Thunder in the Redwoods
The Redwood Run Rolls On
Cover Story
Thunder in the Redwoods
Kelly Patrick has lived in Redcrest his whole life — he calls it “Home Flat” — and he’s just the type of person you want to run into at a small-town diner. The gravel-voiced 57-year-old is part of the fabric here, the sort who’ll grab the coffee pot for tourists when the tables get backed…
Bass Fails to Top 50 Percent in Final Vote Tally
Eureka Mayor Virginia Bass was within striking distance on election night, but final returns from the June 8 election, which were just released, show that she failed to reach the critical 50 percent + 1 threshold against incumbent Fourth District Supervisor Bonnie Neely. The two will compete in a November runoff elections. Meanwhile, it’s also…
Lance Madsen Eyes Fifth Ward Seat
Lance Madsen, a long-time employee of the Eureka Housing Authority and a former two-term Eureka City Councilmember, formed a committee yesterday to probe a possible run for that city’s Fifth Ward seat this November. “There’s a real need in the council right now,” says Madsen. Madsen served on the Eureka council from 1989 to 1996,…
Scenes From Tribes’ MLPA Protest
Big rigs, many of them empty log trucks, blared support as they passed the 25 or so protesters, most from local tribes, gathered on both sides of Highway 101 Tuesday afternoon in front of the Red Lion Hotel in Eureka. Inside the Red Lion, the California Marine Life Protection Act Initiative Master Plan Science Advisory…
New Legalization Poll
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released today shows that support for this November’s Proposition 19, which would legalize marijuana in the state, is slightly trailing but within the survey’s margin of error — 48 percent for, 50 percent against, with a 4 percent margin.
Crime and Politics
Today’s Times-Standard alerts us to the fact that the latest edition of California Department of Justice’s crime statistics for the year 2009 have just been released. That, plus a similar release from the FBI, tells us that it’s time to update the chart we published back at the beginning of May, in response to one of…
Ronald Reagan: The Humboldt Years
“[T]his is Reagan country and (applause), YEAH! And perhaps it was destiny that the man who went to California’s Eureka College would become so woven within and inter-linked to the Golden State.” — Fox News Personality Sarah Palin, addressing a crowd at CSU Stanislaus College of the Redwoods, which must get this every once in…
Do Something
It’s the viral video of the year (at least so far) the ugly underwater shot of the endless stream of oil befouling the Gulf of Mexico. After three months of spewing and too many futile attempts at stopping the leak and its devastating toxic mess, things seem pretty hopeless. What can we do? That’s what…
Checkup
By the time President Obama signed his health care reform bill into law, the national conversation about it had been played out six ways to Sunday. The debate had gotten so rancorous, so weighted down with talking points, both real (the sacrificial public option) and imagined (death panels), that even supporters had grown disillusioned with…
Movin’ On Up
Last week took me on a loop around the greater Bay Area. The trip was a chance to reacquaint myself with the lives of our urban cousins, which are markedly different than our own. I hit both the bright spots (Oakland, Monterey) and the dim (Livermore, Vallejo). Travel, at its best, can give one some…
Titlow Hill Developments
Mid-morning last Friday, on the second floor of the Humboldt County Courthouse, a crowd gathered in the hallway outside Courtroom 4. The hearing on the matter of restitution in the illegal land sales case — People vs. Ken Bareilles — was on a break. Bareilles and his wife, Linda, hung around near the doorway with…
Recycling School
Editor: There were glaring omissions in your “Redemption Value” article (June 17). The value of nonprofits goes far beyond the “nostalgia” and “romanticism” of local “hippies.” An important part of the recycling movement had, and still has, to do with education. For 40 years, the Arcata Community Recycling Center has taught us how to recycle.…
Dump the Diet!
Everyone knows the highest mountain in the world is Mount Everest, 29,028 feet above sea level. That’s pretty straightforward until you ask, “What do you mean by highest?” Everest wins if you’re talking about altitude, but you can also make a pretty good case for Hawaii’s Mauna Kea, 13,796 feet above sea level, which would…
Samoa, Inside and Out
Editor: There is only one solution to the problem described in “Los Hechados” (June 10). Legal citizens will not do their work. I did not use to believe this, as I worked at Sun Valley 33 years ago. The difference was that there were no chain stores or fast food joints with “help wanted” signs.…
From Arcata to Eureka
From Arcata to Eureka: Cultural Change at the NCJ
Shopping, Love and Money
“It is impossible to take the personal out of personal finance.” Those words are among the first you see in Nancy Trejos’ new book, Hot (broke) Messes: How to Have Your Latte and Drink It Too. It’s a statement that rings no less true due to its simplicity. People talk about money, the saving, the…
Five Hundred 45s: A Graphic History of the Seven-Inch Record
Like millions before me, my entryway into consuming popular music was the purchase of 7″ 45 RPM singles. In 1973, I bought Irish pop singer/songwriter Gilbert O’Sullivan’s “Get Down” and the re-released 1962 novelty hit “Monster Mash,” by Bobby “Boris” Pickett and The Crypt-Kickers, pulled from the singles bin at a local drugstore. Paid in…
Blue Lake Goes Odd
In 1910, the year the town of Blue Lake was incorporated, fraternal orders were flourishing all over the United States — and throughout Humboldt County. The Masons were active, Arcata and Eureka had grand “castles” built by the Knights of Pythias, Blue Lake had its Odd Fellows Hall, headquarters of the local chapter of the…
Comedy of Hope
The Prize of Hope, a kind of international lifetime achievement award for live theatre as a popular and accessible art form, will be presented at Dell’Arte this Saturday as part of the annual Mad River Festival. Given annually by Denmark’s Institute for Popular Theatre in partnership with Dell’Arte, its presentation alternates between the two hosts.…
Beyond the Fenceline
A calf bucks, wide-eyedwith horizons of cloud bankand…
Affair at the Rodeo
Well, and here came that former carny, Julie, blazin’ to the Acres in a beat-up, recalled Camry — that is, she’d recalled it from her no-good ex-hubby after he’d thrown her over for a new cotton candy girl. The sad, stupid story goes, one day he woke up to discover a teensy dreadlock forming at…
Tapping the Fuzzy Market
To an artist in today’s music industry, finding your voice and your demographic is key to sustaining a career. But with so many different avenues available to the consumer to find new sounds, more people are likely to indulge unique tastes, and as a result there are fewer and fewer artists that enjoy huge success…
Magnum/Zepparella
Was there a better way to end a day of sun, oysters and beer? Doubtful. Humboldtians lucky enough to have snagged tickets packed the Arcata Theatre Lounge for a sold out, post-Oyster festival double-bill featuring the all-female Led Zeppelin tribute band Zepparella and local ’80s metal killers Magnum. One thing was for sure: Eardrums would…
Stages of Man
Previews Call Grown Ups a reunion comedy. Producer/co-writer Adam Sandler reunited his buddies from Saturday Night Live class of 1990 — Chris Rock, David Spade and Rob Schneider — along with Kevin James (King of Queens) for the story of five guys who played on a championship basketball team in junior high gathering at a…
