Opinions
Second & Flume: Cheers to Dave
I last saw Dave Mettler a few weeks before Thanksgiving. I was at Safeway to buy sourdough bread, but I popped over to the next aisle to say hello to the store’s venerable “wine guy.” […]
Second & Flume
Opinions
Second & Flume: Best laid plans
One recent evening, I told my son the good news. I explained that scientists had come up with a way to help him get the protection he’d need to be able to return to school […]
Second & Flume
Second & Flume: Disaster lesson
I still get anxiety when I visit Paradise. I go up there only occasionally, mostly to visit a friend who, thankfully, lives just off the main drag. I’m all right if I stay on or […]
Opinions
Second & Flume: Incoming
The day after the CN&R closed up shop last year due to the statewide shutdown, I sat in our downstairs conference room with a few staffers and former staffers. I’d invited them to the office […]
Opinions
Accountability
This column is part of special wildfire report on the one-year anniversary of the North Complex Fire’s destruction of Berry Creek and Feather Falls. Find links for more articles in this series at the end […]
Opinions
Second & Flume: A dark cloud
Love isn’t enough. I learned that the hard way during childhood, when people I was close to deeply hurt and disappointed me. But never in adulthood has that lesson been so in my face as […]
Opinions
Second & Flume: Busted
I’ve never been more embarrassed for my beloved community. Because, while the Chico City Council and administration have made some pretty big blunders over my two-plus decades here, nothing compares with the “resting environment” set […]
Opinions
Second & Flume: Commitment
Each year at around this time, I write about the awards the CN&R picks up in the annual journalism competition put on by the California News Publishers’ Association. I give a rundown in Second & […]
Opinions
Second & Flume: Press charges
Over the short time Rob Berry has lived in Chico, I’ve seen and heard various descriptions of the guy, some of which aren’t fit for print. He is, shall we say, a controversial character. He […]
Opinions
Second & Flume: Hope
The rain was the perfect company as I sat down on the eve of the one-year anniversary of California’s coronavirus lockdown. Not coincidentally, March 19, 2020, was also the day that the CN&R closed its […]
Opinions
Second & Flume: Damage control
I’ll never forget the morning after the Camp Fire—Nov. 9, 2018. That’s the day I drove up the Skyway and into the burning hellscape of what I once recognized as the town of Paradise. One […]
Second & Flume
Second & Flume: Unforgiven
This Gen-Xer’s lefty views on the government and social issues diverge greatly from a lot of folks in the North State, and that includes most of those with whom I share DNA. I’d call myself […]
Opinions
Second & Flume: Sad and angry
One of my worst fears about the pandemic was realized six days before Christmas. That’s when I lost my beloved grandfather, Albert Baleme Jr., the patriarch of my mother’s family. He was my last living […]
Opinions
Second & Flume: Muckraker remembered
“Hey, kid. How ya doin’?” I can hear Tim Crews’ gravelly voice say those exact words, his typical greeting. Though busy as editor and publisher of the twice-weekly Sacramento Valley Mirror, the publication he founded […]
Opinions
Second & Flume: Burning questions
How could Butte County become the site of a wildfire-related mass casualty event less than two years after 85 people were killed by the Camp Fire? I’ve been stuck on that question since Sept. 9, […]