the town dandy / By Hank Sims

Fuzzy logic

(March 1, 2007)  The Humboldt Watershed Council organized it, and two labor organizations have since signed on as co-sponsors - the Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment and the Humboldt-Del Norte Central Labor Council. We’re talking about the workshop happening this Friday night at the Fortuna Riverlodge, 6-8 p.m.: “Bankruptcy 101: Understanding the Palco Chapter 11 Case.” It is free to all. It features a presentation by an experienced, high-powered corporate bankruptcy attorney. It’s aimed toward providing information to the many, many people directly affected by the Pacific Lumber bankruptcy case.

And sadly (but predictably), some people are already doing their best to poison the thing. “Beware!” scream the right-wing blogger types. It’s all a plot! Those enviro/labor types - they’ll lure you into the Riverlodge, grinning behind their beards as they shake your hand. Once inside, though, they’ll smack you over the head with a cudgel and you’ll emerge as one of their Pod People. Oh yes, you, timber worker - you’ll be spouting flower power and “free love” even before the night is through!

Friends, The Town Dandy is somewhat skeptical of this scenario. If you are inclined to go, I would counsel you to go, by all means. There will no doubt be some very good and useful information on tap. Contrary to rumors, the environmental types have pledged to leave their fangs at home. Hell, one or two of them might be persuaded to join you across the street at the Eel River Brewery for a pint or two afterwards. Why not? This workshop isn’t being put on by the loopy brigade; it’s the smart folks, the neighborly folks, who are gonna turn out for this thing. Watershed Council honcho Mark Lovelace promises there isn’t going to be any stupid proselytizing: “This isn’t going to be how we got here, laying blame or start for the future - just straight factual information on the process.”

What a shame, then, that Dr. Ken Miller, intellectual author of DA Paul Gallegos‘ all-but-dead fraud lawsuit against Palco, had to go and open his big, dumb yap. In a tone-deaf letter published last weekend on the Humboldt Herald blog, Miller - also associated with the Watershed Council - weighs in on the issue of displaced Palco workers and their future. What does he have to say? Well, pretty much: a) they more or less deserve what they get because they didn’t listen to him in the beginning, and b) the best thing they can do now is to support Gallegos and the aforementioned lawsuit! Hard to say which is the bigger long shot - the case itself, or the idea that frickin’ Palco workers are going to line up behind The Surfin’ D.A.

Again, folks - Friday’s workshop isn’t Miller’s gig, it’s Lovelace’s. Trust me: Lovelace isn’t stupid, and he’s not going to try to sell you anything. He is what you and I would recognize as a human being.

Three-peat!

We reported it two years ago (“Glitches mar Oscar broadcast,” March 3, 2005). We reported it again last year (“Storms sink Oscar, again,” March 9, 2006). And so we’d be remiss if we didn’t note that yet again, local ABC affiliate KAEF-TV was nowhere to be found on the local airwaves when they rolled out that red carpet on Sunday. Once again, the rabbit-ear diehards - those better-than-you souls who eschew the 300-channel lifestyle - were frozen out of the world’s biggest guilty pleasure (television division). KAEF, Channel 7, broadcast nothing but dead air throughout.

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