Cover Story
Eureka’s New Boss
On his drive north last month from the Sacramento area, where he’s lived since 2007, Bill Panos took a detour through the towering redwoods along Avenue of the Giants. Oh, just amazing. Days later, up at Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, he saw his first Roosevelt elk. It was beautiful. He’s also visited Humboldt Bay’s…
Sheriff Against Gun Control?
With the debate surrounding gun control heating up and President Obama calling for action on a national level, Humboldt County Sheriff Mike Downey said today that he stands with a group of sheriffs resisting federal control. Downey is among the law enforcement officers on a “growing list of sheriffs saying ‘no’ to Obama gun control,”…
Drinks at Sunset
There she is, shaking up something yummy in a photo in February’s Sunset magazine (click it to enlarge): Amy Stewart, Drunken Botanist extraordinaire, best-selling author, Eureka resident and of course, NCJ columnist. Stewart’s short piece on her cocktail garden comes with scrumptious photos and one of her intoxicating recipes. Plenty more will be available in…
On the Closing of Fieldbrook Market
On Friday, the owners of the Fieldbrook Family Market announced via Facebook that the store will be closing Feb. 2. “We hope to be opening up again soon, but as for now we are reaching uncertain territory with no guarantees,” the announcement said, rather cryptically. Reached by phone this afternoon, owner Richard Seaman politely declined to…
Cop Wants Arcata to Pay
Update Jan. 22: Officer Stonebarger has been on paid medical leave from the city of Arcata since Aug. 27, Police Chief Tom Chapman said today. The leave has stretched to nearly five months so far, and according to the disciplinary records it began the same day that the officer had been scheduled to meet with…
Arcata Fig’s Video Closing
Oh, this is sad for me — not only because I hate to witness the slow demise of video stores but because of my personal connection to this one in particular. I worked at the Arcata branch of Figueiredo’s for years (hence my ease with all those vowels in the name). Met my wife there,…
Man Arrested After Walking Past Elementary School With Shotgun
Press release from Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office: On 01-18-2013, approximately 10:30 a.m. the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office received multiple 911 calls regarding a man with a gun, described as a rifle walking on Walnut Drive towards the Cutten Elementary School. Initial reports were the man was wearing a Camo colored backpack. Deputies were immediately dispatched…
Going Mongolian
The first Friday in January marked the grand opening of Masaki’s Mongolian Grill and Sake Bar in Arcata, a Pan-Asian spin-off from Masaki’s Kyoto Japanese Restaurant in Eureka. Even though I’d been hearing about the place for months, all I really knew was the name, which seemed exotic and intriguing — I had no…
McKinleyville Art Night
McKinleyville Art Night Friday, Jan. 18, 6-8 p.m. a community celebration of art, music, food and fun on the third Friday of each month. For more information, contact coordinator Taffy Stockton at 707-834-6460 www.mckinleyvilleartsnight.com. 1. EUREKA-ARCATA AIRPORT 3561 Boeing Avenue. Long term exhibit with work by Humboldt County artists, sponsored by the Headwaters Fund, coordinated by…
No, This Is 40
It felt like we’d come so far. Then the 2012 election season reminded us, yet again, that we’ve got a long, ugly journey ahead of us when it comes raising awareness of women’s rights and health issues. In delightful conversations about “legitimate rape,” or whether college students using contraceptives should be labeled “sluts,” or…
Occupy Minimum Wage
“Employers for which twenty-five (25) or more Employees perform work for compensation during any particular calendar week shall pay Employees no less than the Minimum Wage set forth in this Chapter [$12] for each hour worked within the geographic boundaries of the City during that week.” Thus stateth section 123, subsection 4, paragraph A of the…
Tax Those Guns
Editor: A heartfelt “attaboy!” to Mr. Bennett in his article about his own gun collection (“Confessions of a [Liberal] Assault Weapon Owner,” Jan. 10). Whatever disagreement I might have had with his critique of Les Miserables, I bow to his open-heartedness in his letter. And, it did, indeed, sound like a confession. Unfortunately, for…
Thrill of the Hunt
Reviews ZERO DARK THIRTY. People of all sorts have been shouting themselves hoarse about this movie. They say that it’s fascistic, that director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal colluded with the CIA somehow, that it justifies or even celebrates torture. Fortunately, saner heads are prevailing, their voices filtering through to call Zero Dark Thirty…
Two Duos
Singer/songwriter fiddler/guitarist Laurie Lewis is a shining light in the Bay Area neo-bluegrass world. She’s a dynamic performer, almost always joined by her longtime musical partner Tom Rozum on mandolin. She also serves as a mentor for younger musicians. That’s how Lewis met the musical duo Melody Walker and Jacob Groopman, familiar in Humboldt…
Guns Keep Us Safe
Editor: I was disappointed to read your gun issue. All four articles failed to report the main reason why most Americans own guns. In fact, what I got from John Bennett’s article was that he has some “mystical romance” with guns, an “indulgence in boyhood fantasy and fetishistic gear worship.” Good grief! Setting aside the…
Requiem? What Rot
Editor: I attended a performance of a play, Requiem, previewed in the Journal (“But to Love,” Jan. 10), at the Unitarian Fellowship and left angry and disappointed. It was the ego trip of a man claiming to be a survivor of the camp Theresienstadt. Nothing in that play led me to believe he was ever…
Untamed Fish
Editor: Concerning the name change to California Department of Fish and Wildlife – perhaps I am missing something here, but aren’t fish also wildlife (Blog Jammin’ Jan. 10)? Why have a title that encourages Californians to think otherwise? Simply shortening the name to the California Department of Wildlife could also make some economic sense –…
Dislocation
Editor: Last Thursday’s Blog Jammin found some irony in the fact that the recent TEDx Eureka event actually occurred in Arcata. This is no less ironical than when we all fly in and out of the Arcata-Eureka Airport, which continues to be located in beautiful McKinleyville (or the William McKinley stature that continues to inhabit…
Homeless Need Us
Editor: Deidre Pike’s article, “Waiting for Chinn” (Jan. 3), was excellent. It was good reading journalistically as well as very informative. She wrote so compassionately about Mrs. Chinn, the homeless and even Mr. Davenport, who must tidy-up after them. The beauty of conflict resolution is nonviolent conversation. This article presented the pro and con views…
Homer’s Wine-dark Sea (Part 2)
The organs of colour and its impressions were but partially developed among the Greeks of the heroic age. — William Ewart Gladstone, Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, 1858 Why do the Iliad and the Odyssey barely use words for color, and when they do, often confuse them, as in Homer’s famous…
Rarely Relevant
Editor: While it is crucially important (or all commerce will cease) that “I” and “me” get their proper due (“Lord Is It Me?” Dec. 27), there is a set of modifiers that are so misused that communication is compromised. To deal with this debilitating state of affairs, at the beginning of each semester I…
lighter than air
when the love between two people reaches the speed of light nothing can trip them or make them tumble not even a steep down hill run careening through brush hand in hand cross country jumping boulders skipping along fallen logs leaping the creek sailing over ditches, the day turning too soon into twilight then darkness…
Loleta Sandwich
Loleta Sandwich
2312: A Novel
It’s 300 years in the future and planet Earth is predictably hot — “almost an ice-free planet,” with swaths of the northern hemisphere as hot as the equator now, and the oceans 35 feet higher. Florida is underwater and Manhattan is flooded but inhabited: the 24th century Venice. An attempted technological solution to block sunlight…
