Cover Story
Flash Fiction
99 Words on 99 Words We’ve been flashed. You, Humboldt, flashed us with your fiction, conjuring in just 99 words the key elements: character, setting, conflict, plot and theme. Characters: We meet a hungry dragon, a tactless apostle, an inebriated orange glutton. Settings: We visit a Vegas motel, an island cemetery, the Arcata Co-op. Conflict:…
“Popsicles!” Lickity Split Popcycle Cooling Off Old Town
So here we are, record high in Eureka today, Old Town store doors thrown open, windows raised as high as they can go, shopowners and patrons lingering on the sidewalk marveling at the heat. What’s that cry? “Popsicles!”? Yes! And not just any old popsicle vendor, but well-regarded storytelling master Paul Woodland. Woodland’s cycle-cart, Lickity Split…
Redwood Fatties (And Climate Change)
An ongoing, multi-year study of climate change effects on redwoods in old-growth forests has yielded results some layfolks might find surprising. Among them: Coast redwoods and giant sequoias are busting out with the big girth. “Coast redwoods in a few Northern California old-growth forests produced more wood since the 1970s than ever before in their…
Blue Ox Getting a Reality Show?
It’s possible. A Los Angeles producer filmed at the Blue Ox Millworks for three days in December, according to owner Eric Hollenbeck, and is set to debut a pilot online in November. The Sony Pictures-produced show about American craftsmen is being pitched to the Discovery and History channels, according to Hollenbeck. The pilot — a…
Judge Halts Trinity Water Release
Various reports are indicating that a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order to stop the Bureau of Reclamation from releasing extra water from the Trinity Reservoir. The release, scheduled to begin today, was planned to ensure the health of a big run of chinook salmon. The San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority and Westlands Water…
Fair Game
Who doesn’t love a fair? Rides, games, fried food, livestock, crafts and more fried food. For a brief moment, I felt like I’d covered all that with at Redwood Acres and the rodeo in Fortuna. But the Humboldt County Fair, now in its 117th year, is the mother of them all. It’s on from Aug.…
By a Nose
It’s comforting to know that if we were ever completely cut off from the rest of the world, we’d still have good wine up in these parts. The results are in for the wine competition at the Humboldt County Fair, and local grapes are representing. A panel of seven judges picked the winning bottles out…
Update: Safety Corridor Bike Lanes Widen This Week
Update: Caltrans spokesman Scott Burger said while traffic lanes will be slightly narrowed, most of the extra space for the bike lane will come from narrowing the left-hand shoulder. The Safety Corridor has been all a-bustle lately — earth movers, dump trucks, surveyors and pickups galore. Last week signs popped up at the Samoa Boulevard,…
UPDATED: Harbor District Board to Consider Acquiring Pulp Mill for Free at Monday Meeting
Update: It’s a done deal. The board voted unanimously Monday evening, with Commissioner Aaron Newman absent, to acquire the former pulp mill. Next comes lining up some tenants and figuring out what to do with all those nasty pulping liquors. Original post: Negotiations have been going on for months now, but it looks like the…
New Fires in Eastern Humboldt
Lightning sparked fires east of Hoopa over the weekend, adding to the smoke-congested air along the Trinity, Klamath and Salmon rivers. Joining fires in Orleans and along the Salmon River, the latest blaze (called the Corral Complex) started Saturday morning and grew to 375 acres by this afternoon. Lots of fuels and extreme terrain –…
Attorney General Makes Drug Sentencing Slightly Less Insane
In a possible departure from the Obama administration’s drug war reversals and doublespeak, Attorney General Eric Holder announced today that some low-level, nonviolent drug offenders will no longer face long, mandatory minimum sentences in federal prisons. Speaking in front of the American Bar Association’s House of Delegates in San Francisco, Holder was quoted as saying, “Too many…
Sara Bareilles to Internet: ‘All Love’
Katy Perry’s Roar sounds like Sara Bareilles’ Brave, says Internet.
Crabs Manager Arrested in Marijuana Raid
Humboldt Crabs Manager Matt Nutter was arrested this morning on suspicion of growing marijuana in his Blue Lake home. The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office found nearly 300 marijuana plants in a greenhouse and outdoors, as well as five guns. From the sheriff’s office: On 08-12-2013, at approximately 9:00 a.m., the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office served…
No Sick Pelicans
Remember last year how the Humboldt Wildlife Care Center, in Bayside, was inundated with sick pelicans? Most slick with oil from their ill-fated rummaging in fish-waste-Dumpsters, a few with fish skeletons lodged in their elegant throats? And the year before, same story, sick pelicans galore? Well this year, so far, the care center has…
Construction Workers Shorted Nearly a Quarter Million Dollars on Eureka Holiday Inn Project, Says State Labor Commissioner
You’ve probably seen it on your way to Costco — a new Holiday Inn Express going up on the southwest corner of Broadway and West Wabash in Eureka. Well, according to California Labor Commissioner Julie A. Su, the construction workers erecting the hotel have been shortchanged wages totaling $247,681. Su is filing a mechanics’ lien…
Central Valley Farmers Sue to Stop Trinity Flows
Irrigators in the San Joaquin Valley filed suit this week to block a recent decision to increase water flows down the Trinity River. The San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority — a collection of water agencies the operates in from as far north as Stockton down to Fresno — said in its filing that valley…
The Inside Scoop on Outside Lands
Outside Lands 2013, a San Francisco music festival that focuses on art and entertainment, starts today and is gearing up to be one of the best weekends of the year. But with everything packed into three days, it’s hard deciding who to see. And you’ll have more fun if you prepare. Never fear. We’ve got…
Off the Leash
Your dog loves you, but sometimes it feels like everything is about you: Seeing you out the door, waiting for you to come home, listening to you complain about how someone’s chewed your remote. Let’s not be so self-centered, shall we? Woofstock is back in Halvorsen Park this Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.…
![Video of Bat-Throwing Incident at Humboldt Crabs Game Goes Viral [Updated]](https://i0.wp.com/www.northcoastjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/crabs.webp?fit=160%2C153&ssl=1)
Video of Bat-Throwing Incident at Humboldt Crabs Game Goes Viral [Updated]
UPDATE, 4:45 p.m.: Humboldt Crabs President Matthew Filar sent us an email earlier defending his player. “Certainly throwing the bat was wrong,” Filar wrote, “but when a pitcher throws a ball at a batter at 92 mph, and the authority figure (the umpire) does nothing, when does the batter have to defend himself. Four pitches?…
Poem Store Goes Hollywood
Frequenters of the Arcata Farmers’ Market may have noticed something missing this year: No, the strawberries, quail eggs and mushrooms are still in abundance — but versification while you wait has gone onto that ethereal plain. Well, not quite. Jacqueline Suskin, the oft-bespectacled proprietor of the Poem Store, took her lap-sized typewriter and lyrical mind…
Big Layoff at Tomas
Arcata jewelry company Tomas laid off 19 people from its Arcata offices today — part of a 25 percent reduction of the company’s U.S. workforce. Reached this afternoon, CEO Chris Albright said it was a difficult choice regarding a “simple” problem. “It’s about a decline in sales,” he said. “Some way we had to reduce…
Watershed Worries
Fears of another massive fish kill are growing as tribal officials and biologists size up the combined effects of a low water year and high demand from upstream farmers and local pot growers, the Two Rivers Tribune is reporting. “Dangerous conditions on the Klamath and Trinity become the new normal,” warns the headline in this…
Woman Kidnapped From Gas Station in Front of Daughters, Says EPD
A mother was kidnapped in front of her teenage daughters by a knife-wielding parolee last night at a Eureka gas station, according to a press release from the Eureka Police Department. The man drove her through town, threatened to kill her and attempted to stab her before she managed to take the knife from him…
(Almost) All about You
This week is not exactly overflowing with myriad musical opportunities, but the ones that are out there sound pretty fine. An early, raucous weekday show This’ll be a fun show, for example: Austin’s Black Irish Texas plays The Logger Bar on Thursday as part of a West Coast tour promoting the band’s latest effort, An…
Along the Way
“Sometimes I feel pissed,” confesses artist Lida Penkova, “because I do almost nothing else but paint, and I feel that somehow life is escaping me!” It’s not so much that Penkova’s life is escaping her, but that she’s pouring it into her whimsical, worldly and wondrous paintings and prints. “Once you are in this fascination…
Star Shrek
Shrek was a multimillion-dollar animated movie that spawned a multimillion-dollar Broadway show. Humboldt Light Opera Company doesn’t have access to that level of support. Nevertheless, its production of Shrek The Musical, now on the Van Duzer Theatre stage at HSU in Arcata, is big, bold, fast and assured. It’s also ogre-sized fun. It’s not just…
Ghana Must Go
Taiye Selasi published her first story ever in 2011. She wrote “The Sex Lives of African Girls” in response to a challenge from the poet Toni Morrison, and it immediately won Selasi praise and a spot in last year’s Best American Short Stories collection. Selasi is the sort of talent described as precocious, only 33…
Rogue Neurons
Until the advent of computers a few decades back, the technology du jour gave us metaphors for the brain. As I’ve written before (Field Notes, Dec. 6, 2012), hydraulic and pneumatic systems, steam and internal combustion engines, septic tanks, cotton mills and telephone switchboards have all been tapped for brain metaphors as thinkers try to…
Double Trouble
Reviews 2 GUNS. Mark Wahlberg previously worked with director Baltasar Kormákur on Contraband (2012), which became a surprise hit. This time they’ve enlisted Denzel Washington and a solid supporting cast to make another mildly fun, inconsequential caper picture borrowed from the catalog of Michael Mann. With Contraband I was struck by Kormákur’s liberal use of…
Zoltar Tells a Fortune
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Don’t Bust Here
Editor: Co-op management’s negotiations with its employees are acrimonious because they are guided by a union-busting lawyer (“Co-op Conflict,” Aug. 1). Management has hired Brad Kampus, who represents corporate managements in fighting unions. He attends all Co-op contract negotiations and advises management on taking an anti-employee position, as he advises corporate managers. (The union does…
Second Friday Arts! Arcata
Arts! Arcata is Arcata Main Street’s monthly celebration of visual and performing arts, held at more than 30 participating locations in Arcata. Visit www.artsarcata.com for even more information about the event or call (707) 822-4500.</p ARCATA ARTISANS COOPERATIVE 883 H St. Libby George, paintings. Mimi LaPlant, paintings. Michael Pearce, ceramics. Wine will be served to…
More on That Speech
Editor: Marcy Burstiner hit it absolutely correctly in her July 25 column, “Copy That.” Dan Johnson’s action was a disgrace and Marcy pointed out the most important feature that has not been addressed until she hit it on the nail — he was talking to an entirely different audience than the one the real speech…
Boards and Rails
Editor: As stated in the Journal’s article (“Run Out on a Rail,” July 25), the North Coast Railroad Authority’s mission is to “maintain rail service.” Those who sit on that board should be all about fulfilling that mission, with “zeal,” I would think. Nothing against Alex Stillman; she is a fine person. She is also…
A Couple of Things
Editor: Jud Ellinwood’s letter in the Aug. 1 issue, (“Train Talk”) hit the nail on the head when he said “Humboldt County wants and deserves better.” There seems to be different, sometimes opposing views, but few on what is best for Humboldt County. Most of us just want things to get better for Humboldt County…
Thoughts on Solitary
Editor: In response to “Hunger Pangs” (“Mailbox,” July 25) — a commentary on the hunger strikes in California prisons: It is true that many (not all) of the prisoners locked in long-term solitary confinement have committed terrible crimes. It is true that a number of them have committed the most heinous acts, and through whatever…
Yes, Trees
Editor: I was delighted to see Barry Evans’ Field Notes article (“Trees, Please!” July 4) about street trees in the Journal. He did a wonderful job highlighting many of the benefits of tree-lined urban thoroughfares. Trees also beautify neighborhoods, increase property values, and have been shown to improve safety of pedestrians and bicyclists, something we…
Sorcery
The white crests of the mountain sea are briny conjurations, an untraceable sorcery of mist and churning vapor, lost, like us, in the vanishing moment to time unchronicled and shape unformed. The blue-veined waves compose an eternal return of disappearing amusements, an anarchic minstrelsy that entertains and distracts us…
Lessons in the Ashes
Large fires in and around Orleans last week have sparked new criticism of the Forest Service’s plan to reduce wildland fires in the remote and mountainous community. The Dance Fire burned more than 600 acres before firefighters contained it on Friday. Flames destroyed the home of a tribal elder, as well as two other outbuildings.…
Summer Stock
I want to talk about soup. Some say soup is a cold weather dish, but I think it’s just seasonal. In winter, I make stews; in summer, I make soups. It’s just another way to eat the delightful treats we get at the market around this time. The thing about soup is you can…
