John Ross, a former resident of Arcata, has been the Mexico City correspondent for the San Francisco Bay Guardian for 22 years. He is the author of eight books on Mexican politics and has lectured extensively on Latin America on college campuses from Harvard to UC Berkeley. His book Murdered By Capitalism takes its title […]
News
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The chopper
Here it is, Thursday afternoon, and here is Rabbi Les Scharnberg, pawing through the orphaned books on the free-table at the Arcata Community Recycling Center and gabbing with fellow book scroungers. “I’m a compulsive reader,” Scharnberg says. “So am I,” says Rochelle Trochtenberg. They lift books, put them gently down. They seem immune to the […]
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The secret life of cheese
Earlier this month, Cypress Grove registered a 10 on the local gourmet Richter scale after its new cheese, Truffle Tremor, won top honors at the International Fancy Food & Confection Show in New York City. I decided to write an article about the secret life of chèvre. The story was to be a hard-hitting (well, […]
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Last Cowboy Standing — A tale of rodeo culture in Humboldt County
For the rodeo cowboy, speed is everything. A couple of weeks ago, a handful of cowboys gathered at a private arena in Redcrest off the Avenue of the Giants, on a patch of land situated between a forest of tall redwoods and the Eel River. They were there to practice for the upcoming Orick rodeo. […]
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Last bet
In just two months, the Big Lagoon Rancheria may finally throw in its cards on a big hotel-casino project it has proposed to build in Barstow, in tandem with the Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla and Cupeno Indians of San Diego County. The tribes’ gaming compacts, signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2005, would allow […]
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Desert machinations
In keeping with a long-standing ethic — eschewing corporate branding and rank commercialism — espoused by promoters of a gigantically weird art and communal living experiment/festival in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, this report will be rather vague. We can tell you who: Shaye Harty and her cohort of like-minded non-profiteers who this spring took over […]
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Saga of an Ape — The surprising true story of the late Bill the Chimp
When the Sequoia Park Zoo’s oldest and most popular animal rejected food and water and struggled to breathe for a second day, his caretakers made an announcement that riveted the Eureka community: Bill the Chimp was dying. The press release declaring that the 61-year-old chimpanzee was “gravely ill” got instant responses from reporters, and when […]
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Lady Bird
The passing of Lady Bird Johnson, the widow of President Lyndon B. Johnson, has garnered much press in the past week. A passionate conservationist and beautifier of America’s highways, Mrs. Johnson is better known locally for the grove that was dedicated in her name in August 1969 in Redwood National Park, a spot which Amy […]