Re: “The Eureka Wal-Mart Has Been Blessed”

Thanks to the plethora of lawsuits, no other big box has as much public-record about its misdeeds.

Academic research, books, articles, video documentaries, even the ONLY local economic research performed by Bay Area Economics, warn repeatedly that communities cannot sustain poverty-wage saturation.

But, most people don't vote, so a gaggle of realtors, developers, financiers, property managers and speculators can handpick political candidates to ignore the research.

Eureka City Council candidate Jeff Leonard ran on a platform of limiting the size of big boxes...he lost much of the development community support and barely won his first term. After he reneged on his promise, developers gave him the nod and he won his second term. Barely.

Re: “Ferry or Bridge?”

Raise taxes over my dead body!

It's the greater public's responsibility to provide for the rural lifestyle.

We're a national treasure.

Re: “Beg to Differ”

Until there's a jobs/training/placement program like we used to have (CETA, among others) no one has the right to condemn the human fallout from a generation of public-divestment. Bigots.

Re: “Kids Today”

Our youths are the logical product of a nation that's been divesting in its human resources for 30 years. What were you expecting? Despite the worst unemployment since the Great Depression, the highest income disparity since the Gilded Age, the 6th largest extinction event in Earth's history, etc, etc, nearly every media source in America drums identical propaganda of "a world of plenty for the deserving". The ubiquitous image of healthy, giddy white youths in exotic places wearing costly attire, driving expensive vehicles with no means of support! Most Hollywood movies are about the same! Then, they enter a public university with locked-gate communities of the same, lured by the university's irrational, irrelevant and costly focus on sports, recreation, leisure activities and entertainment. People are not born apathetic and irresponsible.
"Work hard kids" and you too can become this world's useless welfare mothers from Hell that just looted the Treasury in bailouts, you too can enjoy 750 foreign U.S. military bases protecting your access to other nation's child-labor and natural resources, you'll have U.S. courts to enforcing contracts, AND you won't have to pay one dime in corporate taxes! Our youths are not stupid! To keep us "positive" media redoubles efforts to ignore reality and weave further fantasies of "self-made" successes. None are more ironic than Fritze! His family's prosperity, and Fritze's critical support, is derived from one of the booming predator industries thriving on our nation's economic decline, (and the young families who can barely afford to retain their last belongings in storage). An "enterprising youth" in Hollywood even made a reality game-show of storage units in default...the highest bidder who gets the most value wins....while TV voyeurs join contestants in pouring through people's last pathetic treasures. Expecting our kids to stay positive amid unparalleled injustice is bit much to ask. Even foreign businesses are loath to open shop in the only industrialized nation without universal health care, free public universities and sound infrastructure.

Re: “Dedicated Diners 2”

So much additional stress and needless suffering is being imposed on folks who are already ill, due to the extreme financial hardship their illness presents; job loss, foreclosure, bankruptcy, divorce, and the addictions and violence that too often accompany poverty. Public-financed conference buildings like HSU's boat-house remain empty, begging for our own local docs to organize our own training seminars...the technology is already here. Or, maybe we can invite Mexican doctors to offer services for the 90% of health problems that are routine. Why should anyone be forced into debt for years for a broken arm?

Re: “Drag Demeaning”

Nearly every adult white male on TV sit-com's is depicted as a blithering idiot, their children are often portrayed as the adults. Gordon has a huge task ahead.

Re: “Dedicated Diners”

Ask any fine-dining establishment owner, or one of their employees, (off the record) and you will learn just how wonderful it is that the pharmaceutical industry generously wines and dines local docs. Ask a waiter for a pen....50-50 chance it's a drug soon to be featured on late-night TV by a class-action attorney.