As the Covid pandemic dials down in Davis, people are finding different ways to reconnect. Today’s story presents a way that’s off the scale in charm and whimsy -- it involves tiny crocheted triceratops that students are making and hiding on the UC Davis campus, for other students to find. Just for the fun of doing it. A Discord server for the project has more than 3,400 members so far, and Berkeley might be next.
Today we hear from the founder and two co-leaders of the Davis Triceratops community: UC Davis undergraduates Jennine Eng, Ada Lei, and Sebastian Carpintero. This photo (from left) shows Ada, Jennine, and Sebastian with three of the hundreds of dinosaurs created so far.
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Watching movies on the big screen was once a mainstream, shared cultural experience. Think of the crowds that turned out for the Harry Potter movies or Titanic. Those days are gone. So wrote New York Times columnist Ross Douthat last month, and today we ask longtime film reviewers Derrick Bang and Matias Bombal what they think about this idea. Is the change due only to competition from other media, or is something else at work? What does it matter, regardless? Derrick, an author and frequent guest on Davisville, writes for the Davis Enterprise and his blog, Derrick Bang on Film. Matias posts reviews at Matias Bombal’s Hollywood and on KAHI radio, and formerly managed the Crest Movie Theatre in downtown Sacramento.
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Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed “care courts” for every California county. They would “allow treatment for more homeless people with severe mental health and addiction disorders,” says the Associated Press, “but also compel some of them into care.”
That’s a change — compelling severely disturbed people to accept care, instead of just offering it to them. Bill Pride, executive director of Davis Community Meals and Housing and one of today’s guests on Davisville, estimates that half of people who are homeless have a severe mental health disorder. This change could make a major difference in their lives, and in the extent of homelessness. Pride cautions that achieving this change in care would require years of sustained efforts and expense. We also talk with Yolo Chief Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Raven about the county’s existing Mental Health Court, and how Newsom’s proposal might work alongside what Yolo already does. |
It'll take awhile to fully understand what the pandemic has changed at UC Davis, but we learn more about the impact today during a return visit with longtime instructor Andy Jones. Andy, who is also an educational technologist, last appeared on Davisville a year ago, when the pandemic was about a year old. At the time, he was teaching one of the first classes to meet in person since the pandemic shut down the campus in spring 2020. Conditions have improved this past year — UC Davis will mostly stop requiring masks indoors on March 19 — but “normal” no longer means what it did. We talk about what that means, plus opportunities that have emerged from the disruption.
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Live music is music, obviously, but it’s also culture, a reason to get together with friends, part of the economy—and this spring, as in-person performances continue to resume in Davis, it’s another marker of how the Covid pandemic is easing. Knock on wood.
Today we talk with Danny Tomasello, who’s part of the Davis Music Fest, and musicians Sam Misner and Megan Smith about the hodgepodge return of local concerts, what might have changed for keeps during the pandemic, this June’s Fest, and the need for someone to write about local music the way that Wendy Weitzel writes about local businesses and restaurants.
(The photo shows Misner and Smith onstage at Berryessa Brewing in Winters in February 2020, right before the pandemic hit.)
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There’s lots of news this spring from the Capitol Corridor, the Bay-to-Sacramento passenger train service. Short term, it's recovering from the pandemic, plus taking steps to counter problems that have made too many trains run late. Longer term, it's considering 1) a new central platform in Davis that would connect to an underpass from the station and from the Olive Drive side of the tracks, and 2) changes to the County Road 32 crossing east of town. And if you look ahead a few decades, the corridor anticipates faster trains and better connections from Davis to the Bay Area through the ambitious Link21 "megaregion" project. We talk about all this today with Rob Padgette, the service’s managing director.
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This interview with the late Anne Hance, who died in August 2019, first aired on Nov. 27, 2017.
Anne Hance lived an interesting life. A zoologist by training, she grew up in England during World War II, came to Davis in 1968, co-founded and helped lead the Explorit Science Center for a third of a century … and those details are just part of her story. She also had the most wonderful voice. We talk with her on today’s program.
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You might remember this story from all the attention it got in spring 2021: Research at UC Davis says that adding small amounts of a certain seaweed to cows’ diets reduces the methane they produce by up to 82 percent. This change in diet could do a lot to help the climate, because cattle and other ruminants produce about 5 percent of greenhouse gases in the United States.
The University of California says this work was one of its 10 best UC research stories for 2021. Today we update the story with UC Davis Animal Science Prof. Ermias Kebreab, who explains the research, its value in feeding people and reducing climate change, and how far along they are in bringing their work to market.
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Today we talk with Jonathan Edwards, a reporter for the Davis Enterprise a dozen years ago who joined the Washington Post last July after working for news outlets in Nebraska and Virginia. We talk about differences in reporting, objectivity, establishing credibility when audiences are polarized, and what he learned in Davis all those years ago.
He also has a good story about the experience of sharing his name with other people, including the North Carolina senator who ran for vice president in 2004, the current governor of Louisiana, the musician who created the hit song “Sunshine” in 1972, and the influential 18th century American revivalist preacher who wrote Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. The title inspired an English teacher to have a little fun when handing classwork back to Jonathan at Davis High School.
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Few things created in 1843 are still relevant, but A Christmas Carol still is. One of the lasting versions of Charles Dickens’ classic story is the adaptation that today’s guest, Richard Hellesen, wrote for the Sacramento Theatre Co. in 1987. Its latest run wrapped up this month. Today we talk with Richard about what he calls the “pure luck” that landed him the offer to write the play, why Carol is timely, and why & how Davis could become more of a regional center for live theater. UC Davis, where Richard studied, is a catalyst.
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