Cover Story
Camera Questions
It can now be argued that the most cutting edge and progressive cops in Humboldt County now patrol the streets of Rio Dell and Ferndale. Just four months after the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union passed a resolution calling for all police officers in Humboldt County to wear body cameras while on…
Stabbing Prompts Knife Sale
Ever want to flex like Conan and swing a 3-foot blade? Or maybe just Ninja around with a samurai sword of your own? Perhaps you’re a hunter, who needs a good sheathable blade? If so, you’re in luck. Schatzi’s Hidden Treasures — a locally owned shop in the Bayshore Mall that sells everything from Nag…
Curry Sentenced in Pot Farm Slaying
A Humboldt County Superior Court judge sentenced Limmie Greg Curry III, 24, to serve 12 years in prison for the 2010 killing of William “Billie” Reed on a remote property off State Route 299, east of Blue Lake. On the eve of a second murder trial in the case, Curry pleaded guilty to a charge…
Coroner: 30-Year-Old Eureka Man Killed in Crash
The Humboldt County Coroner’s Office has identified the man killed in a car crash on Highway 101 in Arcata on Saturday as 30-year-old Mitchell Eldon Ford, of Eureka. According to the California Highway Patrol, Ford was driving south at about 6:30 a.m. when, for unknown reasons, he lost control of his 1989 Chevrolet and crashed…
HumBug: Moths and Unicorns
Today, gazing out my window, enjoying a touch of soft melancholy, I watched the white flower petals drifting down from a plum tree. Soon they will be just trees again, not towering bouquets of pink and white. One petal broke my reverie. It fell up and to the left instead of down and to the…
Sheriff’s Office, Grand Jury Butt Heads over Jail Release Transportation
Policies at the Humboldt County jail continue to come under fire from the grand jury, which reported this week that jail staff refuses to inform prisoners being released that they have the right to ask for transportation if they were arrested farther than 25 miles from the jail. In its report, the grand jury says…
Light up and Move along
Arcata updated its public loitering smoking ordinance last night, but don’t get too attached to the new rules — the now city-wide public ban is likely to evolve again in the coming months. Residents along the border of the current prohibition area (I Street, in particular, at Eighth and Ninth streets) have complained that the…
Go for the Juggler
Those dudes on the plaza with the hacky sack are going to have to step it up. All kinds of weirdly nimble people are coming out of the woodwork for the Humboldt Juggling Festival. It’s a topsy-turvy weekend of free workshops, fun and games in the West Gym from 10 a.m. to midnight from Thursday,…
Shooting Suspect Identified as Local Healthcare Worker
The Humboldt County Coroner’s Office has identified the man who allegedly shot a woman in Fortuna Wednesday morning before turning the gun on himself as Russell Alan Kellim, 47, of Eureka. The 39-year-old woman, whose identity hasn’t been released, was flown to an out-of-area hospital, where she remains in critical condition. Fortuna police believe the…
Hard Liner
In Kay Ryan’s poem “Spiderweb,” the speaker marvels at the labor of web building from a spider’s point of view: “hauling coarse/ ropes, hitching/ lines …” And we might look at Ryan’s work the same way — on the page the poems are typically brief, narrow shafts of type that belie the strength of their…
Freakish Early Spring
The strangeness of this unnatural spring fills me with forebodings of the end. April, said to be in its uncertain glory the cruelest month, is preempted by ersatz February and stilted March. Their thievish haloed Moon threatens to steal my breath.
The Voice
I usually don’t notice Journal bylines at first. Once I’m a sentence or two in, I can often tell who wrote it — especially if it was Heidi Walters. We encourage all our staff writers, and columnists and freelancers, to write with voice. For the last 10 years, no one has had a voice quite…
Crisis Averted?
Faced with a growing mental health service crisis, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors quickly and concisely agreed to a year-long, $3.5 million contract to staff the county’s mental hospital and other services this week. It was a relatively fast response to a situation that boiled over only a month ago — though it appears…
Government Grumblings
Editor: Wish to congratulate the Journal for yet another well written piece on government spending, and the preposterous logic which accompanies it (“Coroner Consolidation Costs County,” March 12). The sheriff will have “extra responsibility” even though the burden will actually be borne by two additional employees. Tough for the sheriff to get by on a…
Highly Illogical
If Spock was on the Board of Supervisors … could he figure out how combining the Coroner’s Office and the Sheriff’s Dept. is saving the county money?
Weed-Mart
Local Planned Parenthood employees got a bit of a scare recently, when a suspicious package prompted a call to the bomb squad and an evacuation of the Cutten clinic. A little before noon on March 16, the U.S. Postal Service dropped a 2-foot by 2-foot package at the Planned Parenthood Northern California office. The package…
Organize Your Own Seed Swap
Whether you save your own seeds or just have a bunch of leftover packets from years past, a seed swap is a great way to expand the diversity of both your garden and your community. But don’t limit yourself to just seeds! I have been organizing events like these for close to 20 years and…
McKinleyville Arts Night
A celebration of local art and artists with music, food and fun. McKinleyville Arts Night is open for all McKinleyville businesses to display the work of local artists on the third Friday of the month. Call 834-6460 or visit www.mckinleyvilleartsnight.com for more information. 1. CALIFORNIA REDWOOD COAST AIRPORT 3561 Boeing Ave. Redwood Art Association reception…
Just Searing Some Duck
One of the wonderful things about duck is how baroque it sounds on the menu. Casually telling friends you’re cooking duck breasts on a Tuesday night usually provokes raised eyebrows and imaginary moustache twirling. Duck breast isn’t actually that outré price-wise; it’s cheaper than a good cut of steak, and certainly cheaper than the more…
We Need to Talk
For something as delightful as having sex, people sure do worry a lot about it. It seems to me that we have a hard time managing our expectations about sex and, to quote a therapist friend of mine, we tend to “compare our insides to other people’s outsides.” In other words, it can seem like…
Thar She Blows
The migration of the gray whale is a phenomenon on a par with the mass movement of the wildebeest across Africa’s Serengeti and the monarch butterfly’s journey from the Eastern U.S. to Mexico. And for those of us living on the North Coast, this practically happens in our front yard. Dawn Goley, director of the…
Life’s a Beach
Sunday evening found me neck deep in my computer, clicking back and forth between work stuff and Facebook. I’d stayed up late the night before judging Drag Wars — tough gig! — and was struggling to finish a project that should’ve taken me an hour but, despite my efforts, remained undone after several. My neck…
The Shoe Fits
Reviews CINDERELLA. For the last few years, fairy tale adaptations have been coming out of Hollywood like gases from a putrefying corpse. The image may be strong, but from Red Riding Hood (2011) to Jack the Giant Slayer (2013) to the particularly odious Into the Woods (2014), these movies have done little more than signal…
The Future (Weather) is Now
Although the recent winter storms helped replenish California’s dangerously low reservoirs and cropland water tables, much (much!) more rainfall is needed to get the Golden State back to normal. However, what was “normal” pre-2000 is now history, and we may have to reset our expectations. Our future climate is more likely to be like that…
Swing, Baby
The Redwood Coast Music Festival swings into Eureka for its 25th year on Thursday, March 26. It is one of Humboldt’s biggest gigs — known throughout the nation as a must-attend event for jazz musicians and fans alike. Whatever your pleasure, you’re bound to find it in venues scattered throughout the city. From blues and jazz to swing and…
