Recent Work
War of the Colleges
The Anderson Valley Advertiser - June 10, 2009
On the Mendocino Coast even something as seemingly mundane as a Community College Interest Group can be hotbed of radicalism, dissent and controversy. For good or ill, an issue that would inspire a letter-writing campaign elsewhere—the proposed transfer of a professor, in this case—incites a secession movement in Fort Bragg.
No, the town isn't threatening to excise itself from the United States, a la Texas Governor Rick Perry. But it is angry enough with the Eureka-based College of the Redwoods administration to consider breaking from the CR Community College district entirely. The move—not for the weak of heart—would divorce Fort Bragg's campus from Humboldt County and marry it to Ukiah's Mendocino College or Sonoma County's Santa Rosa J.C. Another, probably far-fetched, idea would turn Fort Bragg Unified into a K-14 school district—and the local CR campus into an extension of Fort Bragg High. The campus could also strike out on its own, becoming a free-standing community college district. At about 1,000 students strong, it would be almost half the size of the smallest such district in the state, joining the ranks of 70 other, larger, more powerful entities. 
(Continued)
To Kill a Predator, Part II
The Anderson Valley Advertiser - June 3, 2009
At the end of June, Aaron Vargas will stand trial for a crime that would normally be seen as inexcusable: He is accused of driving to Darrell McNeill's trailer home on Fort Bragg's Farrer Lane, shooting his former neighbor with a .44 caliber black powder revolver and then waiting nearly a half-hour for the man to die—all while McNeill's wife, Liz, waited nearby.
But very little about Vargas's case—neither the story of his life nor public reaction to his crime—is normal. Following the February shooting, McNeill's death has had the unusual effect of eliciting empathy for a murderer and revulsion for his victim. That's because, in this case, the dead man's sins weigh heavy on the community's conscience. They are sins that are only now surfacing, one after the next, revealing child abuse that appears to span decades and includes the sexual molestation of not only Aaron Vargas, but McNeill's own sons and a growing list of other local boys—now adult men—with whom Darrell McNeill crossed paths during his 63 years. (Continued)
Tour de France meets Burning Man
National Geographic's Intelligent Travel - May 27, 2009
You could imagine this past weekend's Kinetic Grand Championship as Tour de France meets Burning Man. But really this 3-day bicycle race in Humboldt County, California is an event all its own. In place of traditional bicycles, racers pedal "kinetic kontraptions"-- part sculpture, part bike. Instead of smooth road or velodrome, racers navigate land, sand, mud and water in people-powered art machines built to look like everything from Octomom (an octopus with a baby gripped in each tentacle) to a fire-breathing metallic dragon constructed from discarded aluminum, to a tie-dyed Hippy-Potamus with wiggling ears and batting eyelashes. (Continued)
Green Door Studio v. V'Canto
The Anderson Valley Advertiser - May 13, 2009
To hear Dan Hemann tell it, Fort Bragg's Headlands Coffeehouse is a blight on an otherwise quiet downtown—a raucous cesspool where drugs, booze and urine flow freely. Worse still, Headlands has set a potentially disastrous precedent. In its 13-year history, this family-run coffeehouse has contributed to downtown Fort Bragg becoming an alarmingly vibrant neighborhood. In so doing, they've encouraged other “pro-alcohol forces” to crawl from the gutter, opening restaurants that sling chilled Chardonnay and feature occasional live entertainment. They've created a monster, and that monster is an upscale Italian dinner-house called V'Canto.
Hemann owns the Green Door Studio art gallery on Fort Bragg's Laurel Street, across from both V'Canto and Headlands Coffeehouse. He loathes his neighbors with a vitriol rarely seen outside of sports and international politics. But he also has a bone to pick with the State's Department of Alcohol Beverage Control, the City of Fort Bragg and “the man”—the big business, big money interests behind local businesses that offer beer and wine and live music performances. All of these entities are corrupt and fraudulent law-breakers, hell-bent on ruining Hemann's quality of life. (Continued)
Bottoms Up to American Craft Beer Week
National Geographic's Intelligent Travel - May 7, 2009
An all-day downpour wasn't enough to keep a record crowd of 5,500 beer lovers from last Saturday's 13th Annual Legendary Boonville Beer Fest. Arriving en masse and in costume for the pirate-themed event, attendees paid $50 a person for four hours of all-you-can-drink access to over 100 beers from 43 craft breweries around the United States. Each was equipped with a five-ounce tasting glass and set loose to drink, dance and frolic in the mud at Mendocino County's fairgrounds in Boonville, Calif.
The festival, a fundraiser for local charities hosted by Anderson Valley Brewing Company, draws both connoisseurs and casual beer drinkers, people who come to taste and those that come to guzzle. Some arrived prepared for the festival's theme and Northern California's weather, wearing elaborate pirate garb or full-body rain gear. Many wore specialized glass holders around their necks to ensure they wouldn't break their irreplaceable, and therefore sacred, tasting glass. (The sound of one of these glasses breaking evokes a roaring, humiliating--if good-natured--howl from the beer fest crowd.) Others donned more eclectic ensembles, combinations of wigs, unicycles, kilts, star-shaped sunglasses and beer stickers on cheeks and foreheads. Because it was raining and the beer was flowing, a handful of participants paraded in nothing but mud and mud-covered skivvies. (Continued)
Is Biomass a Boondoggle?
Anderson Valley Advertiser - May 6, 2009
Back when the Timber Wars were raging in Mendocino County, the area's logging interests attempted a linguistic coupe of Rovian proportions. Battling a pro-environment popular revolt against the rape and pillage clear-cutting of Northern California's old growth redwoods, the same men that had touted “Save a logger, eat a spotted owl” bumper stickers on their mighty pickup trucks suddenly adopted a kinder, gentler motto: “Trees are America's Renewable Resource.” This cynical embrace of pseudo environmentalist language didn't fool anyone. But now, years later, the logging lobby is resurrecting the rhetoric. This time, it's working.
On April 24, Fort Bragg's town hall hosted a three-hour public workshop—in fact, a sponsored PR event complete with an expert speaker who was paid several hundred dollars for his 45 minute presentation—on the possibility of building a $40 million, 15 megawatt biomass-fueled power plant on Highway 20. The plant would burn wood and wood waste—10,000 truckloads of it a year—creating electricity that could then be sold into PG&E's power grid.
The project's cheerleaders extolled its many green virtues, preaching biomass's status as a relatively clean, supposedly carbon neutral, renewable energy source. Gone are the days when lumbermen argued for logging jobs and tax revenue in their ideological battle against environmentalist forces. Today, these once-proud, would-be Paul Bunyans are the environmentalists. Or so their language would have us believe. (Continued)
