An ember of the old Timber Wars is still smoldering in the woods near Rainbow Ridge in the Mattole. There, a stand-off between forest defenders and Humboldt Redwood Co. is heating up. It is like 1997 all over again — tree-sitters are blocking road construction and logging operations, the sheriff’s office and private security are […]
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Posted inLetters + Opinion
‘Hook, Line and Turbine’
How dispiriting to read that officials at Redwood Coast Energy Authority (RCEA) have fallen hook, line and turbine for a deeply flawed energy proposal. Like many outside colonizers since 1850, a Manhattan energy company, Terra-Gen, is relying on local officials to support its plan to place up to 60 wind turbines, each standing 600 feet […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Why I Support Terra-Gen’s Wind Project
I want to highlight why I support the Terra-Gen wind project and how the project fits into Redwood Coast Energy Authority’s (RECEA’s) larger, long-term goals for using local, renewable energy production to promote local economic development and reduce the environmental impact of our energy use. With respect to the Terra-Gen wind project, I support it […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
How We Let This Happen
There are children in concentration camps in the United States right now. On the news they call them “migrant children” (not children fleeing for their lives or seeking asylum or in desperate need of aid — just “migrant children”). Talking heads are debating the use of the term “concentration camp.” “Sure these kids are being […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
More on Galleries, Art and Money
Yes, local art sales have slumped and local galleries are closing. From the perspective of a working artist though, I have been amazed that this area has hung on so well so long. The national scene has been in a slow but continual 20-year decline. Of the 12 most substantial galleries I once exhibited in […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Changing of the Seasons
It has been a cold winter with what used to be normal amounts of rain. Floods have taken lives locally and we even had snow down to the sand dunes. Earth Day, like spring, is just around the corner, descending upon us on April 22. For many Native peoples, every day is Earth Day. We […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Genocide and Fugly Chairs
Recently, Antiques Roadshow did an appraisal of a Colt Model 1851 pistol that apparently belonged to early Humboldt County settler Seth Kinman. Spoiler alert: It’s supposedly worth $50,000. During the show, the appraiser took the opportunity to wax poetic on the value of the gun because of its known tie to Kinman who is described […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
A Military Parade of Shock and Awe or a Circus Cavalcade of Compunctious Consumption
In all his self-aggrandizing bluster, the great orange father has proposed, at various times, a military parade to brashly venerate his presidency with marshalled aplomb. He has glommed onto this idea from viewing similar machinations of muscular might by our European allies and in the history reels of yore. I would dare hope his vision […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
‘I’m Indoors’
This is a new beginning after a story that has been long, slow, painful and ever so drawn out. I am (finally) back indoors, in an actual apartment! Not some long-term, extended stay motel nor the local Rescue Mission nor a cold and lonely tent in the middle of nowhere. A real apartment. It’s a […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
The Aches and Pains of Getting Older
According to the American Association of Retired People, there are 108.7 million folks in the United States over the age of 50. This includes 76.4 million Boomers (born 1946-1964), compared with 49 million Gen Xers and 82 million millennials. Moreover, the number of people 50-plus will continue to grow over the next decade to the […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Homeless for Christmas
The daily trudging around town, trying to scrounge up the money to get what I need for the day, generally begins when I leave the Mission around 7 a.m., no matter the weather. Around here it can change in an instant and you’re suddenly and completely soaked to the skin, the wind whipping cruelly through […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Don’t Let Access Humboldt Go the Way of Net Neutrality
Humboldt is in grave danger of losing its public access television station. Operated by Access Humboldt, the station is the sole outlet for the artist who creates her own video programs, the teacher who wants to show his class a special documentary, the scientist describing her most recent discoveries and, most important for our democracy, […]