Humboldtian

The Arcata City Council made some noise a few years back when it voted to send a letter asking that Congress introduce articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. But for the town of Brattleboro, VT, impeachment doesn’t go far enough. The Select Board, the town’s equivalent of a city council, is seeking authority to have Bush or Cheney arrested if either ever sets foot inside Brattleboro.

If voters approve the item in March, Brattleboro’s town attorney will be directed to draft indictments of Bush and Cheney for crimes against the Constitution and the police will be instructed to arrest Bush or Cheney if either are ever spotted in Brattleboro, if they have not been impeached. Organizers of this effort in Brattleboro charge that Bush and Cheney committed perjury when the administration lied about the need to go to war in Iraq, espionage for the administration’s domestic spying program and obstruction of justice for the mass firing of U.S. attorneys around the country for political reasons.

The indictments would be published for other jurisdictions to consider. Reportedly Louisville, KY and a Massachusetts town in the Berkshires, Montague, also have movements pushing for similar action against Bush and Cheney.

While San Franciscans are noting that Bush has failed to visit their city during his presidency, including a trip to the Bay Area just a few days ago, the president has not set a foot in Vermont since taking office in 2001, the only state he hasn’t visited during his tenure.

Posted by Andy Bird at 04:58 PM | Permalink

Arcatan Matt McGuffin and his roommate spotted what they believe was a UFO around the new year in the night sky above Arcata, according to a Times-Standard letter to the editor bearing McGuffin’s name. The UFO, a “red orb,” as McGuffin describes it, was moving slowly without sound from east to west. Suddenly it changed direction and shot out of sight “faster than I’ve ever seen anything fly, still no sound.” What appeared to be a military aircraft followed the UFO. McGuffin says he served time at the Marine Corps’ air station in Yuma, and knows a little about aircraft.

Before you chalk up McGuffin’s affirmation to a phantasm induced by Arcata’s favorite leisure-time pursuit, consider Texas. If you don’t know, this month a large number of Texans have reported similar UFO sightings. The most large-scale sighting occurred in Stephenville, in the heart of Texas, where dozens of townfolk watched in awe as a UFO “larger than a Wal-Mart,” said one veteran pilot, hovered in the night sky, totally silent, before being chased off by military jets, which were badly out-maneuvered.

A number of United Airlines employees sighted a similar UFO at O’Hare airport in Chicago last year.

McGuffin says in the letter that his sighting in Arcata came before the Texas sightings and decided to go public with what he saw only after he read the news stories coming out of the Lone Star state, hoping someone else in Humboldt got a gander at his UFO.

This blogger has always been fascinated by UFOs and stories of alien abductions. When I was in late teens and early 20s, I devoured almost all the literature ever written about the subject. If you’ve never read books or watched movies about reputedly true stories involving unexplained phenomenon, here a few suggestions:

Whitley Striber, a moderately well-known writer, wrote a book about his own abduction experiences, titled “Communion,” about 20 years ago. It was later made into a movie starring Christopher Walken.

By far the most terrifying book/movie I have ever read/watched about a UFO/abduction is “Fire in the Sky,” the supposedly true story of Travis Walton, an Arizona logger who was allegedly abducted by aliens in the White Mountains in 1975. The final 10 or 15 minutes of 1993 movie starring D.B. Sweeney creeped me out like nothing else I’ve ever witnessed.

The most well-known UFO incident is probably the alleged crash of a flying saucer in Roswell, NM in 1947. Supposedly, the federal government recovered the craft and the bodies of the aliens on board, and allegedly have been storing the remains at Area 51 in Nevada ever since. At least that was the premise of the 1996 science fiction thriller "Independence Day."

Perhaps the most notorious, because it was the first widely reported, alleged alien abduction was the Betty and Barney Hill incident in 1961, which took place in the mountains of New Hampshire while driving on a lonely highway late at night.

UFO sightings in the United States and around the world suddenly spiked exponentially during the mid-1940s when the world was at war. Shortly after the war, in December 1945, five U.S. Navy Avenger torpedo bombers disappeared during a training maneuver while flying over the notorious “Bermuda Triangle” in the Caribbean. Although no UFO sighting was reported during this incident, many believed the five planes and their pilots were abducted. In Steven Spielberg’s 1977 blockbuster, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” the five pilots walk off the giant flying saucer that lands behind Devil’s Tower in Wyoming.

Sightings remained common throughout the 1950s, leading to a spate of flying saucer movies during that decade. But for a few decades now it seems that UFO sightings have been nearly dormant. I began to wonder if all the old sightings/reported abductions were visual mirages/delusions/hoaxes, which the U.S. military/government has always maintained. But with this recent spate of sightings, especially those in Texas, I am beginning to believe again.

McGuffin, the Arcatan, said he hopes his letter will bring forward other locals who might have spotted his UFO. If you know anybody else who claims to have spotted a UFO recently, please direct them to this blog.

Posted by Andy Bird at 04:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Know how you can stop telemarketers from bugging you by registering your telephone number with the national Do Not Call Registry? One of the best pieces of Congressional legislation in recent memory.

Now a state legislator in Maryland wants to create such a registry for newspapers.

I think it's a great idea and California should do the same. Wouldn't it be loverly if you all you had to do is go online, type in your address, and kazaam! no more Eureka Reporters? No more Tri-City Weeklies? Such a registry would likely expedite the death of both publications, but really, who would miss them?

The newspaper industry back there in the East is lobbying against the proposed law. It argues that a "don't deliver' registry is unnecessary, because those who don't want their driveways littered with free dead-tree publications can just call the publication and delivery will cease. Yeah right. We've seen how well that has worked with the Reporter and the Tri-City.

The First Amendment/free speech argument is also being floated. If a citizen makes the effort to stop delivery of a publication she or he does not want, whose free speech rights are being violated? Having spent 20 years in journalism as a tenacious advocate for the First Amendment, I don't buy that argument at all. The telemarketers' lobby tried to make the same argument, and it was rejected.

Under such a law, a publication could pay sizeable fines if it delivers to addresses on the registry. I love the idea of Rob Arkley or Dean Singleton paying fines for littering the streets of Humboldt County with the Reporter and Tri-City. If you don't know, Arkley, owner of Security National, a locally based international company and major player in the sup-prime loan industry, owns the Eureka Reporter, and Singleton is the CEO of the parent company, Media News Group, that publishes the Times-Standard and the Tri-City.

A few years ago, the Arcata City Council considered an anti-litter ordinance, aimed at curtailing the Tri-City. This was before the the Reporter started home delivery, I believe. To the best of my recollection, the ordinance failed to get enough votes on the Council, after heavy pressure from the Times-Standard.

The Tri-City, like other weekly shoppers, is probably headed for extinction soon anyway, Craig's List playing the role of Grim Reaper. I haven't paid for a classified ad in a couple of years. I get tremendous and instant response from Craig's List, even when advertising garage sales, which I put on annually in the spring.

I plan to monitor this piece of legislation as it makes its way through Maryland legislature.

Posted by Andy Bird at 02:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Hillary’s husband’s recent visit to Eureka has stirred up a local blogosphere argument about “press passes:” Who gets them and who issues them.

First, let’s clear up some misinformation:

1. Journalists aren’t licensed. When a reporter gets a press pass from a law enforcement agency, that doesn’t mean the government has somehow “credentialed” that person as a legit journalist. This doesn’t exist in our society, for obvious good reasons. All it means is that the agency has identified that person as someone who works for a media organization.

2. The Times-Standard didn't exactly print up fake press passes to get their people into the building at Redwood Acres last week. What the Times-Standard did is what all daily newspapers do. They made their own in-house ID cards that identify the T-S reporters and photogs who work in the newsroom as their employees. Because no local law-enforcement agency is willing to issue press passes now, it makes even more sense for the T-S to do this for its staff.

Press passes exist for the purpose of access and identification. Journalists need to access secure government buildings, crime scenes, etc. A press pass tells the law enforcement on the scene that the journalist bearing the pass has been identified and for the most cleared as a security risk. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult for local journalists to obtain press passes. I believe this is because law enforcement agencies are wary of being responsible for this since 9.11.2001.

The California Highway Patrol used to issue press passes to local journalists through their local field offices in each county. However, the CHP stopped this in 2004 when Mike Brown succeeded “Spike" Helmick as CHP commissioner. I always got my press passes from the local CHP office. However when I moved here in 2003 to work for the Times-Standard as a reporter, we got our press passes from the Sheriff’s Department, rather than CHP, which did not issue them here. But the Sheriff’s Department has since stopped issuing press passes, leaving local journalists no place to go for law-enforcement press passes.

The CHP is the state’s police force and does issue press passes to select journalists who cover state government in Sacramento. But you have to apply to the Gov.’s office to get one. This information comes from my brother, who works at the Capitol, and his wife, who is a Sacramento journalist.

In my experience the CHP press pass is the best. And it’s unfortunate that Brown, the CHP commissioner, won’t allow local offices to ID and issue passes to local media. The CHP press pass is the only pass that would get me past the FBI and other Fed jurisdictions as a journalist. The federals would thumb noses up at the local police or sheriff’s press passes, so I learned to always go to the CHP in every county I worked in. And, the CHP press pass would get me quickly in and out of the state Capitol when I wanted to visit my brother there.

However, to be honest getting those CHP passes was too easy. When I was the editor of newspapers in Calaveras and Amador counties, the local CHP office would call me once a year and ask how many passes I wanted for my staff and their names. They would issue one to every name I gave them. I could have hired John Hinckley Jr. or Sara Jane Moore under a different name, and the CHP wouldn’t have known. So, it’s not hard to understand why Brown didn’t want the CHP involved in that anymore.

However, being the state’s police force, what's wrong with the CHP starting a program to identify members of the media through its local offices that includes a brief background check to confirm identities and to clear security risks? The CHP could charge a nominal fee to cover the costs.

Posted by Andy Bird at 05:58 PM | Permalink

My family and friends think I should fly to London this summer to experience the birthday bash Madonna is throwing for herself to celebrate her 50th. Madonna has reserved three floors of the London Ritz for the big night in August, exact date I don’t recall at the moment. I'm invited.

Three for four months ago, I received a telephone call that went something like this:

“Hi Andrew, this is Dean, Madonna’s personal assistant, calling from London. Madonna asked me to invite you to her 50th birthday party in London next year.”
“Who.” (me)
“Madonna. Your ex-girlfriend.”
“Dean, you have the wrong Andrew Bird. That Andrew Bird lives somewhere in England. This is California.”
“No, he lives in California. Andrew, (Dean was exceedingly polite, patient AND persistent) Madonna gave me this number personally to call you.”

This went on for awhile. I repeatedly denied being Madonna’s ex-boyfriend, though I understood why Dean thought I was. About 10 years ago Madonna had a brief dalliance with a man much younger than I, a struggling unknown want-to-be writer who never made it, a Brit whose name I happen to share. I used to get emails from friends and family when they would read about Madonna and me in People Magazine.

I couldn’t convince Dean I wasn’t Madonna’s former lover. So I took down the information and thanked him. I am supposed to RSVP sometime before summer starts. I have to provide my own transportation. Madonna is going to provide everything else.

And, I'm supposed to think up something to say about Madonna at the party, in 30 seconds or less. Any suggestions?

Posted by Andy Bird at 05:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

That’s what former state senator and assemblyman Wes Chesbro told a Sacramento TV reporter recently in a casual conversation.

If you follow local Democratic politics, you know that Chesbro is preparing to run for the North Coast Assembly seat currently occupied by Patty Berg. Berg will be term-limited out of that seat at the end of this year.

Unless.

If voters approve Proposition 93 in the presidential primary election Feb. 5, Berg will not be term-limited out this year and can run again if she chooses. So would Chesbro challenge Berg for the Democratic nomination in the June statewide primary if Prop 93 passes?

No, Chesbro told said TV reporter who asked him that question last month in Sacramento, where Chesbro, who under current law is term-limited out of the Senate but not the Assembly, serves on the state Integrated Waste Management Board. “We’re not San Francisco,” Chesbro said.

If you follow state Democratic politics, you know that Mark Leno, a San Francisco Assemblyman who will be term-limited out after this year, is planning to challenge fellow Democrat Carole Migden in the June primary for the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat Migden currently holds. Leno’s announced intentions has stirred up some resentment among Dems in the Bay Area, who consider the seats they hold in the Legislature and Congress safe for the incumbent until the incumbent decides not to run again or is term-limited out. State Senate President Pro-Tem Don Perata has admonished Leno for his chutzpa. And reportedly Nancy Pelosi is not happy.

Posted by Andy Bird at 09:08 AM | Permalink