Holiday Gift Guide 2007
Our annual offering of the best and the brightest
Cover Story
Holiday Gift Guide
Each year we go to our regular Journal advertisers, all those locally owned mom-and-pop stores, with the question, "What do you have in your store that would make an unusual or clever gift?" We want to give our readers some thoughtful ideas for holiday gifts that are available at stores owned and operated by their…
To Trial Appellate-Level Oral Argumentation
If I read this right, it looks like the appellate court just set a trial date for appellate arguments in the case of People v. Pacific Lumber. That’s District Attorney Paul Gallegos’ suit against Palco for allegedly fraudulent actions committed by the company during the Headwaters Deal. Yes, the one that caused all the fuss.…
The Ferndale update…
Psychotherapist Stuart Altschuler is going back to the Ferndale City Council for a second round of verbal jousting. Altschuler was recently denied a permit for his home-based psychotherapy office. However, it might be an uphill battle since “The decision of the City Council upon an appeal is final and conclusive as to all things involved…
Duh. More water good for fish.
The research arm of the National Academy of Science (the National Research Council) has reversed its previous findings on Klamath River flows. According to a recent press release from OregonWild, a Portland-based environmental organization, the NRC has determined that increased flows in the Klamath River are likely to benefit salmon. OregonWild, once part of the…
The Essential Schlong
It once was one of my very favorite things in the world, but about 10 years ago my copy of Tumours, the song-for-song cover of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours by the mighty Schlong , went missing. Then, a few weeks ago, I find it sitting there on a bookshelf like it had never left. My turntable…
Wednesday Morning Papers
Evergreen Pulp is back in the running for that defunct Weyerhaeuser pulp mill in Cosmopolis, Wash. According to the Daily World, Evergreen’s bid involves a joint deal with the local public utilities district. Evergreen would get the mill and the PUD would get the mill’s biomass plant. Reporter Aaron Glantz has a piece about the…
When Rollin Met Mary
Tomorrow is weed day at HSU. Click it to big it.
Piling On the NCRA
Who didn’t think it would come to this? The Environmental Protection Information Center, Friends of the Eel and Californians for Alternatives to Toxins, as well as two Marin County environmental groups, today announced their intention to file an amicus brief in the City of Novato’s lawsuit against the North Coast Railroad Authority. The environmental groups’…
Grow Houses and Cloned Redwoods
Strange story in the New York Times this morning about an effort to clone the biggest and most impressive redwood trees, so that they may be planted in groves around the world. Apparently they’ve been planting freak redwood forests here and there for years now: One of the largest nonnative redwood forests is near Rotorua,…
Chilling New Theory
Over at Rambling Jack’s Laboratory, McKinleyville Press editor/publisher Jack Durham clinically lays out the evidence in the case of the recent Klamath Ox Kill. What you see may disturb you. Better not let the kids click through.
Morning Papers
Two Peoples, One Place, the new Humboldt County history by Ray Raphael and Freeman House, gets a great review in the San Francisco Chronicle. (The NCJ had the honor of launching the book last month.) Balloon Track East? Local kazillionaire Rob Arkley’s company, Security National, is developing a 130-acre industrial park in Plympton, Mass., according…
‘Fiddler’ Delights at NCRT
It seems like a long time ago now. Not only the late 19th century, when the tales about Jews in Czarist Russia written by Sholem Aleichem took place, or even 1905, when Fiddler on the Roof (based on those stories) is set. But also the early 1960s, when this musical was created — when several…
Three
Brambles wind through the fence intertwine with the…
Literary Gifts
Another year, another stack of books to wrap and give as gifts. A book is the gift that keeps on giving: With one purchase, you can cast a vote in favor of literature, in favor of the quiet joys of the printed page, in favor of writers in garrets, in favor of independent bookstores. Remember…
Do Forests Protect Our Oxygen?
Our comfortable levels of atmospheric oxygen (O2) and carbon dioxide (CO2 ) are attributable to photosynthesis: H2O + CO2 = CH2O + O2. It is thus reasonable to assume that forests are needed to preserve the oxygen we breathe. But that is a common misconception. A mature redwood or Amazon forest busily recycles its products,…
Ferndale’s Id
Stuart Altschuler, a psychotherapist who moved to Ferndale from West Hollywood last May, recently found out the hard way that in this small town, being a gay man who’s spent the greater part of his life counseling others about AIDS/HIV and issues of sexuality isn’t something to boast about. It’s reason for your neighbors to…
Smells like Dead Elephants: Dispatches from a Rotting Empire
Book by Matt Taibbi. Published by Black Cat Books. There are only two reasons to read the otherwise decrepit Rolling Stone magazine these days, and neither of them have anything to do with music. One is David Rees’ pissed-off clip art comic strip Get Your War On, and the other is the stiletto sharp journalism…
Diabolic Inventions and Seduction for Solo Guitar
CD by Al Di Meola. Inakustic. Widely recognized for his technical mastery and Latin flare, guitarist Al Di Meola gained notoriety playing with Chick Corea’s jazz fusion project Return to Forever. Di Meola quickly established a successful solo career and spent the ’70s and ’80s integrating traditional Latin sounds with intricate song structures and his…
Thanks
Hey, thanks for picking the paper up on this Thanksgiving weekend, and happy Thanksgiving to you, our readers. Without you — well, I’d probably still be slaving over a hot stove and carving turkey at some local eatery. As you might guess, the Thanksgiving holiday tends to put a crimp in the local entertainment scene.…
From a Lump of Clay
The hardest prose to write is a short story. I never have trouble filling up my column space; I have trouble trimming it down to my allotted number of words. Getting to the essence of a subject, removing extraneous material and making every word work is the tricky part of writing. The same is true…
Beowulf – Medieval Bores
Previews Okay, it’s the holiday season so sugar is the order of the day, and none will probably be more sickly sweet than Robin Williams in August Rush. Freddie Highmore plays the title character, who grows into a musical prodigy under the tutelage of Williams’ wizard character and then uses his musical gifts to locate…
Thanks and No Thanks
If this were any place but here, local reporters would be getting out of bed at 4 a.m. this Friday morning, dragging themselves down to Wal-Mart and waiting in line with the consumers eager to get their hands on cheap X-Mas geegaws. The reporter would examine the minds and wallets of these citizens, and with…
The Next Iron Chef
My wife Beni was in Cleveland recently, where she dined at Lola, a cutting-edge restaurant owned by Chef Michael Symon. Several years ago, we read a biographical sketch of the young Symon in Michael Ruhlman’s book The Soul of a Chef. When Beni returned, having had a spectacular meal, and having met Symon (she bore…
