Caged
From the grim, crowded cells of Pelican Bay, prisoners speak by refusing to eat
Cover Story
Caged
A small group of reporters was shuffling through the concrete tunnels of Pelican Bay State Prison, following Public Information Officer Chris Acosta like curious goslings. Notebooks and cameras in hand, they peered this way and that, scribbling down little details — ooh, a gurney piled with riot gear! — and snapping photos wherever allowed. Acosta,…
The Marijuana Shuffle [Updated]
[Update #2, Oct. 6, 4:45 p.m.] All bets are off officially off — as is a notable promise from President Obama. Or so it appears, anyway. Yesterday the Arcata City Council voted to place a moratorium on issuing medical marijuana dispensary permits. Maybe their spidey sense was tingling: According to the Associated Press, federal prosecutors have…
Chickenpox, anyone?
For the folks who think that natural immunity beats a vaccination,Trinidad Elementary School has turned into a textbook lesson on how to grow your own outbreak. Chickenpox has spread swiftly through the 180-student school, apparently contracted so far by at least 16 children and adults. The numbers aren’t surprising given that roughly 20 percent of…
Hitchcock October
Somehow this became Hitchcock month in Humboldt. In mid-October, Ferndale Repertory Theatre opens The 39 Steps, a fast-paced farce based on a film Hitchcock made twice (details on that elsewhere in this paper). And all month long the Eureka branch of the Humboldt County Library presents Master of Suspense: The Films of Alfred Hitchcock as…
Eureka Was First
Editor: In the Sept. 22 (“Best Of Humboldt”) issue, Heidi Walters described Arcata as a town “where the Humboldt Crabs have played for 67 years.” Among all the erroneous statements made in the NCJ — which drive me nuts — this one is beyond the pale! (Is there an emoticon for tongue-in-cheek?) Before the Crabs…
Humboldt Grown
Take a whiff, HumCo. You smell that? (sniff) Ahh, yes. Harvest is upon us. And as everyone knows, the place to hang with your buds during the Humboldt harvest season — the center of the universe, as it were — is sunny Fortuna. Take another hearty inhale. Oh, yeah. You can already taste the burn-the-roof-of-your-mouth-off-hot…
The Hunt Is On
On a sunny last-gasp-of-summer Friday afternoon at Eureka’s bayside Wharfinger Building, job-coveters young and old arrived at the Humboldt Career Fair resumes in hand, hoping the awesome weather might be an omen of similarly bright futures — with paychecks. Some came dressed to the (Humboldt) nines — shirt ironed, pants pressed, despite-the-warm-weather suit jackets buttoned…
Wild Flag
After the band Sleater-Kinney broke up in 2006, guitarist and vocalist Carrie Brownstein had little interest in playing music. “It took well over three years before picking up a guitar meant anything to me other than an exercise,” said Brownstein on the NPR All Songs Considered blog, where she is a frequent contributor. “In fact,…
Charlie Says Farewell
When I began writing reviews for the Journal in June 2003, I had no idea how it would go or how long I would keep writing the column. Now, some eight-plus years later, I think it’s time to say farewell to regular reviewing. By and large, the years reviewing movies have been very enjoyable. If that comment…
Big Bunches of Basil
At the Tuesday Farmers’ Market in Arcata, I was pleasantly surprised to learn how cheap basil is right now. Big, verdant bunches, redolent with pungent anise scent; they seemed almost impossible to refuse. With basil so inexpensive, now’s the time for making and freezing batches of pesto (and canning tomato sauce, but that’s another column).…
Hardly
This weekend in SF’s Golden Gate Park, it’s the 11th annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass a phenomenal event with dozens of stellar acts on half a dozen stages. Some are strictly bluegrass (Ralph Stanley and Earl Scruggs for example), others hardly (e.g. Mekons and Thurston Moore). Amazingly, the whole thing is free, courtesy of an eccentric…
Dandelions
are rioting in the field across from the…
Dedicated Diners
Editor: I was disappointed by Carrie Peyton Dahlberg’s Sept. 15 article titled “Dollars for Docs.” Her negative portrayal of this activity is amateurish “Yellow Journalism” below your editorial standards. This article does a disservice to healthcare providers in this area. Chastising local doctors, nurse practitioners, physician’s assistants and other healthcare workers for attending educational presentations…
The Bigger Picture
The idea of transforming an outdoor site or the interior of a museum/gallery into a work of art itself is now formally classified as environmental or installation art. The objective is to change the viewer’s perspective from looking at a painting or a sculpture, to one of feeling surrounded by and engaged in a wider…
Drag Demeaning
Editor: Not too long ago, putting on blackface and hamming it up in public was considered fun and entertaining. If you pretended to be black you could act like a fool. Now we get drag fundraisers and parades, the minstrel shows of our time. When Dixon Summers complained that Gay Pride “was a great parade…
The Drugging of America
The theory that psychological problems are mainly caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain can be traced back 60 years, when French researchers accidentally discovered that Thorazine (chlorpromazine) dramatically improved the emotional behavior of institutionalized mental patients. Within a few years, the anti-psychotic properties of Thorazine and related drugs led to the trend in…
Wrong Priorities
Editor: Week before last you ran a little story about the closing of rural post offices (“Rain or Shine,” Sept. 8). One you mentioned, Kneeland, will be closed a little earlier than predicted (ostensibly to save $1.98). As of Oct. 3, we’re now told, the building will be cleared out, and the people of Kneeland…
Top Down
A few Saturdays ago, three women joined the merry throng of Farmers’ Market hula hoopers and other revelers in the Arcata Plaza and took off their tops. The band was playing. Jugglers were juggling. Produce was tumbling into shoppers’ bags and woven baskets. Other than the half-naked hoopers, it was a typical market day. The…
Grocery Outlet
Grocery Outlet
Lively Woods
Another opening, another Sondheim musical. For the current North Coast Repertory Theatre production of Sondheim’s Into the Woods, Calder Johnson’s wide and mostly open set, festooned with woodsy red leaves, signals an airy difference from the cramped and dark London of Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, as produced last month at Ferndale Rep. This is a brighter…
On Stage in October
At Dell’Arte for two weekends beginning Thursday (Sept. 28), the physical comedy ensemble Under the Table presents The Hunchbacks of Notre Dame. Yes, that’s “hunchbacks” plural (three to be precise.) It’s an adaptation of the Victor Hugo classic created in Blue Lake with Dell’Arte’s Ronlin Foreman. It’s performed in the Carlo, Thursdays through Saturdays at…
On the Beat October
First Street Gallery features works by two very emphatic and very different artists, Tina Rousselot and Leslie Kenneth Price. Rousselot’s minimalist abstract paintings and works on paper are all about the power of color and shape to evoke and communicate a new appreciation of the objects and landscapes in our lives. Price, a much respected…
Why Marx Was Right
I suspect no American academic would dare write a book with this title, for fear of losing the comforts of tenure for a cell at Guantanamo. But in the UK at least, the previously influential works of Karl Marx are being reevaluated for contemporary relevance — especially now that capitalism is not proving to be…
A Saturday for Kids
It’s somewhat indirect, but the first Saturday in October is always a great day for children in Humboldt County. At Redwood Acres every year, a group of women called Humboldt Sponsors runs what may be the mother of all local rummage sales raising money to support recreation programs for kids. Bargains are guaranteed as is…
