Holiday Gift Guide 2010
Week 1 of 5
DIY Willits Bypass
Chances are that they’ve finally cleared that ghastly, traffic-snarling accident in Willits by now, in which a propane truck went head on with another vehicle, overturning and dumping its contents all over the roadway and necessitating a response from a Hazmat team on one of the busiest traveling days of the year. Reports from the…
Native American Sovereignty FTW
Spotted today in an Old Town Eureka parking lot: A Toyota 4Runner with a license plate issued by the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. I knew that some Native American nations issue passports. I remember the showdown earlier this year when the U.K. shamefully refused to let members of the Iroquois National lacrosse team…
HSU Professor Killed Near Willits
A car accident just north of Willits took the life of Humboldt State University Chemistry Professor William Golden Friday night, according to a Humboldt State University press release. HSU press release follows. ^^^^^ William G. Golden, 58, of Sunny Brae, Professor of Chemistry and Chair of the Departments of Chemistry and of Physics and Astronomy…
KGO-TV Wraps Richardson Grove
Pretty decent summary of the Richardson Grove controversy from a Bay Area television station, including comments from Kerul Dyer, Rob McBeth, Kim Floyd and Lost Coast Brewery. Somehow I missed the nude-in.
Lack of Urgency
Administrators at St. Joseph Hospital say the future of health care on the North Coast will arrive with the opening of the new Northeast Tower, a state-of-the-art, $140 million patient care facility being constructed on the hospital’s campus in Eureka. When it opens in late summer of 2011 (its original spring debut has been postponed…
Raising Caen
Two weeks after the election, and the county feels like it’s still on the exhale. Trinidad City Manager Steve Albright retired. The Humboldt Redwood Company sold Scotia’s old biomass power plant to an outside concern. Kathy Moxon, longtime director of community strategies at the Humboldt Area Foundation and a powerhouse in the local economic…
Ignorant Little Snots
Editor: At Mattole School in Petrolia this election season, the 5th through 8th graders spent a couple of weeks discussing the various propositions. According to my grandson, there was strong opposition to Proposition 19, and at the school ballot box it got only three votes (“Prop. 19, R.I.P.” Nov. 11). Assuming these children reflect their…
Game On
Editor: Millions of California citizens demand and require cannabis (marijuana) through a legal and regulated market, so the next step is to stay the course (“Where To Now?”, Nov. 11). Proposition 19 organizers are already planning another proposition for 2012. Colorado is also preparing initiatives for the 2012 election ballot to legalize the relatively safe,…
Tie-Die
Editor: Thank you for the article on Humboldt County death rates, and the research conducted by the California Center for Rural Policy. This is important information to have in order to improve our health outcomes. However, I do think your subtitle — “Your odds of dying are higher in Humboldt County than anywhere else in…
Roots of Chicha 2: Psychedelic Cumbias From Peru
The electric guitar is one of the great (and constructive) creations of innovation, designed and manufactured originally in the U.S. What started out in the 1930s as collaboration between electronic enthusiasts and musicians would eventually see the beginning of mass-produced electric guitars. By the ’60s and early ‘70s, the electric guitar’s presence in music across…
Free Ride
Editor: Of all the analyses of the local elections I’ve read so far, Joel Mielke’s cartoon stands out – his commentary on the consequences of the triumph of an individual’s ego and self interest over the common good is spot on, and needed to be said. One thank you note was missing, though. The one…
First We Read, Then We Write: Emerson on the Creative Process
There are basically two kinds of books on how to write: those by writers who are better known for their books on writing than for their writing, and those by famous writers that tell you how to write just like them. Maybe that’s why Ralph Waldo Emerson, the most famous, oracular and inimitable American essayist,…
Why Humboldt County Doesn’t Have a Poet Laureate
Doesn’t need one. At Jerry’s latest Northtown…
Acorn Soup
First, a confession: I have many times pretended to enjoy acorn soup. The first time may have been at the table of Bessie Tripp, the legendary Karuk woman who lived to be over 100. She was only in her 90s then. I said the soup was perfect, then I asked for seconds of the fried…
I Am Virgo, Hear Me Roar
I’m a Leo, honest. I was born on Sept. 6, 1942, when the sun was firmly in the constellation Leo. Another couple of degrees to the west and it would have eclipsed Regulus, Leo’s brightest star. Yet, as my wife (born Aug. 2) happily — smugly, even — points out, any newspaper horoscope classifies me…
Nov. 18-30, 2010
Nov. 18. Among the summer bulbs soon to be available, none is finer in our climate than the dahlia. Why it flourishes here is something of a mystery; one pictures it in warmer, nearly tropical settings, but somehow it has decided that the seaside works well enough and it thrives, putting out flowers larger than…
McKinleyville Arts Night
PLAZA DESIGN. Ellen Briggs, Simple Gifts.], watercolor painting show; Music by Blue Lotus Jazz.BETWEEN EDWARD JONES AND BEST DRY CLEANING. Clients and staff of Crestwood Behavioral Health, quilt addressing stigmas surrounding mental illness.MANTOVA’S TWO STREET MUSIC. Music by Chris Volas with Volhede’ Matroplis, fusion rock/folk.BLAKE’S BOOKS. Linda Parkinon, wildlife paintings.McKINLEYVILLE CENTRAL MARKET. Eric Korbly, large paintings.HOLLRIGEL &…
Smart Grid 101
Did you know you’re getting new digital “smart meters” from PG&E? Instead of a meter-reader coming by to read those little dials, your smart meters will communicate wirelessly with PG&E. And instead of just a monthly bill, you’ll be able to monitor your energy usage hour-by-hour online. Rather watch mildew grow? Understandable, but strange as…
‘Shrooms, Beautiful ‘Shrooms
One fall day in the ’70s, not long after Joann Olson moved to Humboldt to study biology at HSU, she took a walk in the woods. “I saw these incredible purple mushrooms. I’d never in my life seen anything like them. I was just hooked, wondering, ‘What are these things?’ There were mushrooms everywhere in…
Give Thanks
Around this time of year, the temptation to be positive and uplifting is palpable. But let’s be frank. For a significant number of us, the holidays really, really suck. Of course, there is nothing wrong with family togetherness, exchanging gifts and elaborate celebratory meals. But for those that, for whatever reason, can’t easily enjoy those…
Ed Norton: Weird
Opening HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 1. The seventh and final episode in J. K. Rowling’s Boy Wizard franchise finds Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and friends Ron and Hermione leaving Hogwarts on the trail of the Horcruxes, the secrets to the immortality of evil Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes). Prepare for a cliffhanger: D.H.…
Drive Our Cars
Toward the end of the Humboldt County Taxpayers’ League’s board meeting out at the Samoa Cookhouse last week, long after the gum-easy hot beef meal had been consumed, member David Elsebusch reported that he’d obtained copies of the most recent round of approved overnight vehicle requests by county employees: two vehicles in the Coroner’s office,…
Companions and Community
About a month ago songwriter Dar Williams released her latest album, a retrospective collection titled Many Great Companions. The companions are her songs, and friends like Patty Larkin and Mary Chapin Carpenter who supply harmonies on some of her tunes. But the companionship is more than that, says Williams, “I’ve had a very social career, worked…
