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Posts published by “Steve Heilig”

Mendocino ‘Magic’

Driving up Highway 101, late 1970s, hitchhikers at regular intervals and when they saw my VW van they would start jumping up and down with anticipation of a ride. I picked up one of the less deranged-looking guys and we had a nice chat as we entered Humboldt and the redwoods.

Genetically-Modified Democracy

Normally, I don't watch much television, as I am easily nauseated. But when the San Francisco Giants made the playoffs and then the World Series…

A (Mormon?) Miracle?

Perhaps the most notable endorsement of a candidate in this year's heated Presidential campaign has been relatively unremarked, and begins like this: Nowhere has Mitt…

The Doper In The Uniform

In 2011, bicycling champion Lance Armstrong demanded an apology from “60 Minutes” after the program alleged that he used banned drugs to ride faster. Then…

Stalking The Wild Superbug

Just under a century ago, following the carnage of WWI, an influenza pandemic swept over much of the planet, killing over 50 million people — more than three times the number killed in the war itself. Soldiers and others moving around globally were a crucial factor in the spread of the flu virus, even though transportation was nowhere near as efficient and far-reaching as it is today.

Bad Bugs Biting Back

Writers and filmmakers have long liked apocalyptic stories. In the last century the dominant cause of the end of humanity became a nuclear holocaust, but a giant asteroid hitting Earth has also been popular. And then there are those pesky zombies. That's science fiction — so far — but out in the real world, it might well be that the most likely cause of our specie's demise will be a microscopic bug we cannot defeat, and that we vanish, or vastly diminish, not with a bang but a whimper.

101 South: A 50-Degree Drop

It was way over 100°F up in Southern Humboldt. Too hot for most any reasonable human, let alone a furry black dog, so we soaked…

Silent Spring, 50 Years On

California Governor Jerry Brown recently moved to restrict the use of some chemicals used as flame retardants, due to their impacts on human health. The…

Boomville

Chatting with Sierra Nevada World Music Festival honcho Warren Smith sidestage as the weekend was winding down Sunday evening, he agreed that putting on such…

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