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November 17, 2005
TICKERTAPE: The Eureka Police Department arrested homicide
suspect Richard Sanderson, 24, in McKinleyville on Nov. 10. Sanderson
was wanted in connection with the Nov. 7 shooting death of Eureka
resident Shawn Garfield. ... Eighteen-year-old Eureka resident
Jacob Gabriel, a suspect in a robbery-by-bomb-threat of the downtown
Eureka branch of US Bank earlier this month, surrendered to the
Humboldt County Sheriff's Office on Nov. 9. ... The Eureka Fire
Department responded to a fire in a two-story house on W. Del
Norte St. late Sunday evening. Firefighters were able to save
the building; investigators later determined that the fire was
started by someone who had been camping underneath the house.
As expected, Bonnie Neely announced
last week that she would seek a sixth term representing the Eureka
area on the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors. Neely is expected
to face some competitors this time around; one is former Eureka
Mayor Nancy Flemming. ... According to a story in Sunday's Eureka
Reporter, the Republican Party of Humboldt County is in turmoil,
with several long-time members jumping ship in protest at the
leadership of Chairperson Lori Metheny.
Both Redway and Manila sent
a message regarding the county's redevelopment plans: Keep us
out of it, they said -- in both cases, by fairly decisive margins.
In fact, before the polls closed that day the Board of Supervisors
agreed, on a 5-0 vote, to drop Redway from redevelopment. But
the board could ignore the Manila vote, and some residents in
other areas that could be affected by the plan, such as Samoa,
are also exploring ways to get their towns off the county's list.
... The Fortuna City Council last week began the arduous process
of updating its general plan, which is expected to take as long
as 18 months to complete.
A last-minute emergency vote
at last week's harbor district meeting authorized a $20,000 expenditure
of funds to send Commissioner Ronnie Pellegrini and Arcata businessman
Fred Chien along on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's junket to China
this week. Harbor District CEO David Hull said Tuesday that he
had talked to Pellegrini, who will be meeting with port managers
from Shanghai and Hong Kong, the previous day: "It sounded
like she's doing great. She's made some good contacts already."
Congressman Mike Thompson (DSt.
Helena) announced last week that he had secured $5.6 million
for Humboldt County projects in a spending bill passed by the
House of Representatives last week. If the bill is passed into
law, about $1 million of the funds will go to restoration projects
on the Salt River and the Trinity River; the remainder will fund
maintenance dredging on Humboldt Bay. ... Meanwhile, the Environmental
Protection Agency last week awarded the Yurok Tribe $835,000
in watershed restoration funds. The money will be used to repair
habitat on the Trinity and the Klamath.
GATES OF OPPRESSION?: Tempers flared in Arcata Thursday, as Humboldt
State University students, faculty and staff staged a protest
at the site of the university's new "gateway" entrance,
at the intersection of 14th Street and LK Wood Boulevard. More
than 40 people gathered to condemn plans to build two similar,
smaller gateways on Granite Avenue and at the corner of 14th
and Union streets.
Some called the signage program,
which will cost an estimated $350,000, a waste of money; others
argued that the mission-style architecture is offensive. A handful
of demonstrators divided, arguing passionately over whether the
gate was a symbol of racism. "The mission architecture is
really offensive to a lot of native people here," said Patricia
Rodriguez, anthropology junior. "And it's a waste of money."
A few of the students stood
in the north LK Wood crosswalk, blocking traffic for about ten
minutes. After a number of heated interactions with drivers,
the crowd moved out of the street. Protesters chanted "Wiyot
land," and held signs that read, "This is an HSU problem.
Respect cultures on campus," "Taco Bell--$ Well Spent?"
and "Honk if you don't like the gates." Within minutes
of the 1 p.m. protest, every few cars began honking in support,
some doing so emphatically, well down the street.
Many protesters were frustrated
with a lack of inclusion in choosing the gate design. "We
had an opportunity to be different and to involve the native
community," said Marylyn Paik-Nicely, director of the HSU
Multicultural Center, "And that didn't happen."
Joseph Giovannetti, Native American
studies department chair and a registered Tolowa Indian held
a "Mediterranean style my ass" sign over his head,
referring to the HSU administration's description of the gate
design. "I stand in solidarity with the students, staff
and faculty who are highly offended at the lack of inclusiveness
in picking the style of the gates," Giovannetti said. "This
reminds people of the deaths of 100,000 Indian people in the
mission system." -- Cat Sieh
FLA MOVE COULD KILL BILL:
Everyone else retires to Florida,
so why shouldn't Bill? Over the weekend Trinidad resident Mara
Rigge rallied a handful of banner-wielding protesters (read:
four) to publicly poopoo the 59-year-old chimpanzee's confinement
at the Sequoia Park Zoo and demand he be relocated to a posh
chimp camp in central Florida. The sanctuary, Save the Chimps,
has agreed to let Bill hang at the sunny 150-acre compound with
other aging chimpanzees as long as it's OK with Eureka zookeepers.
Thing is, Bill's so old, staff are afraid that anesthetizing
him and putting him on a plane could kill him. On top of health
concerns, the zoo's oldest resident reportedly does not mix well
with other non-human primates -- the result of working for the
circus and living devoid of much chimp contact since his 1957
Eureka arrival. He's on the smallish side too, which could mean
trouble if a rogue retiree got all up in his face. Bill will
likely remain here, behind bars, flinging feces like he has for
decades and attracting a steady number of tourists (100,000 visitors
a year, they say).
Upgrades to his cage are under
consideration, but, as always, cash is tight. The zoo's operating
budget for 2005, funded through city taxes, is approximately
$350,000. In 2004 improvements, namely a new pavilion and petting
barn, were funded through donations most of which ($2 million)
came from Rob and Cherie Arkley, Eureka's premier philanthropists.
The couple also commissioned Yannis Stefanakis to create a 12-foot
sculpture of Bill's likeness for the zoo's new digs. In a Eureka
Reporter article from February posted on Rob Arkley's Security
National website under the heading "corporate news,"
Cherie Arkley said of the prehumous statue: "I have never
liked the whole concept of waiting until death to laud somebody
or something." Bill, who escaped briefly last month when
vandals opened his cage, declined to comment on his memorial,
but said that Florida sounds nice and Security National owns
the Eureka Reporter.
CUE THE Q TV: Queer TV junkies in these underserved parts will
no longer have to scrounge for morsels of gay innuendo in reruns
of "Xena Warrior Princess" or "Three's Company."
This week, Cox Communications and Q Television Network (QTN)
-- a cable television station that offers 24-7 queer-themed programming
-- announced that Humboldt County will be the first Cox community
to receive access to the GLBT station. Local Cox Communications
Director of Public Affairs Wendy Purnell said that Humboldt County's
queer population "indexes" at a considerably higher
rate than the American average, meaning more people here identify
as gay and lesbian.ºThe national index is 100; in Humboldt
County, the lesbian index is 189 and gay male index is 140. "It
just makes sense to offer programming that appeals to an important
part of our community." QTN channel 399 launches Nov. 22,
offering a veritable rainbow of gay programs, among them: "Brunch,"
a sitcom/talk show starring Honey Labrador, the lesbian from
the ill-fated "Queer Eye for the Straight Girl"; "Flesh
and Threads," a live show that "brings fashion and
the gay beat to the dance floor; and "Gay Court."
FLU-CHOO!: Oh where, oh where, can my flu shot be got? Well,
your best bet is to first ask your primary doctor for a shot,
says Susan Wardrip, immunization coordinator for the Humboldt
County Department of Health and Human Services Public Health
Branch. If your doctor doesn't have the vaccine, then maybe your
employer's offering shots. If not, then you can wait and see
if the county gets another shipment of the vaccine -- but those
are only for seniors 60 years old and up, young children and
other-aged people with medical conditions who get a prescription
from their doctors. The county already held one round of flu
shot clinics, and was going to host another round this week,
but had to cancel when it heard the vaccines weren't coming in.
Shipments of the vaccine from the manufacturer, Chiron, have
been delayed or insufficient across the country this year --
a remnant problem from last year's flu shot fiasco, as well as,
theorizes the Center for Disease Control, a higher demand for
flu shots because of publicity over the bird flu.
"We will be closely monitoring
the influenza vaccine situation in our county and working with
medical providers to target high risk people to receive available
vaccine," said a county news release. The influenza season
starts in January and goes through March. Wardrip anticipates
the county will receive another shipment of vaccine sometime
in late November or early December and will notify the pubic
when it comes. And she says getting a vaccine in December or
even January "is perfectly OK."
Meanwhile, flu shot clinics
at drug stores and markets have mostly already been held or,
in the case of Longs Drug Stores, their remaining clinics have
been canceled. "Our clinics have been canceled because there's
no availability of the vaccine," said Lee Miller, pharmacy
manager at Longs Drug Store on Harris in Eureka. "We were
told not to anticipate any further clinics." Safeway has
already held its clinics, as has Costco. And, the Mad River Hospital
held its one and only on-site clinic this past Tuesday.
Aside from chasing down the
elusive flu shot, there are other ways to avoid the disease,
offers the county: "Wash your hands, especially before cooking
and eating; cover your mouth when you cough by using a tissue
or coughing into the bend of the elbow; stay home when you have
a fever and cough."
GRIZ BE GONE: News flash! "Grizzly bears ... seem to be
doing pretty well on the Yurok Reservation," says an article
in a Nov. 14 article, datelined "Trinidad, Calif.,"
in Indian Country Today. Grizzlies -- extinct in California
since the last one was shot in 1922 -- are credited in the article
with "ripping siding off houses and breaking windows to
gain entry, and leaving quite a mess in the kitchen."
Hmmm. The article probably meant
to say "black bears," the less-menacing ursines still
alive in the northern California woods. The black bear, Ursus
americanus, is indeed a notably destructive forager, once
she has become accustomed to the easy pickins' to be had from
cars, tents, coolers and claw-friendly refrigerators. But at
about 5 feet tall (when reaching for the cookies on top of the
fridge) and anywhere from 125 to 400 pounds, she's still not
as big of a bruiser as the grizzly bear, Ursus arctos horribilis,
who can grow as long as 10 feet and weigh as much as 700 to 1,000
pounds -- that is, where grizzlies still exist in, say, Alaska,
Wyoming or Montana.
Anyway, the story talks about
the Endangered Species Act, under which, according to the story,
"sea lions and grizzly bears in northern California are
federally protected," and how some say the act has led to
human unemployment and severe economic loss -- hence the efforts
of Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, to gut the ESA. Technically speaking,
since the grizzly is ESA-protected in the lower 48 states, it
is protected in California. If it existed here.
In addition to resurrecting
a species long extinct in California -- won't that lonely fellow
on the state flag be happy! -- the article also implies that
ESA protection has produced sea lion problems. But the only sea
lion in the state protected under the ESA is the Steller sea
lion, Eumetopias jubatus. There are only about 500 of
them in California, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife
Service, and they tend to hang far off shore. In the article,
Yurok fisherman David Gensaw Sr. complains about sea lions stealing
fish from his net. Probably it's the more abundant California
sea lion, Zalophus californianus, who's picking off his
catches. The California sea lion, like all marine mammals, is
protected -- but under the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act.
And, as for the black bear -- the more likely house-raider on
the Yurok Reservation -- while it is generally protected under
state law, it is not protected, at least in California, under
the ESA.
SODOOKIE: "Do You Sudoko? Try Our New Weekly
Mind Bender Game." Thus, taking his customary shell-shocked
stumble through the minefield of English grammar, did Humboldt
Advocate Publisher/Editor/Advertising Director Shawn Warford
announce to his "readers" last week that the Advocate
would heretofore run Sudoku puzzles.
People given to dark, conspiratorial
thinking (people much like Warford) might imagine that this new
feature was hastily arranged in response to the Journal's
introduction of Sudoku to Humboldt County a couple of weeks ago.
We do not go so far. It is possible, we believe, that one of
the Advocate P/E/AD's many Invisible Friends -- those
helpful gremlins who pop up from time to time in the paper's
letters to the editor page -- suggested Sudoku to him ages ago.
(See the Journal's Sept. 1 cover story, "Web of Lies,"
for more background on these fascinating creatures.)
However it happened, the Advocate
has discovered Sudoku; someday, maybe, Warford will also figure
out how to spell it. So we turned to the relevant page, casting
a professional eye at his wares. And then we chuckled, and then
we roared, and then we sighed.
One of the principal pleasures
of Sudoku lies in the elegant, crystalline symmetry of the initial
clues. If you are of the proper turn of mind, the solutions that
result from a unique clue-pattern can have a maddeningly delicious
sort of wit --a beauty, even. Well, the Advocate Sudoku
has all the elegance of a passel of hogs attacking the morning
slop; as much, in other words, as the Advocate itself.
Clues are slapped down willy-nilly, as if by a nihilist. It seems
to have been composed drunk.
Of course, every Journal
Sudoku is constructed by internationally renowned Pappocom©
puzzlemaster Wayne Gould -- a scholar and an artist. They are
crafty, clever and charming. By staring deeply into the simple
snowflake mechanism upon which a Pappocom© Sudoku is built,
one can, if one is willing, discern the universe, its solution.
It is an aesthetic experience akin to dinner at Larrupin, or
a Bach partita. Accept no substitutes.
And while we're at it, the same
goes for crosswords. The Journal runs the incomparable
David Levinson Wilk; the Advocate apparently believes
it can delight its readers by asking them to think of a three-letter
word for "feline."
CORRECTIONS: We've got some good ones this week. The Nov. 10
"From the publisher" column incorrectly identified
the top vote-getter in last week's McKinleyville Community Services
District election. Jeff Dunk placed first, Bill Wennerholm second.
In the same issue, the story "Controversial arrests at Critical
Mass" boneheadedly misstated the significance of Nov. 2,
the date of recent anti-war protests in Eureka. It is the anniversary
of President George Bush's reelection, not his second inauguration.
Finally, and most confusingly, the story "Hatfields win?"
should have said that Judge John Feeney defined a "public
event" at the Arcata Educational Farm as one in which four
people or more are invited to meet at any "time or date,"
not "time and date." Arguably, Feeney's phraseology
could be interpreted to mean that a city event in which four
or more people are invited to the farm throughout a particular
day would run afoul of his injunction. The Journal rues
the errors.
TOP
Our gray electorate
Plus: When is a Republican
a Republican?
by HANK
SIMS
 A few weeks after every trip
to the polls, the Humboldt County Elections Department reports
the outcome in fine detail, breaking down party registration,
turnout and support for this candidate or that in every one of
the county's 270 or so political precincts. These reports are
eagerly awaited by future candidates or their campaigners, who
hope to find buried in their details some hints on their chances,
or where they will have to focus their energies.
But there are many things that
the final reports won't tell them, even though the information
is at the Elections Department's disposal. Perhaps among the
most interesting and basic questions of all: How old are Humboldt
County voters?
Just before last week's election,
the Journal crunched the numbers on all 81,243 Humboldt
County voters who were registered as of early October. We came
up with some somewhat surprising answers.
First of all, the average age
of a registered voter in Humboldt County is 47.5 -- a number
that struck this reporter, at least, as a little high. But perhaps
more interesting is the difference between how voters younger
and older than the average choose to register.
If the Humboldt County electorate
as a whole is a little on the silver side, the two-party system
here is positively wrinkled. Of those older than 47.5 years,
83.2 percent belong either to the Republican of Democratic party;
under that figure, only 57.9 do. The numbers are even more dramatic
at the tail ends of the bell curve. Less than half (48.7 percent)
of Humboldt County voters aged 30 years or younger are registered
either Republican or Democrat, as compared with 88.4 percent
of voters aged 60 or over.
Of those not registering with
one of the major parties, by far the most popular option is not
to register with a party at all -- to be a "decline-to-state"
voter.
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Average age by party,
Humboldt County
Republicans: 51.6
Democrat: 51.0
American Independent: 41.2
Libertarian: 40.6
Peace and Freedom: 39.4
Decline to state: 38.3
Green: 37.2
Natural Law: 36.96
|
These demographic trends largely
mirror those underway throughout the California. A recent fact-sheet
issued by the Public Policy Institute of California, a San Francisco-based
think tank, noted that the rapid increase in "decline-to-state"
voters over the last 10 years is one of the most notable trends
in California politics. The fact sheet -- entitled "California
Voter and Party Profiles" -- noted that since 1994, the
number of "decline-to-state" voters in the state has
doubled, from 1.5 million to 2.9 million.
A separate fact sheet, "The
Age Gap in California Politics," shows that the youth vote's
abandonment of the major parties is, if anything, more dramatic
in Humboldt County than it is statewide. The PPIC reports, 60
percent of voters in the state aged 18-24 are still registered
Republican or Democrat. (Both PPIC reports are available on the
institute's website: www.ppic.org.)
Regionally, Humboldt County
presents a great disparity in the age of its electorate. Voters
in the Arcata-based Third Supervisorial District -- the one that
just elected 37-year-old Mike Wilson, a "decline-to-state"
voter, as its representative on the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation
and Conservation District -- average 42.5 years in age. The Fourth
Supervisorial District, which takes in downtown Eureka and Samoa/Fairhaven,
is slightly older, with an average age of 46.8. The First District,
encompassing the Eureka outskirts and Ferndale, and the Second,
which takes in Fortuna and Southern Humboldt, both average slightly
over 50. The Fifth District -- McKinleyville, Blue Lake, Trinidad,
Orick, Willow Creek -- splits the difference, with an average
age of 48.
Should we be concerned about
the graying of the Humboldt County electorate? After all, age
does have its advantages. The youngest block of voters in the
county are the 113 citizens belonging to the Natural Law party
-- the party that advocates mass adoption of transcendental meditation
as a panacea for society's ills. They average 36.9 years in age.
But how much does party registration
actually mean? As we pored through last week's election results,
analyzing them this way and that, we happened upon a curious
fact -- a couple of them, actually. Did you know that longtime
Fortuna City Councilmember Mel Berti -- a staunchly conservative
voice in a staunchly conservative town -- is, in fact, a Democrat?
Or that prominent Gallegos supporter Micheal Twombly, one of
the honchos of the progressive Local Solutions political action
committee, is, in fact, a Republican?
Berti, 66, is in many ways the
face of Fortuna, the incarnation both of its politics and its
courtly, hometown manners. So when we reached him Monday with
the goods on his political affiliation, he fessed up right away,
if somewhat sheepishly. (When we quizzed him about this a few
months ago, he was quick to call himself a Republican.) Berti
said that his Democratishness was a long-standing thing with
him, stemming from his youth ("I'm a Kennedy man,"
he said) but that it doesn't influence the way he votes. "I
always pick the best man, I don't care if he's Democrat or Republican
or what."
With the 58-year-old Twombly,
apparently, the case is both more and less complicated. He was
a Green Party activist in Sacramento before moving to Humboldt
County, and he stayed Green after he got here. But Twombly said
Friday that he recently switched his registration to Republican
in a sort of electoral false-flag maneuver, one that would allow
him to keep tabs on Gov. Schwarzenegger's campaigning for his
recent (failed) slate of "reform" propositions, which
Twombly strongly opposed. "I'm a Green, and I have been
a Green since 1990," Twombly said. "But I wanted to
receive Republican mailers." Twombly said that he's since
switched his registration back to Green.
The two cases, taken together,
suggest an interesting question for political philosophers. When
is it proper to ditch your party allegiance? Whenever need arises,
or ... basically, never?
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