Mending Broken Hearts
Renaissance and denial play role as St. Joseph grapples with high mortality estimate for heart failure
Cover Story
Mending Broken Hearts
Brent Hawkins sat down to breakfast in a Minnesota Marriott last summer. A Eureka resident for the past eight years, Hawkins heads a division of the agricultural giant Cargill. He travels frequently. Minnesota is his territory; USA Today his breakfast companion. It was Aug. 21 — the official unveiling of the government’s best estimates of…
Oscar Winners Leaked!
Oscar Winners Leaked!: You’re tired of all those Oscar predictions, right? Well, here’s the real deal — leaked from the Academy! Yes, yes! You’re wondering why those wrinkles in the paper, which so enhance the credibility of this document, don’t seem to affect the type. The answer is: Oscar magic! Special
Media Alert
I’ll be Keith Henty’s guest on The Jefferson Exchange tomorrow morning a little after 8, talkin’ Humboldt County economic blues. Catch it on JPR’s Classics & News Service — 91.5 FM around Humboldt Bay, or streaming live at ijpr.org.
A Few More Minutes of Fame
Humboldt multimedia personality Duane Flatmo has had the fifteen minutes of fame promised by Andy Warhol, and he just got a few more. Duane (don’t call him Dwayne) is famous locally as our most prominent muralist and as one of the stars of the Kinetic Sculpture Race . On the national stage he’s parlayed a…
Silver Slams Drug War
cafes. Former San Francisco Supervisor Carol Ruth Silver — a part-time or one-time resident of Myers Flat, I’m not sure which — has resigned from her job as Director of Prisoner Legal Services at the San Francisco County Sheriff’s Office to protest the war on drugs. “I find it difficult to discuss the financial or…
State Budget Tax Calculator
State Budget Tax Calculator: The hits keep coming from the Sacto Bee. At the link: An interactive calculator that will estimate the impact of the new state budget on your
Humboldt Gets Shout-Out at Media Conference
elections. This text will be replaced Joaquin Alvarado of the Institute for Next Generation Internet mentioned Humboldt County in his keynote address to the Integrated Media Association’s annual Public Media Conference this morning. The annual conference, which kicked off today in Atlanta, is aimed at managers of public radio and television stations. The theme this…
HUMBO on the Timber Beat
. The NCJ Robot now tracks all new Humboldt County timber harvest plans. Here’s an example post concerning a Humboldt Redwoods THP filed with the CDF last week. Suggestions welcome, as always.
State Budget Deal Done
State Budget Deal Done: The Sac Bee’s Capitol Alert reports that legislative Democrats have bought the vote of Republican Senator Abel Maldonado, meaning that they now have the votes for a budget deal. What did Dems give? Among other things, a weird referendum for the 2010 ballot that, if passed by voters, would completely reshape…
Privacy shmivacy
Imagine this: You’re out in your yard, watering the lawn, and because it’s a nice warm day, and because you live a mile-and-a-half down a private road festooned with “No Trespassing” signs, you’re wearing nothing but your favorite underwear, which have these cute little pigs on ’em and are so totally comfy. Suddenly you hear…
Deep Cuts
month.Deep Cuts: The Seattle Weekly profiles artist Steve Quenell — Eureka native, former Amiga’s Burritos employee and friend of Ben Chasny. Influences? “When I was growing up, a lot of the hippies were getting into the occult,” Quenell tells the Weekly
Obama signs stimulus bill
Obama signs stimulus bill: The big O calls the $787 billion legislation “the beginning of the end” of our economic woes.
“The Power of Good Intelligence…”
Husbandman.” This just in from Rep. Mike’s office: Thompson Named Chair of Intelligence Subcommittee WASHINGTON (February 17)—Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA) was re-appointed Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence’s Subcommittee on Terrorism, Human Intelligence, Analysis and Counterintelligence for the 111th Congress. Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) announced the subcommittee assignments. Thompson will…
Tackling Teen Crashes
Saturday.Tackling Teen Crashes: Congrats to Eureka High, one of 10 schools nationwide honored for developing a standout safe-driving campaign aimed at teenagers. The students behind the campaign get $5,000 to travel to a conference on the subject next
For sale: Bob Marley – Independent.co.uk
wallet.For sale: Bob Marley – Independent.co.uk: Marley’s eldest daughter, Cedella, tells the BBC she is considering offers to market a range of Bob Marley-endorsed ventures including beer, coffee, headphones, hotels, snowboards and
Jacked
Sometimes it just doesn’t pay to be a Good Samaritan. That must be the conclusion reached by an Albany, Calif., couple this morning after they stopped to check on a motorist who’d just blazed past them, then lost control of his Monte Carlo on the Little River Bridge south of Trinidad, driving his pimp-mobile off…
On the Road with Jerry
On the Road with Jerry: Did anyone watch the PBS program Nature last night? Apparently it tells the somewhat strange story of Eureka resident (and sometime Times-Standard columnist) René Agredano, who sold her business and traveled cross-country to give her dying dog one last hurrah. Interview at the link, with video available. The program will…
Broadband for Hicks
Broadband for Hicks: That’s us. Michael Katz, a former FCC economist, bemoans the wasting of federal stimulus dollars on the effort to extend the series of tubes to mentally challenged hillbillies. “The notion that we should be helping people who live in rural areas avoid the costs that they impose on society … is misguided,”…
Kneeland School, Sunday Morning
plan.” Horse Mountain, you are dead to me.
Budget package stalls one vote shy – Sacramento Bee
Budget package stalls one vote shy – Sacramento Bee: “California’s massive $40 billion-plus budget plan stalled in the state Senate early Sunday morning, as it became clear the three needed Republicans in the upper house were unready to support the
It’s the Motion
End your Valentine night the right way — with a mind-blowing Stevie Wonder drum solo.
MediaNews Slips, Slips Further
Noting that the credit rating of the Times-Standard ‘s parent corporation, MediaNews, recently fell into deep junk status, the Reflections of a Newsosaur blog’s “Default-O-Matic” registers the company as one of the two big chains most likely to default on its debt in the imminent future. Moody’s now rates MediaNews at Caa3 , which represents…
Xe, Pronouced ‘Zee’
produced.Xe, Pronouced ‘Zee’: The burly boys at Blackwater have given themselves a metrosexual
All I Want For Valentine’s Day
All I Want For Valentine’s Day: Is the greatest work of art that humankind has ever
Welcome to the New Blogthing
At long last, the Blogthing has made the jump from Wordpress to the mothership! Huzzah! Update your bookmarks! The move lets us do all kinds of things we’ve been a-achin’ to do. And with that, allow me to introduce the newest member of the staff: NCJ Robot, the cybernetic blogger (right)! The robot — who,…
Where’s Mike?
My brother-in-law Chris sent a link to this amazing photo: ” President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address by David Bergman ,” on a site called gigapan.org . Bergman explains: I made this Gigapan image from the north press platform during President Obama’s inaugural address at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC on January 20, 2009. It’s…
So long, career
From the mouthpiece of liberal elitism (or is it elitist liberalism?), The New York Times, comes this story about the eminent demise of The Christian Science Monitor’s daily print edition. The highly respected (to the tune of seven Pulitzers), church-financed fish-wrap had a circulation of almost a quarter million back in the ’70s — now…
Measure T “Null and Void”
Measure T, aka the “Humboldt County Ordinance to Protect Our Right to Fair Elections and Local Democracy,” seems to have met its final death in a San Francisco coutroom today. HumCo attornies
Dam Busters at work
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Eureka thest suspect faces charges in Marin
http://www.marinij.com/marinnews/ci_11676270 Eureka theft suspect faces charges in Marin Staff Report Posted: 02/10/2009 09:50:01 PM PST A woman wanted on a warrant for auto theft in Humboldt County was arrested in a stolen vehicle in Novato, police said. Tabetha Renee Connell, 22, of Eureka was arrested Saturday afternoon after police saw her speeding in a silver…
A Brief History of Sarah Palin’s Hair
The following was submitted by friend o’ the Journal Austin Roberts in response to last week’s blog post about the juicy itinerary for the Eureka Wal-Mart’s impending opening ceremonies. Roberts has a BA in religious studies from Humboldt State University and MA in philosophy of religion from Claremont School of Theology. He is currently an…
Starting from Seed
I spent the weekend rigging extension cords, timers and power strips through the rafters in my attic so that I could get my indoor growing operation set up. And no, this was not your typical ambitious Humboldt County indoor grow. No blowers, no tanks, no generators. Just enough equipment to get some flowers going ahead…
Global Warming Win
Well, all of you sniggerers who like to put down Arcata for meddling in distant world affairs when it ought to be attending to its own potholes, here’s your comeuppance: Our favorite anklebiter city may have just helped shape future world energy development. Two settlement agreements were filed last Friday in the U.S. District Court…
Demme Goes to Dogville
Previews Opening Friday, Feb. 13, with a timely subject, is The International, directed by Tom Tykwer (Perfume). Clive Owen stars as an Interpol agent who is investigating international banking corruption and Naomi Watts is a Manhattan ADA who becomes his ally. If the trailer is accurate, he needs all the help he can get. Rated…
Giant Circus Tent
By the staid, bureaucratic standards of the Humboldt County Planning Commission, last week’s town hall-style meeting was a wild one. Granted, those standards may be lower on the drama-scale than those of, say, Arcata City Council meetings, but the idea, at least, was to hold a let-your-hair-down, loosen-your-tie brainstorming session (in the midst of more…
Love and Luck
As you are undoubtedly aware, Saturday, Feb. 14 is Valentine’s Day. It’s not totally clear why the saint’s days for a couple of obscure Christian martyrs morphed into an international celebration of romance and love — and an excuse for the marketing of candy, flowers and greeting cards — but that’s what happened. Since the…
Scenes from our Beheading
Rubbernecking the collapse of the world. The news isn’t all bad! ^^^^^ WINNER! One would be Redwood Capital Bank, which joins Umpqua Bank in the ranks of local financial institutions that have opted into the big Bush bailout bill. Last month, the government of the United States of America bought a $3.8 million stake in…
Report Cards
Editor: Ryan Burns’ story "Crossing Schools" was a pleasant and welcome surprise in your Feb. 5 paper. I have taught at Dow’s Prairie School for 24 years and was expecting to see yet another hit-and-miss effort at understanding the reconfiguration controversy. Instead, Burns presented a well-researched, in-depth survey of the complexity of the issues and…
Unfit to Print?
Editor: Marcy Burstiner correctly notes that "here in Humboldt, we all seem to complain about the quality of our local newspapers" ("Dark Ages," Feb. 5). But when she lists the newspapers whose "hard-working reporters" without whose work "we wouldn’t have a clue as to what’s happening in our small, isolated world," she omits the Redwood…
For the Birds
It’s a pleasure to see poetry, especially about birds, published in the North Coast Journal ("Foot of Del Norte Street," Feb. 5). However, the "grackles" in the poem are undoubtedly Brewer’s Blackbirds, as grackles have been sighted in Humboldt but a handful of times and "readle-cak" is a valid translation of the blackbird’s call. We…
Ripping the Rep Rap
Editor: I saw The Wild Guys last week and I must have been at a different play than your critic, William S. Kowinski ("Stage Matters," Feb. 5). First mistake is in the first sentence: Andy (Mike Halton) clearly states that he has only been in a men’s group for a few months and has never…
Snow Job
Editor: The suggestion by Hank Sims that critics of the Headwaters Fund Board "tape their mouths shut or jump into the sea in shame" ("Town Dandy," Jan. 29) is a stunning reflection of the snow job perpetrated on Sims and the general media concerning the gift of $500,000 from the Headwaters Fund to the City…
Credit gaffe
Last week’s "Media Maven" erroneously credited The New York Times with uncovering a Central Intelligence Agency-run network of secret offshore prisons for detainees taken in the "war on terror"; in fact, the Washington Post broke that story. The Journal regrets the error.
Another Outlaw
I wrote previously about Al’s Diner, the story of an outlaw cook in Rio Dell a decade ago. The term “Outlaw Cook” I stole from the eponymous book by John Thorne, in which he goes against the grain of all the “rules” of the culinary establishment, with chapter headings like “The Discovery of Slowness” and…
Second Friday Arts! Arcata
Arts! Arcata is Arcata Main Street’s monthly celebration of visual and performing arts, held at more than 30 participating locations in Arcata. Visit www.artsarcata.com for even more information about the event or call 822-4500. Adventure’s Edge 650 10th St. (44) Cecilia Ricci, local photographs Arcata Artisans 883 H St. (13) Wine served to benefit Breast…
My Vocabulary Did This To Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer
After the birth of my daughter Sophie, the publication of Jack Spicer’s My Vocabulary Did This To Me is the best thing to ever happen to me. Hyperbole? Yeah, but this is about love. New, never-before-published poems from Jack Spicer plus everything else. Unbelievable. When my friend found out about this book, he said, “It’s…
Get Guilty
It’s a little difficult to differentiate Allan Carl Newman’s solo work from his band’s output, with The New Pornographers. Newman’s influence over his Canadian band has grown, most evident in their 2007 release, Challengers. In fact, Newman has returned to Brooklyn’s Seaside Lounge Studios (with producer Phil Palazzolo and engineer/percussionist Charles Burst in tow) to…
