As your former legislative representatives in Sacramento, we want the community to know how appalled we are by the pending closures of three skilled nursing facilities in Humboldt County. Rockport Management, which manages the five skilled nursing facilities owned by Brius Healthcare Services in Humboldt County, is planning to simultaneously close three facilities in Eureka […]
Views
A Bridge to ‘Openness, Candor and Healing’
Coming to Eureka from Minneapolis in 1987 was eye-opening for me. My father Nathan brought my family here after accepting a teaching position at Humboldt State University. Minneapolis was very multicultural and my father was on the board for the International Center at the University of Minnesota. The center worked with the State Department to […]
Black and White
The tension in our nation between the black community and the police is palpable. It feels like one bad incident and cities will burn … again. Recently Elizabeth (Liz) Smith, a member of the Eureka Chapter of the NAACP and Executive Director of the Boys & Girls Club of the Redwoods, had a cup of […]
Brius This, Seaview That
You know that feeling you get when people around you suddenly start talking about you in the third person, as if you were not there. As if you did not exist. “Excuse me, I am standing right here; talk to me,” or some such phrase is what I use to reaffirm my existence and to […]
Farm to Flame
California’s Medical Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act regulates marijuana plants more like painkillers than agriculture, requiring every plant in the state to have a unique identification number tagged to it. New laws require a “track and trace” system to monitor all plant material using these IDs, from the ground to final sale, by 2018. Now, […]
Grangers, the Time is Now
In “The State of the Grange” (Jan. 3), Linda Stansberry detailed the delicate state of health in which an organization at the bedrock of American democracy finds itself. Civil war is the worst kind of catastrophe, and why the National Grange started rejecting parts of itself after 150 years is baffling. But the case isn’t […]
My Friend Antonio
As I age, I read the local obituaries more often to see if any of my friends or former colleagues have died. I am sure I am not the only senior who has developed this informative yet morbid habit. I have noticed the obits have a style, a form and, moreover, describe in peaceful, glowing […]
What’s Right in Humboldt?
There has been a lot of attention paid lately to all that’s wrong in our isolated little community — the high crime rate, the struggling economy and more. But amid all that’s wrong, we also do some things right, and feeding people seems to be one of them. I recently took a tour of the […]
Humboldt’s Information Ecosystem
The communication systems that keep us connected are a complex network of networks. As folks on the North Coast know, when part of that system breaks down — as has happened twice in recent months — the consequences aren’t always easy to predict or understand. But we also know that issues arising from unavailable or […]
What Is Wrong With Our Community?
The events leading up to becoming homeless are always traumatic and often related to violence in one’s childhood. About 90 percent of homeless women and about 50 percent of homeless men have been rape or incest victims, often as children, and often repeatedly. This, and other instances childhood violence, result in early onset post-traumatic stress […]
Wiyot Tribe Responds to “Murder in Arcata”
The Wiyot Tribe has been particularly blessed to work with a large number of extraordinary professional historians, archaeologists and other cultural resource professionals who live and work in Wiyot country. It is well known that the relationship between the Wiyot Tribe and the surrounding communities that have emerged over the past 165 years has rarely […]
Why are Firefighters Endangering Us?
Make no mistake, I like our firefighters. But something wrong and dangerous is going on. It needs to change, and I’m ragging on our supervisors. I’ve talked to several chiefs. They agree 70 to 90 percent of rural structure fires are marijuana grow-related. We’re talking diesel and electrical. Amateur wiring jobs and sloppy generators with […]
