When it comes to bringing our rural nooks and crannies into the 21st Century — or, heck, late-20th would do — it may seem like little to no progress is being made. But it totally is. That was the reassuring message delivered this week at the first in a series of seminars from the Redwood […]
Ryan Burns
Ryan Burns worked for the Journal from 2008 to 2013, covering a diverse mix of North Coast subjects, from education, politics and marijuana to human suspension, sex parties and amateur fight contests. He won awards for investigative reporting, feature stories and news coverage.
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Prop 8 court date
March 5. That’s the day Prop 8 will be challenged in court, according to this story in today’s Sacramento Bee . The controversial state ban on gay marraige, approved by a slim margin on Nov. 4, has been legally challenged by three parties as unconstitutional. Seating’s limited in the San Francisco courtroom, so you may […]
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Mandatory unpaid vacations at T-S
If you thought the Times-Standard’s victory in the battle of Eureka dailies meant a return to gluttonous days of plenty for the 154-year-old paper, think again. MediaNews, the Denver-based parent company of the T-S , today announced that all employees — company-wide — must take a one-week furlough sometime during February or March. That means […]
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A choice meal
The Humboldt Pro-Choice Coalition held its 27th annual Choices Breakfast this morning at the Baywood Country Club in celebration of the 36th anniversary of Roe v Wade. Local dignitaries like HSU President Rollin Richmond and newly elected First District Assemblyman Wes Chesbro joined members of Clergy for Choice, employees of Six Rivers Planned Parenthood and […]
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The trees are dying
A Yosemite sugar pine, victim of bark beetles You remember that scene in The Day After Tomorrow — the goofy 2004 global warming thriller — where Jake Gyllenhaal tries to outrun a wave of insta-freeze that’s chasing him down hallways and around corners? (You’re forgiven, or even commended, if the answer is no.) Well, a […]
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New fiber hope?
Proposed fiber path along Hwy. 299 The fiber scramble continues. The strangest thing about the various efforts to bring a redundant broadband fiber to Humboldt County is how new plans just seem to pop up out of nowhere. Virtually everyone is in agreement these days that a second fiber optic cable is vital to our […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
The Change Card
Like countless other Americans, Anthony Mantova of Carlotta saw in the election and inauguration of Barack Obama an opportunity — not for something grand and abstract like restoring the world’s faith in the United States or breaking down racial barriers, but an opportunity nonetheless: Mantova is trying to sell Barack Obama’s business card on Craigslist […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Electric Cars and Stuff
The chattering strand of fourth and fifth graders snaked out of the bright yellow school bus, hustled through a gap in the cyclone fence and filed into the open door of Dow’s Prairie Elementary School. "Drop your backpacks and go straight to the library," their teacher instructed. "We’re gonna go watch the inauguration." A concentric […]
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Alleged cockfight kingpin arraigned
Local landowner Ray Christie was arraigned at the county courthouse today on six misdemeanor charges stemming from last month’s raid on his McKinleyville farm, where animal control officers found heaps of evidence suggesting a massive gamecock breeding operation. Christie, who looks like this — — appeared in street clothes (blue flannel shirt, Carhartt jeans, workboots) […]
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Trouble at the mall
Not that kind of trouble Gottschalks’ announcement yesterday that they’re filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy means yet more trouble for Bayshore Mall parent company General Growth Properties. A story on NPR this morning elucidated the woes of the nation’s second largest mall operator. If GGP can’t figure out a way to pay off their significant […]
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Spending Headwaters
Think of it as a duffel bag full of money — more than $20 million at our disposal to spend as we see fit. It’s actually a modest sum compared to the vast revenues Humboldt County lost in 1999 when the state and federal governments bought the Headwaters Forest from Pacific Lumber Co. There are […]
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Thompson, our squeaky wheel
Our trusty Congressional mouthpiece, Rep. Mike Thompson, is speaking out on behalf of us backwater yokels, a-scrappin’ and a-hustlin’ for some of that $800 kazillion-berzillion (or whatever) stimulus package. In a letter sent last week to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader John Boehner, Thompson, along with 32 other Congressmembers, argued for the importance […]