National Anathema
Is ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ really who we are?
Cover Story
National Anathema
Controversy has surrounded our national anthem a long time. But what, after all, exemplifies a good national anthem? “God Save The Queen” was the first, and ought to be a prototype, but it has less to do with England than celebrating monarchy. “La Marseillaise” is splendid, but really about revolution against monarchy. “O Canada”? As…
The Coolness/Haircut Connection
Have you ever dreamt that gorgeous local folk chanteuse Lila Nelson would write a song just for you? Uh, der. Of course you have, just as you’ve no doubt fantasized about being pals with the cool kids in electro-Martian pop trio The Monster Women — y’know, eating dinner out with ’em, showing up in the background of a music…
Skilled Healthcare Suit: The Background
The T-S today reports that a Humboldt County jury has penalized Skilled Health Care to the tune of over $600 million for health code violations. The for-profit company runs a chain of nursing homes with five local outlets. Wondering what the fuss was about? Read Journal freelancer Carol Harrison’s disturbing account of Skilled Health Care’s…
Hornets!
According to Anne Sexton, the poet, the hornet really is out to get you. You. “He would get in the house any way he could … looking for you,” she wrote in the poem “Hornet.” Do not sleep for he is there wrapped in the curtain. Do not sleep for he is there under the…
Reggae Rising falls
The Humboldt County Planning Commission met tonight to make a thumbs up, thumbs down decision on the permit for Reggae Rising 2010. They said it was hard — they didn’t really want to do it — but they rejected the request for a conditional use permit — unanimously. Details pending… Post hearing note from the…
NCJ Party Pics
By special request from the boss, a bunch of party pics from Saturday including shots of the new Old Town Journal offices in progress.
NC Journal Turns 20!!! Film at 11…
A litle home video glimpse of the Journal’s party on the Eureka Boardwalk Saturday night…
Trinidad Planning Commissioner Investigated in Tsurai Site Clearcut
Axel Lindgren III and his brother, Joe Lindgren, both descendants of the original inhabitants of Tsurai, examine illegal cuts adjacent to Trinidad’s Wagner Street Trail. On Saturday Tuesday, the Times-Standard wrote about the strange case of a landscaper who had clearcut a wide swath of vegetation, including a stand of mature trees, within the archaeological zone…
Solid Foundation
Pokey LaFarge is a 20-something year old, but to look at him, or to hear him sing, you’d think he’s a country blues star from the ’40s or ’50s, maybe even earlier. He called his new album with The South City Three Riverboat Soul — you can imagine him with garters on his sleeves entertaining gamblers…
Jane’s Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World
Viewers of KEET may be forgiven if from time to time they conclude that they’ve stumbled on the Jane Austen Channel. In recent years PBS and the BBC have filmed five of her novels and a new biography, following the international success of the Pride and Prejudice miniseries of 1995, which author Claire Harman credits…
Bike Cop
Editor: I just got through reading the “Thunder in the Redwoods” piece in the June 24 issue, by Terrence McNally. I enjoyed it, right up until I got to Fern Breed’s “’68 Panhandle.” I know it’s picky and probably a typo. It was a good article. I first started going to the Run back at…
Standing Rights
A murmur riffles through the eucalyptus leaves Sparrows…
Who’s Busy?
Editor: I just read the “Town Dandy” column where you call Oakland a “vibrant city … where buzzing young people fill the streets … with their schemes … and a heady sense of possibility…” (June 24). I have not been in Oakland for quite some time, but I do follow the San Francisco Chronicle, where…
Welder
When country singer/songwriter Dwight Yoakam arrived in Nashville in the late ’70s, he was shunned by the music industry for being too “honky tonk” or “hillbilly” (a tag that Yoakam embraced, titling one of his albums Hillbilly Deluxe). Yoakam subsequently headed to Los Angeles, closer to the Bakersfield side of country. Labeled an outsider, Yoakam…
Like Unto the Calf
Editor: I thoroughly enjoyed reading “Beyond the Fenceline” by Glenn Reed (“Poem,” June 24). The poem illustrated our region so well with its gentle pastoral scene. Reality is held at bay, but insistent and ever-present; the click and hum of the powerlines reminds the reader that we are not set apart, and not exempt from…
Recycled
Editor: When I saw the past week’s issue of The North Coast Journal, I was looking forward to reading the cover story, “Redemption Value” (June 17). However, when I read the second sentence of the article I saw a glaring mistake that stopped me right in my path. The sentence begins: “Back in 1971, when…
July 1-15, 2010
Hank Sims is the sort of editor you meet in a dark alley just after a rainstorm. He’s not much for editorial meetings or conference calls. We ducked under an awning, where the flickering yellow streetlights did neither of us any favors. That’s when I gave him the news. “Dirt is dead,” I said.”I’ve moved…
Wabash Willie
Wabash Willie in What’s Not to Like?
Vitamin C and Scurvy
When I interviewed double Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling 20 years ago, he was taking 18 grams of vitamin C a day, 300 times the Recommended Dietary Allowance at that time. It didn’t seem to be doing him any harm. As I wrote then, “Pauling is a walking advertisement for his dietary and vitamin recommendations.…
Arts Alive!
First Saturday Night Arts Alive! Is proudly presented by USBank, with Eureka Main Street and the Humboldt Arts Council Opening receptions for artists, exhibits, and/or performances July 3 6-9 p.m. Phone 707-442-9054, for more information. 1. WORLD CUP 1626 F St. Artist Lauren Sarabia; music DJ Kissyface. 1a. ST. INNOCENT ORTHODOX CHURCH 939 F St.…
Humboldt’s Portfolio
A warning to the superstitious: You might want to knock on wood or reach for your rabbit’s foot after reading the next sentence. The local economy has shown signs of stabilizing, even (dare we admit it?) improving over the past few months. Unemployment, which has been mercilessly climbing since mid-2006, when our local economy peaked,…
The Big Two-Oh
It was 20 years ago today… uh, 20 years ago this year anyway… As you may have noticed in our pages in recent weeks, the North Coast Journal, founded in 1990, turns 20 this year. As far as decade-rounded birthdays go, for humans, 20 is kinda weak when compared to the life-crisis causing 30, 40…
Top Opera
It’s 1910, early days in Blue Lake. Big civic problems are hogs in the street and the lack of a fire hose. But there’s a train station, and a lake (kind of). Enter the woodsmen, suspicious of townies, singing manfully as they bisect a redwood. The town is run by the Odd Fellows lodge and…
On Not Reporting
The hardest decision for many journalists to make is whether to print something in the first place. It is also the most subjective. The decision is hardest for those who will break the news first. That’s when all repercussions fall in your hands. But that wasn’t the case with the pre-election news that candidate for…
Land of the Free, Home of the Brave
It’s time once again to celebrate our Independence. Sunday is the Fourth of July, with the requisite flags, fireworks and patriotic songs, but this year the local celebrations get going early. First up is Freedom First: A Salute to Our Country on Thursday at the Arkley Center for the Performing Arts (412 G St., Eureka).…
Old Meets New
The tradition of the Chautauqua goes back to 1875, when a Methodist minister organized the New York Chautauqua Assembly, an educational summer camp on the shores of Chautauqua Lake. Eventually the movement took to the road becoming quite popular at the end of the 19th century and into the early 20th. “Teddy Roosevelt said Chautauquas…
Let the Party Begin
This weekend is just the beginning of a celebration we hope lasts all year. We’re having a party for Journal readers on the Eureka Boardwalk, Foot of F, from 6-9 p.m. to coincide with the hours of Arts Alive! We are celebrating the 20th anniversary of the North Coast Journal and our return later this…
Cruise Control
Previews As noted here last week, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, next in the teen vampire/werewolf franchise, hits multiple screens early for Fourth of July weekend and will likely dominate multiplex box offices nationwide. Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action and violence, and some sensuality. At the Broadway, Fortuna, the Minor and Mill Creek. Eclipse’s primary…
Red Tide
The Harbor, Recreation, and Conservation District Commission meeting last Wednesday (June 23) represented both the burning optimism and the sobering reality of the economic storm facing Humboldt County, particularly its port. Few public entities have managed to weather the “Great Recession” here unscathed, but the fateful financial future facing this public agency is nothing short…
