Isn’t it clear both parties colluding with industries at our expense?

In the Oct. 11 letter by Dale Bohling (“Attack on conservative ideology repeats tired arguments of past”), it struck me that the competing element of our political divide is evolving into a culture of its own.

It’s like political poetry. My mind is tickled just melting the vocabulary and analogies together.

Interestingly though, if past elections are any indicator, it would seem that any political leader, either a Dale Bohling or a Bruce Kerwood (“Panning conservative ideology,” Oct. 6), would have received funds from the same sources. Our Obamas and Rick Perrys and so on are bought and paid for before we vote and we couldn’t possibly compete with the money involved.

From the pages of the Del Norte Triplicate, October 1945.

The Simpson Logging firm of Washington recently purchased over 13,000 acres of fine redwood timberland. The price was reported to be  $700,000.

The large tract of land is located north of the Klamath River and was purchased from the Requa Timber Company.

My name is Mike Rhodes and I was born and raised in Del Norte County. I attended local schools, played football under Lewis Nova and have an enormous amount of pride in my community.

I am a combat veteran of Afghanistan, serving in the capacity of an Army Ranger (2nd Battalion/75th Ranger Regiment), who endured two tours of combat for my country and my community. I am currently a second-year law school student at the Creighton University School of Law in Omaha, Neb. I plan on returning to Del Norte/Humboldt counties following law school to practice and to educate.

I am openly gay and I know all too intimately firsthand the consequences of growing up like this in Del Norte County and this world. I want no child to have to endure what I did. It is unreasonable.

Starving budget, LaMalfa shares blame for harbor funding failure

Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed AB1429, which would have relieved our Crescent City Harbor District from having to pay 6.25 percent or $1.2 million of repair costs from the latest disaster caused by the tsunami March 11.

The governor sent his California Emergency Management Team to assess the damage and report what we needed. Everything was in place to assist where possible through permits required by agencies that everyone needed in order to proceed. It is rumored that the Santa Cruz harbor ignored the process and failed to get certain permits and lost its funding completely.

As we grow older I think that we look at our life’s experiences a little differently than in our younger years.

I have had a chance to reflect more on the unbelieveable experiences of coming out west in 1946 with my father, Wes Blackburn. He had such an impact on me in teaching me about living, surviving, working and having good moral values.

I wrote my book, “Kneebockers,” to honor my father and what he did for me. He died on Easter Sunday morning in 1976 of a heart attack.

Several people have mentioned that they don’t remember the first real storm of the season ever being this early. I’ve been here since the beginning of time, but I have to admit only a couple first storms were memorable. The one that remains warm in my heart happened 20 years ago, when a red-headed grandson lived here. Thomas was 2, and we spent our days together in the garden.

In the spring he was just toddling well, and we’d stop now and then to deal with a diaper when it got so wet and heavy the poor little fella couldn’t walk. By the time the corn was up, he learned to water the edges of the patch to discourage raccoons.

Newsrooms are disorderly places even in the most orderly of times. There’s always a scramble to meet the next deadline, produce the next edition and make sure that at least the most essential stories are covered, no matter how busy everyone is.

Toss a king-size wrench into the operation, and things can get downright chaotic.

I’m proud of last week’s rollout of the new Del Norte Triplicate, but it wasn’t easy. The conversion from five issues per week to three bigger issues was a challenge to every department, especially advertising, circulation and the press plant in addition to the newsroom.

Attack on conservative ideology repeats tired arguments of past

In his Coastal Voices critique (“Panning conservative ideology,” Oct.6,) of my prior reply to Lois Munson’s letter, Bruce Kerwood waxes pale with any original thought in his “panning” of conservatism. It’s true he dressed up some of the time-worn expressions of liberalism in different clothing but sadly they are clothes from a thrift shop. Liberal thought has few funds left for a bright fresh wardrobe.

He expresses expectations of “a cogent argument from ultra-conservatives” in the thesis of my writing in “Can it get more grim?” Sept. 29,, but is quickly disillusioned as I “descended” into that most despised condition of political perdition: conservative expression. What I wrote to entice his progressive appetite remains a mystery. He does not develop that point. He merely kicks over the liberal garbage can and floorboards his anti-traditionalist rhetoric.

The Noll Surf Classic,  Home­-coming and Sea Cruise – all local events that announce fall. So is the annual tag sale at the Methodist Church, my favorite rummage sale of the year. Friday I came home with aged linens, all hand-embroidered and each one more exquisite than the next. One is a hand towel embroidered with a pink ballerina that I’ll give my granddaughter.

I also bought Christmas decorations. Just couldn’t help myself. I am such a pushover for the holidays.

For me the holidays begin with Halloween, a night that always reminds me of when my kids were young. Some years were better than others, but every Halloween had jack-o’-lanterns and hot apple cider. One year we lived on a street where parents drove their kids to trick or treat because the houses were close together and most were heavily decorated. It cost a small fortune to stock enough candy for 400 kids that night, but it was worth it.