We online publications have at least two advantages over our paper-bound brethren: lightning speed and infinite space. In the two weeks of its young life, your Lost Coast Outpost, in cooperation with its radio partners, has used those advantages to cover the Highway 101 slide in something close to real-time, to quash rumors and to offer near instant round-ups of the morning and afternoon news. As we go forward, we’ll be constantly on the lookout for new ways to use the technology and our manpower to something like its full potential.

In that vein, today we introduce Lost Coast Outpost Op-Eds. (See Maggie Gainer’s piece advocating for the Arcata Community Recycling Center, below.) We’re inviting people in the community to make their case – political, social, otherwise – right here on the LoCO. Humboldt County is not short of people with opinions, nor does it lack for people interested in reading and challenging those opinions. We want to connect you with an informed and interested readership. We can do it quickly.

Here’s the ground rules:

1. Your op-ed has to be about Humboldt County.

2. You have to sign your name, and to provide at least a couple of lines telling readers who you are.

3. We place a premium on good writing. Make the best case you can. Avoid ad hominem argument.

4. Don’t write because a political group asked you to. If Op-Eds from a particular quarter start to become repetitive, we will likely stop running them.

Yes? You in? Send your op-ed to hank@khum.com, and if it passes this simple muster it will almost certainly be on the LoCO within a couple of hours. We will Facebook it and Twitter it and do everything we can to make sure it gets in front of as many eyes as possible.

THE TRUTH WILL OUT … on the Lost Coast Outpost!