Passing the Virtual Hat
Kickstarter and other crowd funding platforms scratch Humboldt’s creative itch
Cover Stories
Passing the Virtual Hat
Singer/guitar-plucker Sam Whitlach ended a set at the Jambalaya earlier this year in classic songwriter fashion, with a little pitch. If you like his songs, take some home on his CD. The album he recorded as A Man Named Samuel is full of good songs, but it has little to do with the music he’s…
A Guide to Crowd Funding
Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of crowd funding websites help people drum up financial support for everything from creative projects and social causes to medical bills and disaster relief. Based on volume of web traffic, Kickstarter and Indiegogo are the top two, followed by GoFundMe, according to the Internet ranking site Alexa. All are online payment…
Two More School Districts Facing Debt Decisions
Update Friday Dec. 7: Make that at least three school districts getting ready to issue new bonds with so-far-unknown structures. The McKinleyville Press blog reports today that the Northern Humboldt Union School District is scheduled to vote Tuesday night on issuing more bonds. (Voters approved that borrowing in a 2010 election. The two districts mentioned…
If You’ve Never Seen a Live Mudslide… (VIDEO)
… here’s some video taken a few days ago of just such a thing creeping across Highway 101 about three miles south of Crescent City — with people scurrying out of the way of falling trees and everything! (No one was hurt. Chill.) Also, we nominate the video’s creator for “Most Beavis-like Laugh of 2012.”…
CR to Cut 39 Positions in Reorganization Plan
Press release from College of the Redwoods: In a move made to address College of the Redwoods’ fiscal solvency and accreditation standards, the CR Board of Trustees on Tuesday, Dec. 4 voted unanimously to eliminate 39 staff and management positions and approved a reorganization plan that also removes two senior-level administrative positions, which will be discontinued…
We Are Wet
And getting wetter. We got a little break Monday after a half week’s worth of rain flooded many local waterways, leading to road closures, landslides, power outages and Humboldtians questioning how horrible SoCal really is. Now the T-S reports HumCo could have as much as another four inches of rain in store tonight and tomorrow.…
Community Invited to Memorial Service for Local Navy SEAL Killed in Afghanistan
Press release: The life of Kevin Ebbert, an Arcata High Graduate, husband of Ursula Jansson Ebbert, son of Charlie Jordan, brother of Samantha Martinez, Amy Funk and Kate Renner, and Navy SEAL, killed in action in Afghanistan on Saturday Nov. 24, 2012, will be honored Sunday, Dec. 9 from 12 p.m.-2 p.m. in the Humboldt…
Memorial for Family Swept into Sea
A memorial is planned for 3 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 9 at Arcata High School for 16-year-old Gregory “Geddie” Kuljian, his father Howard Kuljian and his mother Mary Elena Scott, the Times-Standard reported over the weekend. The family was caught up in heavy surf, which pulled first their dog, then Gregory, and then his parents…
Eureka Hires New City Manager
The city of Eureka announced today that is has hired William T. Panos, former West Sacramento director of public works, to be its next city manager, replacing David Tyson, who is retiring at the end of the year. According to the Bill Panos page on brandyourself.com, his previous experience includes working as an engineer at…
They’ve ‘Found It’
If, like me, you happen to be blessed to count a few smart people as your amigos — solid four, I reckon — you’ve undoubtedly heard over and again that TED talks are the actual reason the Internet was invented. The slick, succinct talks featuring camera-friendly experts highlighting “ideas worth sharing” are a well of…
Treasuring Table Bluff
Editor: There are local folks who take their visitors to Fern Canyon or Trinidad, but I usually take them to Table Bluff first when the weather cooperates. Great ocean and bay views including parts of the refuge, Eel River delta and beyond to the Wildcat range. On Thanksgiving Day, one brave soul jumped off (lifted…
Presidential Retreats: Where the Presidents Went and Why They Went There
Presidential Retreats, written by Peter Hannaford, is an entertaining and easy read which highlights the life and achievements of each U.S. president, how and why he chose to retreat from Washington, where he went and what the reader would see on a visit. During the nation’s first century presidents retreated to their homes. Thomas…
Weed: Where We’re At
We had our shot. In 2010, California voters had a historic chance to regulate, control and tax marijuana and put our state on the fast track to weedtopia. Oh, man, especially for us here in HumCo, wouldn’t that have been something? We could have cashed in on that Humboldt brand and secured the future of…
On the Wild Frontier
Back in the mid-1980s, a couple of Georgia boys, Chris Robinson and his younger brother Rich, started a high school rock band called Mr. Crowe’s Garden. By the end of the decade they’d changed that name to The Black Crowes and hit the big time playing solid southern-tinged blues rock and winning fans in the…
Burning Bright
Reviews LIFE OF PI. It’s been years since I read Yann Martel’s 2001 novel, but I remember generally enjoying it, with a few reservations. And that’s more or less how I feel about director Ang Lee and writer David Magee’s adaptation. It’s bright and imaginative but loses points for its inappropriately conventional structure. The…
Protected Pot
Editor: I’m an Oregon landlord visiting and came upon your article, “A Home, Lost” (Nov. 22). It struck me as missing a fairly important element. I re-read it replacing “marijuana grow” with “Down Syndrome,” then “Mexican” and finally “Catholic.” Ah, now the article seemed more complete, although it does paint Ms. Cline as the problem…
Hemp for Artists!
Editor: As Barry Evans pointed out in Field Notes (“Grimm’s Law: The Phoenician Connection,” Nov. 15), the plant called cannabis in Latin, following the k to h sound-shift of Grimm’s Law, is known to us as hemp in English. There is another more recent English cognate of cannabis: that is canvas, coming through Norman-French into…
Anything Worth Doing — Sundog Book Publishing
It’s tough to write a book about river rafting. Rivers are both the setting for and main character in any rafting trip, and guides often ascribe both human and supernatural aspects to the rivers they run. Guides themselves can be incredible storytellers, but those stories don’t necessarily translate from around the campfire to the page.…
Eureka Xmas List
Eureka Xmas List
Beyond Zip Codes
When I was a kid, I used to write my address in full, starting with the name of our house, “Trannon” (an old British conceit is to give one’s house — be it ever so humble — a name), street, town, etc. etc., ending with “…Solar System, Milky Way, Universe.” Let’s do the same in…
Bar from Afar
Used to be when the Humboldt County Drug Task Force sought legal advice before executing a search warrant, it called a local 707 number to the District Attorney’s Office. Now task force members mostly dial a long distance number, and the county legal expert is 750 miles away, working remotely near Palm Springs. The…
Harvest Monarch
Autumn beguiles us in the manner of a softly rising romantic love, a royal prince-and-princess ardor that is unaware and unself-conscious, yet voluptuous with desire — ambrosial fruit eager for a French kiss. Our senses are bewitched, not only by autumn’s alluring raiment, but also by our childhood nostalgia for…
‘Full of Life, Full of Art’
What was once Lee’s Jewelers at 526 Fifth St. in Eureka has been transformed. In place of jewelry cases and browsing customers is Eureka Studio Arts, a teaching studio/exhibition space co-founded by local artists Micki Flatmo and Linda Mitchell. They hope it will become a place where established artists and students of all ages can…
May I See What You Have in Your Lunchbox?
Why cook? Cooking is a satisfying experience. Planning your meals and budgeting your time makes it even more so… Using whole, nutritious foods and cooking from scratch will cost less and be healthier for you and your family. — from LunchBox Envy I did not learn to cook until I was an adult. My mother…
