Global Solidarity at the Mouth of the Klamath
By Jarrette Werk, Underscore Native News
Cover Story
Global Solidarity at the Mouth of the Klamath
In her home country of Chile, 15-year-old Ianka Purran has a front-row seat to the deterioration of her home river, the Biobío, which is suffering from the impacts of dams. When Purran, Mapuche Pewenche, heard about a historic descent being planned for the newly free-flowing Klamath River in the United States, she jumped at the…
Music Tonight: Sunday, Aug. 24
It wouldn’t be a proper calendar year in Humco without a visit from Afroman, the busy cult-famous rapper and occasional presidential candidate whose prodigious output eclipses his early claim to fame, 2000’s “Because I Got High.” The man tours relentlessly and kicks out blunt wrapped comedy jams nearly yearly, so he’s a legend in my…
Music Tonight: Saturday, Aug. 23
If you are in the mood for some funky country-etched rock and folky jump blues, the Logger Bar is the place to be. After 8 p.m. you will find two fine specimens of Americana sounds from the local scene, Corduroy Gangsters and Idle Spurs. It won’t quite be a honky-tonk, but it’ll be within whistlin’…
Music Tonight: Friday, Aug. 22
It’s Metal Friday over at Savage Henry Comedy Club, and tonight’s show is a special one, as it is kicking off a 24-hour telethon to raise donations for the struggling club. We don’t have very many all-ages spaces for comedy and loud, heavy music, and losing this one would be a grave blow to our…
Music Tonight: Thursday, Aug. 21
The good folks at the Creative Sanctuary are continuing Homage to the Message, a chronological celebration of various satellite members of the Jazz Messengers. This installment is all about the tunes of trumpeter and composer Lee Morgan — gone too soon at the age of 33, when his girlfriend shot him between sets at an…
UPDATE: Shelter Cove Airplane Crash Victim Identified
UPDATE: The Humboldt County Coroner’s Office today identified the individual killed in the Aug. 17 plane crash off Shelter Cove as Santa Rosa resident Brian Kenneth Mariette. He was 48. The cause of death was determined to be drowning, according to a release. PREVIOUS: One person died and another was critically injured after a small…
Gavin Newsom Wants an Election in a Hurry on His Gerrymander. Here’s What Has to Happen
This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. Calling a statewide special election sounds simple in theory. But executing one with fewer than 75 days notice? As one California county election official put it, that’s a “herculean” effort. California voting officials are scrambling behind the scenes to prepare for the special…
Photos: Ladies Hats and Kinetic Races at the Fair
An end to a 128-year tradition of horse racing and a drop in attendance and money-making at this year’s Humboldt County Fair? Not an insurmountable problem with some creativity, said long-time Kinetic Universe race organizer Jennifer Thelander and Kinetic Rutabaga Queen-for-Life Olivia Gambino. They teamed up with the fair board to transform the historic Ferndale…
Reclaiming the Klamath, Blue Lake Recall and Birding at Sea
This week we’re sharing a story from Underscore Native News about Indigenous youth paddling down the undammed Klamath River in a celebration of historic restoration. We’ve also got an update on the recall effort in the city of Blue Lake and what it means for the embattled city council going forward. Finally, take an ocean…
Photos: Best of Party People
After a night of revelry, the lights went up again at the Arcata Theater Lounge on Friday, Aug. 8, and the winners of the North Coast Journal Best of Humboldt awards sauntered off to enjoy their collective reign. The Shooting Gallery (Best Photographer, incidentally) was on hand snapping the best in their best that evening.…
horses, burden, vraiment
you don’t tell what you know you barely know what you tell. not news, i know. but we lurch into a wave broken on its spine or die trying anyway the midnight sky isn’t any murkier than the the bottom of the sea and the next world doesn’t care all that much how we feel…
Blue Lake Recall: Election on Scafani to Move Forward
The city of Blue Lake is preparing for the first recall election to take place in the county in 20 years. Before the end of the year, voters in the bucolic hamlet of about 1,200 residents will be asked whether Mayor Pro-Tem Elise Scafani should be removed from office, the culmination of months of deepening…
The Pavilion of Dreams
Thousands of nights have elapsed since I was a little boy, but I still have traces of that era, the intensity of my brain experiencing the sensations of the world for the first time, and meanwhile learning to communicate with itself, my body and spirit in the process. Much of what unfolds in our early…
Birds of the Sea(sick)
A few weeks ago, I learned two very import things. First, the vast Pacific Ocean is home to numerous unusual and wonderful bird species. Second, they belong out there. I almost certainly do not. But when you’re on a quest to see at least 300 bird species in Humboldt County in a single year, at…
The Dreamy Terror of Weapons
WEAPONS. There is a moment in the highly anticipated horror movie Weapons when Josh Brolin, playing a distraught father asleep in the bedroom of his missing son, wanders in a weird, mysterious dream that claws at his grief and ends with a grotesque shock that jolts him awake. Scrambling at the covers, he shouts, “What…
‘Never-ending Killing Treadmill’
Editor: It’s a good thing to want to protect spotted owls. It’s a bad thing to massacre North American barred owls to achieve the former objective. And it’s foolish to attempt this maneuver if the kill plan is futile. There were compelling reasons for 20 Republicans and 20 Democrats in Congress to sign letters to…
‘Well Worth Reading’
Editor: I was immensely pleased to read Barry Evans’ recent article about Robert Sapolsky entitled “Free Will Redux.” Dr. Sapolsky is by far the best, most entertaining lecturer I’ve ever run across. All 25 of his wonderful, two-hour class lectures on how brains work are posted on Stanford’s website and his book Determined: A Science…
‘Music is a Profound Medium’
Editor: It is well-known that peoples who make music together, whether it be in an orchestra, a choir, a dance or a parade, create social capital. Music is a profound medium which strengthens morale, and helps both in integrating and in distinguishing adjacent cultures, in a loving and joyous manner. Moreover, in the face of…
‘Take Responsibility’
Editor: Friends, neighbors and thinking Republicans, the shenanigans afoot in D.C. make it clear we in our rural locale must step up to cover the services we value. To that end, I have sent a check to KEET in an amount ten times my highest hourly wage or three times what I usually send them…
Best v. Less than Best
Editor: Flipping through your Best in Show feature I began to wonder what it takes to be “best.” It would be interesting to see how many votes a particular “winner” received as well as the number of votes awarded to others (the less than best) in the same category. Anne Saplin, Eureka
The Moons of Mars
In the first volume of his Mars trilogy Red Mars, science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson has the larger of Mars’ two moons, Phobos, destroyed after it had been weaponized. Which would be a tragedy IRL, since Phobos may well be a stepping stone to exploring the Red Planet. It could also give us information…
