all opinions when the voice is respectful. Please, bring us more gifts like the story on Milpas and

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A Reader Santa Barbara (Editor’s Note: Wow. There’s quite a bit here, and I truly appreciate the letter. I appreciate it because it’s honest, and frankly because it’s reasonably fair. The fact is that we intentionally took a risk with Crimetime last week, and I personally accept the consequences.

We’ve sat, week after week, reading through police reports filled with descriptions of grossly abusive conduct – often but not always by members of the local homeless population – and, frankly, grew tired of it. So maybe we did vent some frustration. Maybe we were a bit “sophomoric.” But consider the context.

One transient was arrested for a hate crime after threatening to kill an African-American shelter worker on Thanksgiving and using perhaps the most highly charged racial epithet in American culture – ever. Another was arrested after breaking into a movie theater, openly drinking and acting in a belligerent and offensive manner, and ultimately falling on top of terrified moviegoers during a film over the holiday weekend. We called this type of behavior out. We did that because this type of behavior is wrong. And we as a community shouldn’t stand for it, whether the person engaging in the (mis)conduct is homeless or not. Perhaps I should have edited out what you seem to interpret as personal attacks – “hate the sin not the sinner” – but I did not.

Perhaps I should have toned the language down. But I did not. I don’t purport to be an artist of any subtle “conversational style” of writing, and the Sentinel is decidedly not a conventional newspaper in any sense. To be sure, I believe that stories like the one on the Milpas community – which you seem to have enjoyed – are firmly rooted in precisely the “conversational style” with which you take issue.

Truth be told, the primary concern I have with my editorial decision in last week’s Crimetime stems from your comments that I hold a “disdain and disgust for homeless people” and that I lack related compassion.

Neither could be further from the truth; the

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impression you took from the column does not represent the way I’ve lived my life, or the way my wife and I are teaching our daughters to live theirs. But having re-read Crimetime I do indeed understand the basis for your position.

And for that, I am truly sorry. Words are quite important – nobody understands that better than a father and husband (and lawyer) who has traveled the world and broken bread with all shapes and sizes – and I let a few words go last week. I appreciate you calling me out in that regard. Respectfully, Matt)

Let the Public Speak!

Love the paper! Just discovered it this past week. It is diverse and humorous and terse. Congratulations! I would like to add information to Loretta Redd’s article on Smart Meters in the November 23-30 issue. Consumer Power Alliance has been litigating before the CPUC for the “Opt Out” choice now available to SCE and PG&E customers. The CPUC is coming to Santa Barbara to hear from the public about the whole Smart Meter issue on December 14, from 3 – 5 pm at the County Administration Board Hearing Room. The hearing will be adjudicated by the CPUC Administrative Law Judge.

This is the local public’s chance to be heard. There is a flyer in SCE customers’ most recent bill that tells all about it.

Please get the word out, and thank you very much.

Judith Ishkanian Neighborhood Defense League (member of the Consumer Power Alliance) Santa Barbara (Editor’s Note: The word is out, Judith, and I hope that those who are concerned with the Smart Meter issue will come out and be heard so that the CPUC Administrative Law Judge gets a good feeling of where the general public stands here. Thanks for the kind words and please do keep reading. – MSM)

Debt Load I read your response to the letter entitled “E Pluribus Unum… Bro” last week and didn’t much like your flippant attitude towards the letter writer. What part of owing $16 + trillion don’t you get? Someone will eventually have to pay that back or our money will be worthless. But don’t worry, our politicians will probably kick the can down the road like they have been doing for the last 10 years.

GB Santa Barbara (Editor’s Note: Thanks, GB, but I believe I agreed with H.T. Bryan that we have a serious issue facing us with the ever-increasing national debt. I only took issue with the fact that the finger was pointed squarely at President Obama in the letter, which is unfair on the record. Ultimately, my feeling is that the time for name calling and finger pointing has long since passed, and that it’s far better to get to work on solving the problem in a productive way rather than simply screaming doom and gloom from the mountaintops. What can I say?

E Pluribus Unum… Bro. And thanks for the letter. – MSM)

Life in the Time of Clientèle Capture Matt, following a read of the current Sentinel with its different stories, I would like to bring some thoughts together.

“Clientèle capture” is when government sees its job not as working for the taxpayer who funds government but instead as working for the very special interests it was originally established to control. This means that tax dollars go to support special interests in several critical ways. The regulators who were put in place to manage affairs so citizens are protected now see their jobs as protecting special interests. Thus tax dollars go to supply those special interests with a large cadre of civil servants who will, after helping special interests, retire on inflated tax dollar supported benefits. Many of these who were most helpful to special interests will pass through the revolving door into industry and thus double dip.

It seems, based on the large scale of clientèle capture, we are experiencing the “last days of Pompeii.” The bureaucratic systems seem to be running like headless chickens in opposite directions (zombies) instead of more efficiently coordinating services for the public. The increasing number of homeless speaks volumes about our failing economics and in part, the failure of the nation’s policies. At the very top of the bureaucratic system there is gridlock where reason and compromise are forsaken for “I’m right, and damn you.” But “you,” in that circumstance is us, the taxpayers.

In his book Bailout, the author Barofsky recounts clientèle capture of the regulatory community presumed to be watching the banks and Wall Street. These were agencies that we supposed were looking out for our best interest. His analysis of the failures of the clientèle captured regulatory systems is actually just the tip of the iceberg of nonaction by governmental agencies and this generally runs from the smallest local district or city council to the top of the nation.

We see it here in beautiful Santa Barbara.

Decision makers, even when presented with well-reasoned arguments, cannot make up their minds but knowing they are before cameras attempt to put on a soap opera.

Two classic examples of moribund decision making are found in the reconstruction of Stearns Wharf after the fire where the city sat on its hands for years while the structure continued to deteriorate, and the current example with the Miramar Hotel in Montecito.

Dr. Edo McGowan Santa Barbara (Editor’s Note: Ah, Dr. McGowan, we generally agree again, though I have not read the book to which you refer. I saw the (goldplated) revolving door between the public and private sectors during my time doing a reasonable amount of SEC-related litigation work for large public companies in San Francisco a number of years ago, and know well the non-action of governmental agencies in certain self-interested circumstances (and the flip-side of over-action in other circumstances in a twisted effort to demonstrate governmental virility to the masses). With that said, I haven’t had a similar experience on the local level;

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instead, my feeling is that there is just so much regulation and red-tape that decision-making is rendered difficult or impossible and thus, in turn, the process is similarly inefficient. Thanks for the letter. – MSM)

Department of Corrections

r e s t a u r a n t

Oh, Matt: Thanks for running the photo of our new lions a couple weeks ago… but New Zealand?! The caption says they came from New Zealand, when in fact they came from the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. If you say “National Zoo” really fast it does sort of sound like New Zealand… oh heck, it was an “N” word followed by a “Z” word! I’m not asking for a correction – but I am going to razz you mercilessly from now on about all our animals coming from New Zealand, starring in The Hobbit, and what a hilarious boo-boo it was. Really, thanks for the photo, but… these cats ain’t kiwis.

Julia McHugh Director of Public Relations Santa Barbara Zoo (Editor’s Note: I’m at a loss for words for the first time in ten weeks. We did some quick research on native cats in New Zealand to try to save face but came up empty handed.

(Although there do seem to be at least a few reports of mysterious large cats by Kiwis, sort of like Bigfoot sightings here in the States.) So I suppose we owe you one, Julia, thanks for keeping us honest. I can live with merciless razzing for this one. Fair enough. – MSM)

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Opinion, stories, events, and people that shape Santa Barbara

sbview.com

Milpas on the Move

By Sharon Byrne

Panhandling Pain

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oger Dodger, is a neighborhood treasure on Milpas Street, the closest thing we have to a celebrity. He wrote this in his Monday Scanner Report: “I heard someone say, ‘If you have any spare change at all you could make the day of a poor homeless person.’ I turned and there were five grown men who looked very healthy; I burst out laughing in their faces. I don’t have any spare change anymore and it’s not my problem that they are houseless. Some people out there are really hurting I wouldn’t hesitate to help someone I knew was down on their luck, but these guys looked like a bunch of con men and they ain’t getting a dime outta me.”

Roger is onto something.

Last week, a panhandler was sitting under the old drive-thru window at the McDonald’s on Milpas, and a nice couple gave him money. I asked him please not to panhandle there, on private property. That earned me a holier-than-thou lecture from the couple. They just wanted to help him!

How dare I ask him to move!

Translation: they just wanted to feel good about themselves. We all do. It’s human.

Minutes later, he jaywalked across Milpas to a liquor store, and spent their ‘donation.’ He then shuffled into a residential area to drink his purchase. I am sure the families there appreciated him drinking on their corner, and his empty bottle on their sidewalk. I called the police on him, for drinking in public. They didn’t

Sharon Byrne

Sharon Byrne is executive director for the Milpas Community Association, and currently serves on the Advisory Boards for the Salvation Army Hospitality House and Santa Barbara County Alcohol and Drug Problems.

sbview.com “But seriously, is this what you wanted to finance when you handed that donation to the panhandler?”

come, but if they had, they would just have written him a ticket. I know him, and he’s gotten tickets for inebriation on Milpas before. When he eventually gets enough tickets, the restorative police will take him to restorative court, where he’ll hopefully go into a program. I don’t know what that magic number of tickets is. But we’ll get to deal with him continually until then.

He’s one of many that we see every day, racking up police time, getting inebriated in parks, near schools where the kids can see them at recess, on residential streets, in front of businesses, and so on.

That’s what panhandling creates for a neighborhood. I wish the charitable couple had stuck around to watch these activities, but they’d sped off in their car, probably to a neighborhood without panhandlers, righteous in their generosity, completely oblivious to the damage they’d just inflicted on the area.

Panhandling is a constant frustration on Milpas, and State. There’s no law against it. Anyone can stand on a sidewalk with a sign, protected by the first amendment.

I totally understand the urge to give to panhandlers. You think “Gosh, all that guy needs is a hot meal, or a few bucks to get him through, while he hunts for a job, or gets where he’s trying to go. I can help.”

I used to hand my child money to give panhandlers, to teach her to help those less fortunate.

One day, I realized I’d been giving some of the same guys money for years.

Clearly I wasn’t helping. My contributions had changed nothing in their situation. When I saw some of them drinking in my neighborhood, I realized I was making things worse because I was

enabling this behavior. I was part of the problem.

Some homeless never panhandle. It’s an honor thing. Some panhandlers get in their cars and drive away. Not everything is what it seems, on first glance.

I see nice people on State freely handing over cash to the pit bull grunge set that lounges about on that RDA-sponsored concrete structure in front of the Habit. I think it was supposed to be public art or something. Now it’s outdoor furniture for panhandlers. The kids panhandle to buy cigarettes, weed, food, booze, and hang about all day, heckling passers-by that don’t give them money.

You can see people’s reactions to it.

The police can’t stop it – free speech and all that. The city won’t rip out the RDA-public-art-nuisance thingy. No organization I’ve contacted seems to want to use it to hand out tourist materials, or do voter registration. It’s public space that’s lost to the public. At night, the grungeyouth-with-dogs amble over to the freeway encampment off Castillo and crash there, or jump the fence into Mission Creek to camp under the Gutierrez Street bridge.

Naturally, there’s never an environmentalist conveniently nearby to protest.

But seriously, is this what you wanted to finance when you handed that donation to the panhandler?

Probably not.

Giving to a panhandler might temporarily reward your sense of selflessness and generosity, but when you understand the collateral damage it causes to surrounding areas, can you still hold on to that sense of feel-good?

If you really want to help, volunteer at a shelter. Serve dinner. Take time to get to know a homeless person, and encourage them to get sober, or come indoors. Give them socks, or some food.

Giving money may make you feel good temporarily, but if you’re not taking responsibility for what you’ve created, you’re not helping.

You’re hurting.

Business Beat

By Ray Estrada

Top 2012 Young Professional to be Feted

T

he Santa Barbara Young Professionals Club has announced its 2012 Young Professional of the Year nominees. The winner will be announced at a 7:30 pm Dec. 13 holiday gala at the Granada Theatre in downtown Santa Barbara.

The nominees include: Nick Araza of Santa Barbara Family Chiropractic; Jesse Brisendine, a life coach and personal trainer; Sarah Clark of Cox Communications; Stacy Cooper of Stacy Cooper Fitness; Will Freeland of Montecito Bank & Trust; and Reed Gallogly with the City of Goleta.

This honor is given to those who have demonstrated “traits and actions of an exemplary young professional in the local

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Ray Estrada

Ray Estrada is a writer, editor and media consultant who has worked for newspapers, radio news, wire services and online publications for the past 40 years. He has taught journalism at the University of Southern California and now runs his own consulting business based in Santa Barbara.

sbview.com

community,” club officials said. The award was introduced in 2010 and honors a young professional in the community who has excelled in one or all of the following areas: leadership, mentorship, community involvement and entrepreneurship.

The winner will be chosen based on several factors such as: motivation to inspire within their organization, ability to help others develop their skills, a passion for important causes that affect the community, and their use of established relationships to create entrepreneurial endeavors, said club President J.J. Lambert.

Santa Barbara Mayor Helene Schneider will present the award Dec. 13.

Tickets for the gala can be purchased online at http://sbypc.org/holidaygala2012ticket-purchase or from club board members.

The club is offering sponsorship opportunities for the event, which is expected to draw more than 300 professionals between the ages of 21 and 45. The club’s network reaches some 26,000 young professionals on the Central Coast. E-mail info@sbypc.org for more information.

Green Efforts Lauded The Central California Coast Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council will honor efforts to further green building and sustainable living on the Central Coast at the Green Gala and Awards Ceremony from 5:30 to 7:30 pm Dec. 7 at the Brooks Institute Gallery, 27 E. Cota St., Santa Barbara.

Award winners include residential and commercial construction projects, as well as innovative programs and products, that push the envelope on sustainability, organizers said. Goleta and San Luis Obispo County already have been announced as honorees.

Goleta approved its Green Building Program in October. It establishes mandatory green building requirements for certain new construction and provides incentives for voluntary measures beyond existing regulations.

“Goleta’s program represents a significant success in bringing greener buildings to the community, said Michelle Zimney, chairwoman of the Green Awards. “The city’s focus on listening to multiple stakeholders meant they were able to craft a code that is flexible, yet meaningful.”

San Luis Obispo County will get an award for its Green Building Ordinance, which takes effect in January. The law includes education, incentive and mandatory measures improving energy efficiency, water

efficiency, as well as addressing issues of occupant health.

“The County of San Luis Obispo was incredibly inclusive in developing the ordinance,” said Stacey White, 2012 president Central California Coast Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council. “With public input over two years, and including 40 subject area experts in the crafting of the legislation, the result is a simple, cost effective ordinance with a potential for significant impact on existing and new construction.”

For more information about Friday’s ceremony, contact Zimney at greenawards@ usgbcc4.org.

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A Santa Barbara view photo by Bill Heller.com

Santa Barbara Bank & Trust Will Shed 468 Jobs A Union Bank spokesman said Nov. 30 that Santa Barbara Bank & Trust will shed 468 jobs as the larger financial institution swallows up the parent company of Santa Barbara Bank & Trust.

And, the spokesman said, Union Bank will repay federal bailout funds when the $1.5 billion merger is finalized Dec. 1.

“Union Bank will retain 570 Santa Barbara Bank & Trust employees, including most customer-facing positions across the bank,” Union Bank spokesman Daniel Weidman told Santa Barbara View. He said the 468 positions will be eliminated over the course of the next year.

In an email, Weidman said 80 percent of those workers whose positions have been eliminated will not leave their jobs until at least April 30. “Union Bank currently has 175 open positions from Los Angeles to San Jose for which impacted employees can apply,” Weidman said. “This year, Union Bank filled 2,400 positions in California.”

Regarding the bank’s remaining $60 million in federal bailout money, known as Troubled Asset Recovery Funds, or TARP, “Santa Barbara Bank & Trust’s TARP debt with the U.S. Treasury was converted to mandatory convertible stock at the time of the recapitalization,” Weidman said. “Since that time, Treasury has been the secondlargest shareholder in the company.

The Treasury Department’s shares will be paid out after the close of the deal, along with all other shareholders,” he said. “Santa Barbara Bank & Trust’s TARP debt will be retired when the merger with Union Bank is finalized,” Weidman said.

Union Bank officials said they hoped to close the deal by the end of the year. The huge international banking conglomerate agreed to buy Santa Barbara Bank & Trust’s parent, Pacific Capital Bancorp, the largest regional bank in the area, earlier this year for $1.5 billion.

This came a couple of years after Texas billionaire banker Gerald Ford agreed to bail out Pacific Capital with $500 million of his company’s money, while getting a haircut on the $180 million in TARP funds Pacific Capital was given in 2009 to keep afloat after a series of bad real estate loans.

Treasury officials told Ford he would only have to pay back $120 million in TARP funds.

Picks of the Week Holiday Artisan Bazaar

On Saturday, December 8, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., head to 209 Anacapa St. for the Youth Interactive Holiday Artisan Bazaar, an event which will support the local arts scene, the Youth Interactive and the Funk Zone. There will be gourmet food, local wines, live music and performances.

Garland Jeffreys at the Lobero

New York singer and songwriter Garland Jeffreys, and special guest Peter Case, will give a performance at the Lobero on Saturday, December 8 at 8 pm. Visit www.lobero.com for info and tickets.

For a full list of activities in Santa Barbara, click on over to SBView.com. You can also submit an event for free. Compiled by Irina Vinarskiy.

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It'sCrimetime...

...with the SBPD

variety of crimes are committed every day in Santa Barbara; most of these crimes are petty but they do offer Aa window into if not the soul of the perpetrator, at least his or her thought process. Our following (and totally unsolicited) thoughts, observations, and comments are put forth for your consideration.

‘Tis The Season

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hose of you who’ve been following along likely know that it’s been quite an interesting few weeks for It’s Crimetime. Those of you who haven’t been following along, well… believe us, we’ve had supportive fans cheering loudly and waving colorful pom-poms and we’ve had angry detractors waving sharpened pitchforks and flaming spiked torches.

Regardless of your history with the column, however, the anonymous reader’s letter in this issue and editorial in The Sentinel’s Take (“Cops and Robbers Make Controversial Fodder”) should give everybody some flavor.

The punch line is that we are thrilled that people are reading and taking the time not only to think about at least some of the words on the page but also to write us some of their own.

Thanks all, please do keep reading and letting us know what you think. And please know that we appreciate and respect both the supporters’ and the detractors’ positions­– we listen to and carefully consider them each and every week.

So keep it coming. We sure will.

My Car Was Stolen – I’m Rich...

CRIME: A 2006 Hummer H2 was stolen in Santa Barbara over the weekend – sometime between 11 pm on December 1 and 1 pm on December 2.

OBSERVATION: We really found nothing particularly interesting here, until we got to the

section addressing the (alleged) contents within the vehicle. The Hummer was (allegedly) filled with nothing except jewelry and diamonds.

COMMENT: Before we get to the sparkling treasure chest of diamonds and jewels – do people really still drive Hummers? Aren’t they the paradigmatic symbol of ostentatious overconsumption, akin only to the McMansion of the home-building world? What the hell do people need these civilian versions of former military vehicles for, anyway? Driving over the fiscal cliff? Or through the high waters sure to be present at the apocalypse (or termination of the Mayan calendar)? Who knows, maybe guys just get them to make up for the size of their Priuses. Either way, we have no idea why somebody would steal one… it’s not like Hummers have very good resale values these days.

The best part of all this, however, is the most predictable: The ubiquitous pirate’s booty of riches in the stolen vehicle. We know a guy who had his car stolen many years ago and claimed not one but two sets of very expensive golf clubs, hundreds of CDs, designer clothes (including a $300 pair of shoes), a Rolex and litany of other purported pricey possessions. In short, he wanted his insurer to believe that he was driving his old beat up sedan around with thousands and thousands of dollars worth of prized belongings jammed into every nook and cranny. In the particular case recounted above, some woman left her 2006 Hummer parked in SB with diamonds and jewels (and rubies and sapphires and other sparkling delights, we’d guess) laying around – while she went out clubbing on a Saturday night. Yeah, right… and people wonder why we all pay such high insurance premiums. We’ll put it to you this way: We’re seriously considering leaving the publishing and editing biz and parking our neardead 2001 Volvo wagon and beat up Chevy delivery truck in a high crime area soon. Stuffed full with gold bullion and Swiss wristwatches, of course.

Come On Baby… Put Out My Fire

CRIME: A Santa Barbara woman was arrested over the weekend for beating her female roommate.

OBSERVATION: Again, nothing particularly noteworthy about this one – except for the fact

that the whole fight started over which roommate “lit the fire” in the living room fireplace.

COMMENT: Can you see this one? This is how we imagine it went: FADE IN: INTERIOR COZY LIVING ROOM – NIGHT

A fire burns brightly in an otherwise dim room; framed photographs of smiling happy women adorn the mantle. Flower arrangements add muted color and fragrance to a peaceful romantic set. Music plays softly from a small transistor radio – Ray Charles, perhaps.

DRIFT UP, SLOWLY “Hey baby, it’s late. Let’s go to bed – why don’t you put the fire out while I go turn down the sheets?”

“I didn’t light no damned fire. You put the thing out.”

“Come on baby, you know I didn’t light that fire. You put it out.”

“I said I didn’t light no fire. Put it out.”

“I didn’t light the fire, baby. You never do anything around here – just put it out.”

“I didn’t light no damned fire. I ain’t saying it again.”

“Put the fire out!”

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“No, you!”

“No, you!”

And let the beating begin!

It’s sad, really, how a nice night can quickly devolve into argument and aggression and arrest. Come to think of it, sounds like a few marriages we’re aware of.

Kleptomaniac Beats Boyfriend Relentlessly CRIME: Another Santa Barbara woman was arrested last week for beating someone – this

time it was her boyfriend at 2:45 am on a Saturday night. She admitted to hitting and pushing him, and a witness recounted to SBPD that he was forced to intervene when she mounted the poor guy with clenched fists in the air à la some debilitated MMA fighter.

(Nice relationship – maybe it’s time to think about some conflict resolution courses.)

OBSERVATION: After the woman was taken into custody, SBPD found a stolen wallet in her fanny pack. Turns out that she had three prior convictions for petty thefts, and had done time for each.

COMMENT: Hey all you kleptos out there! Stop beating people up after you get away with the goods. And don’t carry stolen property on you if you have an anger management issue – it just won’t end well.

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Thanks Dad CRIME: A 27-year-old SBCC student was arrested after her father called the cops and told them that she was high on drugs or booze and harassing family members despite being warned to stop. He signed a citizen’s arrest form and she was whisked away to the slammer.

OBSERVATION: Here’s the kicker: When SBPD arrived at the house, they conducted a full drug and alcohol abuse evaluation on the young woman and found no symptoms of intoxication. She was sober. As a judge. (Not counting that judge in the old Cheech & Chong flick, Up in Smoke.) Even after that, though, dear-old-Dad executed the citizen’s arrest form and watched SBPD hook her up and take her to jail.

COMMENT: Wait, hang on, be quiet for a second. I think I just heard the first allegations of decades of child abuse coming from her jail cell.

I Said Be Quiet, Man, Seriously CRIME: A 45-year-old Santa Barbara man was arrested after he kicked his roommate in the face.

OBSERVATION: The kick to the roommate’s face was delivered “because he wouldn’t stop

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talking” at 2:45 am on Sunday night. The kicking party even warned the jabber-mouth to pipe down by repeatedly telling him to “shut up.”

COMMENT: We get it. A man has his limits. This particular man’s limit was incessant talking early on a Monday morning. Words were exchanged. Warnings were given. A kick eventually did the job. Sleep is important, especially after a long weekend with the workweek bearing down on you. So, look, we aren’t saying it was right to kick the guy in the face to shut him up, but we understand. The bottom line is that he’ll think about running off at the mouth at 2:45 am next time. Now go get some rest.

N

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That’s about it for this week – of course, there were drunks who couldn’t figure out how to pay for hotel rooms or put their pants on, others who couldn’t stand yet found the strength to challenge officers to fights. There was urine. There was vomit. But we left it alone this week. Why beat a dead (urine-soaked, vomit-covered, stable-less) horse?

Be good out there this week folks. Enjoy the sunshine.

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The Weekly Capitalist

by Jeff Harding

Jeff Harding publishes The Daily Capitalist, a blog on economics and finance. He is the president of Montecito Analytics, LLC, and is a real estate investor who lives in Montecito.

The Fiscal Cliff, Multiculturalism, and The Good Old Days

A

ll we hear about the Fiscal Cliff is that politics has failed, that there is no way to solve our problems, that the parties are too entrenched in their respective camps, that dialogue and compromise is a quaint remnant of golden past. These complaints go deeper and say that we as a society are more politically and socially polarized, that quality public debate is lacking, and we have become coarser and less cultured to boot. In short, we are going to hell in a hand basket (whatever that means).

These complaints are not new; all societies in history have looked backward for better days, some Golden Age. It reminds me of this quote from Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman, orator, and writer (106-43 BCE): “Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.”

Actually, the broad trend of history has shown that things are better, even culture,

politics, and public debate. Our views on this have to do with one’s frame of reference.

Let me give you an example. A person receiving a high school diploma in the late 19th century or early 20th century had the equivalent of perhaps a junior college liberal arts education of today. The classes were more rigorous and the courses fit the classic definition of a liberal arts education: a well-rounded, well-educated person versed in the basics of literature, history, mathematics, science, art, and rhetoric.

But here is the catch: few people reached that pinnacle. In 1899-1900 only 6.4% of students graduated from high school. So even if education is worse today, at least more people are being taught some of the basics and perhaps more.

Culture? Today there is a proliferation of cultural activities, if you want them: art museums, symphonies, ballet, opera, light opera, theater, natural history museums.

Santa Barbara is a shining example of this.

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These were not as prevalent during the socalled Golden Age (whatever age you think that is). So you could argue that we are more “cultured” than ever before.

The Not-So-Golden Age Perhaps we are “coarser” than any time in the past 100 years. In my vision of the Golden Age, swearing was not acceptable in mixed company or in public. Rude t-shirts were not to be found. People were more polite to each other and it was not acceptable to flip someone off. People didn’t have cell phones with which to answer and interrupt the conversation you were having. The concept of being a “gentleman” or “lady” meant that you were trying to better yourself and perhaps escape a lowly background to become a respected citizen of your community. On the other hand, racism

“Cultural relativism is a symptom of a deeper problem. And that is the rejection of underlying truths of humanity.”

and intolerance to others’ sex, religion, or sexual behavior was prevalent and was “coarse.” I believe that racism and other forms of bigotry are diminished today in comparison to my Golden Age. If you are under the impression that politics in the Golden Age was a genteel profession practiced by noble, educated Brahmins then you would be mistaken.

Politics has always been about opposites clashing for power. I would submit it was rougher, dirtier, more intransigent, and more corrupt in the past than it is today.

Perhaps you see the “corruption” at a higher level today with lobbyists spreading their largesse to willing politicians, but that’s rather tame in comparison to the Golden Age. Nixon’s VP, Spiro Agnew, was still receiving bribe payoffs from his position as governor when he was ensconced in his White House offices. And for a good deal of the 20th Century, the Democrats controlled the presidency and Congress and they could afford to be very cordial with their powerless opponents.

But is there a new negative force destroying society? I recently read an article in the City Journal, a book review of The Victims’ Revolution: The Rise of Identity Studies and the Closing of the Liberal Mind by Bruce Bawer, a book that presupposes our culture has become degraded, and argues that its cause stems from the multiculturalism that is being taught in our colleges and universities. Specifically he refers to Black, Women’s, Gender, Queer, Fat, and Chicano Studies.

It is difficult to argue too strongly against his point, but I don’t think it is an all-

encompassing theory. Cultural relativism is a symptom of a deeper problem. And that is the rejection of underlying truths of humanity. They deny the rational mind.

Most of the types of multiculturalism that Mr. Bawer discusses are related to classical Marxist ideas, which have been seized upon by its exponents to express their rejection of “capitalism,” the oppression of “classes” of people (which they define), and their distaste of our “crass” materialistic society.

The Truth About Truths The flaw in this modern philosophy is that your “truth” is equal to my “truth,” and that there are no constants, no underlying principles by which we ought to live. My “truth” is, apparently, whatever I want to believe. That, of course, denies Western Civilization’s quest for truth much less the nature of human beings and their rational mind. Hobbes, Locke, and other philosophers built on a tradition of thinking going back to Aristotle that identified the idea of Natural Law, the fundamental ideas which best suit the human condition and the organization of society. There are truths, constants by which we humans ought to live, and history has shown that when we do so live, we prosper. You don’t need religion to discover these truths; they are definable by reason alone.

So, how do you discover these truths? The Greeks and their intellectual heirs have done a pretty good job of exploring these ideas over the centuries, so much of the hard work has been done for us. The first step along this path is to learn how to think rationally.

Again, this is well-trodden ground. This is the science of epistemology, which is the study of how we know what we know. Add to that the tools of logic. Then when one learns how to use the tools that nature has given us (applied reason), we can study the history of ideas (philosophy) and be exposed to ideas about ideas, both good and bad. We can then study the social sciences and concepts for human organization, both good and bad. Perhaps then we would have the tools to discern the falsity of multiculturalism and the enemies of reason.

Does anyone do this today? The answer is mostly no. And that is why our college students are attracted to ideas like multiculturalism. They don’t have the tools to discern the truth or falsity of things. Mostly they feel strongly about issues without any real understanding of what they are doing. This phenomenon reaches up into the faculty and administration as well. Otherwise, these intellectual charlatans would have no podium from which to indoctrinate young, impressionable minds.

It’s obvious that most things aren’t worse than they were in the “Golden Age.” On the other hand, there is a clear trend in education to deny the fundamentals that Western Civilization has discovered and applied to make us prosper. I think the lack of a well-grounded intellectual foundation is what is behind most of our political process and our great social divide. But as Cicero observed, this is nothing new. Get used to it. Me? I’m going to write a book.

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...continued from 4

That’s a woman hanging from a tree in front of Jewelry by Gauthier, pouring Champagne. I told you they know how to throw a party in Scottsdale.

a release party celebrating his new Santa Barbara-inspired collection, Mer Tresor.

So on December 1, I flew out of a rainy Santa Barbara Airport (the remodel is fantastic, by the way) and into a sunny Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, climbed into the back of a waiting blackedout Escalade and was whisked away to the W Hotel Scottsdale, where I enjoyed – quite a bit, I might add – an afternoon of sunning and eating a delightful meal at Sushi Roku. (The Popcorn Rock Shrimp Tempura would even give The Palace’s Popcorn Crawfish a run for its money.) The W was terrific, by the way, young and hip but sophisticated too, and I was able to slip quickly into a quasi-coma while sipping a Kettle martini in a poolside cabana in the late desert afternoon. (It’s a tough job, I know.)

Then I sauntered up to my room with a view of Scottsdale, did some research, picked up my camera and notepad and strolled from the W along the canal through Old Town on a beautiful night to Marshall Way and Jewelry by Gauthier.

One thing was immediately clear upon arrival (no, I wasn’t under-dressed): They know how to throw a release party down in Scottsdale.

It was a packed house of longtime Gauthier clients, all thrilled to talk about their pieces and relationship with Scott.

There were frequently audible “oohs” and “ahhs” as cases were opened and Mer Tresor pieces displayed.

Santa Barbara has had quite an impact on Scott and his design work, and you can see it in the collection. An elegant splash of color here, an homage to the fluidity and contours of our ocean and beaches and mountains in a curved line there. Scott has made SB tangible in certain pieces, and it was great to see them playing to rave reviews from clients of every conceivable demographic.

“It’s been fun in Santa Barbara so far,” Scott told me toward the end of the night as I stood talking with him and Coco, “I continue to believe in State Street as the terrifically unique retail street it is, and really look forward to showing the collection in town. I think it will resonate.”

Scottsdale locals Craig and Kristy Connors have both been buying up Scott’s pieces for more than twelve years—check out Kristy’s earrings for a taste.

So do I. It’s beautiful work, Scott, truly jewelry as art. Congratulations, and thanks again for the invitation—I had a great time in Scottsdale and wish you the family health and happiness this holiday season.

(And for those of you who make it into the shop at 905 State Street, be sure and ask Scott about the two strangers in the elevator of the Monte Carlo Casino (not the one in Vegas) and the sapphires in every piece.

Classic jewelry stories, both.)

Jewelry Forged from Santa Barbara Speaking of art and jewelry and Santa Barbara, Latitude Gallery (20 Helena Avenue, Santa Barbara) is hosting a onenight-only holiday trunk show featuring local artist-designer-craftsman Benjamin Stowell Kendall and his latest jewelry designs. Ben, who was raised in San Roque, created Stowellen (phonetically, “Stolen”) with his business partner-soul mate Ashley Lambert (another born and bred Santa

One of Stowellen’s hand-carved abalone feathers—not the one Ben carved for Ashley but one you can actually buy.

Barbarian), and both have a real passion for designing and creating jewelry.

Ben, now 31, started young with a wide array of two-dimensional creations—he still does some freelance illustration and other visual artwork—and morphed into intricate carving and sculpture over time.

He ultimately carved a feather necklace out of an abalone shell for Ashley a couple years back, and when that necklace started turning heads, the duo decided to make it a business.

Neither had any jewelry experience.

“Ashley just called me and said ‘we’re starting a jewelry company,’” Ben told me over the phone. “I still don’t think of myself as a jeweler.”

But Ben is just that, and he and Ashley seem to have found a really interesting creative niche as well as a symbiotic business relationship.

“Ashley has a fantastic business and design sense,” according to Ben, “and really reels me in when I get off on a tangent. It works well.”

It sure seems to. The pieces are knockouts, comprised mostly of abalone, ebony, feathers ...continued p.17

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Robertson named Channel League’s MVP

Tournament, in which the Dons won by 29 to capture the tourney title.

Gil is the reigning SBART Player of the Year for girls basketball.

Honorable mentions were Omar Montalvo, Dos Pueblos Soccer; Bryce Ridenour, San Marcos Basketball; Olivera Tadijin/Lexy Gulden, Santa Barbara High Tennis; Jack Baker, Santa Barbara High Basketball; Cameron Cox, Dos Pueblos Wrestling; Michelle Herrera, SBCC Basketball; Ady Willet, Dos Pueblos Soccer.

Christmas Race Nice in Naughty Weather

By John Dvorak

By Randy Weiss

Santa Claus 5K winner Bobby Lozoya.

Channel League MVP Evan Robertson takes a shot during September’s SB Invitational.

Monte Vista Elementary School teacher Rob Regan with his daughter and friends at the inaugural Santa Claus 5K Race and Kids 1-Mile Fun Run.

T

he 2012 All-Channel League teams have been released with MVP Evan Robertson headlining a group that includes 10 Santa Barbara High Dons, the runner-up team in CIF’s Southern Section Division 2.

Robertson takes home the top award while three teammates – Cristian Bridley, Skyler Matthews and Peter Loomis – made the First Team. Three more Dons made the Second Team and three are Honorable Mentions. Santa Barbara High went undefeated in the Channel League before reaching the Division 2 CIF Championship match.

Robertson is a highly versatile perimeter player that totaled 67 goals (team-high), 59 assists (team-high), 40 steals, 27 drawn ejections and 15 field blocks (teamhigh). Robertson made the First Team his sophomore and junior seasons.

Second-place Dos Pueblos and thirdplace San Marcos placed two players each on the First Team. Ventura had one.

Each of the three local schools have an all-league first-teamer returning next season. Dos Pueblos’ Blake Parrish is just a sophomore, Santa Barbara’s Matthews is a junior, as is San Marcos’ Shane Hauschild.

The complete All-League selections for boys water polo can be found on PresidioSports.com

S

Santa Barbara High’s Ivette Gil

Athletes of the Week: Ivette Gil and Alan Williams

S

anta Barbara High’s Ivette Gil and UCSB’s Alan Williams were announced as Santa Barbara Athletic Round Table Athletes of the Week at Monday’s press luncheon held at Harry’s Plaza Café.

Both basketball players, each studentathlete led their respective teams to big victories last week.

Williams collected career highs with 29 points and 17 rebounds in the Gauchos’ overtime victory at Santa Clara on Saturday

UCSB’s Alan Williams

night. Williams scored seven of UCSB’s 12 points in the overtime period.

“He put the team on his back and said we will not lose this game,” said UCSB assistant coach David Campbell.

The UCSB sophomore was also named Big West Player of the Week on Monday.

Gil totaled 20 points and 11 rebounds in the championship game of the Lompoc

unday morning’s steady raindrops stopped nearly long enough for the inaugural Santa Claus 5K Race and Kids 1-Mile Fun Run – a benefit for the Cancer Center of Santa Barbara with proceeds going to its ‘Kidz for a Cure’ and the fight against cancer.

Nearly 200 mostly-local 5K runners – many wearing Santa outfits – braved less-than-ideal wet road conditions, twice looping the inside outskirts of La Cumbre Plaza to make a solid statement in the fight to help children with cancer.

Race Director Jose Gonzalez is pleased with the first-time turnout.

“Despite the threat of continued rain, we still had people signing up online yesterday and even more registering here this morning,” he shared with Presidio Sports.

Bobby Lozoya, a 21-year-old UCSB computer science senior, led the entire race and cruised to the finish line at 16.53.

“It’s a great race for a wonderful cause,” he said afterwards.

Santa Barbara’s Jeannee Diaz, 50, was the first female finisher at 20.26.

Complete results can be found on PresidioSports.com.

And when the raindrops started at the launch of the 1-Mile Fun Run, it didn’t dampen the spirits of the 50 youngest runners – many sprinting full speed at the sound of “GO!” Rob Regan, a 20-year Monte Vista Elementary School teacher and devoted father of three, was on the sidelines cheering on his young daughter and her friends.

“They are so excited to be running today!” he exclaimed.

When they all crossed the finish line, it was clear that they were all winners.

And about those Santa 5K runners, well, the only thing that would have been better with the weather was not sun, but snow!

After all, like local legendary songwriter Barry De Vorzon sings: It’s Christmas once again in Santa Barbara.

Weekend Sports Calendar

By Barry Punzal

H

eads will be spinning this week for local sports fans as tournament madness hits the area.

There are one boys soccer and three basketball tournaments going on, and a four-team girls water polo get-together that features the Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 7 teams in the CIF Division 1 rankings.

On top of all this, the boys basketball teams from Dos Pueblos and Cabrillo will meet on Friday night at 7:30 pm in UCSB’s Thunderdome for a special high school game in a college arena. Kansas City Royals pitcher Danny Duffy, a Cabrillo grad, is sponsoring the event.

Schedules and Results from all of these events can be found on PresidioSports.com this weekend.

Here’s a rundown of the events that run through Saturday.

San Marcos Invitational

San Marcos has put together an eightteam soccer tournament that features some quality programs.

The San Marcos Invitational will run Friday and Saturday at the Royals’ Warkentin Stadium and at Santa Barbara High’s Peabody Stadium. The tournament field will be divided into two four-team pools, with each team playing everyone in its pool. The

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...continued from 15 top two will meet for the championship on Saturday at 3 pm at San Marcos. The final will be preceded by a fourth-place match at 1:30 pm. At Santa Barbara, the third-place pool finishers meet at 1:30 and the runnersup take the field at 3 pm.

San Clemente leads the entries in Pool A. The Tritons start the season ranked No. 1 in Orange County and No. 4 in CIF Division 1. They have one of the top offensive players in the Southern Section in forward Gage Zerboni. He scored 20 goals and had 11 assists last season and was named firstteam All-Orange County. Senior Collin McDermott leads an experienced defense.

Two years ago, San Clemente defeated Santa Barbara for the CIF-SS Division 1 title and then won the CIF Division 1 Regional championship. The two schools meet in the final pool-play match on Saturday at 9 am at Peabody Stadium.

The other teams in Pool A are Righetti and Hueneme.

Santa Barbara is led by senior centerbacks Jelan Hutton and Peter Gamboa and goalkeeper Elvis Mancilla.

The Dons open against Righetti at 1 pm and play Hueneme in their second match at 4 pm.

Host San Marcos is in Pool B with Capistrano Valley, Golden Valley of Bakersfield and Santa Maria.

Capistrano Valley has reached the CIF Division 2 Final two years in a row. The Eagles are led by senior forward Kevin Baboiyan and All-CIF goalkeeper Matt Bermudez.

Golden Valley is one of the elite programs in the CIF Central Section. It reached the section semifinals last season and was a finalist in 2011 and 2010. Santa Maria is a perennial power on the Central Coast.

San Marcos, which is led by Ian Hall and Robbie Landeros on offense and Kevin Shaw on defense, opens against Golden Valley at 2:30 pm and plays Capo Valley at 5:30 pm. The Royals finish pool play on Saturday against Santa Maria at 10:30 am.

All matches will be 80 minutes.

at 5:30 pm.

San Marcos hosts St. Joseph on Thursday at 7 pm.

St. Joseph has two of the tournament’s marquee players in Kaitlyn Flowers and Tatiana Dunlap. Other players to watch include Mi’Chael Wright of Chaminade and Whitney Branham of West Ranch.

The final day of the tournament will played at Rio Mesa, with the title game slated at 7 pm.

Bird Cage Classic

Bishop Diego hosts an eight-team girls basketball tournament at its Brickhouse gym and at Carpinteria High’s gym Thursday through Saturday.

The field includes Bishop, Carpinteria, Cate, Providence Hall, Hueneme, L.A. Grant, Villanova and Cabrillo.

Pool-play games are at 5:30 and 7 pm on Thursday and Friday. All games on the final day will be played at Bishop Diego, beginning at 10 am, with the seventh-place game. The championship is at 2:30 pm.

Bishop Diego opens against Villanova Prep on Thursday at 5:30 pm. At 7, Cabrillo plays Providence Hall at the Bishop gym.

Carpinteria plays host to city rival Cate at 7 pm.

Friday’s games have Cate playing Grant at Carpinteria at 5:30 pm, Hueneme at Carpinteria at 7 pm and Providence Hall playing Bishop at 7 pm.

40th SBCC Classic

The Vaquero men’s basketball team opens its eight-team tournament against Cypress College at 7 pm on Thursday.

The other teams in the field are Hancock, Mt. San Antonio, Victory Valley, Pasadena, L.A. Valley and Bakersfield.

The tournament championship is Saturday at 7 pm.

Girls Water Polo Showcase

It’s not a tournament, but perennial powerhouses Santa Barbara and Dos Pueblos will open their seasons by hosting two topranked opponents: No. 1 Corona del Mar

Gold Coast Classic and No. 2 Foothill of Orange County.

San Marcos and Rio Mesa in Oxnard coSanta Barbara, ranked third in CIF-SS host this annual girls basketball tournament, Division 1, plays Foothill at 3 pm on Friday, which tipped off Wednesday and runs while No. 7 Dos Pueblos takes on the topthrough Saturday. rated CdM Sea Queens.

Santa Barbara, Dos Pueblos, Santa Ynez, On Saturday, Corona del Mar visits Santa St. Joseph and the host Royals are the area Barbara at 10 am, and Foothill moves up color full schools entered. They are joined by Rio the freeway to play at Dos Pueblos at noon.

Mesa, Pacifica of Oxnard, West Ranch of The four teams will feature several future Valencia and Chaminade of West Hills.

NCAA Division 1 players. From the local full color hemming & grommets included After opening against a tough St. Joseph schools, Jamie Neushul of Dos Pueblos will team on Wednesday, Santa Barbara faces join her sister, Kiley, at NCAA defending & grommets ming another difficultincluded opponent in Chaminade champion Stanford, while Santa Barbara’s on Thursday at Rio Mesa. Chaminade has team includes UCLA signee Kelsey O’Brien, a veteran team that was bolstered by the California-bound Maddie Trabucco and addition of 6-3 transfer Devin Stanback UCSB recruit Sophie Trabucco. and freshman standout Valerie Higgins.

Foothill has six players who signed letters Santa Barbara, which is coming of a title of intent: Ashley Zwirner (UCLA), Kelsey at the Lompoc Tournament, has a couple of Roland (Cal), Katy Schneider (San Diego veteran standout players in Ivette Gil and State), Eleanor Lee (Loyola Marymount), Dessy Coleman.

Nikki Stansfield (USC) and Brenna The Dons finish pool play against San Thomas (UCSB).

From Corona del Mar, Cassidy Papa Marcos on Friday at 7 pm.

Dos Pueblos plays Santa Ynez at San signed with Stanford and twin sisters Marcos on Thursday at 5:30 pm and Stephania and Ioanna Haralabidis are meets West Ranch on Friday at Rio Mesa headed to USC.

Banners

Ben Kendall and Ashley Lambert—in one of Stowellen’s red abalone feather necklaces—know how to have a good time.

Should be an interesting time at Latitude Gallery next week.

and naturally-shed antler from Montana, and I’m looking forward to checking out the latest necklaces, bracelets, charms, hair pins and Stowellen’s newest addition, bronze and silver rings at Latitude Gallery on Saturday, December 15, from 4 – 8pm. Latitude owner-curator Katie McLean—yet another product of SB—may also have some of her terrific work on display. The show should be very cool, so come check out some of what a talented collection of young Santa Barbarians are putting together. I doubt you’ll be disappointed.

Stuff I Like Aside from the aforementioned Stowellen show at Latitude, there are at least two things happening in town over the next few weeks that I like. (That’s technically true, I suppose, although there are far more than just two things happening that I actually like…we just don’t have the space for all of them. So look through the paper and see what other people like, too.)

First, I like motorcycles. And the Unity Shoppe will be conducting the Santa Barbara Motorcycle Toy Run on Sunday, December 9, 2012. The run will attract an

Banners

full color

$6 sq. ft. included

$6 sq. ft.

375 Pine Ave #20 Goleta, CA 93117

Banners

$6 sq. ft.

805 683 4600

estimated 500 – 600 motorcyclists, who will stage at Santa Claus Lane and then rumble through the streets of Santa Barbara.

Riders will enter the City of Santa Barbara via Coast Village Road, continuing onto Cabrillo Boulevard and then up State Street to Alamar Avenue. Upon reaching Foothill Road, the procession will turn north and roll out of town. The whole thing should go down between 10:45am and 12:30pm on Sunday, December 9. So head over to State for a late breakfast and check out the run.

It ain’t gonna be Sturgis but it should be a good time nevertheless.

I also like the Winter Solstice (though not as much as the summer one, but that’s only due to weather). So come see Santa Barbara Revels put on The Christmas Revels: An American Celebration of the Winter Solstice.

There will be three performances only, on December 15 and 16, at the Lobero Theatre. Each will feature the music, dance and storytelling traditions of Appalachia and the Deep South. Call the Lobero Box Office at 805.963.0761 for tickets—bring the whole family! (Kids under four are free.)

Have a good week folks…and get to some of that Christmas list this week. You’ll have hell to pay if you don’t.

hemming & grommets

375 Pine Ave #20 Goleta, CA 93117

805 683 4600

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In Business

by Bruce Anderson

Bruce Anderson is a long-time Santa Barbara resident, who was vastly over-educated at UCSB quite a few years ago. He’s a widely published writer, appearing most often in the LA Times, and is an ex-teacher. Bruce is basically interested in everything, so if you’re doing something intriguing that you’d like to discuss, then feel free to email him at rba@forthefuture.org

Giving Teachers a Break at Lesson Planet

I

magine you’re a first-year 8th grade science teacher (scary, I know!). You have three different classes tomorrow, and you have to make a plan for each one of them.

In short, you will act in and direct three complex performances, and tonight you have to write the scripts.

Gulp.

Now, you could walk into the classroom tomorrow with a whiteboard marker and wing it, make a few drawings, write some questions on the board. But you’ve done that before (usually when you’re desperate), and

it rarely works; the kids have a fairly lousy experience, and you have trouble keeping control of the classroom. You could sit down at the computer and write a study guide and a quiz – which will take about an hour for each class and still leave you drawing pictures on the board (which you are lousy at). You might try Google, but you’ll get 150,000,000 hits, most of which have little to do with teaching.

So, pulling out what little hair you have left, you sit down and get ready to spend your evening preparing for the next day,

Founder and CEO Jim Hurley helps teachers help themselves – and students too – with Lesson Planet.

feeling disappointed that there are so few resources at your disposal.

Or, having paid a very modest annual subscription fee, you can log onto an online service called Lesson Planet, and have immediate access to more than 400,000 educational resources, all reviewed and rated by certificated teachers. You can find complete lesson plans, worksheets, videos, PowerPoint presentations, articles and much more, most downloadable, and most of them ready to use with perhaps some appropriate tweaking. It’s all there. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel for each class. You can walk in with rich, well-designed materials, appropriate for your grade and ability levels, aligned with state and Common Core standards. You’re ready to teach.

And you can do the same thing tomorrow.

This, you reflect, is how teaching ought to be.

Using the Internet…

Effectively and Efficiently Lesson Planet is a local company, based here in Santa Barbara. Jim Hurley, founder and CEO, began the business in 1999 in a two-room office in the Lobero Building on Anacapa Street. They’re still in the same building, but now they have working space for almost 50 employees. The company has grown explosively because it has found an innovative way of navigating the sea of data on the Web and coming back with information that people can use.

Lesson Planet has developed a unique combination of software and human expertise to help teachers take advantage of the wealth of already-existing educational resources available on the Web. Hurley calls this a “curated search engine.”

In his words, “We’re familiar with the major search engines that allow us to find things on the Web. But those search engines are based on machine logic. They don’t have qualitative judgment capabilities; they can’t tell whether a search result is meaningful and useful to teachers. What we’ve created is a kind of human-machine hybrid solution that can quickly and easily show teachers where to find truly useful resources.”

The real problem in using the Web to augment and enrich teaching isn’t scarcity, but rather an embarrassment of riches.

Cyberspace is full of what are commonly known as open educational resources, available for free. You can find every variety

of materials imaginable: print, video, programs, recordings and much more, all available for free. These resources are posted by individuals, non-profits, graduate schools, museums, businesses and many other sources (The New York Times, for example, posts a free lesson plan every day).

The problem, however, is the same as it is with everything else on the Web: there’s too much information. It’s impossible for a single person to locate those resources, to verify their contents, judge their suitability, align them with standards and find the ones that are highest quality. A teacher alone just can’t do it (especially the night before that 8th grade science class).

Hurley and Lesson Planet have come up with a methodology that can serve this need, an effective way to make quality resources available to busy people. There are 25 credentialed teachers at the company offices who mine the Web, seeking open educational resources that might be useful in the classroom. Once found, the teachers check the quality of the resources, determine their appropriate grade level and whether they are aligned with standards.

The reviewers also give each resource a rating (five stars, four stars, etc.), which is a big help for teachers who want to find the best without wading through everything.

(It’s this process of discovery and review by qualified professionals that constitutes curation, as noted above.) When a teacher seeks a solution for lesson planning, Lesson Planet’s software brings up the available resources about a particular topic sorted by type, subject and grade level, and ultimately ranked by review (the star system).

So… Who Pays (And How Much?)

At the moment, teachers themselves pay for the service, at a seemingly reasonable subscription rate of $59.88 per year. This year, Lesson Planet began offering site licenses to schools and districts, which will make the service available to many more teachers at little or no cost to them.

Lesson Planet also has a thriving presence in social media. The Lesson Planet Facebook page has 155,000 fans. A recent article about “Veterans Day lesson planning” drew 3,900 views, 62 likes and 14 comments in a single day. The company’s Facebook page has become a meeting place for teachers all over the country, a medium for collaboration, sharing and networking.

Despite being a local company, Lesson Planet is now serving educators all over the country, and its influence is likely to grow quickly as educational practice evolves. Standards and testing methods are changing, and there’s ever more emphasis on complex educational outcomes. Those changes will require teachers to use more sophisticated teaching techniques. Lesson Planet’s ability to provide easy access to rich, in-depth resources will help teachers meet their new challenges, and make learning more meaningful and fulfilling for students and teachers alike.

Even first-year 8th grade science teachers and their eager students.

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2027 State Street

By Michael Calcagno Michael has consistently been ranked in the

top 1% of Sotheby’s agents worldwide. Shortly after joining Sotheby’s, he partnered with Nancy Hamilton to form one of the most successful real estate teams in Santa Barbara.

Michael can be reached at Michael@HomesinSantaBarbara.com

The Upper East

L

ong considered one of Santa Barbara’s most prominent as well as historic areas, the Upper East is a much sought-after neighborhood by locals and people moving to Santa Barbara for the first time alike. It’s close to downtown and generally defined as being east of State Street, north of Valerio Street and west of the lower Riviera and parts of Mission Canyon.

The Upper East has a rich history as one of the first places settled in Santa Barbara.

Known as one of the great walking neighborhoods, residents are often seen strolling the neighborhood admiring the charm and beauty of its historic homes, the Old Mission, or its often sunny days. Since the topography is flat to gently sloping, walking downtown is more than feasible, and residents appreciate the accessibility of being minutes from the city stores, museums, theaters and everything else downtown Santa Barbara has to offer.

The Old Mission and the A.C. Postel Rose Garden are frequent hangout spots for picnicking, Frisbee games, walking the dog or simple, lazy SB days. My son and I love to go to Alice Keck Park Memorial Garden and Kid’s World in the southern portion of the Upper East. Nothing makes a kid happier than playing on a titanic-size jungle gym, then walking across the street to watch the ducks, turtles and Koi in the pond – right before a nap.

Here are a few homes currently available in the Upper East. Go take a look!

400 East Pedregosa Street, #C

Purchase price: $1,299,000 Down payment (20%): $259,800 Loan amount: $1,039,200 Loan payment: $4,594 (30-yr fixed at 3.375% (3.44% APR))

Property taxes estimate: $1,190 Home insurance estimate: $110 Total Monthly Payment:

$5,894

209 East Islay Street Purchase price: $1,649,000 Down payment (20%): $329,800 Loan amount: $1,319,200 Loan payment: $5,832 (30 yr fixed at 3.375% (3.44% APR))

Property taxes estimate: $1,511 Home insurance estimate: $150 Total Monthly Payment:

$7,493

Purchase price: $990,000 Down payment (20%): $198,000 Loan amount: $792,000 Loan payment: $3,501 (30 yr fixed at 3.375% (3.44% APR))

Property taxes estimate: $907 Home insurance estimate: $100 Total Monthly Payment:

$4,508

Mortgage statistics provided by Justin M. Kellenberger, Senior Loan Officer at SG Premier Lending Group, Inc. Justin can always be reached at justin@sgpremierlending.com.

Note: The foregoing economic breakdowns do not include potential tax benefit analyses since that will ultimately depend upon a number of additional factors. But home ownership can indeed have tremendous tax-savings potential and should be considered with your realtor and/or tax accountant as part of the ownership decision.

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by Jana Mackin

A journalist and a poet, Jana has lived everywhere from New Orleans and Butte, Montana to Saudi Arabia, where she taught English to children.

Her articles have appeared in numerous publications, including The Washington Post and San Francisco Examiner. She now lives in Goleta.

Goodbye Sweet Jim

T

he word widow conjures a mundane frumpy pejorative that I wear like a death sentence. Nothing really glamorous in a hunched-over, broken matron in black perpetually mourning the past. Better to be sentenced to an asylum as an incurable alcoholic than tied up in this straightjacket of grief.

Christmas exacerbates the pain. If I hear one more Mall of America’s Bing Crosby croon, “I’ll be home for Christmas... if only in my dreams,” I swear I’ll commit hara-kiri in front of Macy’s.

So in the spirit of Scrooge, I write this column from the tinsel-festooned, holly jolly morgue of my life since Jim died.

Reluctantly, I revisit Jim’s funeral file.

A Pandora’s box of fading memories, photos, e-mails, mementos and poems that document a narrative not of a fragmented self but no self at all. Shinto worship or Oprah happy talk offers no comfort and self-help grief books exacerbate the agony.

When Pilot “Whiskey” Jim Mackin crashed on the living room floor, a pestilence of toxic contrails followed. On Aug. 28, 2011, my zipper-suited sun god threw a clot in his brain. Icarus augured in. I learned via Skype half a world away.

A Western Union Telegraph would have sufficed. We had communicated through Skype after I boarded a plane in Butte, Montana, to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on August 13. I had been hired to teach English to university women. That was the last time we hugged and kissed.

15 days later, Jim was dead. The day I discovered his death, I had repeatedly tried to reach him by Skype to no avail. Finally, I contacted a neighbor to check on him.

A little later I Skyped again. A Butte cop answered...

The coffin lid slammed shut.

“He’s dead, He’s dead, Jim is dead!” I wailed and collapsed into the arms of other women teachers at our Riyadh compound.

To say I left it all on the track in Saudi Arabia, would be an understatement. I would make a damn good professional mourner.

When Jim died, Saudi Arabia was in the midst of Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar marked by fasting and introspection. At best, a Saudi exit visa is a horror show of bureaucracy. Had it not been for the valiant efforts of my colleagues, the American consulate and my family, I would have been stuck in Riyadh for a week or more. They got me out in three days. In the interim, I sent out torrents of e-mails like electronic cries of help; hoping some harddrive deity might resurrect Jim as a screamsaver, a pixilated Lazarus.

Funerals are almost as abhorrent as being a widow. Funerals are choreographed, over-

Jana Mackin spent time in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, teaching English to university women; it is here she found out about the death of her husband.

Jim Mackin, fighter pilot in Vietnam.

priced, necrophilic fairytales of woe. For whom? For what? What relevance is this outward dumb show of carefully staged grief to Jim’s sky-blue eyes and sweet kisses?

What was this waxen, embalmed thing in the casket? This was not my Jim. This was a ghoulish mannequin accoutered with props from Jim’s life: academic hood and regalia, New Orleans Saints and Mardi Gras beads, Jim’s garden vegetables, fishing flies, “Tap’er Light” Butte cap, a couple Guinness Stouts brought by some bartender friends. Butte loved Jim. Even the Silver Dollar Saloon, our watering hole, put “Goodbye Sweet Jim” on their marquee. When they closed the casket, black banshees howled inside.

A US Air force Honor guard folded and handed me a flag. They fired a missing man salute. I looked for your face as I stared at the noonday sun.

How We Met I was Jim’s second wife. I met him at the infamous Fat Harry’s bar in New Orleans, a St. Charles Avenue institution renowned for its horseshoe bar some 16 years ago. Fairly new to town, I had been hanging around the horseshoe. One day, I was talking to an acquaintance. He knew I had a thing for pilots.

He said, “Well, if you like pilots, you need to talk to...” pointing to Jim. Jim had been a fighter pilot in Vietnam.

After he retired, he had earned a Master of Arts in Communication at Regents University, followed by his Doctorate in Philosophy in Speech Communication at University of Texas. He began teaching in the Department of Communication at Tulane University in 1988 and retired as an associate professor emeritus of the Department of Communication at Tulane University in 2010. That year, he was

awarded the Outstanding Teacher Award (Tenured), Tulane Mortar Board.

The evening we met. I cow-girded up.

Dressed in my flannel shirt and cowboy boots, I sashayed over, put my hands on my hips and said, “So you’re a pilot.” Later in his arms, Jim said, “I knew we would eventually meet. I had been checking you out.”

What followed was a tumultuous love story that saw us through water, wind, fire, travel, fishing, and the inevitability of age. He was the love of my life. Jim was a major force in rebuilding his department, the university’s governance structures, our neighborhood and our lives after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city and Tulane.

He served as the department chair from 2001 to 2007. Among his many service committees and positions was University Parliamentarian, University Secretary; he was co-author of the Constitutions for the Newcomb-Tulane College and the School of Liberal Arts.

Jim was as much at home heating our bath water in a Cajun cooker after Katrina as delivering “Rebuilding Community out of Chaos: The Role of Communication” as the commencement address to the School of Communication, University of Texas at Austin. This was just a few months after Katrina hit. His speech was the essence of his book, Community over Chaos: An Ecological Perspective on Communication Ethics, published in 1997. The University of Texas was honoring his commitment to postKatrina rebuilding. A consummate thinker, teacher, philosopher, and rhetorician, he believed that the “individual should support the ecosystems that support the individual.

Ethical responsibility is reciprocal. Virtues of the ecological approach are practical wisdom, based in fuzzy logic, and communicative openness and honesty.”

Jim believed and lived an ideal that the individual can create and find freedom, meaning and ethical responsibility within

the broken shards of post-modernist thought. His work was largely ignored until academics rediscovered the importance of it near his death.

Jim loved Kenneth Burke, Charles Sanders Peirce, the Irish, fly fishing, his family and me. We loved each other beyond words.

After Katrina, our neighborhood had turned into a hotbed of drugs, violence, murders, gunshots, etc. We were the only Neighborhood Watch on our street. To protect himself, Jim packed heat, having a concealed weapon permit. He used to joke that he was Tulane University’s only guntoting liberal. Those were dangerous times for us. I’m sure I had PTSD. He said, “Just remember this is only your first tour of duty.” After Katrina we rebuilt our house.

Then later, it suspiciously caught fire. We soldiered on.

I introduced Jim to Butte. He fell in love with the town. The character, the authenticity, the Irish roots. We married July 21, 2000 in Butte, Montana. It was our second home until he retired from Tulane University in 2010. Then we made our home there full time.

Jim was equally at home talking about “thirdness” as he was making morning coffee or tending the garden. He loved how Snowy, one of our cats, would crawl on his chest as he lay in bed reading. Jim and I traveled to Ireland, Greece and all through the US. We ran the Dublin marathon.

We lived large.

When Jim retired, we threw a hell of a retirement party at the Silver Dollar Saloon in Butte, 2010. He died a little more than a year later. A few months after his death, the National Communication Association scheduled: “Memories of James Mackin: An Officer, A Scholar, and A Gentleman” at their annual national conference in New Orleans. I attended, as did many others.

One speaker and Butte native who had long admired Jim’s work before they met, discovered their mutual Butte connections and became dear friends was Dr. Chad Okrusch, Associate Professor in The Professional and Technical Communication Program (PTC) at Montana Tech.

“In Memory of James Mackin,” Chad wrote, “I was re-reading parts of my dissertation and Jim’s ideas inhabit nearly every word. In the cover of his book, he wrote to me: ‘Chad, This is a start, but you can make it better.’ I’m not sure that I can... his work was more than rigorous and thorough; it was beautiful.”

The Geographic Cure After Jim’s funeral, and faced with a hard Butte winter, shuttered-in a house of ghosts, attending a grief support group uttering psycho-babble jargon that wouldn’t bring back my man, faced with nothing to lose, I decided on a geographic cure and got the hell out of Dodge.

In the year God stole joy, I traveled back and forth from Butte to Myrtle Beach, Sicily and Goleta, beginning last holiday season up to now. While I didn’t know it at the time, the sea was beckoning and I had begun to heed her call.

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First, I rented a small villa in North Myrtle Beach for a couple months. From Butte, I drove 3,000 miles with our four cats in my Subaru Outback. All I knew was Major James Andrew Mackin Jr. flew with the 353rd Tactical Fighter Squadron in the Vietnam War. The Myrtle Beach Air Force Base had been the squadron’s home. Most days, I walked the beach or wrote. The sound of the surf helped to drown out the tick-tock metronome of woe.

But the shadow of loneliness haunted me there, so I decided to rent a place and spend the spring in little seaside town west of Palermo, Sicily. Here I learned to conjugate a little La Dolce Vita where the Gods are close to man. From my wrought-iron balcony, I loved looking up at the stars and down on la strada, Via Marconi. Most days, I walked to the beach and swam, emerging baptized anew by the shallows of the Tyrrhenian Sea, The beaches were littered with pottery shards and pieces of cut marble. Just before I departed, I prayed to the Roman gods that I might find a message on a stone. I found a cut piece of marble graffitied with the word “Bellissima.”

Birth of Goleta Girl Over time, despair had numbed to an empty acceptance. Upon my return from Sicily I donated most of his clothes to charity. Jim’s personal library went to a close colleague and friend. But still hope persisted that one day he would again walk into the Silver Dollar Saloon. Whereby, I would run

up to him and cry, “I missed you so much.”

But such illusions are edited discards of some celluloid fantasy dumped on a cutting room floor. My theme song was Chet Baker’s playing “Here’s That Rainy Day...”

Then for a third time, the sea called.

Recalling happy memories when I attended UCSB, I decided to rent a studio in Old Town Goleta. I learned how to swim without a wetsuit, to negotiate rough surf.

I learned to ride a bike again after 40 years.

I began to find bits and pieces of myself scattered on the beach. As time passed, I adopted Goleta, found the Mercury Lounge, met neighbors and friends, took a lover and began to care. I began to live Jim’s message in Community Over Chaos.

Sometimes, I greeting the dawn singing: “Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning, and the first thing that I saw, was the sun through yellow curtains, and a rainbow on the wall.” However, when I began writing for the Santa Barbara Sentinel is where I found most redemption. What was once just Jana from Montana, became a reinvented self: Goleta Girl, a born-again Aphrodite emerging from that treacherous sea where she almost drowned. This new persona conjured up to write for a remarkable paper about an exceptional people and place.

No, this is not my come-to-Jesus moment when I throw away the crutches. I never expect nor wish to completely heal. I still troll the void of Jim’s death. I still look for his face in oily puddles that reflect a neon-lit “exit.” But at least now, “hope” is the thing with feathers and not a four-letter word.

Jana’s Picks Another must hear is the Prime Time Band Winter Concert Sunday, December 9 at 2 p.m. Free admission, San Marcos High School Auditorium.

3Info: Toni Straka at 805-962-6983 or www.ptband.org.

Hear that train a’comin’. The 22nd Annual Festival of Toy Trains arrives at the Goleta Library this weekend. Come choo-choo back in toy train nostalgia. The display features Lionel toy trains from the 1920s to current production in this holiday display throughout the weekend. Antique and modern marvels from the Halbeisen collection will be on display and running on a special 20-foot layout at the library located at 500 N. Fairview Avenue. Admission is free and the display is open to all.

Hours are Friday and Saturday, 10 am-5 pm; Sunday 1 to 5 pm.

Michael R. Cooper Dental Care the fine art of dentristy

santa barbara 29 West Anapamu Street, Suite 501 Downtown 805-966-6325

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W W W. S A N TA B A R B A R A S E N T I N E L .CO M

Plan B

by Briana Westmacott Hailing from NorCal, Briana has lived in Santa Bar-

bara for the past fifteen years. While she is indeed an adjunct faculty member at SBCC and has contributed to LOVEmikana, Wake & Wander and Entrée Magazine, much of her time is spent multi-tasking her way through days as a mother, wife, sister, wantto-be chef and travel junky. Writing is an outlet that ensures mental stability… usually.

Elixir of Life Anti-Aging in Austin

O

ur culture is obsessed with preserving a youthful image. Antiaging soaps and scrubs. Youth serums and tonics. Regenerating lotions and potions. Botox. Facelifts. “Miracle creams” that suggest, of course, that we are so old we may indeed be in need of some divine intervention.

I never thought that I’d buy into any of it but – now that I am “approaching” midlife – I too have stocked a shelf in my bathroom with agelessness.

Even despite my recent forays into the anti-aging market, however, here’s the thing: No cream or potion has ever made me feel the way I recently felt when I got out of town with a few girlfriends on a three-day concert quest to Texas.

Picture this: four girls (I mean… women) soaked to the bone, clothes completely saturated. Feet submerged in inches of mud as the rain poured down from the skies. Perched above, a massive stage full of talented musicians played for 60,000 concertgoers. The whole place throbbed, full of life and vitality and youth. I personally felt at least ten (possibly even twenty) years younger than my birth certificate might otherwise suggest.

So what cream can do that?

Girls’ Weekend: The Anti-Aging Device?

Answer: No cream can do that. In fact, all it took was some good Santa Barbara girlfriends, a desire to attend Austin

Four happy girls, and no wrinkles in sight.

Tuk tuk time machine with a good friend.

City Limits (an annual three-day rock festival in Texas with 100+ bands), some supportive dads who took over parental duties on the home front and a plane ticket to Texas… and a girls’ weekend was born.

Now, don’t get me wrong, we weren’t that wild. I’m pretty sure my group of mommies and I didn’t necessarily look the same age as our tattooed, rock concert-fanatic associates.

We were definitely in the minority age

Delicious Desserts & Dinner. Extensive Wine & Beer List.

bracket, but none of that seemed to matter.

And there were sightings of people my parents’ age and possibly older. So we had that going for us.

(By the way, straight props to those who are still rocking into their sixties and beyond. I hope to do the same, because the more I think about it, the more I realize age is all a state of mind.)

The truth is that we had a terrific time.

We were like kids in the proverbial candy store. Outside our hotel, we’d grab one of the many tuk tuk bike taxis that were lined up, readily waiting to sweep us away into the park to play. We’d giggle – yeah, giggle – over maps of all the stages and the endless lists of bands we wanted to see.

Then we’d run from stage to stage, much like kids running from ride to ride at Disneyland.

Austin City Limits may just have been the happiest place on earth.

Our days were dedicated to nothing more than fun and freedom (I even had a few flashbacks to my old Isla Vista days, where we would throw tortillas around at bands in the park and ride our bikes down to Sands for sunset). We were a far cry from the Girsh Park soccer fields where our kids were busy

chasing balls around. A far cry indeed.

Those fun-filled days spilled over into nights and the evenings faded without a care for curfew. There were no babysitters to pay and we knew no one was going to wake us up at 6 am with cries of “I’m hungry…

Moooommmmmmy!” So we danced until our feet hurt. We let our phones die. We sang at the top of our lungs. We ate breakfast at noon. We laughed until we cried.

We were young. And it was nothing short of brilliant.

Barbie Dolls, One and (Nearly) All At the end of the day, I suppose we (almost) middle-aged women are faced with a choice: Buy more creams and potions and get more Botox pumped into our cheeks and lips and foreheads or just take some time every now and again to enjoy life with a few good friends (and a decent bottle of chardonnay). Watch out, if you choose the latter, you may just encounter your fountain of youth embedded in your mind – well, there and in some rain-soaked muddy field somewhere in Texas.

Briana’s Best Bets Dermal Remodeling

Y

eah, yeah, all that stuff I wrote above is fine and dandy. (And I meant every last word.) But Skin Harmonics founder Danny Neifert has created a unique and holistic approach to her skin care that I believe in. She bases her products and treatments on the concept of feeding our face, rather than combating it with needles and other abrasive methods. I can’t say enough about Danny. She makes my face glow and grow. Go check her out at www. skinharmonics.com.

Local Music Fest

K Breakfast

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Dinner

High Tea

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Events Room

Happy Hour

AndersensSantaBarbara.com

jEE’s Winter Round-Up is this Monday, December 10, at the Arlington Theatre. Catch some of the great bands that played for us in Austin, including Metric (one of my favorites!) and Tegan and Sara. And while you may not find the grand Elixir at the Arlington (but hey, then again, you might), you can get a little taste of it while enjoying some talented musicians. If you decide you want more after that, Austin City Limits has already announced their dates for 2013… so start banking your days for that getaway.

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WINE & DINE

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weekend guide

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by

• LOVE IS FREE What: 27th Annual Parade of Lights Where: Stearns Wharf at State Street and Cabrillo Boulevard When: Sunday, December 9th – festivities begin at 3 pm; Boat Parade at 5:30 pm Why: Attend a meet and greet with Santa, play in ten tons of snow and catch a glimpse of holiday sparkle during the boat parade.

How: Light up your night for Chrismahanukwanzakah.

.com

By Eve Sommer-Belin

Pig Out

‘T

is the season for gatherings with friends and family, giving, and enjoying delicious holiday feasts. And the ladies at the Royal Bacon Society think that cured pork products should always be on the menu and in your stockings!

Started over four years ago by Santa Barbara locals Naseem Hyder and Marianne Clark, the Royal Bacon Society is the ultimate online source for all things bacon. You’ll find bacon news, pork sightings about town (or anywhere really), bacon recipes and any other baconrelated information one might need to know… like the seasonally appropriate Top 20 Best Bacon Gifts for 2012.

Peruse the bacon store to find that perfect, unique bacon gift for the bacon lover in your life. Or just hog the goodies for yourself. And for you more extreme bacon lovers out there, be sure to take a moment to explore the bacon porn section! (Warning: you may drool on your keyboard.) No matter how you slice it, these gifts will make you squeal with delight.

Bacon lovers unite! Grab a bottle of wine and your favorite bacon dish, cuddle up by the fire, and have a very swine-y, wine-y holiday season!

Check out their website at: www.royalbaconsociety.com

Gifting Good Gifts

By Kim Wiseley

Y

ou’re invited to join us – the LOVEmikana birds – and The Good Capitalists for a one-day holiday pop-up shop full of local gifts that give back to good causes. On Wednesday, December 12 from 5 to 8 pm, head over to Pali Wine Company in the Funk Zone, grab a glass of vino, shop local and support all that makes Santa Barbara so sweet.

Please RSVP on Facebook at on.fb.me/holidaysforgood. We’re looking forward to seeing you… and Happy Christmahanakwanzika!

What’ll It Cost Me: Free!

• LOOSE CHANGE What: Deck the Halls Where: Ojai Rancho Inn – 615 West Ojai Avenue, Ojai When: Saturday, December 8, 3pm-10pm Why: Each of the motel’s rooms are festively transformed into a different pop-up shop full of exclusive wares for your holiday gifting.

How: Pop in, shop on and enjoy live music and good seasonal grub.

What’ll It Cost Me: H ow many gifts do you need to get?

• HEY BIG SPENDER What: The Night Before Christmas & Les Patineurs Where: The Lobero Theatre, 33 East Canon Perdido Street When: Friday, December 7th at 7:30 pm and Sunday, December 9th at 2:00 pm Why: Dancers from the Montecito School of Ballet, UCSB and SBCC will reenact these classics in a spirited performance.

How: Let visions of sugar-plums dance in your heads.

What’ll It Cost Me: $ 16/child, $22/senior or student, $24/adult

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