View From The Left Coast

A couple of years ago a friend who is an artist and writer came out with a book about Pacific Lumber and what Maxxam had done to Humboldt County. The book was well written and sold briskly, but it occurred to me that a person who had her talent as an artist, the power to bring something positive and uplifting to all people, would be better off putting that creative ability to work than writing something political. Partly it’s supply and demand: there are a lot more Bill O’Reillys than Alan Sanborns. Partly it was because even I can write political things, and have no artistic ability, so making art seems to have more value.

Continue reading "So Long and Thanks for all the Fish" »

Posted by Walt Frazer at 05:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I’ve long suspected that the only way anything in American politics is going to change, REALLY change, is when a whole lot of people start getting hungry. Not when they have to give up their 4 X 4’s, big screen TV’s, botox injections or Viagra prescriptions, but when a lot of them start missing meals. And it's starting to look like famine will get here a lot sooner than those Al Qaida guys George says are going to follow our troops home.

Continue reading "Circling the Drain" »

Posted by Walt Frazer at 08:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

In reading about ritual sacrifices made by the Maya and Aztecs in Latin America in pre-columbian days, I was struck by the thought that these deaths made to ensure the gods sent good hunting, bountiful harvests and victory in battle were really more about political theater than placating bloodthirsty deities. In murdering virgins or children, those who actually put them to death became the demons they were ostensibly seeking to keep at bay. We now know, of course, that all those deaths really had nothing to do with whether the rains came on time, the birds and deer were more plentiful, or the foes easier to vanquish.

Don’t we?

Continue reading "Our Terminal Classic period" »

Posted by Walt Frazer at 09:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Telemarketing (home invasion by telephone) is a hot-button issue with me. I pay for the phone to allow me to connect to my friends and family and people with whom I choose to do business. It’s mine. The idea that somebody out there thinks they can invade my life anytime they want (usually when I’m eating dinner) to try to separate me from my money, using an instrument I paid for, is outrageous.

Continue reading "Running with the Dogs" »

Posted by Walt Frazer at 07:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The struggle over the train tracks in Humboldt County really is over. I drive past the old engines in Eureka almost every day, and it’s pretty clear that, like everything else made of metal that’s left out in the rain for ten years, they’re past saving. The same is true of the trestles, the track, and any other rolling stock that doesn’t have trees growing through them. Few people would love to have trains running here more than me, but it’s pretty obvious they’re toast.

Continue reading "Forget the trains" »

Posted by Walt Frazer at 04:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The article in the Times-Standard, accompanied by a nice “grip and grin” photo, credited the owners of the Bear River Casino in Loleta with a $17,000 donation to the Salvation Army. But the thanks really should go to the locals who left many times that with the casino.

Continue reading "Words of the Profits" »

Posted by Walt Frazer at 08:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

It was damage control time at Baywood these past two weeks after some 900 people were exposed to Norwalk virus there, over five days and a passel of gatherings of movers and shakers in HumCo. While the TS was making nice, it did seem odd to hear Baywood management trying to blame the customers for bringing this dread disease to them. As though that could happen for five days and a dozen or so banquets.

Continue reading "Ho Ho Hurl" »

Posted by Walt Frazer at 05:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

This morning I was a little shocked at myself: I read a Bill O’Reilly column. . .and agreed with it. Kind of.

Continue reading "Strange Bedfellows" »

Posted by Walt Frazer at 12:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Every now and again I run into a news story about a poll that makes me wonder if I’m living on another planet, or if my countrymen are.

Continue reading "One Nation, Under Television" »

Posted by Walt Frazer at 03:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Few things are guaranteed to get my goat more than telemarketing. Yes, I know you can get on the no-call list, and I have. Now I only get calls from all those who bought loopholes in the law.

How is it OK for somebody I don’t know and don’t want to hear from to use an instrument I pay for (the phone) to disturb me in the middle of dinner to try to trick me into giving them money? The woman who called last night while we were preparing dinner was typical: the phone rings, you pick up and say hello, there’s that pause (uh oh), and starts with some variant of “Hello, how are you this evening?” They don’t identify themselves, so you’re paying attention trying to figure out who is disturbing your Sunday evening. The game is afoot, Watson! You’re trying to identify them, and they’re trying to keep you guessing long enough to stumble onto your magic button that makes you do what they want you to do. “This is not a sales call.” “I represent a non-profit charity.” “We’re collecting money for helpless, orphaned puppies and kittens.” “We’re conducting a survey (and want you to tell us how to fix the world).”

Continue reading "Excuse Me, I'm Eating" »

Posted by Walt Frazer at 03:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What is left behind

The death of a friend recently and the memorial service that followed reminded me of other lost friends and the vacuum left by their absence. I don’t know for sure what my thinking will be when I come to the end of the line, but as close as I’ve come a couple of times, it didn’t seem to make that much difference. But being the one left behind is another thing altogether. I’ve always thought the wakes, memorials or funerals are less about the one who’s dead than the people who are still alive. The living need comforting, and we come together to remind ourselves we are not alone. We go about our lives thinking of those around us as being touchstones in our lives: something that will always be there to secure our identity and existence. So how much diminished are we by losing them?

Continue reading "What is Left Behind" »

Posted by Walt Frazer at 09:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Fight fiercely, Harvard,
Fight, fight, fight!
Demonstrate to them our skill!
Howbeit they possess the might,
Nonetheless, we have the will!. . .

Hurl that spheroid down the field,
And fight, fight, fight!
--Dr. Thomas Lehrer, Mathematician

The recent story of HSU’s plans to raise student fees by $250 per semester didn’t surprise me, since I knew most universities are hurting for money these days. What did amaze me, though, was the statement that four fifths of the money was to fund the athletic program. And the fact HSU spends $2.2 million a year on it. This at an institution that budgeted zero dollars for new library books for the past several years, and frittered away $250,000 on pretty “gates” designed to let people who went there know where they were.

Continue reading "Fight Fiercly" »

Posted by Walt Frazer at 03:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Boy was I relieved the other day to read the Pope isn’t going to allow divorced Catholics to receive communion. Since divorce is clearly an abomination in the eyes of the Lord, and Catholics who profane marriage this way will surely burn for eternity, that was the only decision the Pontiff could make. On the other hand, his Holiness knows God has a very different view of priests who molest children: when the heathen law enforcement agencies threaten these holy men with jail, the Church empties its coffers to provide the best legal help available. Doesn’t it say, right there in the Bible, that priests who molest children deserve the protection, the indulgence of the Church? All good Catholics know this, and accept the fact that the money they give to the Church will be spent doing God’s work. Certain godless heathen may question the priorities of the Holy See in defending molesters and trashing divorcees, but that’s only because they are weak in the faith.

Continue reading "Priorities" »

Posted by Walt Frazer at 02:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Among the gleaming jewels of popular culture that I’ll never be able to understand is the deification of movie stars. It’s one thing to worship a product of plastic surgery and ad hype as an object of fantasy. For most of us, we can deal with Walter Mitty-ish dreams, and still function in the real world. It’s another thing altogether when reality and fantasy become mixed up so we no longer can tell where the fantasy leaves off and the reality begins.

Continue reading "Hollywood vs. Holyrood" »

Posted by Walt Frazer at 05:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The recent doping scandal involving cyclist Floyd Landis is yet another example of how big money corrupts everything and everyone it touches. With millions of dollars at stake, for Landis and his sponsors, winning isn’t everything, it’s the ONLY thing. It doesn’t matter how many tests prove he took synthetic testosterone to help him win the Tour De France, he says he’s innocent, he’s an American hero, and that settles it. After a thousand examples of sports “heroes�? being caught taking performance-enhancing drugs, how can anyone really think professional sports (including the Olympics and “amateur�? athletics) are any cleaner than our filthy political system?

Continue reading "Say It Ain't So, Joe" »

Posted by Walt Frazer at 03:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I’ve always been inclined to do business locally, wherever possible. I do this in part because over the years my family and I have had small businesses always going up against big companies and being squashed. We haven’t been alone in this experience. . .for a variety of reasons more and more local businesses are going the way of the dodo.

Continue reading " Shop Globally. . .Or Not" »

Posted by Walt Frazer at 12:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I spent some of a Saturday afternoon at the cemetery, pulling weeds and cleaning up the graves of the people with whom I spent the first 18 years of my life. The baby tears were growing over the plaques, the deer had been trimming the fuchsia, and the forget-me-nots were getting leggy.

Continue reading "I'll Be Seeing You" »

Posted by Walt Frazer at 05:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)