Don’t blame me for the clickbait heading. Capitalizing on Dubya Bush’s 2002 State of the Union address in which he singled out Iraq, Iran and North Korea as Earth’s baddies, cosmologists Kate Land and João Magueijo employed the same phrase three years later for the title of their scientificxpaper. In it, they described a spooky […]
Life + Outdoors
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Keeping the Beat for 50 Years in Humboldt
I felt like a stranger in a strange land when I drove into Rio Dell in March of 1975 to play a six-month job with a country band. Fortuna native Jerry Cooper, a musician I’d played with in San Francisco, had moved back home. He called me in San Francisco and offered six months of guaranteed […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Nature Red in Tooth and Claw
Following the death of his great friend Arthur Henry Hallam in 1833, the poet Alfred Tennyson began writing In Memoriam AHH, perhaps the greatest elegy in the English language. It would take him 17 years of composing, writing and editing until he finally published it — anonymously — in 1850. While the long (2,916 lines […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Gardening Undercover
Despite the early morning temperatures in the middle 20s, I made a visit to the winter garden during a lull between rainstorms. Because of the cold and the rain, much of the vegetable garden is muddy and even the winter-hardy cole crops look mushy. But this is the perfect time to check on the garden […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
A GOP FAQ
Well, it’s been a wild couple of weeks, and we’ve been hearing from more traditional party members having trouble keeping up with a platform that shifts like a drunk carnie is pulling levers on the ride. After all, not all of us came up listening to this generation’s hateful right-wing podcasts; some of us listened […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
30 Minutes that Made All the Difference
Thirty minutes. That’s all it took, 66 million years ago, to put the future on track for you to be reading this. Had the Manhattan-Island-size asteroid that crashed into the Gulf of Mexico arrived 30 minutes earlier or later, we wouldn’t be around to unravel the consequences of that mighty collision. We know very little […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
A Tale of Two Tails
Note: Names have been changed to protect the privacy of embarrassed furballs. On a chilly Sunday morning we noticed a young couple pacing up and down as they scanned for something. “Our cat is missing,” they said. The distraught couple were camping at Clam Beach and their kitty, whom I will call Pretty Boy, went […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Blue-winged Warblers, 2025 and Personal Bests
There’s something uncanny about birding in 2025. The Humboldt birders have hit the ground running this year. Everyone in my feathered circle is out there with single-minded dedication, chasing rarities, putting in long hours day after day, birding like there’s no tomorrow because — well, let’s not go there. I’ll admit I’m not a huge […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
AMOC and the Inevitable Climate Threat
Like other acronyms that slowly seeped into our consciousness — think COVID — I predict that you’ll soon be familiar with AMOC, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. We and our children may — with a great deal of luck and statesmanship — dodge such potential global catastrophes as another pandemic (thanks to the magic of […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Sea Nettle Babymaking
A local grocery store was overstocked, so they had a big sale. When I arrived, the place was packed with people having sex and grabbing groceries. People were even rolling around in shopping carts having sex and stuffing groceries in with them. Things I won’t describe were happening in the produce section. And there were […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Are We Dating the Same Romantic Literary Hero?
Admin: Hey, ladies, quick reminder about the group’s rules. Remember, we’re here to help each other navigate a tricky and sometimes dangerous dating landscape, so let’s keep it civil and no screenshots or snitching. Jane Eyre: Where to start? I started nannying for this guy Edward and, I know, never date your boss. Also he’s […]