Trinidad Ordnance Destroyed by Military Disposal Team
A World War II era ordnance that prompted the brief evacuation of a Trinidad neighborhood was originally found by a property owner more than a decade ago but, after coming across the device again Tuesday, he decided to call authorities, according to the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office. Members of the HCSO explosive disposal team arrived…
Music Tonight: Wednesday, April 3
Vintage San Francisco deathrock band Altar De Fey brings its dark and shredded songs to Eureka tonight. With a sound that was classically somewhere between early Killing Joke and Love in a Void-era Banshees, it should be interesting to see if the group has kept the intensity up. Along for the ride are a cohort…
UPDATE: All Clear at Trinidad Scene After Ordnance ‘Retrieved’
UPDATE: Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office issues the all clear, saying the Air Force ordnance disposal team has retrieved the explosive and residents have been “advised it is safe to return home.” #Update Residents advised it is safe to return home. Ordinance retrieved by Air Force EOD Team and will be rendered safe off-property at a…
Skeletal Remains Found in Wooded Area Near Blue Lake
Skeletal remains were found Friday near Blue Lake in what the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office “a steep, wooded area.” A local resident made the find while checking out a dumping site and, among the debris, locating the remains amid the debris. The remains will now be analyzed for DNA to try to identify the individual,…
Redway Man Killed in Avenue of the Giants Crash
A 58-year-old Redway man was killed Saturday afternoon after he lost control of his motorcycle on the Avenue of the Giants just north of Miranda, which closed the popular scenic highway for two hours. According to a CHP report, Roy Werner was riding his 2004 Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail Classic around 4 p.m. when he ran…
Music Tonight: Tuesday, April 2
Birmingham England is perhaps best known as the birthplace of heavy metal, as a monster named Black Sabbath was hatched there in the late 1960s. The industrial Midlands city is also home to a different type of heavy metal, the roots reggae group Steel Pulse. Now in its fourth decade, David Hinds and company are…
Music Tonight: Monday, April 1
I used to think that it was funny to prank people on April Fool’s Day. My family members were usually the targets but, being a child, I didn’t really understand humor, as my frontal lobes and sense of empathy hadn’t fully developed yet, so suffice it to say my mother didn’t appreciate hearing that the…
HumBug: Partial Sun, Chance of Butterflies and Bees
Well, at least we had one sunny day. Along with the rest of us, the insects crawled from their hidey holes in bark crevasses, burrows in the ground and old wood. A couple of days ago I got a brief glimpse of what I suspected was a California tortoiseshell butterfly (Nymphalis californica). Sometimes, for reasons…
Music Tonight: Sunday, March 31
The Arcata Playhouse hosts Jaese Lecuyer tonight at 7:30 p.m. ($15). A sweet-voiced singer/songwriter who trades in a gentle mix of folky light soul music, Jaese is also the former director of the Arcata Interfaith Gospel Choir who used to perform under the name J.C. Brown. Expect a quiet local show in the with some…
Staff Recommends Coastal Commission Object to Trinidad Hotel Project
California Coastal Commission staff issued a highly critical report on the Trinidad Rancheria’s plans for a new hotel on the bluffs of Scenic Drive near Cher-Ae Heights Casino and is recommending the commission object to the project’s tentative approval by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). The 28-page document criticized the Rancheria for failing to…
Music Tonight: Saturday, March 30
The Hot Club of Cowtown is an Austin, Texas-based trio that specializes in western cowboy swing music mixed with the pre-World War II European “Gypsy jazz” of Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli. Tonight the band appears at the Arkley Center for the Performing Arts at 8 p.m. with the soul and roots mini orchestra Dustbowl…
DA Fleming Will Ask the Attorney General’s Office to Handle Prosecution in Lawson Case
Humboldt County District Attorney Maggie Fleming will formally ask the state Attorney General’s Office to handle prosecution of the David Josiah Lawson case going forward. “Next week I will make a formal, in-writing request to the Attorney General’s Office to take over any future prosecution of the case,” she said in a release today. The…
North Coast Night Lights: Dawn Chases the Milky Way
I pulled into the turnout and shut off the engine and lights. The stars jumped out and I joined them. Above the horizon the core of our galaxy glowed in the last darkness of the night. I smiled. Hello, Darkness, my old friend, I thought. It seemed apt, though it was the sight of the…
Charmaine Lawson ‘Outraged’ at APD’s Press Release, State of Investigation into Son’s Killing
Charmaine Lawson, the mother of slain Humboldt State University sophomore David Josiah Lawson, issued a statement yesterday criticizing the Arcata Police Department’s handling of the homicide investigation, calling it “beyond negligent.” The statement came in response to an APD press release issued Wednesday that announced the creation of a 24-hour tip line in the case…
Come on, Get Scrappy
On your mark, get set, sew! SCRAP Humboldt’s sixth annual Rebel Craft Rumble gets underway on Saturday, March 30 at Arcata Playhouse with more glitter, glue and zany ingenuity than you can shake a recycled popsicle stick at. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. for drinks, schmoozing and silent auction bidding before feathers fly in the…
Music Tonight: Friday, March 29
For the last 30 years, native Southern Californian Rick Crowder has performed as his alter ego Sourdough Slim, a sort of timeless singing comedic cowpoke cut from the same chaps as Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. Armed with a harmonic, acoustic guitar, accordion and a range-splitting yodel, this raconteur will bring his family friendly show…
Music Tonight: Thursday, March 28
The Duncan Burgess Trio plays The Basement tonight at 8 p.m. I haven’t seen Duncan’s trio but I have seen his solo guitar gig at Libations a few times and I can tell you that the man can play some truly lovely interpretations of jazz standards, whether he’s on the six strings or the sax.
Voices (and Spirits) Lifted in Song
Humboldt SINGS, a DreamMaker Project of the Ink People that holds group singing events, has invited its 2019 visiting song leader Benjamin Mertz — jazz pianist, composer and song leader with a specialty in the black spiritual tradition — to host two special events. First, join neighbors, friends and new friends at the Community Sing…
Huffman Introduces Bills to Keep U.S. in Paris Agreement, Ban Offshore Drilling
It’s been a busy week for North Coast Congressman Jared Huffman, who joined Democrat colleagues this week in introducing two major pieces of environmental legislation. On Tuesday, Huffman, a member of the House Select Committee on Climate Crisis, joined colleagues in introducing legislation that would keep the United States in the Paris Climate Agreement and…
‘Self-Destructive Nation’
Editor: NCJ letters reveal a growing awareness of community responsibility addressing national crises. Joyce King implores readers to pay attention to our county supervisor’s rezoning 500,000 acres accommodating more development; the reason supervisor’s unilaterally deregulated our county’s General Plan and Guiding Principals. (“Why Care About Zoning?” March 7). Most Americans are targets, not beneficiaries, of…
Wrapped again in Blues
Dancing off the hillsides Inviting me outside Where clouds play, Above the canopy I normally embrace To avoid the rain. A Great Blue Heron Lumbers along Towards the sun, Oblivious to limits We take for granted On our grounds. I lace up shoes Stretching a bit And run uphill, Where my heart soars Recalling the…
‘What a Treasure’
Editor: My two grandchildren (ages 8 and 11) and I rode our bikes on the Eureka Waterfront Trail on a recent gorgeous sunny Saturday afternoon (“Celebrate the Waterfront Trail,” Feb. 2). We began at the muddy, pot-holed parking area by the board walk and rode to the “end” of the trail at Pound Road just…
‘Hard Left’
Editor: Our political parties have morphed into socialist/free enterprise, pro-America/anti-America, liberty/tyranny groupings (Mailbox, March 7). The Democrat party has turned hard left to please what they hope is the socialist majority of our country. Our unbiased media wasted no time promoting the “fresh faces” with their “new” policies. With words at a premium, let’s look…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Kermit the Frog from Sesame Street is the world’s most famous puppet. He has recorded songs, starred in films and TV shows, and written an autobiography. His image has appeared on postage stamps and he has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Kermit’s beginnings were humble, however. When his…
The Foilies 2019: Recognizing the Year’s Worst in Government Transparency
The cause of government transparency finally broke through to the popular zeitgeist this year. It wasn’t an investigative journalism exposé or a civil rights lawsuit that did it, but a light-hearted sitcom about a Taiwanese American family set in Orlando, Florida, in the late 1990s. In a January episode of ABC’s Fresh Off the Boat,…
Correction
A theater review in the March 21, 2019, edition of the North Coast Journal headlined “A Shakespearean Tragic-Comedy Cocktail” misidentified a cast a member in Smokey Joe’s Café. The sax player/singer is Carl McGahan. The same article misidentified the actor playing the shepherd’s son in The Winter’s Tale. Adrianne Ralsten played the role. The Journal…
If Prosecutors Can Get a Grand Jury to Indict a Sandwich, Why Couldn’t They Get One to Indict Kyle Zoellner?
There’s an old courthouse adage that says a competent prosecutor could get a criminal grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, if he or she wanted. “It’s ancient lore that the criminal grand jury sits as a bulwark of the citizen versus the overzealous government but the truth is they generally do what prosecutors want…
County Settles Magney Case for $1 Million
The county of Humboldt has agreed to pay a local woman $1 million to settle a civil lawsuit alleging employees purposely misled the court to secure orders that forced her dying husband to take medication against his wishes, violating his fundamental right to make end-of-life decisions, including whether to receive care. This was despite an…
Us Doubles Down
Reviews US. With the din of the unmitigated success of Get Out (2017) — including multiple Academy Award nominations and a win for best original screenplay — barely receding, talk must turn to writer/director Jordan Peele’s follow-up. He has been credited, not unfairly, with redefining the horror genre. How will he do it again? A…
Ship of Fools
No intro this week. I’m too busy spending my time reading opinion pieces on Twitter and elsewhere explaining why the establishment heads in the Democratic Party hung all of their impeachment hopes on a career G-Man instead of making what I am sure is the very difficult case that we have in office a mendacious…
Triggers and Lifelines
The news is depressing. Not all of it but enough. Scrolling through Twitter, Facebook and news websites can be overwhelming, one awful headline after another. Hell, our staff can get worn down writing those stories. Gallows humor is common enough in newsrooms — sometimes the ping of a text message prompts a sigh and a…
French Butter Crab
As a college student in 1990, I bartended at Peko’s Bar in the Sunset District around 19th Avenue in San Francisco. One cold night, a customer brought me the famous roasted crab from the storied Vietnamese restaurant Thanh Long. It was the best crab I had ever tasted. I went back to the restaurant with…
The Psychosis of Prohibition
If you smoke potent cannabis daily, you may be at an increased risk of having a psychotic episode, according to a British study recently published in The Lancet Psychiatry. The study stops way short of determining there is a causal link between cannabis consumption and psychosis, but it does show a startling correlation. Researchers identified…
So, You’re Bike Curious?
Have you always wanted to ride but don’t know anyone who else who does? I hear it all the time when I tell women I ride. It makes me want to grab them by the shoulders and yell, “You can do this!” Every day I ride, the bigger my passion for motorcycles becomes and the…
A ‘Negative and Fearful’ Image
Editor: “Digital Nomad” (March 15) unfortunately reinforces the public’s negative and fearful image of the mentally ill and homeless population. Why focus so many pages on the life story of one man with a history of angry outbursts, restraining orders and drug and alcohol abuse? The personalities of the homeless and/or mentally ill are extremely…
Wrong Jury
Editor: In light of the recent decision of a grand jury in the matter of the death of David Josiah Lawson, some clarification may be in order (“This Doesn’t End,” March 21). The criminal grand jury investigating the death of Mr. Lawson is in no way connected to the civil grand jury. There has been…
Good for the Soul, Good for the Economy
Editor: I think Californians, too often, take the art around us for granted (Art Beat, March 7). I’d like to extend a thank you to every person who has donated to a Humboldt arts organization, to every person leading those arts organizations, to every person creating art and to every patron of the arts. In…
Saint Joseph
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‘Not All In’
Editor: Thank you for the update on the proposed hotel at the Cher-Ae Heights Casino (“More Lipstick,” March 21). Much to no one’s surprise, nothing has really changed. Water usage and effluent treatment still appear to be the two of the major issues which need addressing. The concern over a reliable water supply has not…
Spring Revival and Indoor Death
Spring at last After a few false starts it feels like spring is finally underway. Days ago, a walk in the woods with my dogs produced a tick. I’ve said before I do not like ticks but as a community service I try to give a heads up when I see them about. I also…
Rise Up! — An Evening of Melodrama
Spend an intense evening with the international student creators from Dell’Arte’s First Year Ensemble when they present powerful, short, original dramas in Rise Up! — An Evening of Melodrama on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, March 28-30 at 8 p.m. in Dell’Arte’s Carlo Theatre (pay-what-you-can).
