Something is rotten in the State University of Humboldt. At least, that’s what former Associated Students Legislative Affairs Vice President Jason Robo is saying. Robo, a senior majoring in political science and economics, is a self-proclaimed "scholarly revolutionary," and in the most recent campus elections, in which he stood as a candidate for student body […]
Life + Outdoors
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Four and Twenty Stoners, Baked
"Four-twenty is like a holiday around here," said the 20-something reveler wearing a Humboldt hoodie as he walked with friends up the winding road leading to Arcata’s Redwood Park. While the precise origins of the connection between 420 and marijuana are indefinite, lost in smoky memory, a popular theory traces it back to the early […]
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Field Trip
Two charter buses carried 81 Humboldt State University students to Sacramento early on Monday morning to join with nearly 2,000 concerned California State University, University of California and community college students and other personnel in a rare, if not unprecedented show of solidarity against proposed state budget cuts. The protesters marched from West Sacramento’s Raley […]
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Rogue Waves
Waves are intimately connected to everything, even electrons and such, but let us begin with those that can catch you unawares on the beach or boat. Such rogue waves can be lethal. Waves originate when wind blows across water. Two processes build larger waves from initial ripples: Frictional dragging and Bernoulli lifting. I have not […]
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Slow Boat
Does going "off the pavement" always mean banshee-screaming down Class V whitewater, or clinging to cliffs 200 feet above the pounding Pacific surf? I think not. That stuff doesn’t work for those of us too old or young, or who don’t have the temperament or survival skills to enjoy defying death in the outdoors. But […]
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Yes, Coach!
Two weeks ago, I wrote about my meeting with Genevieve Schmidt, an Arcata garden coach. I’m the ultimate low-budget do-it-yourself gardener, and apart from hiring a guy with a truck to haul off uncompostable green waste from time to time, I didn’t really know much about working with horticultural professionals. Apparently I’m not the only […]
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The old wall of words
Harvey Jossem was born on April 15, 1930 — he would have turned 78 this Tuesday. But Jossem died, of natural causes, on Dec. 28, leaving behind his tiny, time-frayed little green house on an unnamed dirt street in northeast Eureka, four cats, a handful of friends and caregivers and stacks and stacks of personal […]
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Take back the day
All this week, Humboldt State has been hosting a series of Take Back the Night functions. You could silkscreen a T-shirt on Sunday, do some dance therapy on Monday afternoon then map out patriarchy in the evening, engage in a roundtable discussion about gender violence on Tuesday, partake of some end-the-violence-and-rape-culture theater on Wednesday, maybe […]
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Designer Fruit
Preparing a bowl of fruit for lunch reminded me of the tremendous diversity existing within the Kingdom of Plants. The largest Phylum, Angiosperm (flowering plants), contains hundreds of thousands of species. Recall Kingdom-Phylum-Class-Order-Family-Genus-Species? I hereby offer four favorite flavors of fruit. The kiwi’s story is interesting: I thought it was native to New Zealand until […]
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Sailing
The physics of sailing is outlined in the first diagram, showing the equilibrium between forces. The vector-sum of forces on sail and keel is balanced by the resistance of moving the boat through water. The speed of a typical 10-meter yacht in winds of 10 and 20 knots, as a function of its angle to […]
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The Chinese Press
Ah, propaganda. There’s something almost endearing about it. Its self-righteous sincerity, its intrepid flouting of facts. You really have to admire the loyalty of those reporters who willingly regurgitate a one-note version of the truth, but are otherwise honest journalists. I had never really witnessed such a steady diet of disinformation until I came to […]