If you read the report on Humboldt County on page 45, it does link "bacterial exceedances" found at Clam and Moonstone to the large resident bird populations found at these beaches.

My mother was born Doris Marie Doran in the summer of 1926. In high school she acquired a nickname: "Dopey Doran." She lived in San Francisco and Oakland during the war years (WWII) and worked for the U.S. Marine Corps as a typist in her late teens. She was infatuated with the idea of glamour, she confessed to her children years later, and I have several 8x10 prints like this one made during a studio session circa 1946. She met my father in San Francisco and they married in 1949, when she was 22 or 23. She bore four children. Mom left us in 1991 after an untimely illness.

By the way, Jeremiah Wright left college to volunteer for the U.S. Marine Corps, then after his committment was up after two years he went into the U.S. Navy. The future Rev. Wright went on to serve on the presidential medical staff in the 1960s.

What has Bill O'Reilly ever done for his country?

Why does it always seem to take a tragedy like this to remind us that beneath the cortex of our differences we are all united in the same objective? Mr. Rodoni was one of those who took on the largely thankless task of becoming a public figure to help shape the future of our community. Whether you agreed or disagreed with his vision, he deserves our enduring respect and gratitude for his service.

I am thankful that both his opponents in the Second District race have the respect and grace to suspend campaign activities for the time-being, while the community heals from this loss. May you rest in peace, Mr. Rodoni.

It's the first time in the Management Council's 22-year history it has completely halted salmon fishing in the zone it manages.

Earlier reports stated that one recreational zone off the mouth of the Klamath River would remain open. It's unclear whether this still applies.

State Sen. Patricia Wiggins' bill to fund salmon and steelhead restoration is on the Guv's desk. There is speculation he will announce he's going to sign the bill at today's appearance.

Thompson and two other Demoratic congressmen believed the trip was sponsored by Life for Relief and Development, a charity formed after the first Gulf War to fund humanitarian work in Iraq, which the official, Muthanna Al-Hanooti, managed.

Prosecutors now claim that Sadaam's intelligence agency paid for the trio's visit, and that Al-Hanooti received two million barrels of Iraqi oil for his work. The U.S. Justice Department says that none of the congressmen knew Sadaam was involved.

"Obviously, had there been any question at all regarding the sponsor of the trip or the funding, I would not have participated," Thompson said in a statement released to the Associated Press.

Chapman opines that because Meghan Vogel, who managed Neely's successful 2006 re-election campaign, Eureka City Councilman Chris Kerrigan, and some other progressive campaign consultants are working on behalf of the two challengers, Clif Clendenen and Estelle Fennell, Neely is pulling the strings like she's the Humboldt incarnation of William "Boss" Tweed.

How silly. But typical of the political goofiness that seems to have gripped Fortuna lately.

If Neely were indeed working overtime behind the scenes to oust Rodoni so she can at long last clench control of the county, as Chapman alleges (yes, he really does make that claim), why would she recruit two candidates to compete for the same (progressive) votes? If "Boss" Neely is as powerful and ambitious as Chapman opines, why would Kerrigan and Vogel be working against each other in rival campaigns? Does this make sense? Doesn't this actually favor Rodoni?

The truth is that Vogel, Kerrigan and David Jervis, whom Chapman also claims is one of Neely's minions, share political philosophies with Clendenen and Fennell. All three are veteran political consultants who have worked on progressive campaigns in the past. Why would it surprise Chapman that these three would be working on behalf of progessive candidates trying to unseat the most conservative member of the Board of Supervisors?

I know all three and I understand what motivates them. They don't rely on Bonnie Neely to tell them who to work for.

Maybe Chapman is really working for Boss Neely, who is on a mission to make Rodoni look bad by manipulating his ersatz supporters into writing kooky conspiracy theory opinion pieces for the local newspapers.

For months speculation has swirled in local circles that Security National, the family-owned real estate loan servicing company held by Eureka movers and shakers Rob and Cherie Arkley, has suffered financially because of the subprime loan crisis. Because it's family owned SNSC doesn't have to disclose its finances to stockholders, like publicly held companies. SNSC has always been somewhat secretive, even mysterious, given the complicated securities market the company deals in.

How I understand it is that Rob Arkley is a pioneer of sorts in the field of buying distressed real estate loans then repackaging the loans and selling them to investors. My understanding is that this type of securities trading is relatively new, developed in the past two decades or so, and Arkley was super successful at it.

But now with so many Americans who got subprime loans unable to keep their homes because property values across the country finally peaked then started to decline, the market for this particular commodity has taken a severe beating. The collapse of this market crippled the nation's fifth largest investment bank, Bear Stearns. Lenders are foreclosing on subprime loan recipients on an unprecedented pace.

SN had employed 142 people in Eureka. A layoff of 21 employees is a 15 percent reduction of the company's local staff. That is far from catastrophic (unless you're one of the 21).

But looking forward, what does this mean for Arkley's Marina Center, the megacontroversial Home Depot-anchored development proposed for the Balloon Track in Eureka, which SN bought in 2006? It seemed right after the November 2006 election that this project was going to appear before the Eureka City Council very quickly. But for a year and a half now, there has been little news about the status of this project. There have been reports that various bureaucratic flies in the ointment -- such as expensive traffic mitigation measures demanded by Caltrans -- has slowed the momentum on this project. But that does not fully explain why this project seems to be completely stalled; many in the community expected to see this project come before the City Council early last year.

Then there is the Eureka Reporter, Arkley's expensive rival to the Times-Standard which most certainly is still a major drain on Security National's capital. Recently the newspaper scaled back its publication from seven to five days per week and cut its staff. Last month a jury in San Francisco awarded a multimillion dollar verdict to a newspaper who had sued a rival paper for unfair competition. That verdict makes the Eureka Reporter even more vulnerable to a lawsuit by the Times-Standard, in my opinion, though it remains to be seen if the verdict survives an appeal.

Personally, I would hate for the Eureka Reporter to disappear. I have come full circle on how I view the Reporter, a topic I hope to blog about in the next few days.

However if recent developments mean Arkley is wavering on whether to move forward with trying to force a Home Depot onto Eureka's waterfront, I believe the community benefits. Not only is a Home Depot on the waterfront a bad idea for Eureka for many reasons, the proposal itself has proven to be exceedingly divisive for this community.

Mocha Motion is the first java drive-through that tempts commuters on 4th Street/Highway 101 coming into town from the north. Until Thursday, Mocha Motion boasted a nifty surfboard effigy that was the work of a local artist. Apparently someone sawed through some rebar and separated the 200-lb statuary from its 500-lb based, sometime after 8 a.m. Talk about brazen.

There is a good description of a possible suspect vehicle. Hope they find the thief. Sometimes I wonder if Eureka suffers from mass kleptomania.

I wonder if this is happening in Humboldt County.

Also, does the Bear Stearns meltdown have any bearing on the financial health of Eureka-based Security National? Neither company is a bank that makes home loans (Bear Stearns is an investment bank), but both companies invest in home mortgages or securities tied to home mortgages.

ER (Melody Stone): Eureka ghost busters looking for haunted houses in Humboldt to study. Also being discussed at Fred's Humboldt Blog.

SF Chronicle: More California homeowners are choosing to walk away from their unmanageable mortgages, ceding their houses to lenders. Similar story in the Sac Bee earlier this week. I wonder if this is happening locally.

TS (Donna Tam): Authorities seize sizeable bounty of heroin in Arcata claimed to be worth $120,000.

ER (Nathan Rushton): U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dredge vessel arrives in Humboldt Bay.

Some of the best-selling brands in the industry, including Kiss My Face, Alba, Seventh Generation and Nature's Gate, were among the offending products. And most if not all of these brands are sold at the Co-ops in Eureka and Arcata.

The compound is created during processing, it is not added. However, apparently the manufacturers of the products found to contain 1,4-dioxane use petrochemicals during processing, which is how the compund gets made.

Using petrochemicals to make a product then calling the product natural or organic is deceiving the consumer, in my opinion.