Wealth Care
How America’s tax system makes the super-rich richer while costing the rest of us
Cover Story
Wealth Care
For three decades we have conducted a massive economic experiment, testing a theory known as supply-side economics. The theory goes like this: Lower tax rates will encourage more investment, which in turn will mean more jobs and greater prosperity — so much so that tax revenues will go up, despite lower rates. The late Milton…
Nichols Discusses Iraq Waterkeeper Efforts on NY Radio
Humboldt Baykeeper Executive Director Pete Nichols appeared on New York radio station WNYC today with Nature Iraq founder Dr. Azzam Alwash. The two discussed the newly founded Upper Tigris Waterkeeper, an effort that the Journal wrote about a couple weeks back. Host Leonard Lopate asks about cleaning up the “cradle of civilization” after years of polution…
4/20 in Arcata a Bit ‘Off’
Things were damp in Arcata’s Redwood Park on April 20, the unofficial holiday also known as 4/20. The park’s grassy meadow was surrounded by caution tape. Police on the scene said a crew had spread fertilizer earlier in the day and no one was allowed to cross the field. Arcata Police Chief Tom Chapman was…
R.I.P. Humboldt’s Public 4/20
“It didn’t even smell like weed.” So reports Journal freelancer Zach St. George, who this afternoon trekked up to Arcata’s Redwood Park expecting to find a swaying herd of glassy-eyed stoners and instead found bored APD cops. What happened? This is supposed to be, like, the stoner’s choicest locale on the stoner’s unofficial holiday, right?…
Hiding Confidently Under The Covers
Photo from Sailing “Footprints: Real to Reel” (Ronn Ashore) The Eureka Police Department has entered what appears to be an introspective, self-improvement period. First it hires a homeless liaison to tend to the needs of those a-wander in our streets and marshes. And then it conducts a “crime and policing” survey to assess residents’ measure…
Local Company Teams With Lowe’s to Give Away 1 Million Trees
Great. First we start shipping whole logs to China; now we’re exporting entire trees. Actually, we doubt too many people will object to the massive tree giveaway being organized by Lowe’s Home Improvement Centers across the country, featuring live seedlings that even now are being sorted, packaged and shipped from the relatively tiny Jonsteen Company in…
EPD Hires Homeless Liaison
Most likely both cops and homeless folks — and local businesses — will be heaving great sighs of relief as a new addition to the Eureka Police Department adjusts to her duties. EPD Chief Garr Nielsen hired Pamlyn Millsap on March 17 to serve as the department’s homeless liaison, the EPD announced in a news…
Caltrans HQ Protest, Round Two
Opponents of the California Department of Transportation’s Richardson Grove Improvement Project staged a second rally Monday at Caltrans’ District 1 office on Wabash in Eureka. Colorful signs, chants of “One demand: Cancel the plan!,” and personal, impassioned, megaphone-aided pleas from protesters directed at local law enforcement and office occupants were plentiful. The rally (similar in…
Protesters Target B of A for Dodging Taxes
Charles Edwards of Eureka’s Stroop Effects Studios sent us the link to this short video he produced for Democracy Unlimited, highlighting last Friday’s protest of Bank of America. Another protest, organized through MoveOn.org, will take place today at 4:30 at the B of A in Henderson Center in Eureka.
Report From Wednesday’s Rally at HSU
Speaking of protests (see Andrew Goff’s post below), here’s a guest post from Somes Bar resident Malcolm Terence on the protest against budget cuts held Wednesday at HSU: Students, faculty, staff and citizens gathered Wednesday at Humboldt State University for a rally reminiscent of the college demonstrations during the Vietnam War, converting the quiet library…
Need A Cause? Humboldtians Air Grievances
In anticipation of Tax Day on Monday, soggy teabaggery was on full display in front of the Humboldt County Courthouse Friday as just over 50 members of the Humboldt Tea Party Patriots braved the drizzle to voice their displeasure with, as one sign put it, being “Taxed Enough Already.” (See below for more signage.) The rally…
Down the Road
For now, work continues as usual at the Arcata Community Recycling Center (ACRC) facility in Samoa, but unemployment looms large in the minds of its 35 employees. Barring an unlikely reversal, a new deal will send Humboldt’s bottles, cans, newsprint, and other recyclables rumbling down Hwy. 101 to Willits, taking those jobs along with them.…
Odium for Plasmodium
Editor: I hate to pop Ken Burton’s bubble and the crocodile tears he sheds for the poor, benighted Plasmodium parasite, but he’s made several mistakes in his letter about making “malaria extinct” (“All Creatures,” Mailbox, April 7). First of all there are four, not 11, species of human-specific Plasmodium: P. vivax, P. malariae, P. falciparum and…
Mr. Dave
He can tend toward the cranky side and is prone to obtuse humor. His garish outfits have earned him the nickname “The Prince of Polyester.” He fits the Fargo description, “kinda funny lookin’.” He favors instruments you’re probably not familiar with: the caz, the Weissenborn lap guitar, cittern, gumbu, charango and zither. But, most important,…
General Babel
Tensions surrounding the county’s General Plan Update have been simmering for, well, years now. Almost too many to count, but let’s do it anyway: The planning department began updating the plan, which serves as the “constitution” governing future developments in the county, in January of 2000. That means it has now taken almost 11 years…
Frankenstein’s Orchard
I have been pruning For more than two…
E-asy proof
Editor: Regarding James Kennedy’s letter about Barry Evans’ March 24 column (“Truth vs. truth,” Mailbox, April 7): These days, there are those capital “E” errors resulting from too much time on the lowercase “e” technologies. It has never been easier to find any number of sources to prove whatever one wants desperately to believe. Google…
Radiation Measures
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Here Before
The Feelies, a New Jersey-based band that drew great critical praise for their quirky and nervous 1980 debut, Crazy Rhythms, have always operated on their own time schedule. It took nearly 20 years after their last full-length release to produce their new recording, Here Before — the band called it a “hiatus.” And what’s incredible…
April 14-20
April 14. To one and a half pounds of sprats, add a pound of raisins, a pinch each of lovage and oregano, a chopped onion, two glasses of white wine, and liquamen to taste. Thicken with corn flour and serve immediately. This “dish of small fish” was a popular meal in Roman times and remains…
Q&A with Liz Murguia
Last Saturday afternoon, friends, family and associates of Liz Murguia gathered at the Humboldt Botanical Garden near College of the Redwoods to honor her years of work and to wish her well in retirement. Among them were her two past bosses: former California State Assemblyman and Senator Barry Keene, who represented the 2nd District from…
Garlic Patch Friends
Carrots love garlic, and garlic doesn’t mind carrots. Those are some conclusions I reached last year when I finally got sick of looking at all the blank space between my garlic plants and decided to do something about it. They’re planted six inches apart, and if it weren’t for the straw mulch between them, most…
Local Incomes
In Humboldt County, the public trough offers more vittles than the private sector. In 2009 (the most recent data available), the average salary for an employee of a local government (city or county) was $6,306 higher than that of a privately employed worker, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. State employees fared even better…
Otherwise Known As The Human Condition: Selected Essays and Reviews
By his own admission, British writer Geoff Dyer is easily bored. As a result, he’s cast his net over a wide variety of subjects and genres, blurring the lines between fiction, personal essay and reporting. His book But Beautiful convincingly created fictionalized portraits of jazz legends and is one of the best books ever written…
What’s The Matter?
In the 2008 movie Ghost Town, dentist Bertram Pincus (Ricky Gervais) starts seeing ghosts after a near-death experience. For every “regular” person on the sidewalks of New York, he’s aware of maybe five dead people. This is something like the situation that astronomers now face. Lurking behind every part of ordinary matter are five parts…
Othello in Eureka
For those seeing their first production of Shakespeare’s Othello, North Coast Repertory Theatre in Eureka provides stylish and vivid entertainment as well as impressive individual moments and plenty of food for thought. But there are reasons that people return to this play (and other classics) even when they know the story of Othello the Moor,…
McKinleyville Arts Night
1) Plaza Design, McKinleyville Shopping Center. Gus Clark, paintings/live demonstration. 2) McKinleyville Family Resource Center, 1450 Hiller Rd. Louis Bender, one-of-a-kind personalized cartoons for a donation. 3) Mantova’s Two Street Music, 2019 Central Ave. Local performance posters from the ’70s and ’80s; live music. 4) Blake’s Books, 2005 Central Ave. Lauren Lester and Sandra Healy, paintings. 5) Church…
Weednesday, 4/20
Weed, green weed, Grow it from seed. Sell it for money, And buy what you need. Pot, smelly pot, Legal it’s sort of not. Blow up your house, But watch out for those cops. Cannabis, oh cannabis, Fuel for the long hippie bus. Everyone smokes so much, What’s with the Man’s big fuss?…
This is Birdemic
As I’m sure you’re all aware, birds have suffered from some bad PR lately. Ever since the underground film Birdemic somehow found its way into wide distribution last year, there has been an unspoken distrust between the human and bird populations. (Go ahead, google Birdemic’s spine-chilling trailer and see what all the hubbub is about,…
What’s the Matter?
In the 2008 movie Ghost Town, dentist Bertram Pincus (Ricky Gervais) starts seeing ghosts after a near-death experience. For every “regular” person on the sidewalks of New York, he’s aware of maybe five dead people. This is something like the situation that astronomers now face. Lurking behind every part of ordinary matter are five parts…
Revenge Served Cold: Best
Reviews HANNA. Consummately played by Saoirse Ronan, Hanna is being homeschooled with a vengeance; perhaps for vengeance would be more accurate. In a finely shot opening sequence, we watch Hanna stalk a deer in the snow with a bow and arrow. She shoots the deer but not immediately fatally and must run after it. As…
