WHO’S IN TOWN?
When he speaks at the Naval Postgraduate School this week, Richard Danzig’s remarks are likely to be a lot shorter than his resume. Danzig is currently vice chair of the board of trustees of The RAND Corporation, a defense think tank; serves on the president’s Intelligence Advisory Board; a member of the board of directors of the Center for a New American Security; a trustee of Reed College; and board member of Saffron Hill Ventures, a European investment firm. His past is equally impressive: From 2007-08, Danzig served as a senior adviser to then-Sen. Barack Obama on national security issues. Before that, he was Secretary of the Navy and held multiple roles in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense.
3pm Tuesday, Feb. 9. King Auditorium, Naval Postgraduate School, Sloat Avenue in Monterey. Free. 656-2023, www.nps.edu.
WHAT’S UP WITH THAT
After a Jan. 28 story in the Weekly about carrying crude oil through the county by rail, a reader wondered why the county couldn’t just prevent those trains from rolling through? Beginning with the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, the federal government has complete regulatory power over what can be shipped by rail, pre-empting state and local laws. Within the county currently, oil is being shipped by rail from San Ardo to Los Angeles.
OVERHEARD
“There’s a line at the men’s room because we drink more beer than you.”
-A man waiting to use the restroom at Post No Bills in Sand City, speaking to a woman who did not have to wait.
GOOD WEEK / BAD WEEK
GOOD: The Kennedy Center, a prestigious performing arts center in Washington, D.C., delivered good news to both the local education community and arts scene this week. The Kennedy Center’s Partners in Education program selects 10 arts venues each year and offers guidance on how to cultivate partnerships with local educational institutions in need of arts education and opportunities – in mediums like theater, dance, music – for teachers. The sole participating West Coast venue in 2016 is Carmel’s Sunset Center, which will welcome K-12 teachers from the North Monterey County Unified School District. Sunset Center officials will attend a four-day intensive training in Washington in April, where they’ll hone a customized plan to incorporate the arts into curriculums for students at North County schools.
BAD: Students at the Millennium Charter High School in Salinas learned a lesson in civic engagement this week: Protests can go unheard, and disrupting the status quo can get you in trouble. After learning that their principal, Peter Gray, was facing dismissal at a board meeting Friday, Jan. 29, roughly 35 percent of the student body staged a walkout on their Sherwood Park campus holding signs that read, “I stand for what I believe in, I act on what I want” and “Listen to our voice.” Students even commented before the board voted (in closed session), saying they didn’t want their principal to be sacked. The boarded still voted 7-1 to place Gray on paid administrative leave. To add insult to injury, a school official says students who walked out Friday morning would face disciplinary action for skipping class and unexcused absence.