Caroline Titus, Editor and Publisher of the Ferndale Enterprise, Ferndale's finest weekly, will stop by the Awkward Pause radio show this afternoon to give us a sneak peak at tomorrow's headlines. It's a hard-hitting, no-holds-barred look at some of the goings on in Ferndale and the larger Eel River Valley.  Join us this afternoon, won't you?

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Cliff and Emily talk with Shannon Tracey and Caelie Quinn about the upcoming 5th Annual Climate Ride. The ride goes from Fortuna to San Francisco, starts May 19th and concludes on May 23rd.  About 160 riders of varying experience will make the trek to San Francisco in order raise funds and call attention to sustainable climate friendly transportation options.  More info at climateride.org.

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Anne Sexton didn't start writing poetry until she was in her late 20s, but within 12 years of taking up the pen, she was a Pulitzer Prize winner and among America's most honored poets.

She also enjoyed a drink. After a writing class she was taking at Boston University taught by Robert Lowell, Sexton and classmate Sylvia Plath would head to the Ritz Carlton to sip cocktails. According to Plath, Sexton would park in the hotel's loading zone, explaining that the duo intended to get loaded.

In Sexton's honor, tonight we'll be enjoying the classic and classy kir royale, a champagne-based drink.

Kir Royale

Champagne
0.5 oz creme de cassis
Lemon twist

Pour champagne into a chilled champagne flute.  Lightly drizzle in cassis.  Garnish with lemon twist.

Update 5-15-13: Audio

KHUM proudly welcomed Eilen Jewell to Humboldt county for an on-air set on, Tuesday May 14th. She performed at the Arcata Playhouse the same evening.

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There is more to Eilen Jewell than meets the ear. Do not confuse the singer and her songs. The drama and darkness that give Queen of the Minor Key its gritty texture are in short supply in the Boston-based songwriter’s personal life. And in a curious twist, these fourteen originals actually took shape in a sunny, idyllic location that contrasts strikingly with the album’s moody, film noir atmosphere.

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See it here. And by the looks of it, there seems to be a little pocket of hate just north of McKinleyville. 

The Geography of Hate is part of a larger project by Dr. Monica Stephens of Humboldt State University (HSU) identifying the geographic origins of online hate speech. 

In what can only be described as the most soul-crushing homework ever, three HSU students had to search geotagged Tweets for slurs. Then, they had to manually read tens of thousands of those Tweets to ensure that the slurs were used as pejoratives.

They then adjusted for Twitter usage rates so that population-dense areas and rural areas were on equal hate-footing. 

"For example, Orange County, California has the highest absolute number of tweets mentioning many of the slurs, but because of its significant overall Twitter activity, such hateful tweets are less prominent and therefore do not appear as prominently on our map. So when viewing the map at a broad scale, it’s best not to be covered with the blue smog of hate, as even the lower end of the scale includes the presence of hateful tweeting activity."

From Humboldt State: 

Where in America do people use the most hate speech?

In small towns with low diversity, according to a new map of Twitter data created by Humboldt State University geography instructor Monica Stephens and her students.

Stephens and three undergraduates mapped the geographic location of 150,000 tweets from June 2012 to April 2013 that used racist, homophobic or anti-disabled slurs. Students read each tweet in its entirety to verify it was being used in a derogatory way, then aggregated and normalized the data by county.

What the students found was a high concentration of hate speech—like the n-word and the f-word—in isolated areas.

“It proves our hypothesis that areas with low diversity use more derogatory slurs against racial and sexual minorities,” Stephens says.

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No, seriously. You will never guess. Here's what they want you to think:

"In lieu of a Commencement keynote, there will be a special presentation marking the Centennial."

HSU spokesman Paul Mann was cryptic with the details, but told KHUM that the presentation "will have to do with our namesake."

He added that the speaker "could be a descendant of Alexander Von Humboldt. Maybe Alexandra Von Humboldt."

If you're thinking what we're thinking, Mann flatly denied that person's presence on the podium on Saturday. 

So who could it be? And why wouldn't they say who it is? 

See if you can figure out what HSU is hinting at from his KHUM interview.

Paul Mann

Cliff talks with Matt Filar, of the Humboldt Crabs about their upcoming season, history, preseason dinner, the new batting cage in left field and the upcoming new bleachers.

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