Drug Money
Spending records offer rare glimpse into fiscal life of Humboldt’s drug cops
Cover Story
Drug Money
Late in the afternoon, on Nov. 19, 2010, seven agents from the Humboldt County Drug Task Force checked in to seven rooms at the Anaheim Hilton. The elegant, glass-covered hotel sits directly across the street from Disneyland. The suites — four with king beds, three with a pair of queens — were on the fifth…
Prop 8 Ruled Unconstitutional (Again)
The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled 2-1 today, declaring Proposition 8’s ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. Here’s the money quote from Judge Stephen Reinhardt, writing for the majority: Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians…
CR One Step From Losing Accreditation
College of the Redwoods was notified Friday that it has been placed on “show cause” accreditation status by the Accrediting Commission for Junior and Community Colleges (ACCJC), due to deficiencies that date back to 1999. The “show cause” sanction is the final step before losing accreditation. In a letter to Interim Superintendent/President Uptal Goswami, the…
Floyd and Betty Squires Ordered to Pay City of Eureka $26K
Humboldt County’s most infamous slumlords have been ordered to pay the City of Eureka more than $26,000 in attorneys’ fees. Floyd and Betty Squires unsuccessfully sued the City last year, arguing that they had been unfairly singled out for renting substandard hovels. If you’re unfamiliar with the Squireses track record, some highlights lowlights can be…
Pity the Billionaire: The Hard Times Swindle and the Unlikely Comeback of the Right
Best known for his book What’s the Matter With Kansas?, analyzing the paradox of middle class Americans voting against their own interests, Thomas Franks turns his attention to the recent Tea Party phenomenon, and that monumental paradox of victims of a Wall Street-induced Great Recession rallying for unfettered free enterprise at the precise moment it…
Shaken, and Stirred Up
For most of us here in Eureka, the trauma of Jan. 9, 2010, has faded into the annals of earthquakes past. Living near the triple junction, seismic shifts are our lot. If we remember the date at all, we probably think that was the day we personally dodged a bullet. Miraculously no lives were lost,…
Appropriating Property
Back in 1987, I went with a friend to see singer Joan Armatrading play Wolf Trap, an outdoor amphitheater in a national park in Virginia. We went early to stake out a good spot and laid out a big blanket. The closer it came to concert time, the more people packed in and we found…
Exit Laughing
Laughter On The 23rd Floor, a comedy by Neil Simon now onstage at the North Coast Repertory Theatre in Eureka, is about a roomful of writers for a 1950s comedy-variety TV show. Joe McCarthy and the Blacklist lurk in the background, and troubles with the network animate the plot. But mostly it’s about the characters…
Oh My … Oh Mad
Editor: Honey, bring me my fan. I am feeling a bit flushed … reading about our local burlesque (“Burlesque,” Jan. 26). … Oh my … oh my. … Great writing, by the way … a fun read. Nan Abrams, Eureka Editor: The Ooh La La Girls (www.theoohlalagirls.com) were — starting in the summer of…
Making Sense of It All
The songwriter/guitarist Martyn Joseph is not exactly a household name, not here in the states anyway, although he’s well known in Wales, where he’s from, and has a strong following throughout the British Isles and in Canada. He flew in from his home in Cardiff, Wales, last week; we caught up with him in Kentucky,…
Samba to the rescue
An ugliness struck our dear, fun-loving, free-flowing Arcata late last year, nearly stopping the happy beating of its heart, the downtown plaza. But now some of the city’s more rhythmically proficient residents want to revive that heart — with drums and dancing. It’s samba to the rescue. The problems began on Halloween, when a 3,000-strong…
Do People Still Want Albums?
The Brothers Comatose really are brothers — well, two of them anyway. In the beginning, the self-described “raucous and rowdy” stringband from San Francisco was Ben and Alex Morrison, a couple of Petaluma boys who grew up in a folky household. “Our dad had guitars, so we’d always played guitars, then one of my mom’s…
Danger Abounds
A DANGEROUS METHOD. It may seem strange for director David Cronenberg to follow the blood-drenched noir of A History of Violence (2005) and Eastern Promises (2007) with a fictionalized drama about Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud. But upon further analysis (pun intended) it makes a lot of sense. After all, Cronenberg has built a career…
Talking Trash
Editor: Heidi Walters’ article “New Direction” (Jan. 19) talks compassionately about all sorts of trash: the kind generated by the community’s less responsible or able homeless people, trash left by the occupiers of bushes, marshes and forests, trash left by the Occupiers of the Eureka Courthouse … how society may treat people like trash when…
Agenda Item
Agenda Item
Exodus: Humboldt
Why won’t Humboldt’s next generation let Marian Brady lead them? Harrumph!
The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975
The making of the excellent documentary, The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, an artfully edited collage of unearthed archival film footage, came by accident. “There was a rumor around for years among filmmakers that Sweden had more archive material on the Black Panthers than the entire USA,” said Göran Olsson, the film’s director, interviewed in the…
Light on the Rails
Editor: Rees Hughes makes a mistake by assuming all rail travel is more expensive than trails in “A Walk on the Wild Side of 101” (Jan. 19). The problem is a matter of the weight of the vehicle exerting forces on the track. Speeders, hand cars, and rail-cycles do not weigh as much as a…
Not Your Father’s Evolution
A few bullet points can sum up the major steps in the history of life on Earth, à la PowerPoint: (First slide) Genetic Evolution: • 4.5 billion years ago, Earth coalesced out of dust and gas surrounding the sun. • 3.8 billion years ago, life arose, in the form of simple replicators. • 1.5 billon years ago, single-celled…
Off the Wind
Off the Wind The Birds Sp lit Apart…
