Cover Story
Pit Boys
“I’m gettin’ bloody here!” The meat arrives It’s 7:25 on a foggy Fortuna morning and it’s quiet but for the beep, beep, beeping of the Ayers delivery truck reversing alongside the volunteer fire department. The driver parks and, using a hydraulic lift, removes 47 cardboard cases of beef from the back of his truck. Don…
Reggae Headliner Re-stokes Murder Music Outcry
Reggae on the River kicks off this weekend but the festival’s choice of headliner has some local LGBTQ groups wondering if “Murder Music on the River” might be a more fitting moniker. In its 32nd year, the four-day summer music festival put on by the Mateel Community Center has confirmed Jamaican reggae artist Sizzla Kalonji…
UPDATE: Eureka to Discuss Police Video Case Tonight, has Already Spent Thousands on Appeal
UPDATE: The Eureka City Council made no report out of closed session Tuesday night, indicating it has not yet made a final decision on whether to petition the California Supreme Court to review an appellate court ruling ordering the release of a police video of officers arresting a juvenile in 2012. The city has until…
Oregon Man Killed in Logging Accident
A 31-year-old Oregon man was killed Monday when the tree he was felling came down on him. Chief Deputy Coroner Ernie Stewart said Travis Jon Cornelison, of Rogue River, was working on a commercial operation for Lord’s Light Logging when the accident occurred near Timber Ridge Lane in the Blue Lake area. The accident is…
Stir it Up
Pack your bags. Grab your trunks. Dread your locks. The most irie weekend of the year is right around the bend when French’s Camp in Garberville transforms from quiet rural landscape to a reggae Mecca. Thousands of fans converge from Aug. 4 to 7 for the 32nd annual Reggae on the River ($200-$500). Reggae music’s…
4th UPDATE: Plane Crash Victims Identified
4th UPDATE: The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office today identified the four Crescent City residents who died Friday after the medical transport plane they were in crashed in timber land north of McKinleyville. Pilot Larry Mills, 54; flight nurse Deborah Kroon, 49; flight paramedic Michelle Tarwater, 30; and patient April Rodriquez, 35, were found inside the…
HumBug: Who’s Your Daddy?
Late last night, I took the dogs out for their final walk when I noticed a small member of the arachnid family of Opiliones on a rhododendron leaf. This is what I learned as a little kid as “daddy long legs.” Sometimes known as harvestmen, they look like a spider with unusually long legs and a…
Thanks, Eureka!
Pokémon Go’s been great for getting you out and exploring, but why not put your phone down for a few hours and recharge your own battery during Eureka Parks and Rec’s third annual Get Out and Play Day on July 30 (free)? The fun includes free water activities (paddle boarding, kayak demos, etc.) at Play on the…
UPDATED: Humboldt Dog Tests Positive for Rabies
UPDATE: The 11-month-old dog that was euthanized after contracting rabies earlier this month had undergone its first round of rabies vaccination, which starts at around 3 months old with series of subsequent boosters, and was “legally vaccinated for its age,” said Amanda Ruddy, consumer protection supervisor with the division of Environmental Health. “Of course, with…
Korean War Vets, Coasties Remember the Fallen
The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Dorado eased off Woodley Island Marina’s outermost dock Wednesday morning with valuable cargo aboard and a solemn task to perform. It was the 63rd anniversary of the “end” of the Korean War — a war that reached a United Nations armistice on July 27,1953 but, in truth, has still not…
A Small Win for Transparency
The Journal got somewhat of a win last week, when an appellate court upheld a Humboldt County judge’s order to release a Eureka police video depicting the arrest of a 14-year-old boy in 2012. To be clear, the court’s published opinion is a big deal, as it now creates case law that unambiguously says these…
The Real Wheel
Imagine a time machine has transported you back about 5,000 years to ancient Egypt, and you’re watching a crew of workers wrestle with a big block of stone. They’re building a tomb for some A-list dude — before pyramids, there were lower, simpler mastabas (flat stone platforms) — and their system for transporting the block…
Turn Off
Reviews LIGHTS OUT. I have become a victim of my own scant optimism. Among horror movies, the ratio of bad to good remains dishearteningly high; higher, perhaps, than in any other single genre. I was never much of a fan to begin with, save a few notable outliers. In recent years, though, as the volume…
Almost Famous
The traveling stage family was once a commonplace American archetype, from high classical theater to Shakespearean companies taking dusty journeys around the 19th-century frontier, and then onto the scrappy times of the vaudeville circuit and beyond. From the esteemed Barrymore family, its descendants alive and tweeting to this day, to the semi-fictionalized mother and daughters…
The Biggest Hero
Editor: My heroes in this victory for government accountability (“Arrest Video Can’t be Kept Confidential, Appellate Court Rules”, posted July 21) saving the best for last: The Journal’s, and Thadeus Greenson’s, courage and perseverance, to the point of litigation when good journalism alone wasn’t enough. Judge Wilson’s courage in the face of massive government resistance.…
Insert Sensationalist Weed-related Headline Here
The longer I work in media, the more tempted I am to write a guide for the general public on how media works. And, given that I’ve only worked in media for a little more than a year, logic would imply that, at some point very soon, I’ll succumb to temptation, leave my job at…
Farmers’ Favorites
When in doubt, ask the farmer. Wondering about the name of a strange-looking vegetable or fruit? Unsure how to prepare some produce you only bought because it looked too beautiful to leave behind? Concerned about properly storing your precious purchase? Ask the farmer. Farmers love the products they grow and bring to market, and I…
Who Needs a DeLorean When You’ve Got Ears?
Some music will always hold a dear spot in our lives. It could be a song that we listened to obsessively for days on end after a high school break up, it could be a full album, it could be the first live concert we ever attended, it could be “your song” shared with a…
Gone from the wind
How lonely it will be When all the birds are gone. No more wings Leaning on the wind. Trees and ponds Riddled with silence. No sweet notes To lift our hearts. No honking Vs of geese. No darkening voice From forest deeps. How lonely it will be Beneath an empty sky.
The Taxman Cometh
Public comment during last Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting stretched close to two hours, as many small growers turned up to protest a proposed excise tax. While county staff had originally recommended a tiered system in which taxes scale up with grow sizes, topping out at $6 per square foot for a 10,000-square-foot indoor grow,…
