It’s been a pandemic year of daily walking for my wife and me, and we never left Humboldt County. From January through April, we continued to explore our local trails and enjoyed the wildlife and emerging spring flowers. Once we got our Moderna vaccination shots, we masked up and joined vaccinated friends and neighbors for […]
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The Top 10 Stories of 2021
It is an inescapable truth: COVID-19, as it was last year, is this year’s single most impactful story. Its nasty little fingerprints are everywhere, from our overwhelmed health care system and our struggling businesses to our mourning neighbors and exhausted families. Humboldt County spent the entirety of 2021 in the throes of the pandemic, having […]
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Top 10 Dick Moves of 2021
Philosophical question: Does committing a dick move — a petty, selfish chipping away of the social contract that one could have absolutely skipped and been fine — make one a dick forever? Are we our worst dick moves? I think not. Mostly. But if dicks are as dicks do, then 2021 was a real sausage […]
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Flash Fiction 2021
The Journal’s annual 99-word Flash Fiction Contest reminds us how we live moment to moment, not always in big stories or epics, but in little scenes and memories — funny, terrifying, haunting or everything at once. Steadfast judges joining me on the emotional roller coaster this year include: JoAnn Bauer, retired children’s librarian; David Holper, […]
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‘Exonerated’
A California State Bar judge has exonerated two Humboldt County attorneys of allegations they committed serious ethics violations during their handling of a local right-to-die case that resulted in a $1 million settlement. In a 45-page written ruling filed Dec. 20, Judge Phong Wang found that Deputy County Counsel Natalie Duke and Blair Angus, who […]
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‘A Paradigm Shift’
Within the past year Mike Mangahas, a pediatrician at Open Door Community Health Clinic in Eureka, has seldom prescribed medications to patients with serious behavioral issues. Instead, he’s using information from a survey about patients’ childhood traumas — known as adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs — to inform a more holistic model of care. “I […]
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Eureka Looks to Discipline Five Officers After Texting Probe
The city of Eureka is moving forward with taking disciplinary actions against five police officers stemming from the months-long investigation into the text messaging scandal that rocked the department earlier this year, when a unit of officers was revealed to have shared a host of vulgar, misogynistic, violent and dehumanizing text messages. Eureka City Manager […]
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The Atomic Priesthood,Giant Rutabagas andWhat’s Next for Humboldt’s Decommissioned Nuke Plant
Humboldt’s nuclear power plant is strictly prohibited by federal authorities (Nov. 4), celebration of the final decommissioning of the reactor site at King Salmon Nov. 18 was cut short. After environmentalists put down their sparkling beverages, they suddenly realized that with decommissioning done and the feds basically out of the picture, there’s no reliable entity […]
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Re: JUST SAYING GOODBYE
Subject: Re: MY MINI-BOOK From: Heather To: Mom Sent: Mon, Mar 2, 2020 10:01 AM Hi there. The booklet arrived over the weekend. Haven’t had much of a chance to read because of the virus situation. I’m not managing the response, only managing communications, but it’s been pretty time-consuming. Anyway, I’m glad you got the […]
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Ex-Rohnert Park Cop Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy
The former head of the Rohnert Park Public Safety Department’s drug interdiction team pleaded guilty Dec. 1 to federal charges of conspiracy to commit extortion under “color of law,” falsifying records in a federal investigation and tax evasion. Ex-Sgt. Brendan “Jacy” Tatum and his former partner, Joseph Huffaker, were both indicted by a federal grand […]
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Building The Road to Resilience
Most of the seven stress-busting strategies the California Surgeon General’s Office have identified to help reduce toxic stress feel so simple, like being out in nature, eating a balanced, nutritious diet or getting sufficient, high-quality sleep, but they work. So when Mary Ann Hansen was looking through applications for the 2021-2022 First Five Humboldt and […]
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From Orleans to the Capitol
I never forget watching a crew starting a prescribed burn in the woods near my neighbor’s home back in late spring 2008, in an era when wildfires were just starting to get crazy and often unstoppable. I remember Will Harling handed me a drip torch and told me where to safely light the undergrowth, so […]