Newstradamus

Insider's Guide on where to run across Bigfoot?

The Times-Standard has a couple of fun projects in the works for this summer, and we’re inviting our readers to be a part of them.

The first is a special edition of “North Coast 101: An Insider’s Guide.” The concept is to gather together many of the most enjoyable things to do here behind the Redwood Curtain. The goal: Let visitors and newcomers know about the special things that are often only known to long-time residents.

The guide will include things both outdoors (most beautiful shore or mountain vistas, or where to find the best wildlife viewing, wildflowers or day hikes) and indoors (art galleries, historical sites, memorable architecture, unique window-shopping).

And how about the festivals, the ocean recreation, how to go fishing for salmon and where to find fresh Dungeness crab? Not to mention the unusual local traditions, such as Bigfoot.

We’ll be asking prominent local citizens, Times-Standard staff, and especially you, the readers, for their favorite things to do or see.

Start by e-mailing me YOUR “insider’s tip” to editor@times-standard.com, or via snail mail to Rich Somerville, Insider’s Guide, Times-Standard, PO Box 3580, Eureka, CA 95502. Tell me where it is, when it’s happening or how to find it, so we can add a photo to your tip. Better yet, send us your own photo!
The other project in which we’re inviting reader’s to participate is a special publication to help Arcata celebrate its 150th anniversary as an official city.

Founded by the Union Company in the mid-1800s to provision miners during the gold rush, Arcata has a long and colorful history, and readers can help by sharing their stories and photos of Arcata from years past.

We’ve already started to gather contributions for this special section, which will complement all the activities taking place in Arcata this sesquicentennial year.

e-mail your stories and photos to arcatas150@times-standard.com, or write to Times-Standard, Boxholder 150, PO Box 3580, Eureka, CA 95502-3580. We’ll be glad to send the photos back; just tell us where.

About 15 years ago, when I worked in Hawaii, the newspaper did a special project on the past and present of the islands’ environmental. Participants included not only experts such as historians and scientists, but schoolchildren who shared their drawings of Hawaii, and artists who contributed their works. The Insider’s Guide and Arcata’s 150th will be just as much fun and informative.

We’ll be spreading the word more widely about these projects in the weeks to come, in hopes that as many people as possible will join us in sharing the reasons why we love living here. Contributors will get full credit, of course.

Posted by Rich Somerville at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

John Darkow/Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune

A number of readers were upset at the editorial page cartoon we published after the death of Charlton Heston. Cartoonist John Darkow of the Columbia Daily Tribune in Missouri depicted a coffin with the late actor’s arm extended, holding a rifle. An undertaker is saying to a colleague, “Do you want to pry it from his cold, dead hands, or should I?”

Some folks thought the cartoon was disrespectful or even cruel. Perhaps they didn’t know — or chose to ignore — that when Heston was the president of the National Rifle Association, at every convention (and in his farewell speech), he repeated the NRA slogan, “I’ll give you my gun when you take it from my cold, dead hands.” I’m sure he knew that he was writing his own epitaph — or drawing his own memorial editorial cartoon.

A reader told me yesterday: "You took a risk in running that cartoon." My belief is that an editorial page that worries too much about not offending anyone won't be read by anyone, because it would be stultifyingly boring. Besides, getting tarred and feathered occasionally keeps an editor's life interesting.

Incidentally, my favorite Charlton Heston movie line is a tossup between "Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape" and "Soylent Green is people!"

However, the line from "Touch of Evil" — directed by Orson Welles, in which Heston played a Mexican cop, for goodness sake — seems more prescient, considering his later leadership of the NRA: “A policeman's job is only easy in a police state.”

Posted by Rich Somerville at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (232)

Larry Wright/The Detroit News

For those who believe that young people today are enriched by access to more information than all the preceding generations combined, an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education is — to quote its author — horrifying.

Ted Gup, a professor of journalism at Case Western Reserve University and the author of “Nation of Secrets: The Threat to Democracy and the American Way of Life,” for years has given a current-events quiz to his introductory journalism classes to get a sense of what they know — and don’t know.

His early fear that students would be offended by the dumbed-down quiz were unfounded: Only one in a class of 21 could name the secretary of defense. Eleven of 18 couldn’t say what country Kabul was in, despite the U.S. being at war there for years. Given a list of four countries — China, Cuba, Japan and India — no one could say which were democracies (hint: the last two).

There’s more: They thought Roe v. Wade was about slavery, that Islam was the principal religion in Latin America, that 50 justices sit on the Supreme Court, and that the A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in 1975.

“It is not easy to explain how we got into this sad state,” says Gup, but he points to the steep decline of newspaper readership, the explosion of a “citizen journalism” that often generates more heat than light, and the demotion of civics at high schools in favor of technology.

Calling for current events to once again be made an essential part of the curriculum, Gup writes, “A global economy will have little use for a country whose people are so self-absorbed that they know nothing of their own nation’s present or past, much less the world’s.”

He finishes by quoting scholar Robert M. Hutchins, who warned that “the death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference and undernourishment.”

If you agree, and are a parent, encourage your kids to follow current events in the newspaper or news Web sites that traffic in essential facts, not just celebrities and entertainment news. Talk around the dinner table about what’s going on in the world.

If you’re a teacher, integrate national and international events into your daily classwork. The Times-Standard’s Newspapers In Education program can help — call Promotions Director Heidi Todar at 441-0557.

Meanwhile, some older folks aren’t paying close enough attention to the news, either. They looked at Thursday’s headline in the Times-Standard — “39 horses seized at Miranda farm” — and then phoned to attack the people at Miranda’s Rescue.

People, you need to chill, and read before you freak. The horses were taken from a farm near the town of Miranda in southern Humboldt County. Miranda’s Rescue is an organization near Fortuna founded by Shannon Miranda that HELPS animals.

We’ll have a quiz later.

Posted by Rich Somerville at 07:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

The Eureka Rotary Club meeting at the Wharfinger Building on Monday was jumping as the Zane Middle School jazz band blew the roof off the place in a tune-up for the Redwood Coast Jazz Festival this week.

It was great to see these youngsters — some hardly bigger than their instruments — producing such powerful music. My favorite was Santana’s driving version of Tito Puente’s “Oye Como Va,” where the band sings along in Spanish, “Oye como va, mi ritmo, bueno pa’ gozar” (“Listen how it goes, my rhythm — good for partying...”).

And party they will, I’m sure, on stage at the festival, which is among Humboldt County’s top fun events.

Watching the kids from Zane took me back to when I was that age. My junior high in Des Moines was in the same building as the high school, so those of us who were musical (I was a percussionist) had the advantage of being a part of the high school’s concert and marching bands.

However, there was no jazz program at the school for those who wanted something hipper than Sousa. So one of the guys, a budding entrepreneur, created a swing band and named it for himself: Russ Allen and the Downbeats.

Till we split up after graduation, the Downbeats were pretty much booked every weekend all over central Iowa, at everything from teen sock hops to Eagles lodges. I was the backup drummer (Parker Davis, the first-stringer, was much better — like the drummer for the Zane band). If Parker couldn’t make a gig, I got called.

The high point for the Downbeats was a tour of Europe an organization called Youth for Understanding. Parker got to go, along with my best friend, Bob McCloskey, who played alto sax.

The band cut an LP (that’s a long-playing 33 1/3 vinyl record, for you young whipper-snappers). I still have it, and play it now and then when I’m in a melancholy mood. (Bob, who died way too young from cancer, has a great solo on it.)

The point of this column, however, is not nostalgia, but the jazz festival and bands like the kids from Zane.

As we were reminded at Rotary, the festival’s mission is to raise money for worthy causes, and since 1996 one of those causes is to promote and support youth musical education. But as everyone knows who has been following the state’s budget crisis, many programs at our schools may be on the chopping block — especially arts programs.

So Zane’s band and other area school jazz ensembles (Eureka high and Winship will appear this weekend) may not be around for next year’s festival. If they are, it may only be because of jazz fans (and kid fans) who kick in to keep the fun alive.

All of this is a roundabout way to encourage you to take in all or part of the Redwood Coast Jazz Festival. It starts Thursday with the Taste of Main Street food fest in Old Town and a Big Band Dance at the Adorni Center. Then on Friday through Sunday, there will be music all over town.

The festival’s Web site lists the groups of every jazz taste who are appearing, along with schedules, venues and where to get tickets — for one day or all three. Also, check out this Thursday’s Northern Lights entertainment section in the Times-Standard.

And remember, if we help make the festival a success, the festival keeps the joy of music in these kids’ lives.

Posted by Rich Somerville at 12:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Young Barack Obama and his mother, Ann, in Hawaii.

Another observation from my recent visit back to Hawaii has to do with the convergence of politics, race and social strata on the islands.

When I was visiting, there was fallout from comments made before the Hawaii caucuses by long-time U.S. Senator Dan Inouye (a Hillary Clinton supporter) about Barack Obama. The son of an African father and a caucasian mother, Obama graduated from Punahou School, a prestigious (and expensive) private high school.

Inouye said in an interview with the Honolulu Advertiser: "If you ask the people in Hawai'i what they know about Barack Obama, I think the honest answer is, 'Very little.' He went to school in Hawaii but he went to Punahou, and that was not a school for the impoverished. I don't hold it against anyone who is a Punahou grad. It's a fine school. I would say one of the finest in the United States. But to suggest that Punahou maybe set his life plan in place, I find it very interesting."

Obama replied: "Shame on Danny for trying to pull that stunt. I went to Punahou on a scholarship. I was raised by a single mom and my grandmother."

Last week, the political fallout was such that Inouye sent a letter of apology to Punahou, and planned to meet with the school's president.

The incident highlighted the various economic and social divides in a state that has the image of being a friendly melting pot of many types of people. It's a divide that goes back all the way to the arrival of the white man in the in the early 1800s — the businessmen who overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy, and the missionaries who overthrew the ancient Hawaiian religious beliefs.

Punahou was founded by missionaries in 1841 for their children, and although it soon was opened to all races and religious, it has remained a symbol of the power elite in Hawaii. It is the most prestigious of a parallel set of private schools that were created because — much like in the Deep South — public schools were perceived as offering an inferior education. Obama's mother was probably like many parents I know in Hawaii who sacrifice financially, working two jobs, to pay private school tuition.

This has created very clear class distinctions. One of the first things that "locals" (i.e. people who grew up on the islands) want to know is "Where you go school?." Inouye attended McKinley High School — not far from Punahou, and considered one of the "rougher" public schools.

And although most locals won't talk about it, one of the reasons white parents want to send their kids to a private school is that life in some public schools can be tough for a "haole" (originally the Hawaiian word for "foreigner" which has come to mean "white"). I was told that each year there is a designated "Kill a Haole Day" when white students would get roughed up if they didn't stay home or band together to watch each others' back.

Live long enough in Hawaii, and one can see how various racial groups have settled into the social strata, Whites, about 25% of the population, started out controlling the Big Five companies that ran Hawaii (such as the sugar industry) and they still are seen as having much of the economic power. As the waves of immigrants brought to work in the sugar and pineapple fields were assimilated into society, the Chinese became strong in small business, and Japanese took over labor unions and — after World War II — the Democratic machine, which is dominant. (Inouye was a war hero who lost an arm fighting in Italy with the legendary 442nd Infantry Regiment, made up of Japanese-American GIs.)

A high percentage of those in law enforcement and entertainment are of Hawaiian ancestry, and Filipinos are a force in the hospitality business.

And African Americans? They are a tiny minority in Hawaii, about 2%, mostly military. My sense from having lived there is that this group is the most discriminated against. Which makes the issue of a potential future president who had a black parent being from Hawaii a particularly sensitive one — even in a state where racial mixing is common.

All of that popped briefly out of Pandora's Box in the Inouye incident, and had to be quickly stuffed back inside. (Incidentally, Obama came out on top in the Hawaii caucuses.)

Another quick point: Right-wing radio host Michael Medved went off the other day about how appalling it was that Obama's father, the son of a Kenyan goat-herder who became a Harvard-educated economist, attended graduate school with U.S. funding at the East-West Center in Honolulu (where he and Barack's mother met), but then went back to Kenya.

What Medved doesn't understand is that the point of the East-West Center (funded by Congress with Inouye's clout) is to educate bright people from around the world and then have them return to their native countries. (Or have Americans take their skills abroad, as Obama's mother did. She met her second husband in Indonesia.)

Posted by Rich Somerville at 08:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (815)

The H1 freeway/Honolulu Advertiser

A week of rest and relaxation can do wonders for one's outlook on life, even if you don't go anywhere. As it happens, however, I spent part of last week in Hawaii, where I used to live and work. It was my first return to the islands in about five years, and I found some differences — but new things, too.

Transportation, for instance. Those who view Honolulu through tourist eyes don't realize how much a traffic nightmare the city is. More than 75 percent of Hawaii's 1.2 million people live on Oahu, Honolulu's island, and the vast majority of them live or work within the narrow corridor between the mountains and ocean on the island's leeward side.

This means that the one freeway (H1) and the few other parallel streets that pass through this corridor are jammed much of the day. I used to live in Makaha on the west end of Oahu, and thank goodness I worked off-hours, when the commute downtown was 45 minutes. If I had to drive from 6-9 a.m. or 4-7 p.m., the trip could be three times as long.

The idea of rapid mass transit along this corridor has seemed like a no-brainer for years, but politics and the oil lobby have kept it at bay for decades as the projected cost has risen. I found on my trip, however, that a $3.5 billion project is now in the planning stage.

Of course, being a typical dysfunctional government, the city has little innovative thinking going on. Instead of a monorail, magnetic levitation, or rubber tires on concrete, a panel last week recommended steel wheels on steel rails. Just what you want to hear instead of tradewinds in the palms: ear-splitting screeches, a la Chicago's Loop.

To top it off, they are building the first leg from Kapolei in West Oahu — where hardly anybody lives. The city has been trying for years to get people to move out where there used to be sugar cane fields, before that industry (along with pineapples) moved to countries with cheaper labor.

No doubt the commuter train will be bait to lure new residents. But the Honolulu Advertiser ran photos of the landscape where transit stations are supposed to be by 2012, and nothing is there but hot, barren scrubland. Good luck...

On the plus side, the new H3 freeway, which connects Pearl City (near the airport) to Kaneohe on the windward side — through the middle of the Koolau mountains — is an engineering marvel, and cuts that commute to 20 minutes or so. And the politeness of Honolulu drivers hasn't changed, despite the commuter stress. Honking is so not Hawaiian.

Driving a car in Hawaii keeps getting more expensive, though, with insurance and gas prices always among the highest in the nation. But I was surprised when a woman at the rental car office warned me about the cost per gallon: $3.43. I told her that it was $3.50 in Humboldt County, and when I got home I see that regular is now up to $3.60. Take that, Hawaii — we're number one!

Posted by Rich Somerville at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Christo Komarnitski/Cagle Cartoons

The obituaries for Bobby Fischer, who died in Reykjavik, Iceland, last week at 64, fittingly centered on the high point of his life — the 1972 world championship match in Reykjavik with Boris Spassky.

It was also the high point of chess’ popularity in America. Sure, part of the chess craze that exploded during the match was due to the sense of a Cold War showdown between a Soviet and an American (although Spassky wasn’t political and Fischer was just wacky). Some was the excitement over Fischer becoming the first (and so far only) American champion. But mostly it was a very weird, ongoing story for almost two months.

Each match was closely followed. Television offered daily analysis of each game. The newspaper where I worked published the moves so that chess-crazy readers could follow along.

I was like many people. I had learned the basic chess moves when I was a kid, but the Fischer-Spassky match sent me to the store for books on how to tell a Ruy Lopez opening from the King’s Gambit.

A colleague, Constante Casabar — a former editor in the Philippines whose family had fled the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos — turned out to be a chess whiz. After each title game, he and I would replay the moves on a chess board at the copy desk — ostensibly to make sure they were correct for publication, but really to experience the vicarious thrill of the game in faraway Iceland.

The eccentric and often insufferable Fischer drove the event’s organizers crazy. He insisted on TV coverage, then said he could hear the cameras and would only play in a room away from the audience. There were disputes over the chairs, the schedule and air quality.

The American chess bubble burst when, after winning the title, Fischer refused lucrative offers to defend it. The title was taken away, and he eventually dropped into a weird, rootless existence.

He would surface now and then to spout anti-Semitic views (although he was at least half-Jewish) and to denounce America. He called the 9/11 attacks “wonderful news.” He was detained nine months in a Japanese prison in a passport dispute.

Fischer gave up his U.S. citizenship and lived in self-imposed exile in Japan, Budapest, Switzerland, the Philippines and finally Iceland, where he died of kidney failure. It was a sad end for the former boy genius, who was said to have an IQ of more than 180.

I still have those chess books. I can’t remember the last time I played a game, though.

Posted by Rich Somerville at 05:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Arcata last week kicked off its year-long celebration marking the 150th anniversary of the city, and I’m sure it will be a wonderful party, just as Eureka had a good time a couple of years ago marking its 150th.

But for the record, Arcata is really celebrating the 150th year since the politicians in Sacramento officially recognized the city at the north end of Humboldt Bay. Of course, Arcata (like Eureka and many of the oldest cities in northern California) was founded in 1850 during the gold rush, and had a whole passel of exciting, degenerate history before they were officially incorporated.

The truly smart “miners” in 1850 were those who mined the pockets of those rushing to the Trinity gold fields. The Union Company laid claim to what is now Arcata (first named Union), and the Mendocino Exploring Company grabbed Eureka. Then commenced a string of corrupt dealings that first put the county seat in Union (through a rigged election), then shifted it to Eureka in 1856 (through back-room political dealings).

Interestingly, Union — which initially was the most prosperous community because of its closer proximity to the gold fields, until Eureka became a timber capital — was incorporated in 1854 when it became the county seat. So going by that benchmark, its 150th anniversary should have been in 2004, two years before Eureka’s.

However, the state supreme court ruled that while Union’s voters had OK’d incorporation, the Legislature had not, and the charter was dissolved. That’s why the city (given the Indian name Arcata in 1860) celebrates its “official” anniversary this year.

No wonder the two towns have been rivals for more than 150 years.

This era is described in a fascinating North Coast Journal article by Jerry Rohde published during Eureka's sesquicentennial in 2006. Another tidbit I learned: One of the losing candidates for the state Assembly seat from Humboldt — a seat used to finagle the county seat for Eureka — was E. D. Coleman, editor of the Humboldt Times, predecessor of the Times-Standard. He was a pro-slavery Democrat and a resident of Union.

It would be fun if the celebration could include some recognition that the earliest settlers in those lawless days included more than a fair share of drunks, murderers, thieves, ladies of ill repute, thugs, racists, corrupt businessmen and politicians for sale. But I’m sure the concerts, art shows and festivals will be fun, too.

Posted by Rich Somerville at 08:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A followup to the previous posting about "The Vagina Monologues":

A voicemail was left for me on Saturday, complaining about having to read the word "vagina" in the newspaper. It was a very, very angry (and of course anonymous) voicemail, in which the caller invited me to "stick your vaginas up your .. . ." — well, it prompted a very strange visual image. That aside, the extent of his rage gave me a small but significant insight into some of the issues Eve Ensler refers to in her play.

No doubt that "The Vagina Monologues" has its detractors. Not only social conservatives but some femnists have called it anti-male, and it's certainly an in-your-face bit of theater that is not for the faint of heart. There obviously are many people out there who would not agree that "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me."

Posted by Rich Somerville at 03:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Eve Ensler

The current fuss over “The Vagina Monologues” being too much for the Arkley Center to handle leads to musings about how the way we regard language in the media versus at a personal level. Remember the euphemisms our parents used about bodily functions and parts: “Wee-wee,” “No. 1 and No. 2", "down there" and the like? My ex-wife once told me that when she was a little girl and needed to have a bowel movement, the protocol was to tell her mother that “Dookie is knocking on the door.”

But even euphemistically, in polite company, I don’t recall a substitute word for vagina, although I’m sure girls had one they used among themselves in private (I know boys did). One just didn't go there. Today, although the words vagina and penis can be heard on television sitcoms every week, not just on "Saturday Night Live," they’re still too icky for some people — at least on a marquee, as letters to the editor in the Times-Standard about the “V-word” indicate.

Note the current vogue for “vajayjay,” the euphemism of choice on “Oprah” or celebrity shows featuring Britney’s latest clothing indiscretion. A New York Times story said the popularity of “vajayjay” reignites the argument forcefully made by Eve Ensler over a decade ago when she created “The Vagina Monologues”: “’What we don’t say becomes a secret, and secrets often create shame and fear and myths.’ Vagina, her widely performed series of monologues declared, is too often an ‘invisible word,’ one ‘that stirs up anxiety, awkwardness, contempt and disgust.’”

I suspect it is this same societal disgust that sustains the tradition in the news media of keeping names of rape victims secret. Rather than a crime of violence, rape is seen as an act of sex in which the victim was somehow a participant, although unwillingly, thus bringing down society's shame upon her. (Elsewhere in the world, this is taken to extremes, as in the recent Saudi Arabia case where the court sentenced a 19-year-old victim of a gang rape to 200 lashes and six months in prison. Her crime: Being in public with a man not related to her before the two were noticed by several men who kidnapped and raped both of them.)

Former Des Moines Register editor Geneva Overholser has observed: “Most people feel that this (secrecy about rape victims) is the humane thing to do. I wonder if it has not prolonged the stigma, and fed the underreporting. Certainly, in the past dozen years, we have made progress in reporting on, and understanding, the crime of rape. I am certain that this is in large part due to the courage of women who were willing to come forward and tell their stories.”

Posted by Rich Somerville at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)