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 Boys making noise |
 TIM'S BOOKS |
TIM'S BOOKS It was a melancholy time on the Northcoast
Environmental Center's front porch last Friday. Volunteers had
set up three or four folding tables, and on each of them they
had placed hundreds of books. These were the books that didn't
sell at a big booksale the weekend previous. Now they were selling
for 25 cents apiece. Everything must go.
Those old books were property of the NEC, of course, but everyone knew that they mostly belonged to the late Tim McKay, who up until his sudden death last July was pretty much synonymous with the organization he helped found. Now, after a decent period of mourning, the NEC was clearing out McKay's library in preparation for a move across town. It wasn't a small job. McKay was a great one for books, files, pamphlets -- paper of all sorts.
"Tim took it all in," said Susan Nolan, a former NEC staffer who came in to help clean house. "He never said no to anything." It was a warm spring morning, and three or four people at a time were milling up and down the patio, grazing through the leftovers. They'd come to Nolan with their stock and handfuls of change. Plenty of people gave extra.
In fact, the books on offer came from the second incarnation of McKay's famously massive library; the first mostly burnt down with the original NEC offices in July 2001. After the fire, many supporters stepped forward with donations to replace what had been lost. And now those donated were headed back into the community, provided they could find a home as loving as their last one.
There were boxes and boxes of bound environmental impact reports and timber harvest plans. There was the 1997 edition of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Plants. There was a slender volume entitled "Glaciers" -- apparently a record of the 1960 Condon Lecture, presented at the Oregon State System of Higher Education. Wolf and Moose Studies on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska: 1976-1980. Piles of Alvin Toffler paperbacks. About a dozen birding guides to locales all over North America, which were donated by the late, great naturalist and Times-Standard correspondent, David Anderson.
Everyone had their favorites. Inside, Greg King, the NEC's new executive director, told a story about the big booksale the weekend previous. He said that Scott Greacen of the Environmental Protection Information Center happened by and noted the astounding number of old environmental impact reports on hand. He went through them all, King said, and once in a while he'd stop and say, "Oh, whoa! He has this one?" -- holding up some national forest plan from the '70s. A classic!
Susan Nolan wasn't sure what would become of the books if people didn't take them home. The recycling center didn't want them. No bookstore would take them. They had to be spread to the wind. At one point a raggedy fellow stopped and chatted with Nolan about the paperback he had chosen, digging around in his pocket for a quarter. Suddenly an Arcata city bus pulled up. "That's my bus!" he said, sprinting off with his book. "I'll come back and pay you!"
"O.K.," Nolan said to herself, smiling. The guy and his book were already gone.
-- Hank Sims
Above: In preparation for moving back across town, the Northcoast
Environmental Center sells extra books collected by the latet
director, Tim McKay. Photo by Hank Sims.
GET YOUR GLITTER ON
If
you hiked to the top floor of the Eureka Municipal Auditorium
last Saturday night, it might have made you dizzy. No, not the
height -- though it was plummetous -- but the action down below
on the dance floor. Nearly 2,000 people had unwittingly formed
themselves into a pulsing neon arrow (sans the real neon) of
two main moving parts, each oblivious to the other. The smaller
part up front was the tip: a hopping-up-and-down mass of teenyboppers
aimed in adulation at Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, the headliners of
the Redwood Coast Jazz Festival, tootin' and hollerin' on the
stage.
Back of the kids was an independently twirling cylinder of lindy hoppers -- egged on by that Bobbysox Brigade from L.A. -- packed 10 deep and jittering in place while neck-craning to see the action in the middle. There, pairs took turns dashing in and catting around, flipping, swiveling, dibbydabbing their nimble feet and, on occasion, upending themselves onto one arm and shaking their heels at -- well, at us up in the balcony, I suppose. As if to say, get your shy lazy butt down here and dance. Come on, chicken, step step triple step, step step triple step, toss a flip, jive a hip, show us your flashy self.
Well, nothing's so flashy as sudden human neon in the Eureka Muni. And nothing's so illuminating as the notion that that many young people, in Eureka in 2007, can merge with a smiling (and, may I compliment, more sparklingly attired) crowd of yesterday's spunky youth and have so much fun to the tune of half a dozen fellas in porkpies and pinstripes. Come, denizens of doom metal and children of grunge, have you lost your traction in the Victorian seaport?
Some say the swing dance revival came and went mid-'80s to late '90s. But there's a lively underground of its devotees yet, and between them and all the good-vibe dance movies of late, maybe the flexible dance that lets you go all goofball with a touch of ballroom poise could become more than just cultishly cool once again. First order: Someone tap those teenyboppers at the front and tell them to turn around and spin some moves. And someone else drag the drags down from the balcony.
-- Heidi Walters
Above. Lindy hoppers at the Jazz Fest. Photo by Heidi Walters
PEDAGOGUE COBB A few weeks past, an explosion was reported at Arcata High School. Witnesses said that it seemed to issue from Doug Johnson's AP Government class and that it had a vaguely Texan accent.
That explosion was David Cobb. Cobb was the last in a trio of speakers to visit the 16 Arcata High AP Government students. His predecessors, who had visited the week prior, had been representatives from the Democratic and Republican parties. Cobb, the 2004 Green Party presidential candidate, put a cap to the presentations with what can only be described as a bang.
Reiterating that he was not there to convince anyone to join any political party, Cobb led the class in a discussion that centered mainly around the importance of a plurality of parties and the current voting reform movement. An example brought up was that of a voter who identified most with a third party candidate, but would more likely vote for a Democrat or Republican than risk "wasting their vote" and helping to elect the candidate they least wanted. The dominant dualism of two major parties, Cobb explained, often deters voters from other candidates and thus results in a less accurate representation of the voting population.
Cobb then introduced to the students the newfangled notion of Instant Runoff Voting (IRV). With IRV, a voter gets to rank candidates, casting a vote for 1st, 2nd, 3rd choice -- as many as they'd like to choose -- as opposed to the current method where each voter essentially gets one "first-choice" vote. While under the current system, a candidate could theoretically gain office with 35 percent of the vote (meaning 65 percent of voters wanted somebody else), IRV more effectively represents the majority's wishes. If no candidate receives a majority of first-choice votes, the candidate with the lowest percentage is bumped, and all votes allotted to that individual then go to those voters' designated second choices. This process continues until a majority is achieved. IRV would eliminate "wasted votes" and allow people to truly express their political ideologies without fearing repercussions. Cobb explained that IRV is selectively implemented across the United States in various counties and states; it is also used by organizations such as Major League Baseball.
The students received Cobb enthusiastically. Prepared for another run of the mill presentation, heavy with pamphlets and a droning lecture-ish tone, they instead received an animated, articulate, fervent speaker who argued the practicality of the contraction "Y'all" and wrote wildly upon the whiteboard. At one point, to emphasize a particular topic, Cobb climbed atop a table and boomed down at the class. He remembered every individual's name he called upon, and engaged the entire body of students. Balding and bespectacled, David Cobb had the spirit of the revolution normally typical to young college students.
After the bell rang, half of the students stayed after class to continue the discussion, ignited by Cobb's obvious passion. Cobb was delighted. "I'm a bleeding heart little-'d' democrat," he told the eight lingering students. "This is real democracy -- a little room of half a dozen people, thinking and talking together."
Though caught up in Cobb's charisma during the actual presentation, teenagers couldn't prevent skepticism creeping back into their mindsets after he had departed. "I think one of the reasons he was so well received was that he didn't attempt to adhere to any political structure; denouncing the whole current organization made it easy for him," said senior Jesse Alm. "He didn't need to impress anyone." Classmate Nate Zwerdling chimed in. "Yeah, it was awesome," said Nate, "but not very realistic." There was also a general feeling in the class that, like the other presenters who had visited AP Government, Cobb had construed a few choice events in history to suit his purpose. "I could see how his interpretation of history could be argued," said teacher Doug Johnson. "There were a few points which weren't quite clear to me." Still, the students had an intriguing class period, receiving something to discuss with their parents after the customary evening inquiry, "What'd you do in school today?" Overall consensus: better than notes. No offense, Mr. J.
-- Molly Simas
(Molly Simas is a senior at Arcata High School.)
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