When Arcata voters cast their ballots to fill two open seats on the city council in the November election, they probably weren’t thinking about making history — again. Long known for being on the cutting edge of progressive politics — the college town made national headlines back in 1996 after seating the country’s first Green […]
history
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Hesiod: Farmer, Poet, Misogynist
“[Hesiod’s] personality behind the poems is unsuited to the kind of ‘aristocratic withdrawal’ typical of a rhapsode but is instead argumentative, suspicious, ironically humorous, frugal, fond of proverbs, wary of women.” — The Oxford History of the Classical World Misogyny — hatred of or contempt for women — goes back a long way, at least […]
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Josiah Gregg: PrairieYears
“[In 1839] An unconquerable propensity to return to prairie life inclined me to embark in a fresh enterprise.” Commerce of the Prairies, Josiah Gregg, published in 1844 A large brass plaque outside Eureka City Hall celebrates the Josiah Gregg overland expedition, which “discovered” Humboldt Bay in late December of 1849. Two months later, 43-year-old Gregg […]
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Voices from the Past
“Oh how much I want you at my birthday party. You’ll make the day so much more fun. I do hope you can make it.” — Letter from Claudia Severa to her sister Sulicia Lepidina, wife of Flavius Cerialis, prefect of a cohort stationed at Vindolanda fort, circa A.D. 100. This birthday invitation, written on […]
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The Golden Horde
A virgin carrying a gold nugget on her head could walk unmolested from one end of the empire to another.” — Persian historian Ata-Malik Juvayni (1226-1283) Within 50 years of his death in 1227, the Mongol Empire founded by Genghis Khan grew into a vast, contiguous empire under his four eldest sons, each of whom […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Oberon Grill’s Cameo on Most Terrifying
If you haven’t heard, Oberon Grill, or at least the storied building and former brothel in which it’s housed, is said to be all kinds of haunted. Its tales of turning chandeliers and a woman in Victorian dress appearing are solid goosebump material and highlights of the Old Town Haunted History Ghost Tour. And if […]
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Charon’s Obol and Other Coins
“My luggage is but a flask, a wallet, my old cloak and the obol that pays the passage of the departed.” — Leonidas of Tarentum, third century B.C. Today, we take coins for granted. But there was a time when being able to trade a small disc of metal for a sheep, a bushel of […]
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Whence ‘Britain’?
“All the Britons dye themselves with woad which produces a blue color, and makes their appearance in battle more terrible.” — Julius Caesar, De Bello Gallico The etymologies of the names of most countries are mostly non-controversial. “America” derives from the Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512), who made two trips to the so-called New World, […]
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Sound Bites
Last time, I discussed Thomas Edison and Emile Berliner, the two main protagonists in early attempts to reproduce sound. Edison invented a machine that could both record and play back sound — his earliest recording of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” on a tinfoil-wrapped cylinder dates to 1877. Edison’s phonograph had limited application, mostly as […]
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History and Mystery
Zooming from London, W.E. Roberts said of his new novel The Rivers, which is set in Humboldt County, “The book was written because I’m an actor, because I like a good story and I thought there was a story there,” Roberts explained, leaning forward into the screen. “I’m really an actor who came to writing […]
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The 200th Victim
In 1918 my dad, part of the U. S. Army’s First Division, was on a troop ship bound for France. The soldiers on board slept in bunk beds. My dad had a lower bunk, and each morning he would kick the bunk above him to wake up the soldier sleeping there. One morning he kicked […]
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North Coast Night Lights: Vacancy at 4th & E Streets, Eureka
For years, driving by, I would see her lonely figure sitting on the bench. I never stopped, but in time I grew used to her presence there and I would look to touch base visually when I passed. Huddled inward and completely covered, she had erected a shell between herself and the outside world, perhaps […]