Author: CaliNews

A recipe for health I have spent every spring since seventh grade involved in track and field, well over 50 years — a life of studying forward movement through running, teaching, clinics, clinician and graduate study — a lifetime study of coaching. We are all aware of the benefits of forward movement including heart strength, muscle strength, chronic disease control, and blood pressure and weight control. Some people with disabilities cannot walk but movement of any sort is beneficial. For most people, walking can be accomplished safely during a pandemic. It can be done almost anywhere. You can listen to music, you can walk safely with friends or it can be a great way to mediate quietly. It isn’t running. One foot is always touching the ground and almost everyone at almost any fitness level can benefit from starting a walking regimen. Most of us already walk quite a few steps daily, so here are some things to consider to make the most of them. Walking with improper technique radically reduces the effectiveness of your time and can cause other problems. Good walking includes staying…

I Care a Lot and Nomadland I CARE A LOT. There has been a movement afoot, particularly in the last 20 years or so, among creators and critics in advocacy of the unlikable protagonist. And it makes sense: From a storytelling standpoint, exploring the vague borders of personality in order to subvert the dominant hero/villain paradigm can be a deeply satisfying thought exercise. In terms of modern/feminist/progressive criticism, flouting the convention of pleasantness as a measure of worth serves as part of the greater work of widening the lens of acceptability and validity through which we view art, whether it be “serious” or “popular” (although part of the same work lies in removing that distinction). Philosophically, I’m all for it. I tend toward the dark places anyway and I admire the challenge of creating a compellingly nasty character/narrative. But there’s the rub. The work has to be compelling, the character (or characters) realized enough that we care about them, or at least want to see what they get up to in spite of our aversion. It is a delicate balance worth striving for and, ostensibly,…

Rivers conditions are trending toward perfection this week and it’s pretty much now or never for the 2021 winter steelhead season. In what has been called one of the toughest seasons anyone can remember, if the next week or so doesn’t produce some quality fishing, it’s likely the season will go down as a bust. There are plenty of theories about why the steelhead haven’t returned in big numbers but nobody knows for sure. With a little more than a month left in the season, there is time for a resurgence. And if there was ever a time, it would be this week. Conditions on just about every coastal river are — or soon will be — pristine. We’ve had a few “Miracle Marches” in the past and it’s looking like we’re going to need another. Weather ahead “We’ll have a few opportunities for light rain in the next few days,” said Kathleen Zontos of Eureka’s National Weather Service Office. “The six-day rainfall total, which goes through Monday, is showing less than a tenth of an inch of rain. There is a chance for some…

Editor: The movie review by John J. Bennett about the Hoover/FBI assassination of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton I found to be exceptionally well written (“Tragedy of the Inside Man,” Feb. 18). He gives us a little look into what our very recent COVID life weirdness has been as far as being unable to enjoy gatherings for music or movies. And it resonates with Black Lives Matter and reminds me of the late 1960s and the Bay Area student strikes and anti-war movement and the Panthers in Oakland and the Brown Berets. Nostalgia for a time filled with some horrible things, yet still a time with hope for sanity and a brighter future that would never have included a creature like our recent failed “leader.” I look forward to being able to see the movie (in a theater?), and thank you for writing it. Robert Fornes, McKinleyville…

Wednesday afternoon was their scheduled weekly supervised visit with their mom; every week they’d come into the same room with the same books and toys, while I sat on an office chair at the door jotting down notes. Before I became a staff writer at the Journal, I worked with Humboldt County youth at an afterschool program, a summer camp and at the foster care agency. Some of my job included monitoring supervised visits like these. “Mom played with daughter. Mom engaged in a conversation with her son and asked him about school. Mom brought snacks. Mom read a book to them.” But today the little girl was tired of being enclosed in the same room. She let out a massive sigh and asked her mom if they could go next door to the Redwood Discovery Museum. Her mom looked at me since I was supervising and, of course, I said yes. I was just as tired of sitting in the same spot. The girl jumped up and rushed toward the door, hopping and asking her mom if they could play in the interactive science…