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Does that phone number look familiar? It appears on the Bug residence’s caller ID six or eight times a week, never with any message. But it’s a cell phone number, right? It must be someone we know!

Not so fast, friends. In fact it is a Times-Standard telemarketer, offering us a subscription we’ve said 50 times we have no fucking interest in, ever, and by the way, douchepickles, our number is on the Do Not Call registry, which means, in case this is in any way unclear, that you Do Not Call it.

I love when the Times-Standard showcases its community spirit, which seems to be all the time these days. Is there anything they do anymore that isn’t at least a little bit shitty?

HumCo Mile-High Club Kicks Off

Unlike his Bronco's ball-juggling Heisman-Trophy-winning buddy, Mark Lovelace never met a sack he didn't like.

Times-Standard to fill Monday news hole with 52-part series on discontinuing Monday newspaper

Here's some guy with a camera. Photo credit: The Eureka Times-Standard

The Times-Standard announced today that “Digital First” Mondays are now in effect. Modeled after North Korea’s “Military First” policy, the new approach will allow the Times-Standard to devote assloads of resources to something it has no hope of doing well, angering thousands and starving much of its staff to death in the process.

The first digital Monday featured an article about not getting a paper, a letter from the publisher about not getting a paper, and also some frequently asked questions on the subject of–what was it? Oh right. Not getting a paper. Super interesting reading all the way around.

Despite their thoroughness overall, however, they did come up a bit short on the Q and A. Sure, they got the big ones: “Where’s the crossword?” “Where are the ads?” “Where’s the Sudoku?” and “Where are the comics?” (“Where’s the news?” came in at question number five, right before the one about not getting your money back even though you paid for seven newspapers a week and now they’re giving you only six.)

So here are a few things we would like to know:

1. What will happen to the penetrating commentary that normally graces the Monday editorial page?

2. When will you begin printing on flushable newsprint?

3. What will you do with Monday’s marijuana graphic?

4. Do you know where I can get a bird that shits only six days a week?

For the hardliners out there who absolutely must know what’s going on every day, Publisher Dave Kuta announced that the news that would have been printed in Monday’s paper will now appear in either the Sunday or Tuesday editions, either before it happens or after you no longer care.

Humboldt Mirror blog stats for 2011 reveal record traffic

Merry Christmas, Eureka

It's official: 200 new jobs, affordable shopping and additional sales tax revenue to fund local services. Welcome, Walmart.

T-S launches new and improved Local News online section

Woman’s claim not to have slept with Herman Cain unravels

Eek! Hold the sausage.

Former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain, who briefly led as the Republican presidential hopeful, announced this weekend that he suspended his rapidly failing campaign amid a flurry of new and ongoing sexual scandal allegations.

A 91-year-old woman and resident at the Sunrise Senior Living facility in Atlanta vehemently denied accusations on Sunday that she too had slept with Cain last month. Despite her claims of innocence, she and Cain were unable to account for a suspicious 15-minute window of opportunity when his motorcade arrived late for a fundraiser approximately .2 miles away from her retirement home.

On Saturday Cain vowed “not to go away,” which prompted women and senior living officials across several states in the South to step up security measures in and around their homes.

Times-Standard announces it will suck one day less each week

As part of its ongoing effort to run itself into the ground, the Times-Standard announced that after the first of the year it will cease publication of its Monday edition.

Media News Group, the Times-Standard’s parent company, will additionally shutter the Humboldt Beacon, a weekly that managed to serve the Eel River valley just fine for more than 100 years before MNG took it over in 2005.

In a Monday memo, Publisher Dave Kuta wrote, “None of these decisions were made easily, and had I routed this announcement through copy editing instead of going it alone so I could spring it on staff, someone would have caught the subject-object disagreement at the beginning of this sentence.”

Okay, okay, we made that last part up.

This news comes on the heels of a reported blow-out between Times-Standard Managing Editor Kim Wear and City Editor Dave Rosso, who had returned to the daily after its previous city editor came down with a heroin addiction. Following the fight with Wear, Rosso is said to have stormed out and returned the next day to tender his resignation.

So what does all of this mean for Humboldt County? As much as we enjoy making sport of the Times-Standard’s sometimes glorious fails, we don’t wish job loss on anyone, and losing another community newspaper can’t be good news for any of us.

Read the longer second-day article here.

Guest post: What I saw at the revolution

Since my only experience has been with the Occupy Eureka protestors, my remarks are directed at them.

Under the guise of First Amendment rights and purporting to speak for 99 percent of the people, all you have achieved with your so called protest is to make life harder for the working middle class struggling to stay out of poverty and even worse for the poor.

So you wanted to get attention for your message? Has this been achieved by the “professional activists” that are leading the rest of you for the cause du jour? When you see the same people at all these protests, the credibility of this being the voice of the people wears thin.

Your group has various activists and different groups latching on and riding the 15 minutes of fame. What exactly are you trying to get across as your basic message besides the usual “blame corporations, the man, it’s someone else’s fault”?

Your trashing the courthouse lawn will require funds to fix the damage. This money will come at the cost of services and programs for the most needy. And it comes from people working legitimate jobs to pay taxes. But that does not matter to you does it? You feel entitled to stop people who work and conduct business at the courthouse; you feel entitled to trash public property that also belongs to the rest of us, not just a few of you.

How environmentally friendly are you? The destruction you have done to the lawn and your illegal camping says you don’t care.

You can use your First Amendment rights to “protest” by writing letters, making documentaries, voting in elections and using the resources you have to help out someone homeless, needy. That is action that makes a difference, signs and empty talk do not.

You can send a message to the banks and corporations by using credit unions or shopping local. And that is your choice. In a free country, I have the choice to bank where I want and shop where I want and work at a corporation. Here’s a novel concept. Take responsibility for your life situation and ask for any help you need respectfully. You might be surprised that people will reach out and assist.

The message of 99% is a very valid one. However don’t just single out corporations and banks; if you truly feel for the masses, let’s also talk about the greed in government, and all institutions and bureaucracy.

One of your “leaders” took down the flag on Veteran’s Day. Those vets fought for your right to speak freely. I have watched how the police calmly speak to you while many of you antagonize them and snub those of us who don’t buy into and support your unorganized, ineffectual selfish protest.

If you had been respectful, I would listen to your message.

You want change. Try using the same time you have standing outside the courthouse to volunteer in a soup kitchen, to clean up the parks, to reach out to a mentally ill or homeless person. Change and hope do not come from holding a sign; they come from one person struggling to stay strong and providing encouragement to another in a difficult economy and a broken system.

John Chiv
Eureka

Eureka police union: Councilwoman Atkins compromised officer safety

EPD hopes to provide Linda Atkins with new opportunities to discuss protest strategy.

A letter from the Eureka Police Officers Association distributed to city council members Tuesday night states that Councilwoman Linda Atkins endangered officers and members of the public by leaking confidential information about a planned shut-down of the Occupy Eureka encampment.

The Times-Standard said Linda Atkins responded that she didn’t know the information was confidential, and she didn’t leak it. What she did do after receiving sensitive operational information, though, was go to the courthouse encampment, completely out of the blue, to have an informal chat with protesters.

Let’s go to the game film and see how that chat unfolded.

A post on the Humboldt Herald, written the day of the alleged information leak, said information Atkins provided put “Occupy Eureka on alert”:

An email circulating from the group [of protesters] says Eureka City Councilwoman Linda Atkins attended its Wednesday night General Assembly meeting with warnings that EPD will dismantle the camp soon, but an exact date is unknown.

Hank Sims’ Lost Coast Outpost put it this way:

Tom Sebourn is at the scene; he says that Councilmember Linda Atkins is telling demonstrators that the Eureka Police Department going to be moving in soon.

Tom Sebourn’s blog provided more detail:

Right now, Occupy Eureka is in their nightly General Assembly. Linda Atkins of the Eureka City Council, just informed the people gathered for the assembly that the County govt. has been complaining to the Eureka City govt. about the Occupy demonstration (on the lawn of the Courthouse/Jail). The County has been requesting that the Eureka Police Department come raid, or break up, the demonstration. Linda Atkins told the General Assembly that she thinks that it is imminent- the EPD coming to shut down the demonstration.

Possibly because this turned out so well, Atkins added she thought it would be a good idea to involve her in future law enforcement decisions:

While conceding the city ordinance does clearly prohibit camping in places like the courthouse lawn, Atkins said, an enforcement action against Occupy Eureka should have been decided upon by the City Council.

“With a demonstration of this magnitude and longevity, I think it should have been a policy decision whether to remove them,” she said. “I think it would be wise for us to have a public dialogue about any protest movement and how we’re going to treat it.”

Maybe instead there should be a policy decision whether to remove her.

Yeah. Because throwing explosives at cops will teach those awful bankers a valuable lesson.

3 arrested with mortars after leaving Occupy Portland

Three people who claimed to be with Occupy Portland protesters were arrested Sunday morning after police said they found explosives, drugs and gas masks in their car near Salem. …

Police said the three told them they had spent the night at Occupy Portland and had brought commercial mortar fireworks in glass jars in preparation for a confrontation with police.

Deputies also found marijuana, two gas masks, protective eye goggles, and a safety helmet. The men denied being involved in throwing the fireworks at an officer who was hurt Saturday night.

Read the news brief here.

Humboldt Mirror readership skyrockets

First there were some, after which there were more. Damn!

Whoa! All of a sudden-like, Humboldt Mirror readership shot up by a whopping some! The increase would be off the chart, but the Graphics Dept. made the graph taller so that the big brown bar on the far right could stay on the chart. Pretty clever, no?

As you can see, on Nov. 2 our readership was at one level, but by Nov. 6 it had spiked to a completely different level. Anecdotal evidence suggests the impressive surge occurred around the same time two “Occupiers,” a Loleta third-grader and his 4-H goat began monitoring the site.

(Yes, people, the goat counts!)

Latest study finds…

One percent of Occupy Humboldt protesters are responsible for 99 percent of the poop at local financial institutions.

Housing advocate calls for creation of Homeless Depot

Maybe we can get a grant to clean up a site for this.

The turn toward winter has sparked the usual discussion locally of the need for a(nother) homeless shelter. Here’s our thought: Why don’t we build one with all the tax revenue we’re generating by turning away legitimate businesses?

Brrrrilliant!

Does this mean Big Box stores might not be ruining the planet after all?

James Surowiecki, journalist and author of The New Yorker‘s “Financial Page,” calls bullshit on those who indulge in what he calls the “fetishization of small business.”

Surowiecki argues that mom and pop businesses are less productive than national chains. They charge significantly higher prices and offer, on average, lower wages and benefits. They’re less likely to innovate, invest in new technologies or expand. They are, however, more likely to do one important thing: Fail.

He writes that while it’s true small businesses create most jobs, “they also destroy most jobs, since, while starting a business is easy, keeping it going is hard.”

Surowiecki adds this:

The developed countries with the highest percentage of workers employed by small businesses include Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Italy—that is, the four countries whose economic woes are wreaking such havoc on financial markets. Meanwhile, the countries with the lowest percentage of workers employed by small businesses are Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and the U.S.—some of the strongest economies in the world.  This correlation is not a coincidence.

And here’s a little something for all you populists out there:

It’s hardly a coincidence that in the decades after the Second World War, when ordinary American workers became part of the middle class, very big companies employed a huge percentage of the workforce: in the early seventies, one in five non-farm workers worked for a Fortune 500 company. Small may be beautiful. It’s just not all that prosperous.

We probably won’t see that on any Occupy Wall Street signboards.

Read the article here.