Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office press release:

On Jan. 30, 2021, at about 1 a.m., Humboldt County Sheriff’s deputies on patrol in the area of U.S. Highway 101 near Murray Road observed a motorcycle traveling at a high-rate of speed.

Jeremiah Jerel Wilkinson. | HCSO

Deputies attempted to conduct a traffic stop on the motorcycle for a speeding violation, however, the driver failed to yield, and a pursuit ensued. Deputies pursued the motorcycle on Highway 101, eventually exiting at Westhaven Drive in Trinidad. During the pursuit, the driver lost control of the motorcycle on Scenic Drive, crashing on the shoulder of the road. The driver was taken into custody without further incident and was identified as 39-year-old Jeremiah Jerel Wilkinson.

Wilkinson was booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility on charges of evading a peace officer (VC 2800.2), driving with a suspended license (VC 14601.1) and violation of probation (PC 1203.2(A)(2)), in addition to warrant charges for felon in possession of tear gas (PC 22810(A)), possession of a narcotic controlled substance (HS 11350(A)), possession of drug paraphernalia (HS 11364(A)) and violation of probation.

Anyone with information about this case or related criminal activity is encouraged to call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445-7251 or the Sheriff’s Office Crime Tip line at (707) 268-2539.

A suspected DUI driver bulldozed a portion of Eureka’s distinct Cheshire Cat House on the 2300 block of Fairfield Street with a Ford pickup early this morning.

Joshua Hoisington. | EPD

Eureka Police Department spokesperson Brittany Powell told the Outpost that 38-year-old Joshua Hoisington of Blocksburg crashed into the home at approximately 4:25 a.m.

“Hoisington drove into the house at a high rate of speed and then attempted to flee on foot,” Powell said. “Hoisington was arrested for DUI, driving while unlicensed and hit and run.”

No injuries were reported as a result of the crash.

The Outpost‘s Ryan Burns reports from the scene this morning that the home is miraculously already in repairs.

And another happy Humboldt Monday to you all. This week, your President of Positivity drops by the Boys and Girls Club of the Redwoods to see how they’re fairing with everything that’s going on in the world. Spoiler: They’re managing to still have fun. 

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Perhaps You’d Like to Explore Previous Mondays With Michaele For Some Reason!

Evidence seized from the scene of the crime. | Photos provided by the Humboldt County Drug Task Force.

Humboldt County Drug Task Force press release:

In early January of 2021 special agents with the Humboldt County Drug Task Force (HCDTF) initiated an investigation into the fentanyl distribution operation of Joseff Gene Greek (34 years old from San Francisco). Greek is currently on Federal probation for firearms violations. Agents had developed probable cause to believe Greek was transporting large quantities of fentanyl from San Francisco to Humboldt County on a regular basis.

Joseff Gene Greek.

During the final weekend of January 2021 agents conducted surveillance on Greek as he travelled from San Francisco to Sacramento, then to Mendocino County, and eventually on Sunday morning January 31st , 2021 Greek entered Humboldt County and checked into a hotel room in the area of 4th St. and B St. in Eureka. HCDTF agents obtained a search warrant for Greek and his hotel room.

At approximately 10:15 a.m. agents performed knock and notice on the door of Greek’s hotel room. A second male that was in the room with Greek, Dale Michael Melvin (24 years old from San Francisco), jumped out the back window of the second story hotel room in an attempt to flee. Humboldt County Sheriff Deputies were waiting in the alley way behind the hotel and detained Melvin. HCDTF agents breached the hotel room and detained Greek without incident.

Inside the hotel room agents located equipment for manufacturing assault weapons, pistols, and unregistered firearms. Agents also located an assault rifle, multiple handguns, a zip gun, silencers, several high capacity magazines, and large amounts of ammunition. Agents located documents detailing the manufacturing of firearms and price lists for the firearms distribution operation.

Agents also located approximately 3 ounces of fentanyl, 6 ounces of methamphetamine, cutting agents, scales, and packaging. Inside the room agents located two bags full of clothes covered in blood splatter. It is unknown how these clothes became in this condition. The clothes were seized as potential evidence in other crimes.

Dale Michael Melvin.

Greek and Melvin were transported to the Humboldt County Jail where they were booked for the following charges:

• H&S 11370.1 Possession of controlled substance while armed 
• H&S 11352(b) Transportation of controlled substances across noncontiguous counties 
• H&S 11351 Possession of controlled substances for sale HUMBOLDT COUNTY DRUG TASK FORCE Post Office Box 5338 Eureka, California 95502 (707) 267-9976 • Fax (707) 445 - 2611 
• H&S 11379(b) Transportation of methamphetamine across noncontiguous counties 
• H&S 11378 Possession of methamphetamine for sale 
• H&S 11366.5 Maintaining rented room for distributing controlled substances 
• PC 29800(a)(1) Felon in possession of a firearm 
• PC 33410 Possession of a silencer 
• PC 31500 Possession of an unconventional pistol (zip gun) 
• PC 30605(a) Possession of an assault weapon 
• PC 30600(a) Manufacturing assault weapons 
• PC 148(a)(1) Resisting or obstructing a police officer 

Anyone with information related to this investigation or other narcotics related crimes are encouraged to call the Humboldt County Drug Task Force at 707-267-9976.

Humboldt Redwoods State Park Naturalist John “Griff” Griffith is back to riff about a “world champion hickey giver”: the Pacific Lamprey.

“They’ve been on the planet for 450 million years and they’re parasitic so they suck onto the sides of fish,” Griff says in the video. “But if you’ve been here for 450 million years … they might have been sucking on the sides of dinosaurs. They might have been giving dinosaurs hickeys!”

Griff also uses this opportunity to teach us what “anadromous” means and to talk about declining lamprey numbers and ways you can help.

Watch Griff’s fun and informative lesson in the video embedded above.

When white people aspire to get points for consciousness, they walk right into the cross hairs between allyship and appropriation…Wokeness has currency, but it’s all too easy to spend it.

— Amanda Hess, NYT Sunday Magazine, 4/24/16

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I was introduced to the idea of “woke,” if not the word, in 1962. As an engineering student at the University of London, I loved our weekly Student Union meeting, at which topics affecting us all were debated. The issue in question was whether to extend an invitation to Max Mosley to speak to us. Max is the son of the leader of the British Fascist leader Oswald Mosley, whose “Blackshirts” had rampaged through the East End of London on anti-Semitic race riots, smashing Jewish shop windows and terrorizing black immigrants. At the time, Max supported his dad’s views (he later quit politics to become a racing driver), and the question before our Union was, Should we give someone of his ilk a platform?

This scenario has played out countless times in colleges across the US, where students clash over whether, for instance, the well-known racist-misogynist Milo Yiannopoulos should be permitted to address students at Berkeley. He eventually did, after bitter debates, but was drowned out by protesters. As I understand it, wokeness won the day.

So, “woke.” The word seems to have come to public attention with the BLM protests about seven years ago, although it’s been around for a lot longer – probably the controversial Jamaican activist Marcus Garvey was the first to popularize it. While the word seems to have started off with the best of intentions – “Alert to injustice in society, especially racism” (Oxford Languages), it seems to have morphed into a term of derision – too much wokeness and you’re virtue signaling. That’s if you’re white – I hope non-whites will respond in the comments. The problem is summed up by what been happening at the venerable New York Times, starting in August 2016. You can read about it here, but briefly:

In August 2016, during the penultimate presidential election, NYT “writer-at-large,” Jim Rutenberg, changed the rules in a front-page story. “If you view a Trump presidency as something that is potentially dangerous, then your reporting is going to reflect that.” News media analyst Martin Gurri, commenting on this, wrote, “Once objectivity was sacrificed, an immense field of subjective possibilities presented themselves. A vision of the journalist as arbiter of racial justice would soon divide the generations inside the New York Times newsroom.” Thus, according to Gurri’s storyline, began the paper’s slide into what he calls “post-journalism,” from journalism-as-fact to journalism-as-opinion; the opinion, in this case, being the one that supports the liberal struggle against injustice.

This change of focus came to a head with the Times’ publication, on June 3, 2020, of an ultra-right op-ed by Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, “Send in the Troops,” in which he recommended harsh measures against BLM protesters. The backlash by many of the Times staff has apparently, resulted in a change of editorial policy, from facts to woke, not to mention the resignation of its editorial page director, James Bennet. (Why not bring back the Fairness Doctrine, in which opinion pieces that promote extreme POV’s are balanced with op-eds from the “other side, I wonder?)

The Times has, of course, always had a liberal tilt, but until a few years ago, it was a moderate bias compared to, say, HuffPost on the left and Breitbart on the right. (Although its months-long vendetta against Hillary Clinton and her private emails seemed to align with Trumpist propaganda at the time.) What I used to appreciate about it was, in essence, the Times’ willingness to trust its readers by publishing the facts, letting us decide what to make of them. Seems to me, no longer: now we’re protected against illiberal commentary because, I guess, we’re too vulnerable to think for ourselves. The Times is now woke.

Which pisses me off, just as denying Yiannopoulos a platform to express his offensive views infantilizes students: being offended by what someone says isn’t a valid reason to deny their right to say it. (As Stephen Fry succinctly put it, “You’re offended by what I’m saying? So fucking what?”) If students are going to be protected against weird and hateful opinions at university, how the hell are they going to manage out in the real world? IMHO, they should be welcoming any opportunities to hear, debate and agree or disagree with any points of view, no matter how outlandish or offensive. This is how we learn to discriminate, to separate the wheat from the chaff, to think skeptically, and to understand the dangers of confirmation bias. In short, to be adults.

In 1962, I voted against inviting Max Mosley to speak to us, because, I suppose, I thought that was the “woke” thing to do, had I known the word then. Today I would vote the other way: denying free speech is the enemy of democracy, and only encourages those whose views I object to. And yes, I am a card-carrying member of the ACLU.

I’ve been sitting with an image these last few days where I’m standing on the middle of some kind of platform with people on my left and right. It feels good, like we all have enough in common to be near. But then both sides start moving further away from the middle, so far I can barely see them anymore. And as they move further away, the middle where I stand begins to rumble, tremor, and split like ice breaking off in Antartica. I’m desperately holding onto both sides, my muscles aching, afraid of falling through and losing myself into a widening chasm of separation where families and friends have lost sight of what really matters. 

I try to shake off this image, this horrifying vision, but it won’t leave me alone.

In my conservative Christian high school government/economics class, like, a hundred years ago, we all took a quiz to find out if we leaned more Democrat or Republican. As we “graded” our own quizzes with our teacher’s instructions, I was deeply dismayed and disturbed with each answer that leaned more left than right. Agitation spread through me as I realized that I might agree with Democrats on some moral and ethical ideals! I began to question my loyalties to Christianity and Jesus, wondering if I belonged anywhere anymore. Hoping no one would see my shame, I quickly tucked the quiz into my binder where it would stay hidden—I could stay hidden—desperate that no one would find out.

For years since that moment, I registered Republican and blindly voted with the “Christian” party, rarely delving into the policy or personhood of each vote. But the more I began to grasp my own convictions and the more I began to pay attention to those outside of me and mine, the more I recognized the messy middle was where I felt most at home. I belong in the middle, finding myself pulled left and right at different times and in different ways. I’ve found space to stretch and expand in the middle, never quite landing on one side fully but often having to navigate the complicated, unstructured messiness the middle offers. Instead of a wasteland of lonely wandering, I’ve found a people there in the middle with friends and family on each side—some further to the left or right, but others closer to the middle with me. 

Lately, though, this disturbing image where the Left and Right walk further away from each other—so far they can’t seem to see the other any longer—seems to be a reality. Each side points fingers at the other saying it’s their fault. Instead of seeking the middle, the Left has rooted itself in prideful arrogance where belonging is found in how “woke” they are in what they say, regardless of what they do. And the Right has traveled so far down a rabbit trail called Q, they’re not sure if they ever want to come back, if they could even find their way. Not all are arrogant bastards or conspiracy quacks, friends. But certainly enough on both sides that the middle tremors and my muscles ache. Enough that my family and friends look differently than they did a year ago. 

Enough that I’m concerned.

When I look at the messy middle example of Jesus and his disciples, his closest friends had political leanings that were extremely opposite and violently contradictory. Their ideals for government structure and their personal moral compasses didn’t align perfectly. Perhaps this is why Jesus spoke of God’s kindom so often? Maybe Jesus knew that the first words he spoke out when starting his ministry needed to be the most important and often repeated because human beings are forgetful people who need countless reminders. “Turn your attention away from the systems and structures of this world because God’s kindom, God’s intention of harmony is here.” 

I was reminded by my friend on Sunday that Shalom/Harmony isn’t something we can do on our own. We need each other to harmonize. We need to meet in the middle and join our voices together, in the midst of our severe disagreements and deep differences, to lay down our defenses and all the ways we’re right and they’re wrong. Maybe if we decided to humbly press through the discomfort, like the disciples chose to do, we could begin to make music together and find enough healing and grace for today and tomorrow.

The middle might be messy, but it’s where I belong. I hope you can scoot a little closer. 

With (love), Bethany

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Bethany Cseh is a pastor at Arcata United Methodist Church and Catalyst Church. She blogs frequently on her website, With Bethany.