"Whatever created this hole was one scary mother," I thought, two weeks ago, standing on the rim of what’s billed as "the first proven, best-preserved, meteor crater on earth." It’s so obviously formed by a meteorite (a meteorite is a meteor that makes it to earth before being vaporized) — perfectly round, steep sided — […]
Life + Outdoors
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Pearls and Swine
"The risk for contagion posed by this case likely has passed," said Humboldt County Public Health Officer Ann Lindsay, addressing reporters in what looked like the county’s swine flu war room Tuesday afternoon. On the day previous, the county had received confirmation of its first case of the H1N1 influenza, a new variant of the […]
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Cult of the Pipe
For seven years, Westhaven residents Peter Lonnies and his partner Susanna have sipped of the elixir that pours forth from the hill just before northbound Highway 101’s Westhaven turnoff. There, two side-by-side white plastic pipes jut a few feet out of the hillside by the highway, about three feet above the ground, constantly spilling free, […]
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Numbers: Roman, East Arabic and Arabic
As for mankind, numbered are their days/Whatever they achieve is but wind. — Babylonian clay tablet Three different styles of writing numbers can be found within half a block of the gazebo in Old Town Eureka. "Regular" numerals — 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 — abound, while the two clocks […]
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For Sale: Scotia Inn
For $2.5 million and a couple of bucks, you can own a pretty chunk of history whose interior décor speaks of a more elegantly boastful time — a time when it was OK to be a timber baron, or a logger. And, the more romantic among us might imagine, it is like a leftover industrial […]
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Redwood Porn
Finally, those darned redwoods are going to pay off. Heh heh. Seriously, come October — well, even in the months leading up to October — the world is going to be embraced in a great, big, National Geographic-sized redwoodhug the likes of which nobody’s seen, at least not in a very long while. There’ll be […]
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As the Earth Turns
There’s stargazing and stargazing. One way is with telescopes and sky charts. I’m pretty good at that. Another is the way I’m really good at is lying on my back on a summer’s night and just gazing. It only takes a few minutes of this to realize that the dome of the night sky is […]
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The Turkey Tail Cure
When an appealing fellow — bright blue eyes and long, strawberry blond locks that tumble from a floppy brown hat stitched with colorful mushrooms, plus a tidy beard and mustache — wanders into the office from the Arcata Marsh holding a small brown paper bag, from which he shakes out onto his palm several pretty […]
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The Mad River Canal
A few weeks ago in this column, I mentioned that, contrary to local lore, the Mad River Slough was never an outlet for the Mad River. The Mad has always flowed west into the Pacific, not south via the slough into Humboldt Bay. However, from 1855 to 1888, the Mad River and Humboldt Bay were […]
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Something Wicked
A couple of years ago I took a research trip to Logan, Utah to visit the USDA’s Poisonous Plant Research Laboratory. From the photographs on their website, I was expecting a sort of horticultural X-Files experience: something very high-tech and state-of-the-art, but also mysterious, subversive and possibly dangerous. And in fact, that’s exactly what I […]
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A Measure of Tea
It’s a sunny but blustery April 15 in Humboldt County. Somewhere between 200-300 protesters have gathered in front of the Eureka Courthouse to join in the Nationwide Tax Day Tea Party. Today, the Board of Directors of the Humboldt Taxpayers League has invited people in our community to come out on Tax Day ’09 and […]
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Hurwitz Fraud Trial Begins
The federal trial in which Texas financier Charles Hurwitz, the former owner of Pacific Lumber, is being sued for defrauding the U.S. government of hundreds of millions of dollars got off to a quick start on Monday. By lunchtime of the first day of trial, attorneys had agreed on a nine-member jury. By late afternoon, […]