Love me, I’m a Lamprey
Ask not what the eel can do for you …
Cover Story
Love Me, I’m a Lamprey
“… Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red…
‘No Socialized Hobbies!’
That was the word today from Craig Tucker, Klamath Campaign Coordinator for the Karuk Tribe, as he explained why he, the Karuk Tribe’s Vice Chair Leaf Hillman and commercial fisherman Dave Bitts, of Eureka, are suing the California Department of Fish and Game. They filed suit in Alameda County Superior Court this morning. The complaint…
River of Renewal
At the premiere showing in San Francisco at the American Indian Film Festival, left to right: Steve Michelson, DVD producer; Leaf Hillman, Vice-Chair, Karuk Tribe; Lyle Marshall, Chair, Hoopa Valley Tribe; Merk Oliver, Yurok Tribe; Ray Matz, Yurok Tribe; Stephen Most, author of River of Renewal (book and film). Photo by Thomas B. Dunklin The…
The New York Times API.
links.The New York Times API.: Here’s the news industry’s Very Big Deal for this
Good News From CR
We have been chided, on occasion, for only focusing on the bad. The bad. And the bad. And, you know, the bad. And so on. C’mon, there’s gotta be some good news coming from the College of the Redwoods. Well, of course there is. Tons of it, like interesting profs doing interesting stuff, that kind…
Premature Blogulation
Checking my RSS feed for Humboldt blogs this morning, I came across a surprising story on Heraldo titled “Crawford heads Chamber” saying: Eureka political dude and Humboldt Herald regular Chris Crawford is the new head of the Eureka Chamber of Commerce. Hearty congratulations were doled out at Tuesday’s Eureka City Council meeting. Crawford is an…
Highway Robbery
The Eureka-based construction firm Mercer Fraser, well known for its work on roads and highways locally and around the north state, last week agreed to pay $1.3 million to settle a lawsuit charging that the company defrauded the federal government while bidding on several highway projects dating back to at least 2005. The suit, which…
Prop 8 court date
March 5. That’s the day Prop 8 will be challenged in court, according to this story in today’s Sacramento Bee . The controversial state ban on gay marraige, approved by a slim margin on Nov. 4, has been legally challenged by three parties as unconstitutional. Seating’s limited in the San Francisco courtroom, so you may…
Street View Still Irking You
Google’s ongoing little-big stunt gets another round of scrutiny . The writer of the piece goes on a fair bit about how criminals might use the maps and snaps to burgle you while you were away…. He also refers often to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat ‘s boot-leathering which found that the Google bug traveled…
The Pope and the Professor
As long as we’ve got you reading the College of the Redwood’s Board of Directors’ agenda for Feb. 3, you may have noticed in the documents packet (p. 42) that CR prof Dr. Jon Pedicino is asking for a little out-of-country travel cash ($1,800) so he can go to the Pope’s summer digs at Castel…
Viola? (+ Hobart estate update)
The current edition of the Ferndale Enterprise takes note of the story from last week, ” Hobart’s Children ,” and takes issue with what is deemed misinformation regarding the painting above by Viola McBride. The tangled story of the disposition of Hobart’s estate included a brief description of the tours of Hobart’s Galleries led by…
Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles
22Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles: This makes me feel very depressed, and also very
Mood: Somber
Some rather peeved reports have been issuing our way from the College of the Redwoods — a pesky paving project that has temporarily depleted parking options, other rumors of various discontentments. Well, a supplement to Agenda Item #9.2.1 on CR’s Board of Director’s agenda for its Feb. 3 meeting reveals one particularly deep font of…
Nuke Fears Close Dump
Concerned about the potential of radioactive waste leeching into Humboldt Bay, county government has temporarily shut down the old Table Bluff Landfill outside of Loleta, the Journal has learned. Table Bluff landfill was open to the public between the late 1960s and late 1970s. Since closing, the county has continued to use it as a…
Avast, Ye Miners!
Aye, ye gravel grovelers, ye watery wastrels, ye ramblin’ rogues of the deep! I’ll sink yer dredges and steal yer gold, ye dirty river rats! Ye say yer dredges don’t hurt the fishes? Excuse me, but I think yer arguments are bullshit! Aaarghhh! And thus spake Sen. Pat Wiggins, although it’s true that we may…
The Question Answers Itself
Editor: Wow. It must’ve been a slow news week if you are reduced to running nearly a full page of content to a “story” about a local guy trying to sell an Obama business card for hundreds of dollars (“The Change Card,” Jan. 22). This is the sort of item that might warrant a one-sentence…
Superbowl Street Food
With our real national holiday approaching, let’s talk about food for a Superbowl party. Here’s an idea for a substantial meal you can set out and leave on the kitchen stove or table for people drifting in during commercials and at half-time. It’s kind of the same idea as wandering down a street, with vendors…
Not That Gravel!
Editor: I must commend Mr. Sims on his colorful wit and vivid imagination, reflected in the Town Dandy piece (Jan. 15). We love to hate that Railroad Tycoon that now “runs the NCRA,” and finally “came clean” about using the tracks that run through Supervisor Clendenen’s “domain”! (Sounds like a B western movie plot!) I…
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
Teens may no longer be reading out loud with the family in the evening, but if you’ve created readers in your home, you can continue feeding their hunger with Young Adult Lit. Once the most maligned of genres, excellent books aimed at the 13-18 crowd now stand proudly alongside the latest Wally Lamb and Toni…
Houranied
Editor: Marcy Burstiner recently made some comments that questioned the inclusion in the Times-Standard of an editorial page that was a remnant of the defunct The Eureka Reporter (“Media Maven,” Jan .1) A reader passionately disagreed with Ms. Burstiner (“Mailbox,” Jan. 8). While my own stridency sometimes disqualifies me from reasonable discourse, I must offer…
How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read
How much do you read each week? How many pages are you expected to read? How many books, papers, reports, articles, e-mails and instruction sheets are you expected, do you expect yourself to understand, comprehend, remember? I teach reading at our local community college. Some, including some of my students, are often incredulous. "Don’t they…
Fiction Contest
The Journal’s First Annual Short-Short Fiction Contest is underway, and the entries are already beginning to trickle in. Join the party! We’re talking short-short-short, here — 99 words or fewer. We’ve semi-assembled an all-star team of judges, who will read the stories blind and pick their favorites. The best of the best will be featured…
Blood Bank/More of the Past
Blood Bank (EP). By Bon Iver. Jagjaguwar. More of the Past (EP). By Vetiver. Gnomonsong. Back in the day "Extended Play" records — aka EPs — were released on both in 12" and 7" vinyl formats to distribute yet-unreleased material, perhaps by an artist whose popularity was on an upswing, or for those with a…
Perry Collins’ Overland Telegraph
When I consider monumental works of humankind, I think of the Great Pyramid, the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, the Saturn 5 rocket, the Panama Canal, Boulder Dam … and Perry Collins’ Overland Telegraph. The last mentioned isn’t usually included in those lists of "mankind’s greatest achievements" for the good reason that it was…
Exchange
"Mashed potatoes are seasonal," the guy behind the…
Meet the Meat
There’s a very funny, very short science fiction story by Terry Bisson that I first heard as a radio dialog, in which two alien spacefarers are passing near Earth. One describes the intelligent species below while the other can’t believe what he’s hearing. “They’re meat?” he keeps repeating. “They have brains made out of meat?…
Raging Rourke
Previews Opening Friday, Jan. 30, is the French film Taken, featuring Liam Neeson as a retired secret agent who returns to action when his teen daughter (Maggie Grace) is kidnapped by sex traffickers. Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence, disturbing thematic material, sexual content, some drug references and language. 94m. At the Broadway, Fortuna…
The Big Spill
A couple of weeks ago — on Tuesday, Jan. 13 — Journal reader Rachael Brilbeck went for a stroll on the beach on the North Spit, right across from the Evergreen Pulp Mill, which is currently shuttered. Everything was normal when she set off on her walk, but when she returned an hour and a…
Truth with Melody
Formerly local bluesman/songwriter Thad Beckman is one of many who made the move from Humboldt to Portland. In Thad’s case, it was via Austin, Texas, and since he was born and raised in Portland it was a homecoming. Thad’s back in Arcata for a Friday night show at a club he knows well, the Jambalaya,…
Naval Gazing
Yes, yes, there may be a few more bombs bursting in air, or something like that, out there over the big blue sea that flanks our Northwest coastline. More aircraft lobbing sea sparrows or sidewinders at each other, perhaps. Submarines dismantling fake underwater mines. Sonar testing. But will anyone in Eureka even know it? Will…
Sour Notes
The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors dealt with a couple of update-worthy matters at its Tuesday meeting, and did so in such a happily kumbaya unanimous manner that you wonder if the board that took shape when Clif Clendenen and Mark Lovelace joined last month might just be the one that was always meant to…
Kinetic Rumblings
Editor: Most of the thick nonsense started with the HKA suit (“Hobart’s Children,” Jan. 22). Hobart was heavily medicated at that time. A mysterious Ferndale woman had a bigger picture in mind. Will it turn out in her favor in the end? ’Cause the drama is not over yet. No chance Hobart would have initiated…
