Over the decades, an art enclave has evolved on the outskirts of downtown San Jose. Dubbed Martha Gardens, the little neighborhood is loosely bounded by Highway 280 and Third, Fifth and Keyes streets. Adjacent to the Spartan Keyes neighborhood, which includes Kelley Park and Spartan Stadium, Martha Gardens is a mix of residential and light-industrial development, with a few old cannery buildings and aging warehouses mixed in. It began attracting artists back in 1975, when San Jose Sate University established its Art Foundry on South Fifth Street.
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I’m all for small-scale agriculture, but what difference were these city farms making? A few people were getting some fresh lettuce and tomatoes and learning how to grow their own food, but is that it? Industrial food production is a disaster, but given the power and reach of the factory food machine, what change can cute, plucky little urban ag bring about?
Sarah Palin was in San Jose for three events Thursday but neither Meg Whitman nor Cary Fiorina showed up. While Palin endorsed Fiorina, recent polling shows that 58 percent of registered voters and two-thirds of independent voters do not look favorably at Palin and would be less inclined to vote for a candidate endorsed by her.
Officer Clay Rojas, 36, of the Santa Clara Police Department has been arrested for providing confidential DMV information to a member of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang, William Bettencourt, 38, of Live Oaks. Rojas is expected to be arraigned on Monday. He could face up to three years in prison.
John Steinbeck’s son, Thomas Steinbeck, honored filmmaker Michael Moore with the Steinbeck Center Award.The award is presented annually to “writers and artists whose work embodies the spirit of Steinbeck’s values and belief in the dignity of the powerless and exploited.” At the event, Steinbeck commented that his father was “the Michael Moore of his time.”
Courtney Howard, a sophomore at SJSU, was a victim of that hazing for a period of three weeks. Now she is suing SJSU, claiming that she was beaten and tortured as she pledged for a sorority. Four members of the sorority pleaded no contest to charges of hazing—a misdemeanor—and were sentenced to 90 days in jail and two years probation, and the school has suspended Sigma Gamma Rho for five years.
San Jose is home to one of the nation’s most famous haunted houses, the Winchester Mystery House. But there are at least nine other spots around Silicon Valley that are reported to be spooked.
Sarah Palin—the 2008 vice-presidential nominee, self-proclaimed Mama Grizzly and unofficial Queen of the Tea Party—brings her political circus into the heart of Silicon Valley this week with a trio of events slated for downtown San Jose on Thursday.
San Jose may have the worst roads in the country, but the cost of fixing those roads—$100 million a year for the next five years—is fare greater than the $20 million that the city has budgeted for road repairs. Considering how desperate the situation is, are new taxes for road repair really off the table?
Both Yahoo and AOL have been struggling to remain relevant in a world dominated by Google, Facebook, and Twitter, but it seems that they can’t do it alone. Reports are circulating that AOL and a consortium of investors including Silver Lake and Blackstone are now preparing to make a takeover bid for Yahoo.
