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Rep. Mike Thompson (CA-05) will hold a virtual press conference at noon Pacific Time on Tuesday, Feb. 16.
This event will be held over Zoom and interested participants must email Thompson’s office at
The event will also be streamed on Facebook Live via Thompson’s page.
During the event, Thompson will highlight the importance of the state and local funding that was included in the American Rescue Plan.
Thompson will be joined by leaders from across the Fifth Congressional District that support this legislation.
The Fifth Congressional District includes all or part of Contra Costa, Lake, Napa, Solano and Sonoma counties.
Valentine’s Day annoys many people.
For many in a relationship, the pressure to impress a partner can weigh heavily, and expensive gifts serve as a reminder of the relentless commercialization of the holiday. Meanwhile those still looking for love approach the day with trepidation – another reminder of their single status and the pressure to find a partner.
As a chivalric literary historian who has studied the origins of the holiday, I find this a shame. When the notion of Valentine’s Day as a day for romance emerged in the 1380s it was all about love as a natural life force – birds choosing their mates, the freedom to choose or refuse love and the arrival of springtime. But even then many people did not understand or value these things. In fact, that is why it was invented.
Odes to love
The first to write of Valentine’s Day – a feast day with ancient pagan roots – as a holiday celebrating love and lovers were the 14th-century English squire Geoffrey Chaucer and his friend, the internationally admired knight and poet Oton III de Granson, from Savoy in modern-day France. Both poets were recognized in their own time as chivalrous advocates for human rights. And in tandem, they seem to have concocted Valentine’s Day as a day for lovers.
Their work supported principles still important for us today, notably the right to free choice in love and the right to refuse romantic advances.
Chaucer and Granson encountered one another in the service of Richard II of England and admired one another’s poetry. Their poems about Valentine’s Day show them operating as an international chivalric team to address pressing issues in the theory and practice of love, then and now.
In the poem “The Parliament of Fowls,” Chaucer presents Valentine’s Day as a day when birds gather to choose their mates under the supervision of nature. In the poem, presented as a dream, three rival eagles each express a lifelong commitment to a single female. Birds of lower social status and different temperament, waiting in line, quarrel about how to resolve the impasse so they, too, can select their mates.
In the scenario, two of the eagles must be disappointed – Valentine’s Day is no guarantee that all will find love. But in the end the wise female eagle obtains from the figure of Nature the right to take her time in deciding her mate. She chooses not to choose. It is a story of waiting to recognize one’s true love, knowing your own heart and having the right to choose your partner yourself.
Chaucer’s tale relates to an actual courtship that included three suitors and ended in the wedding of two 15-year-olds: Richard II and the princess Anne of Bohemia, in 1382.
Meanwhile, Granson promoted Valentine’s Day in his French poems as a day for human lovers to choose one another and pledge their love, as do the birds. Granson pledges his own undying love to a mysterious lady in his “Complaint to Saint Valentine.” There was no merchandise involved and no gifts were expected.
Free love
Chaucer and Granson’s celebration of love as a relationship between partners, a union of souls grounded in respect and the freedom of choice, contrasts with many of the traditions of the age in which they lived.
Throughout the Middle Ages, most marriages were arranged and often forced, usually in childhood – as many still are today – with the full support of tradition and the law. Saints’ lives and legal documents describe parents coercing children to marry by brute force. Chaucer’s own father was kidnapped at age 12 by his aunt in an attempt to force him to marry her daughter in order to gain control over his inheritance.
In this context, Chaucer and Granson reimagined the already existing Valentine’s Day festival to celebrate the potential beauty of love itself. In a world where forced and child marriages are still all too common, it is important to reflect on Chaucer and Granson’s visions. Their reinvention of the day opened the eyes of poets, knights, ladies and just plain folk to the need for respect and self-respect in courtship – and the value of partnerships entered into for love, not just for lust, power or money.
Servants of love, these two knightly poets shaped Valentine’s Day as a gift for future generations. Their chivalrous enterprise deserves to be celebrated as we pursue our own happiness.
Jennifer Wollock, Professor of English, Texas A&M University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of pit bull and Rottweiler.
Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.
The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (additional dogs on the animal control Web site not listed are still “on hold”).
Call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278 or visit the shelter online at http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control.htm for information on visiting or adopting.
‘Jack’
“Jack” is a young male Rottweiler mix.
He has a short red and black coat and a docked tail.
He is in kennel No. 22, ID No. 14328.
Male pit bull terrier
This male pit bull terrier has a short brindle and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 26, ID No. 14339.
‘Sargent Chunk’
“Sargent Chunk” is a young male Rottweiler with a short red and black coat.
He is in kennel No. 28, ID No. 14303.
Male pit bull terrier
This male pit bull terrier mix has a short black and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 30, ID No. 14338.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
A team of astronomers, including associate professor Chad Trujillo of Northern Arizona University's Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science, have confirmed a planetoid that is almost four times farther from the Sun than Pluto, making it the most distant object ever observed in our solar system.
The planetoid, which has been nicknamed "Farfarout," was first detected in 2018, and the team has now collected enough observations to pin down its orbit. The Minor Planet Center has now given it the official designation of 2018 AG37.
Farfarout's nickname distinguished it from the previous record holder "Farout," found by the same team of astronomers in 2018.
In addition to Trujillo, the discovery team includes Scott S. Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science and David Tholen from the University of Hawai'i Institute for Astronomy, who have an ongoing survey to map the outer solar system beyond Pluto.
Farfarout will be given an official name (like Sedna and other similar objects) after its orbit is better determined over the next few years. It was discovered at the Subaru 8-meter telescope located atop Maunakea in Hawai’i, and recovered using the Gemini North and Magellan telescopes in the past few years to determine its orbit based on its slow motion across the sky.
Farfarout's average distance from the Sun is 132 astronomical units (au); 1 au is the distance between the Earth and Sun. For comparison, Pluto is only 39 au from the Sun. The newly discovered object has a very elongated orbit that takes it out to 175 au at its most distant, and inside the orbit of Neptune, to around 27 au, when it is close to the Sun.
Farfarout's journey around the Sun takes about a thousand years, crossing the massive planet Neptune's orbit every time. This means Farfarout has likely experienced strong gravitational interactions with Neptune over the age of the solar system, and is the reason why it has such a large and elongated orbit.
"A single orbit of Farfarout around the Sun takes a millennium," said Tholen. "Because of this long orbital, it moves very slowly across the sky, requiring several years of observations to precisely determine its trajectory."
Farfarout is very faint, and based on its brightness and distance from the Sun, the team estimates its size to be about 400 kilometers across, putting it on the low end of being a dwarf planet, assuming it is an ice rich object.
"The discovery of Farfarout shows our increasing ability to map the outer solar system and observe farther and farther towards the fringes of our solar system," said Sheppard. "Only with the advancements in the last few years of large digital cameras on very large telescopes has it been possible to efficiently discover very distant objects like Farfarout. Even though some of these distant objects are quite large, being dwarf planet in size, they are very faint because of their extreme distances from the Sun. Farfarout is just the tip of the iceberg of solar system objects in the very distant solar system."
Because Neptune strongly interacts with Farfarout, Farfarout's orbit and movement cannot be used to determine if there is another unknown massive planet in the very distant solar system, since these interactions dominate Farfarout's orbital dynamics.
Only those objects whose orbits stay in the very distant solar system, well beyond Neptune's gravitational influence, can be used to probe for signs of an unknown massive planet. These include Sedna and 2012 VP113, which, although they are currently closer to the Sun than Farfarout (at around 80 AU), they never approach Neptune and thus would be strongly influenced by the possible Planet X instead.
"Farfarout's orbital dynamics can help us understand how Neptune formed and evolved, as Farfarout was likely thrown into the outer solar system by getting too close to Neptune in the distant past," said Trujillo. "Farfarout will likely strongly interact with Neptune again since their orbits continue to intersect."
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Two people were injured in a Thursday night structure fire that destroyed a home in Nice.
The fire, at 3550 Lakeview Drive, was first dispatched at about 6:30 p.m. Thursday, according to radio reports.
Northshore Fire Protection District Battalion Chief Dave Emmel told Lake County News that the home was a singlewide trailer.
Firefighters arriving on scene minutes after dispatch requested an ambulance for the first of two burn victims.
The first victim was a woman who was reported to be 70 years old and suffering from second- and third-degree burns over most of her body, Emmel said.
Due to the weather, an air ambulance couldn’t respond, based on radio traffic.
The woman and a second burn patient were transported to the hospital, Emmel said.
Emmel said firefighters knocked the fire down pretty quickly. The trailer, however, was a complete loss.
In addition to the singlewide trailer, a travel trailer next to it also was burned, Emmel said. No other nearby structures were damaged.
Firefighters at the scene also requested Pacific Gas and Electric send out a crew, as wires were down, according to scanner reports.
Besides the two people transported to the hospital, Emmel said the fire displaced one other person.
As to the cause of the fire, “We believe it was accidental,” Emmel said.
He said the source has so far been traced to a heater coming in contact with a couch.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
Last month, the state added people age 65 and older to its priority tiers, with the governor announcing that age is to be a primary factor in determining eligibility going forward.
That raised concerns for Californians with disabilities and chronic health conditions who don’t meet the age requirements that they could be kept waiting for the vaccine.
On Friday, the state said it’s now going to give health care providers additional flexibility to vaccinate younger individuals who have underlying health conditions or high-risk disabilities, California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said.
Effective March 15, health care providers will be able to use their clinical judgement to vaccinate people age 16 to 64 who are deemed to be at the very highest risk for morbidity and mortality from COVID-19 as a direct result of pregnancy, cancer, chronic kidney disease (stage four and above), oxygen-dependent chronic pulmonary disease, oxygen dependent, Down syndrome, immunocompromised state from a solid organ transplant, sickle cell disease, heart conditions, such as heart failure, coronary artery disease or cardiomyopathies (excluding hypertension), severe obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus with hemoglobin A1c level greater than 7.5 percent.
Also allowed to receive vaccinations under this new rule are individuals who have developmental or other severe high-risk disabilities that make them likely to develop severe life-threatening illness or death from COVID-19 infection; individuals for whom acquiring COVID-19 would limit their ability to receive ongoing care or services vital to their well-being and survival; and those for whom providing adequate and timely COVID care will be particularly challenging as a result of their disability, according to the provider’s bulletin the state released to Lake County News.
Ghaly said about four to six million Californians are estimated to be in those groups.
That’s in addition to the 13 million individuals now eligible in the first tier, which includes Phase 1A, health care workers and residents of long term care facilities, and Phase 1B, workers in the food and agriculture, education and childcare, and emergency service sectors, and Californians age 65 and above.
State officials are focusing on saving lives, promoting equity and getting to the other side of the pandemic, Ghaly said.
As part of that process, the state realizes that certain individuals have additional risk factors based on various disabilities and conditions. “This is a recognition of that,” Ghaly said of the changes adding the new groups to the vaccination tiers.
The March 15 date allows for stakeholders, providers and other groups to make sure there are services and capacity so that the individuals in these new priority groups receive the vaccine, Ghaly explained.
“We believe this planning period is appropriate,” said Ghaly.
At the same time, Ghaly said the state is still dealing with the scarcity of vaccines.
While the state now can get a three-week vaccine outlook from its federal partners, Ghaly said he can’t say how soon the state will have enough vaccine to get vaccinations for the 13 million individuals now eligible and the up to six million more who will be added in March.
“Supply is the hardest piece,” he said.
Administration officials told reporters on Friday that the process for distributing the vaccine has been based on eligible populations. Early on, those amounts were specifically based on how many health care workers were in each county.
In the state’s conversations with the federal government, Ghaly said there are indications that the availability of vaccine from manufacturers could be going way up by late spring or early summer.
At the same time, Ghaly noted that in distributing the vaccine, “Equity is front of mind.”
He added, “Achieving equity is simply doing more for those who have been disproportionately impacted,” whether due to age, race or sexual orientation.
State to roll out third party administrator to oversee vaccination network
Also on Friday, administration officials discussed with reporters the introduction of a third party administrator who will be part of building a statewide vaccine administration network, a plan Gov. Gavin Newsom first announced last month.
Newsom’s office said the third party administrator will allocate vaccines directly to providers to maximize distribution efficiency.
The third party administrator will ensure that the state vaccine provider network includes appropriate access in disproportionately impacted communities and supplements this access with evening/extended hours, transportation services, translation services, home-bound services, mobile vaccine services and physical accessibility features at vaccination events, administration officials said.
Officials said that they will have individual conversations with county Public Health leadership about their challenges with vaccinations as well as where the process is working to help inform the third party administrator as they build out the state vaccine provider network.
Under the third party administrator, counties will have wide latitude to determine who receives the vaccine, administration officials said.
On Tuesday, Lake County Public Health Officer Dr. Gary Pace convened the first meeting of the
COVID-19 Ethics Ad Hoc Committee that he has assembled.
Lake County News asked Pace on Friday how that committee and its suggestions on prioritizing vaccinations would interact with the changes the state is implementing, including the introduction of the third party administrator.
“Still working on a lot of the specifics,” Pace responded in an email.
Email Elizabeth Larson at