Operator Error
Redwood Memorial and St. Joseph have both reported major surgical mistakes – now what?
Cover Story
Operator Error
Rumors are swirling about the St. Joseph Health System, a presence in Humboldt County since the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange began treating flu patients here during the 1918 epidemic. While much remains unconfirmed, St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka and its sister facility, Redwood Memorial Hospital in Fortuna, both have made dramatic medical blunders…
Karen Brooks is Bold
Karen Brooks has yet to officially kick off her campaign for the Third District seat on the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors. (That’ll happen with pancakes Saturday morning at Arcata’s D Street Community Center.) But she has already demonstrated a refreshing boldness. For one thing, she’s a member (or perhaps former member) of the Humboldt…
Arcata Plaza New Year’s Eve: Meh
The much hyped Arcata Plaza edition of New Year’s Eve has come and gone. For those keeping score: no Presidents were scaled. No bottles went airborne. Grass still looks good. From the City of Arcata’s standpoint: mission accomplished. But to many others, the New Year’s buzz was killed. Much in the same way that a…
Last Day
Friday not long past 1 p.m. things were hoppin’ at the North Coast Resource Center in Arcata. Outside, a gang of gulls and ravens hopped up and down, screeching and scrapping for bread chunked at them by a man on the sidewalk. Another guy waved an empty plastic bottle at a big spotted dog, who…
Wal-Mart, Soldier Hate-Hate
Editor: First I would like to make fellow members of the community who dislike Wal-Mart aware of some more horrendous statistics in regard to Eureka’s newest big box store (“Touchdown Wal-Mart, Dec. 15). According to a “labor economist” from U.C. Berkeley, six children or children-in-law of the Walton family (the founders of Wal-Mart) had a…
Merry Excess
Merry Excess
Savage-O-Heaven #004
Jen Savage’s plea for divine intervention to save the word bubbles.
Pulphead
The seemingly disparate fragments of American culture described in this book of essays are held together by a unique voice, one that’s equally steeped in history and the vicissitudes of modern life. All the pieces bear a personal stamp, and some even constitute an autobiography of sorts. “Upon This Rock,” Sullivan’s first-person account of a…
Bad Bugs, No Drugs?
In one of history’s classic I-told-you-so’s, Alexander Fleming’s 1945 prediction that the use of antibiotics would inevitably spawn drug-resistant bacteria has come to pass with a vengeance. Originally, Fleming’s 1927 discovery of the first antibiotic, penicillin, changed the course of history. Natural penicillin, and its later, synthetic varieties, gave physicians the ability to combat some…
Remembrance of Running Past
I run now only in my daydreams when…
Year Out, Community In
Bad economic times are more than a theme in at least four recent North Coast stage productions. They are a fact of life that local theatres face. From anecdotal evidence, it appears that the economy is injuring some theatrical organizations more than others. But in hard times particularly, all these theatres depend on the strength…
Policing Plazapalooza
Shards of glass lined the sidewalk. The statue of President William McKinley was covered in graffiti. Foliage in planter boxes had been trampled. It wasn’t the morning-after remains of a raucous rave; it was just another Nov. 1 on the Arcata Plaza. North Coast residents have come to expect chaos from Halloween on the Plaza,…
The Dead Celebrity Cookbook
Let’s get this straight — anytime somebody puts together a collection of recipes from dead celebrities, I’m in. The trifecta of food, gossip and pop culture nostalgia is too much for me to resist. Daily Show film critic Frank DeCaro shares the spoils of his extensive research — through what must have been an Alexandrian…
Humboldt Love-Hate
Editor: I arrived in Humboldt much like Eryn (“Leaving,” Dec. 15). I had seen a video and a brochure for HSU, but the day I moved into the dorms was my first day in Humboldt County. I instantly fell in love. I love how you can have conversations with perfect strangers. I love the absolute…
We Planned Your New Year’s Day
Creatures of habit, we human beings be. As evolved as we like to think we are, able to own and snuff out aspects of our personality when we think we need to, we usually need some sort of painful push for change to initiate. An unflattering picture of your stomach hanging out of your shirt…
NYE: Don’t Break Anything
No, seriously. Stop destroying stuff. It ain’t cool, k? While there is a slew of venues with actual sanctioned New Year’s Eve events occurring this Saturday, anyone who’s spent any drinking holiday in Humboldt knows where the largest concentration of happy, hyphy 2011 calendar burners will gather: The Arcata Plaza. Bar row’ll call: Sidelines, Toby…
Film Festivus
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. Journalist Mikael Blomqvist (Daniel Craig) is enlisted to investigate the long-ago disappearance of Henrik Vanger’s (Christopher Plummer) niece. Suspects abound — there are Nazis, drunks and abusers in every branch of the family tree. The heroine, Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), a punk hacker/researcher, is also among villains, and neither…
