Sociology professor Kum-Kum Bhavnani’s “Nothing Like Chocolate” documentary will screen during the Santa Barbara International Film Festival at 2 p.m. today in the Lobero Theatre.
Bhavnani parallels the stories of anarchist chocolatier Mott Green and cocoa farmer Nelice Stewart in their quests to manufacture chocolate ethically and undermine the child slave trade and exploitation that plagues the industry. Bhavnani decided to produce the film after reading an article about youths enslaved to harvest cocoa in regions of western Africa, such as Ghana and the Ivory Coast.
Bhavnani said the film focuses on responsible chocolate producers who treat their employees justly to contrast the workers’ usual conditions.
“I gave the film this angle because I feel that sometimes, films leave us with a sense of hopelessness. The issue is too big; ‘What can I do about the children on the Ivory Coast?’” Bhavnani said. “There are, however, people doing it right, and it is possible to make a difference in the world. I want to show everyone how that’s possible.”
Bhavnani discovered Mott Green and his Grenada Chocolate Company cooperative after researching ethical cocoa production online. Green moved to Grenada from Oregon in 1998 and purchased 100 acres of farmland to launch his socially conscious approach to the industry.
Researchers in the Marine Science Dept. released the results of the largest study on ocean acidification ever conducted, revealing that global warming leads to destructive increases in ocean acidity levels.
Ecology, evolution and marine biology professor Gretchen Hofmann and 18 other researchers in the department compiled the data, released this week, using 15 underwater sensors developed at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography to observe a wide variety of ocean locations including warm tropical waters and the Antarctic. The acidification process is sparked when carbon emissions reach saltwater and form carbonic acid, lowering overall pH levels and making it more difficult for invertebrates to form shells or exoskeletons.
Ecology and physiology professor Mark Brzezinski said new technology allowed researchers to make more in-depth observations of the large-scale effects of acidification compared to similar instruments used in past studies.
“You can buy pH meters almost anywhere that work very well,” Brzezinski said. “What the new sensors can do is take that same technology and put it into a can in the ocean that survives and takes accurate measurements.”
The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Dept. discovered an abandoned panga boat off the county’s coastline, the second craft of its kind found in the region this year.
Deputies, the U.S. Coast Guard and Santa Barbara Harbor Patrol personnel recovered the boat after receiving numerous calls reporting the vehicle off Fernald Point in Montecito. Authorities found the empty boat approximately 200 yards off the coast as well as several life vests on the shore nearby, suggesting the passengers made it to land.
Pangas are small outboard-motor boats capable of traversing the open ocean and carrying heavy loads. Their features make them popular with smugglers running illegal immigrants or contraband materials across the Mexico and U.S. border.
The SBCSO asks the public to keep an eye out for suspicious watercraft off the coast. People can direct reports of craft sightings to the SBCSO at (805) 681-4100 or the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s 24-hour toll-free tip line at (866) 347-2423.
This Valentine’s Day, smooching your special someone could help benefit a child with cancer.
The “Kisses for Cancer” competition, hosted by local author Leon Scott Baxter and financial expert Tim Tremblay, will attempt to find two amorous individuals to break the Guinness World record for speed kissing, or the most kisses landed by a couple in one minute. The current Guinness World Record for most kisses by a pair in one minute is 117, so prospective peckers — who must be 18 or older — will need to kiss close to twice per second to gain the title.
Couples wishing to enter the contest must attend a preliminary test-trial this Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Ramada Limited hotel on Calle Real. The event’s $10 entrance fee will be donated in full to local pediatric cancer research charity “Kidz for a Cure.”
The top three couples from the preliminary event will compete on Feb. 14 at 9 a.m. at the Tremblay Financial Services office on State Street, though couples can earn a spot on Baxter’s VIP list by emailing him at leon@couplescommittedtolove.com. Pecks don’t have to land on the lips, but must be placed on the face. Kisses may be doled out simultaneously or rewarded only from one participant to the other, and lips must leave the face completely before contacting the target again for the smooches to count.
Fourth-year students Nanor Balabanian and Allyson Miller won the 2012 Woodrow Wilson-Rockefeller Brothers Fund Fellowship for Aspiring Teachers of Color.
The Rockefeller Brothers Fund established the $30,000 scholarship — which requires students to teach in underrepresented areas for three years upon completion of their graduate degrees — in 1992 to help recruit, support and retain individuals of color as public education teachers and administrators. The program has awarded nearly $8 million in grants and financial assistance to 375 fellows since its inception.
Both honorees will attend UCSB’s Gevirtz Graduate School of Education next year, which was one of only four education programs in the country to have both of their nominees receive the fellowships.
Miller, a black studies major who aspires to teach English, said she looks forward to the prospect of inspiring students in an underserved community.
“I was planning to go to a high-needs public school anyway, because I feel like that’s just where my heart wants me to teach,” Miller said.
Miller said her personal experiences as a pupil set the foundation for her future as an educator.
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound? The famous words of philosopher Charles Mann hold special relevance for Kyle Bartman following his belligerent 21st birthday party this past Saturday night. All attendees have lost their memory of the party and, as a result, the very occurrence of the party has been questioned on a philosophical level.
“Nobody remembers what happened, so did the party even happen?” they have been asking.
To verify the story, The Morning Stack contacted everyone who clicked “Going” or “Maybe” on the Facebook invitation for the party, but was also unable to find anyone with any memory of the party.
One lead arose when reporters contacted Jared Lechler, who awoke on Sunday morning in Santa Barbara County Jail after being arrested for urinating in public. Though Lechler didn’t recall anything, the arresting officer Charles McLaughlin was asked by reporters if he noticed the party on the 6600 block of Sabado Tarde that night.
“Saturday night … Well, that’s bingo night at my mother’s retirement home,” McLaughlin said. “So I was definitely too shitfaced to remember anything after my shift started.”
Last week, the state of California granted students at Oakland Unity High School and the Life Academy of Health and Bioscience permission to begin collecting signatures for their proposed ballot initiative that aims to completely eliminate tuition and fees from California public universities.
The initiative intends to make attending a UC or CSU free for students who maintain a 2.7 minimum GPA or perform 70 hours of community service annually by raising the personal income taxes of wealthy California citizens to provide revenue to cover universities’ costs. The group, which includes students from both high schools, was inspired to formulate the financial plan during an American government and economics class that raised concerns about the growing cost of higher education and the impact it would have on future classes hoping to attend college.
According to Oakland Unity High social studies teacher Kara Duros, who facilitated the proposal, the impending cost of attending college was creating anxiety amongst the student body. However, Duros said the initiative would not only help college students but also benefit the economy.
A Goleta resident who attempted to hire a hit man to kill a Bel Air couple and a former business partner in 2010 was sentenced to six years in federal prison on Monday.
Eugene Darryl Temkin, 51, was arrested in July of 2010 after soliciting the services of an undercover LAPD officer posing as a contract killer under the alias of “Pavel.” In August of 2010, Judge Stephen V. Wilson found Temkin guilty of soliciting a crime of violence, attempting to interfere with interstate commerce by threats and violence and using interstate commerce facilities in the commission of a murder-for-hire.
Assistant U.S. Attorney E. Martin Estrada said Temkin plotted the deaths of two associates and one of their wives after a business deal to open a casino in Africa went sour.
“The defendant got all the money that was owed to him but still had this vendetta against the victim,” Estrada said. “There was the long vendetta, a 10-year history of harassing and threatening the victim, the history of civil litigation, a history of restraining orders and ultimately hiring a hit man.”
The 1962 Students for a Democratic Society raise their fists in protest. The activist group laid the foundation for student protests and civil rights. Today’s conference will honor this legacy in the current budget cut climate.
Political experts and veteran activists will meet for a two-day conference today and tomorrow in Corwin Pavilion to discuss the legacy of the Students for a Democratic Society’s 1962 Port Huron Statement.
The conference will feature a panel and speeches with leading academics and activists involved in the 1960s political manifesto. The discussion will also include keynote addresses from the Port Huron Statement’s principal drafter Tom Hayden and Dissent magazine co-editor Michael Kazin.
Sociology professor Dick Flacks said the statement was the first defined plan of action for student protests and inspired many of the era’s similar events.
“It was a statement adopted by a newly formed organization at the time called Students for a Democratic Society,” Flacks said. “It was intended as a manifesto for the student movement that was emerging at the time. It set the framework of idea of protest and raised the issues of civil rights, nature of university in society and students as a force for change, which were never clearly laid out in a defined manifesto.”
Left to die of its wounds, this pelican is one among six recently victimized birds; the culprit, guilty of animal rights violations, is yet to be found.
The Santa Barbara Wildlife Care Network is investigating a series of attacks against wild pelicans that have taken place over the past month.
The organization’s rehabilitative specialists examined six deliberately injured birds — euthanizing five and declaring another dead — and determined a human likely committed the attacks. Local animal care officials are issuing pelican awareness campaigns in response to the incidents.
According to SBWCN Animal Care Technician Tracie Gephart, the animals suffered from multiple severe injuries.
“There were five birds that we found alive, and there was one that we found washed up in Oxnard — that was the bird that had two broken wings, a broken beak and the little pouch that it catches fish in — that was ripped off,” Gephart said.
The animal treatment facility lacks the resources to treat the bird’s injuries, according to Gephart.
“That kind of [wing] break would have needed orthopedic surgery, as well as high doses of antibiotics and … critical care,” Gephart said. “Nobody here in Santa Barbara is qualified to do that. So, to make it easier on the animal we have to, unfortunately, euthanize them.”
The UC Education Abroad Program will host a series of international events throughout the 2012-2013 school year at UCSB to celebrate its 50th anniversary.
The program originated at UCSB in 1962 after a group of 80 undergraduates traveled to the University of Bordeaux in France. The UCEAP now operates in 36 countries on six continents and has sent over 100,000 students from all nine UC campuses since its conception.
The UCEAP is one of the largest study abroad programs in the country and sends over 4,000 students overseas each year. UCSB will start off the year-long commemoration on April 28 with a reception and dinner honoring EAP alumni.
Simone Khoubian, a fourth-year psychology major who traveled to Sydney, Australia last fall, said the program provides priceless world experiences alongside college credit.
“It’s an amazing opportunity to be able to do what you’re doing anyway in another part of the world,” Khoubian said. “You can become part of another culture.”
The UCEAP is offering shorter terms in response to decreased state funding, with less than one out of six participants in the past three years spending an entire year abroad.
The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Dept. arrested 23-year-old UCSB senior Keith Keiper in connection with the Molotov cocktail attack on the Isla Vista Foot Patrol station on New Year’s Day.
Keiper, who is believed to have acted alone, was arrested on Jan. 25 and pled not guilty to charges of felony arson of an inhabited structure at his arraignment yesterday morning. He is being held in the Santa Barbara County Jail on $250,000 bail and is scheduled to appear in court on Feb. 2.
According to a Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office statement released yesterday, Keiper launched an incendiary device at the front of the IVFP station on Trigo Road shortly before midnight on Jan. 1, causing minor damage to the building.
The New Year’s Day attack came less than two months after a Nov. 15 firebombing of the IVFP station, in which an unknown suspect threw two similar devices and shattered a patrol car windshield.
According to SBCSD Public Information Officer Drew Sugars, detectives are still searching for a suspect tied to the November case.
Starting July 1, the UCSB Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships will no longer provide a Satisfactory Academic Progress warning before suspending students’ aid as part of a new federal policy aimed at improving students’ academic performance.
The change is a consequence of a U.S. Department of Education initiative that strives to decrease the time students take to graduate. The S.A.P. standards involve taking a minimum of 12 units per quarter and having a GPA of at least 2.0.
According to UCSB Director of Financial Aid and Scholarships Mike Miller, the effort is an attempt to make sure national aid subsidies do not go to waste.
“The issues that prompted this new law are not as prevalent at the University of California as they are at other higher education institutions across the country,” Miller said. “The government is spending billions of dollars in student aid programs and they want to ensure students are progressing accordingly.”
However, Miller said students can appeal their status, and those who experience extenuating circumstances that contribute to their inability to meet S.A.P. standards may submit a written appeal to the Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships.
Colors Magazine Photo Editor Mauro Bedoni will examine the American juvenile justice system and its social implications at 5 p.m. today at UCSB’s Pollock Theater.
The UC Institute for Research in the Arts is sponsoring the event as a component of its three-part, multidisciplinary lecture series analyzing youth imprisonment through the fields of sociology, journalism and photojournalism. The series features talks from various experts including photography professor Richard Ross, writing professor Cissy Ross, sociology associate professor Victor Rios and Campus Chief of Police Dustin Olson.
Colors, a quarterly multilingual publication founded in 1991, cover major societal issues such as AIDS and immigration. Bedoni received a nomination for the Lucie Award for editor of the year for 2011.
According to Richard Ross, the lecture series highlights the cycle of incarceration and destitution a portion of American youth faces.
“Some kids are born in abject poverty,” Ross said. “They exist in a world that is economically deprived. They are in a community that expects kids to go into [the juvenile correction system] or into child protective services and that follows with drug use, and into criminalization [and] then into adult prisons.”
The Isla Vista Foot Patrol responded to an indecent exposure, reckless driver and several alcohol-related crimes this weekend.
Deputies responded to a report on Friday near the Wells Fargo Bank on Pardall Road. According to IVFP Sgt. Mike McCoy, officers advised a male subject to cover his body to avoid arrest.
“He was contacted at Little Acorn Park,” McCoy said. “We did go out and told him he would likely be arrested if he continued to expose himself in public and someone filed a complaint.”
Officers also responded to a reckless driver Friday night on the 6500 block of Del Playa Drive. McCoy said deputies arrested the male suspect after witnesses reported the incident.
“We had a lot of people approach us and say he was driving at these unsafe speeds,” McCoy said. “He almost hit a couple of people and was dangerous to the Del Playa population.”
IVFP also handled several alcohol-related crimes throughout the weekend, citing 12 people for minors in possession, four for open containers, four for noise ordinance violations, one for public urination, one for disturbing the peace and one for possession of marijuana. Officers also arrested four people for public intoxication.
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Sociology professor Kum-Kum Bhavnani’s “Nothing Like Chocolate” documentary will screen during the Santa Barbara International Film Festival at 2 p.m. today in the Lobero Theatre.
Researchers in the Marine Science Dept. released the results of the largest study on ocean acidification ever conducted, revealing that global warming leads to destructive increases in ocean acidity levels.
