Cover Story
Granny Rage on Women’s Day
The crowd at the Humboldt County Courthouse was thin at the noon start of the International Women’s Day Women’s March protest on March 8. The line of a dozen people grew to 35 by 12:30 p.m., and topped out around 90 by 1:30 p.m. Some speculated scant publicity or the lag of Daylight Saving led…
‘Meeting the Moment’
Bill Lutjens, a long-time Fieldbrook resident who mostly keeps to himself in his rural residence, says he felt compelled to act when he learned about the nationwide funding cuts to healthcare enacted by the Trump administration. He received an inheritance several years ago and wanted to keep the money out of the federal government’s control.…
Get to Know Your Tits
Small, round and bouncy, they never fail to draw attention. They’re family Paridae, the vocal and acrobatic passerines that across the pond are known as tits. In North America, of course, they’re our chickadees and titmice, once collectively referred to as tits or titmouses. “Tit” is from Old Norse meaning “small,” while “mose,” which eventually…
Blanking Down the House
My country is raining death upon one of the largest and oldest cities in the world, and as one of the apparently few genetically abnormal American mutants who experiences grief and empathy, even for total strangers, this has gotten to me. Heavily. Let me distract myself with a little housecleaning. When I wrote years ago…
‘Boundless’
Editor: Just read the “survey” article (“Asking for an Administration,” March 5). Jennifer Fumiko Cahill’s creativity is boundless!!!! Amber Marcia, McKinleyville
Stitched Together
The Bride! THE BRIDE! Conceptually, this seems very much like something I could get on board with: a mid-1930s Chicago-set, Mafia-tinged feminist update on the Frankenstein story, embellished with punk-rock attitude and curb-stomping? Yes, of course, who wouldn’t want that? And in the early going, it seemed like Maggie Gyllenhaal’s return to the director’s chair…
‘Unsustainable’
Editor: A full-page ad naming 300 retired public officials, academics, former representatives, businesses and financial institutions supporting “Humboldt Commons,” (McKinleyville’s estimated $110 million exclusive retirement community), is titled: “It Takes a Community to Build a Community.” (March 5). Aren’t these individuals and organizations already in a community? Would demand for another high-cost retirement community be…
‘Component of the Problem’
Editor: The author of “It’s Time to Make Fourth and Fifth Streets Safe for Everyone” (March 5) is comparing apples to oranges. He assumes that, all factors being equal, the percentage of pedestrian fatalities and serious injuries for Fourth and Fifth streets should also be less than 1 percent to be equally as safe. In…
Monarch Butterflies Part 2: Tracking in Real Time
Last week, I wrote about the bad news: that monarch butterfly populations have been plummeting since the 1980s. The good news is that a revolutionary new tracking device may help those populations recover. Naturalists have been trying to track monarchs for nearly a century, but mass ID-ing (with tiny stick-on tags) only began in large…
Correction
In the Best Hair Day category of the 2026 NCJ Pet Photo Contest (Feb. 19), the name of the photo submitter for Ladybug, “I thought they said Best Ear Day,” Claudia Myers, was misidentified. The Journal regrets the error.
