Cover Story
Rio Dell’s Hash Lab Murder Case
First came the explosion, and it came out of nowhere. Cindy Dobereiner was sitting next door in her canary yellow Craftsman home when the walls shook and the windows rattled. About a block away, down First Avenue, Michael and Lindsay Goodwin were in their new two-story home when the concussion from the blast hit. They…
Eureka City Council Set to Expand Boundaries, Redraw Wards, Fight Mold
On Tuesday, the Eureka City Council will tackle several topics that could have long-lasting impacts on the city. First, the ward redistricting ad hoc committee, which has been meeting for two months to discuss where the lines for the city’s five wards should fall, will present its findings. With two current city councilmembers (Natalie Arroyo…
Music Tonight: Wednesday, Sept. 27
The RLA Jazz Trio is joined again by Paula & Don this evening at the Mad River Brewery Tap Room at 6 p.m. for free. You’ll get some good jazz to sway to but you’ll be comfortable tapping your feet and sipping your John Barleycorn as well if you just want to ride it out.…
Pride on the Plaza
Pride Week 2017 ended on Sunday with the Pride Parade around the Arcata Plaza, followed by a program of remembrance, music, drag lip-sync, scheduled speakers and open mic opportunities for anyone in attendance. Several vendors provided a wide mix of information, food and activities. See the slideshow below for highlights. While the number of participants…
Eureka Names Watson Police Chief
The city of Eureka announced this afternoon that it’s looking to drop the “interim” from interim Police Chief Steve Watson’s title. In a press release, the city announced that City Manager Greg Sparks has offered Watson the position and the former captain has accepted. The hire will now go before the Eureka City Council on…
Alderpoint Shooting Leaves 1 Dead, ‘Armed and Dangerous’ Suspect Sought
The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office is searching for a 27-year-old man in connection with a fatal shooting in Alderpoint on Saturday. Officials said Zachary Cordell Harrison was last seen leaving the scene of the Sixth Street homicide just before 3 p.m. in a black Ford F250 with Oregon plates. He is considered armed and dangerous, according to…
HumBug: Dragonflies and Caterpillar
There are two things I enjoy about studying insects. The first is its predictability. Checking my files I found it was time for the common green darner to migrate through here. This year I’ve seen almost no dragonflies. I suspect it is because “my” spot on the river was discovered by several folks with ATVs,…
Redwood Pride Starts Over in Arcata
On Friday, with 48 hours left to prepare for Humboldt County’s Pride festival on the Arcata Plaza, organizer Kate Trower had a head of newly dyed pink hair and a little time to talk on the phone. Last year’s tumult and the dissolution of the Pride board of directors left the event with an uncertain…
TL;DR: Five Reasons NOT to Try This at Home
Busy week? We’ll help you catch up on the basics of this week’s cover story, “Rio Dell’s Hash Lab Murder Case,” which takes a deep dive into hash lab explosion that rocked Rio Dell in November and spawned murder charges against all involved. You should really read the whole story here, but this will give…
Music Tonight: Sunday, Sept. 24
Talented trio Homenaje is at the Arcata Playhouse tonight. Led by guitarist Will Brahm, the band incorporates jazz, classical and Latin music into their grooves. This trio’s based out of Los Angeles and features percussionist Chris Wabich, who’s jammed with Leonard Cohen and the Zappa Family, and bassist Ross Shodek rounds out the band. They’ll…
Redway Man Becomes County’s 26th Traffic Death This year
A 58-year-old Redway man was killed yesterday evening when his motorcycle collided with a Toyota truck making a three-point turn on Redwood Drive, sending him over a metal guard rail and down a 250-foot embankment. Leo Durr was pronounced dead at the scene. According to the California Highway Patrol, Durr was travelling southbound on Redwood…
Music Tonight: Saturday, Sept. 23
Missed Holus Bolus in Blue Lake yesterday? You can find him helping to celebrate the first anniversary of Eureka Natural Foods McKinleyville at 11 a.m. this morning. Get loopy early. Local rock chameleons the Delta Nationals return to Mad River Brewery Tap Room at 6 p.m. to play rock, swing, jazz etc. for your enjoyment.…
Judge Allows Public Defender Lawsuit to Proceed Amid Attorney Exodus
A visiting Humboldt County Superior Court judge ruled this morning that a case challenging the hiring of controversial Public Defender David Marcus can continue, finding sufficient facts have been alleged to hold a hearing to determine whether he meets minimum state qualifications for the post. The county of Humboldt had asked Judge Marjorie Carter to…
Flamingo Fandango! The Sequoia Park Zoo is turning 110!
The Sequoia Park Zoo is turning 110! That’s a bit long in the fang, we think, and certainly something to celebrate. Swing by the zoo on Sunday, Sept. 24 from noon to 6 p.m. for a free day of games, interactive exhibits, animal encounters, great food and loads of family fun at the Zoo’s 110th…
Redwood Pride Parade and Festival
The revamped Redwood Pride Parade and Festival takes place Sunday, Sept. 24 at the Arcata Plaza (free). Meet at Creamery Building at 11:30 a.m. if you’d like to participate in the parade, and march down to the plaza for the festival, which starts at noon. There’ll be speakers, performances, activities and more. Rainbow attire encouraged.…
Music Tonight: Friday, Sept. 22
The Mad River Brewery welcomes back “one-man-psychedelic-acoustiloop” musician Holus Bolus tonight at 6 p.m. Think of him as a one-man band, playing a multitude of instruments and layering them one at a time through a looping machine. He may record the drums first and then a bass line and then some chords and then sing…
You Otter be a Citizen Scientist
One doesn’t have to go far to see local river otters in the wild. Just take a walk out on the Trinidad pier and you’re likely to see one swimming in the harbor. But the best time is when local sport fishermen return to the floating dock below the pier to clean their catches. On…
Locally Grown Screening at the Minor Theatre
For as much as it’s teased about being behind the times, Humboldt has led the charge in a few important revolutions and is embarking on another now: sustainable food production and building better communities. Join the filmmakers and producers behind the documentary Locally Grown: America’s New Food Revolution for the Wine and Cheese Gala Opening,…
Music Tonight: Thursday, Sept. 21
Bluegrass returns to the menu at the Mad River Brewery Tap Room this evening around 6 p.m. courtesy of the Compost Mountain Boys. As usual, this is a free show, but that doesn’t mean you can’t throw a few shekels toward the band. The Old Steeple in Ferndale is starting off its season with a…
What’s Valuable?
Editor: I appreciate Peter Childs’s analysis of where Humboldt went wrong with marijuana. Marijuana money certainly subverted the values of the back-to-the-land movement. Of course, many individuals still hold those values, as can be seen in the actions of HUMMAP, the only grower group to take real action toward protecting Humboldt’s priceless habitat. However, the…
Tales from the Underground
The soil at my new place is marginal but well drained and it hasn’t been gardened in a few years, so the weeds are pretty intense. A season’s worth of root vegetables will condition the garden for spring planting. It’s a formula I’ve used many times: Dig up the lawn and plant potatoes, beets, turnips…
Aiming High and Low
Reviews AMERICAN ASSASSIN. Solid, straight-ahead action pictures seem ever rarer in a field dominated by costumed heroes, horror and animation. It may well be that their day has passed, that the genre has been relegated to the digital equivalent of “straight-to-video,” where Nicolas Cage can reign, in ridiculous repose, as the king of the dusty,…
Enabling or a Lifeline?
To some, the concept of government sanctioned injection centers is akin to simply giving addicts a free pass to shoot up. To others, it’s a proven safety net used around the world to combat a growing opioid crisis already taking lives at an alarming rate. A controversial bill that would allow six California counties —…
Runes in the Ruin
When diggers (calling them archaeologists would be too kind) broke into a 5,000-year-old Maeshowe passage grave in Orkney, Scotland, in 1851, they soon realized they weren’t the first intruders. The walls of the Neolithic tomb were covered with about 30 Nordic runes dating from the 12th century, one of the richest collections of such writing…
Conversations Across Time and Space
My good friend Tom is very much a man of science and mathematics, and also the smartest person I know. I talk with him about all manner of things and while he may have a way of viewing the entire universe in terms of equations and probability, he also sees connections down to art and…
All Aboard
Legal recreational marijuana is barreling down on the Golden State, with retail sales slated to begin in January. And — along with all the edibles, smokeables and topicals one can imagine — it looks like we might get a new transportation option to boot when the Puff Bus comes to town. Yes, really. Loopr, a…
Grow Local, Grow Natives
Local Food Month promotes local food, local food production and local farms and community gardens. It is meant to promote a sustainable local food system for our local area. The main problem I have is that our truly local foods — the native foods — are not included in solving our local food problems. Instead,…
Things of Rare Beauty
Let’s talk about eggplants,” I suggested to Spencer Hill at his Arcata farmers market stall on the eastern side of the plaza. We were talking over baskets filled with a number of eggplant varieties he and his son Jules grow at Small Fruits, their farm in Hoopa. Spencer’s face lit up and he started detailing…
Blues, Loops, Peyote Rock and Soulgrass
Thursday Bluegrass returns to the menu at the Mad River Brewery Tap Room this evening around 6 p.m. courtesy of the Compost Mountain Boys. As usual, this is a free show, but that doesn’t mean you can’t throw a few shekels toward the band. The Old Steeple in Ferndale is starting off its season with…
Last Bites
Our elder tree Barely bears, Weak limbs Reaching, Apples shaking Morning fog, Lifting up So little of What we recall…
Correction
A column in the Sept. 14, 2017, edition of the Journal headlined “Things Stay the Same” incorrectly stated Cody King’s age. He is 28. The Journal regrets the error. Related Stories
‘Destroyed’
Editor: I read Betty Crowder’s letter (Mailbox, Aug. 3) on the absence of wildlife on her property, and it startled me. We live on a hill in Petrolia — half forest, half meadow. We built our home in 1991. We delighted in the wildlife around us. We had quail, about 15. (They move so fast,…
Science, Schmience
Editor: Science works? Another Reverend Barry hallelujah (“Science. It Works, etc.,” Aug. 24). Atomic terror, global warming, overpopulation, the epidemic of cancer, global pollution — science works, yeah. Atomic Glenn Seaborg said, “People must understand that science is inherently neither a potential for good nor for evil. It is a potential to be harnessed by man to…
Stand (up) and Deliver
Is it just us or are things a little funny around here? There’s a whole lotta stand-up comedy in town these days, including three side-busting shows this week that should help you forget those upcoming midterms. If only for a little while. On Friday, Sept. 22, at the newly renovated E & O Lanes in…
Fieldbrook Art & Wine Festival
The 20th annual Art & Wine Festival at the Fieldbrook Winery starts sipping Saturday, Sept. 23 at 11 a.m. and goes to 4 p.m. (free entry). Enjoy wine tasting, raffles and homemade dessert along with fine art, clothing and jewelry vendors, a barbecue, beer and live music by the Spindrifters and Jon Lewis in a…
