The Santa Rosa Press Democratwon a Pulitzer Prize this week for its “lucid and tenacious coverage of historic wildfires that ravaged the city of Santa Rosa and Sonoma County, expertly utilizing an array of tools, including photography, video and social media platforms, to bring clarity to its readers — in real time and in subsequent in-depth reporting.” The Press Democrat beat out the other nominees, the Houston Chronicle and the New York Times. The fire destroyed more than five thousand homes and businesses, taking away a third of Santa Rosa’s tax base. (Kohl’s just re-opened last week.)
Our local newspaper has come a long way since Ernest Finley merged his Evening Press with the Sonoma Democrat in 1897. Both newspapers had been rabid “states rights” advocates and supporters of the Confederacy during the Civil War. Finley purchased the Santa Rosa Republican in 1948. By that time, “Democrat” and “Republican” had each done a 180-degree political change since Civil War days.
The Finley family sold the newspaper to the New York Times Company in 1985. The Times sold it in 2012 to Halifax Media, publisher of local shopper newspapers, mostly in the Southeast. Less than a year later, a group of local movers and shakers formed Sonoma Media Investments and bought the paper from Halifax. (One of the investors is Jeannie Schulz, widow of Peanuts creator Charles Schulz.)
The paper is apparently thriving as an independent operation in a very difficult environment for print media. The Pulitzer award should make the owners happy and maybe even increase readership.
Annie Wells, a photographer for the Press Democrat, won a Pulitzer in 1997 for her photo of the dramatic rescue of a young woman from a flooded creek by a Santa Rosa fireman.
Driving through the desert on Interstate 10 between Palm Springs and the Los Angeles megalopolis, you’ll be traveling through dinosaur country.
In 1958, after a career as a sculptor and portrait artist at Knott’s Berry Farm, Claude Bell moved to his 62 acres in Cabazon, a dot on the map adjacent to the new freeway. There he opened his Wheel Inn restaurant. To persuade motorists to exit the interstate, Bell began construction on “Dinny,” 45-foot high sprayed concrete on metal-frame, dinosaur. “The first dinosaur in history, so far as I know, to be used as a building,” he boasted. A second beast, a tyrannosaur named “Rex,” was erected a few years later.
The food and the giant sculptures gained Bell’s roadside dining spot a listing in Jane and Michael Stern’s Roadfood, an indispensable eating guide for intrepid travelers. The Wheel Inn and its creatures have been featured in music videos and most famously, Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.
Claude Bell died in 1988, at the age of 91. His family sold the property a few years later to a development partnership. The new owners obtained approvals for “a children’s science and museum exhibit,” including restaurants, a museum, and gift shop, and a 60-room motel. The developers built dozens more prehistoric creatures and promote their “Cabazon Dinosaurs” attraction, but don’t mention that it is a “Young Earth Creationist” museum. “Dinny” now houses a gift shop selling creationist souvenirs.
More recently, Cabazon became the home of “Desert Hills Premium Outlets.” The restaurant closed in 2013.
Penzey’s began in 1957 as a husband-wife coffee and spice shop in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Twenty-nine years later, William and Ruth Ann Penzey’s son, William, Jr. began the company’s mail-order business. The company has grown and today has retail stores throughout the country.
Penzey’s Spices recognized the fifty-year anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr’s murder by being closed. Here is text of e-mail Bill, Jr. sent to their customers.
In the early evening of April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was taken from us by the forces of racism. For Penzeys, April 4, 2018 just doesn’t seem like a day for business as normal, so we are giving our people a paid day off and closing our stores and call center for the day. I apologize for the inconvenience this will surely cause our customers, but in a time where the same forces that took Dr. King have re-emerged to take control of the highest offices in our country, this just does not seem like the year to look the other way.
At the heart of cooking is the belief that when we care about others the world becomes a better place, that through kindness and compassion better futures can be set in motion. Even if this new wave of racism stopped today there would still be a great deal of healing to be done and Cooks would once again be the ones to do it. As a Cook, your kindness and compassion really are the glue keeping this world together. Right now our country and the world needs what you do more than it has in a long time.
All forms of hate are destructive, but there is something particularly soul-crushing about the hate that is racism. That it should be surging once again in the 21st century 50 years after Doctor Martin Luther King’s murder is tough to take. If there’s any silver lining to today’s racism, it’s that those with power and privilege who choose to fan the flames of racism know they can no longer do it openly. In King’s time it was those fighting racism that needed to be ever vigilant. These days, at least for now, it’s those promoting racism that realize their need for discretion because they know that so many would see their views as monstrous, especially the young.
Today as we remember the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s murder, with how incredibly sad that day was, there will be the urge to say that this is just about Memphis and just about 50 years ago. Please resist that urge. With the open racism that has taken hold of the modern Republican Party, this anniversary is very much about today, and very much about all our back yards. Especially ours.
At Penzeys our locations straddle both Milwaukee and Waukesha counties here in Wisconsin. Milwaukee is a wonderfully rich in diversity community. Waukesha is where most all the families who felt the need to flee that diversity ended up. Both communities are full of kind, decent people, but Waukesha still has a smaller contingent crossing all classes that are very much there for the racism. Mostly it’s kept out of sight, but at times you catch glimpses and it’s never pleasant to see.
So many have worked so hard in Waukesha to move things forward, and they are making progress every day, but there are still those fighting to keep out diversity in any way they can. A few months back, Memphis brilliantly orchestrated the removal of two confederate war statues from city parks. The next night our family attended a Waukesha school event where we witnessed the extended family who sat down in front of us share their disgust at the statues’ removal. They kept their voices low, but their anger radiated. I just don’t get how people with so much privilege can see goodness in being so hurtful to those facing so many obstacles. Change needs to come now.
Ever since our Cooking Trumps Racism email and Facebook post after the presidential election, I’ve received tens of thousands of emails from people sharing their experiences and thoughts on racism. Somewhere in reading those letters it occurred to me that maybe there’s a quicker way forward on racism. Up until now it’s only been those on the receiving end of racism that end up having to pay its considerable costs. As long as those doing the racism pay no price it’s going to continue. What if instead of turning a blind eye to those doing racism we took a conservative approach and asked those responsible to pay the costs of their actions?
One thing I’ve noticed about Cooks over the years that I think plays into why they have more positive outcomes in their lives, is that Cooks tend to be optimists. As a Cook myself, I look at the recent student-led activism in the wake of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting and see in the leadership of this new generation such hope. Not just for pragmatic gun control, but for the environment and for all forms of discrimination as well. This whole not accepting Fox’s apology until they take responsibility for what they’ve done seems to be a blending of the best of both the liberal and conservative traditions. In these young people I see so much hope for the future.
And once again, sorry to everyone who takes time out of their day to visit one of our stores or calls our call center only to find we are closed. What Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has meant to all that is good about this country is too much to not try to, in some way, show respect. Please, if you can today and in the coming days, give thought to Dr. King and all those who sacrificed so much to move equality forward in America. They paid so much to make this country great. Now is no time to slide back off the Mountaintop. Now is the time to reach for the summit.
Remember our previous President Barack Obama? He went on record that he would be willing to meet “not just with our friends but our enemies,” including North Korea. The reaction from Fox News was predictable. Fox talking heads were outraged about “bowing and scraping before dictators” because there’s no “discussing issues with Kim Jong-un.”
Our current President has impressive diplomatic and negotiating skills. When he announced that he will meet with the North Korean leader. According to Sean Hannity, “The world will probably be a little bit safer. The media should be giving President Trump credit for that.”
Sacramento Kings (Paul Kitagaki Jr./Sacramento Bee/TNS via Getty Images)
Sacramento police officers, no doubt well trained in the use of deadly force, fired twenty shots at Stephon Clark after they chased him into his grandparents’ back yard. Eight of the twenty bullets hit Clark.
If armed – and well trained – classroom teachers hit 40 percent of their shots intended for a school intruder, what or whom will the other 60 percent of the bullets hit?
Is it a gun, is it a knife Is it a wallet, this is your life It ain’t no secret … No secret my friend You can get killed just for living in your American skin
Darlene Love came on stage to sing “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” on The David Letterman Show in 1986. She was dressed in jeans and backed by Paul Shaffer’s similarly-attired four-piece band.
A full orchestra with backup singers, all in formal dress, and a stage elaborately decorated for the season supported her final Letterman appearance in 2014. Decked out in a sparkling red gown, Ms. Love’s performance of the song had become an annual tradition on Letterman’s Christmas show.
Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry
“Christmas (Baby Please Come Home),” written by Brill Building songwriters Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry, appeared on the 1963 album A Christmas Gift for You from Philles Records. (Later issued as “from Phil Spector”) Phil Spector brought his “Wall of Sound” to the Christmas season. Darlene Love’s voice is also heard on the record in songs performed by The Crystals and Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans. The album is considered a classic and “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” has been recorded by dozens of artists.
Phil Spector and Darlene Love
Phil Spector produced hit records by the Ronettes, the Righteous Brothers, the Crystals and others. The so-called British Invasion in the mid-sixties put his success into eclipse. The Beatles and other English groups took over the pop charts. Spector faded into the background and became a recluse, working only sporadically.
Darlene Love had been working since the 1950s, mostly with her group the Blossoms, doing background vocals on numerous recordings. She came into her own with music produced by Phil Spector. By the late sixties, her star, too, was fading. While Spector was ensconced in his Los Angeles mansion, wealthy with royalty income, Darlene Love was cleaning houses in Beverly Hills. (No royalties for her.) She had been working on a comeback, singing in small clubs in the L.A. area, when she caught the attention of Letterman.
Darlene Love, meanwhile, was featured in the movie about back-up singers, “20 Feet From Stardom.” released a new album, ironically titled “Introducing Darlene Love,” produced by E-Street Band guitarist and Sopranos strip-club operator, Steven Van Zandt. Long-time fans Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Joan Jett, Linda Perry and Jimmy Webb contributed songs.
The Santa Rosa Press Democrat won a Pulitzer Prize this week for its “lucid and tenacious coverage of historic wildfires that ravaged the city of Santa Rosa and Sonoma County, expertly utilizing an array of tools, including photography, video and social media platforms, to bring clarity to its readers — in real time and in subsequent in-depth reporting.” The Press Democrat beat out the other nominees, the Houston Chronicle and the New York Times. The fire destroyed more than five thousand homes and businesses, taking away a third of Santa Rosa’s tax base. (Kohl’s just re-opened last week.)
