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Summer of Fun!!!!!
Don’t freak out but it’s May. Which means we’re a graduation cap’s throw from June and we’ve got to find something to do with the kids this summer. Lucky for us Humboldt has a beachload of classes, camps and activities to choose from. Many require registration and some offer scholarships, so call to find out.…
UPDATE: Arcata Council Directs Staff to Bring Back Gun Safety Ordinance
UPDATE: A gun safety ordinance will be coming forward at a future Arcata City Council meeting after members directed staff to research various options and bring back some examples from other cities and counties for their consideration. Several councilmembers at the May 16 meeting noted that law enforcement would not be coming into private homes…
Tomo’s Back
Out of the ashes — well, mostly smoke damage — of a Jan. 27 fire, comes Tomo Japanese Restaurant in Arcata, having reopened Monday night for dinner service. According to the restaurant’s General Manager Josh Hand, the fire, which started by the aquarium (check your fish, folks), did plenty of damage, leaving a path of destruction…
The Village Project Heads to Arcata City Council Sans Recommendation
A controversial large-scale student housing project will go before the Arcata City Council in June without a planning commission stamp of approval after commissioners split 2-2 last week on whether to recommend general plan and zoning amendments needed for the proposed development. By the May 8 commission meeting, The Village plan — comprising a three-…
Music Tonight: Wednesday, May 16
Local folk trio No Pardon plays a free show at the Redwood Curtain Brewing Co. this evening at 7 p.m. And over in Blue Lake there is another free show as the talented players in Dell’Arte’s M2 Ensemble crack the sawblade bedecked boards of the Logger Bar at 9 p.m. for what is sure to…
Music Tonight: Tuesday, May 15
Los Angeles songsmith Bella Porter plays solo guitar to accompany a voice that is truly big and beautiful, and her clear and plaintive howls sound like birdsong from the fields of paradise. Her songs are pretty great, too. She plays the Outer Space tonight at 7 p.m. ($5). Providing support will be the excellent noir…
Caps and Gowns
More than 2,600 HSU students were expected to earn degrees in the 2017-18 academic year, and over 1,900 participated in the 2018 commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 12, according to Humboldt State University’s marketing and communications department. Thousands of students, families and friends packed HSU’s Redwood Bowl to watch students walk the walk, often with…
Music Tonight: Monday, May 14
Music-wise, it’s a quiet night on the far-western front but since I have pumped everything from dance to puppetry to burlesque here, let me suggest another medium that’s all about the timing and the rhythm: I speak of the boozy and lurid world of the professional truthteller, the stand-up comic. Kyle Kinane is very funny…
HumBug: Strange Defense
The nymphal spittle bug is a wondrous creature. It sips plant juices and processes the waste into a bubbly foam with which it surrounds itself. If you’ve ever gotten the stuff on your hand you know it is sticky and gooey. I understand it is unpleasant tasting as well. (I’ve not done that experiment.) It…
Music Tonight: Sunday, May 13
The Westhaven Center for the Arts puts on a free spring fling from 1 to 4 p.m. featuring barbecue, wine, beer and virgin drinks, a silent auction, a raffle and music by The Compost Mountain Boys and songwriter March Adstrum — which sounds like a neat alias procured by a quick glance at a calendar…
Cannabis-Related Lights Polluting SoHum Skies
Editor’s note: This story first appeared on www.kymkemp.com and is reposted here with permission. Once again spring brings light to the hills of the Emerald Counties — large industrial lights that flood valleys, glow into neighbors’ windows and possibly confuse wildlife, disrupting natural cycles. Rural communities complain that greenhouses constructed specifically for growing marijuana bring unwanted…
Music Tonight: Saturday, May 12
The Creamery District Night Market is on tonight, with puppets, art and fire dancing. Shop for sartorial splendor at Bang! Bang! Vintage, check out art by MK Studios, Birdman Ceramics and Seapod Studios, quaff some cider from Wrangletown Cider Co., enjoy a bilingual puppet show and enjoy the musical stylings of The Monster Women. What…
Because Mom Said So.
In case your mom hasn’t reminded you recently, she brought you into this world, fed you and changed you. And, if you screw up her special day, there will be consequences. Fear not, we’re here to help. Does your mother love tea, gardens and sweet petite pastries? Treat her to the Mother’s Day Tea and…
Four Years Later, Spring Preview Bus Crash Survivors Set to Graduate
Saturday will mark an unlikely right of passage for Humboldt State University senior Rosibeth Cuevas. It’s not just that she will be the first in her family to graduate from college when she walks across the Redwood Bowl stage to get her degree in criminology and justice studies. It’s also that she is one of…
What Is Going On With the Beer at Oyster Fest?
The Arcata Bay Oyster Festival, a notoriously big and boozy annual celebration of all things bivalve, has been the subject of a rumor mill in the hops-and-barley set lately. Several local brewery owners told the Journal that the event — which in the past has seen its organizers dogged by controversy about their choices to…
Fundraiser for the Haysmers: Longtime Local Couple Lost Home, Collections to Kilauea Eruption
A GoFundMe account has been set up to help Phil and Lunel Haysmer, former longtime Humboldt County residents who founded Eureka’s Many Hands Gallery, after their home and nearly everything they own was destroyed when a lava fission opened on their street in the Leilani Estates on the Big Island. Astra Burke, who worked for…
Summer Lovin’
Graduation weekend is here. That means driving in Arcata is about to get whole lot easier (potholes and roundabouts notwithstanding) but for the next few days, we’ll see an influx of proud families dining, shopping and celebrating. Arcata Main Street has some good, clean fun planned on and around the plaza. On Friday, May 11,…
Music Tonight: Friday, May 11
The YAMS booking collective is putting on an end to the semester party at The Jam tonight at 9 p.m. ($10). With local funk and soul powerhouses The Velvet Touch and The Apiary presiding, it should be a good dance-o-matic time for students and everyday people alike.
Multi-Candidate, Multi-Group Supervisor Rumble at Labor Temple Tonight
Five candidates. Nine community groups. Two hours of questions. This is the format for a forum at Eureka’s Labor Temple, scheduled to be held tonight from 6 to 8 p.m. The candidates include contenders for two supervisor’s seats, with Fifth District incumbent Ryan Sundberg facing off against challenger Steve Madrone, and the three-way race between…
Music Tonight: Thursday, May 10
Ezra Furman comes to the Miniplex tonight at 9 p.m. ($10). His latest release on the Bella Union label is called Transangelic Exodus and it revolves around a runaway love that dare not speak its name — specifically, the love between a human and an angel. His songs sound like heart-worn road songs on an…
The County Needs You
This is the time of year when everyone tells us how important it is to vote. Politicians and journalists remind us of the many historically narrow election results of the past. Our very own Humboldt County supervisors appear at town hall meetings, desperate to distinguish themselves from their opponents, while attempting to remain cordial and…
A General Nuisance
Editor: Just what we don’t need … A Dollar General “convenience” store selling sugared products, canned and processed foods, beer and the like (“So Many Questions,” April 26). And, guess where this store is to be located? Right across the street from McKinleyville High School. The store location also abuts the Ocean West Senior Village,…
A Pie to Take with You
Family traditions are a fine thing, except when they’re inconvenient, outdated, unappreciated, annoying or molded in gelatin. Which is to say one or two family traditions are a fine thing, particularly the edible ones. I’m at that weird point in my mid-30s where, fully launched into the uncharted waters of adulthood, I pilot a strange…
‘A Turd-Whirled County’
Editor: In the April 26 North Coast Journal issue, our gifted editor Thadeus Greenson spells it out again, as usual (“So Many Questions”). He writes, “When asked about the biggest environmental challenges facing the county, both candidates pointed to the cannabis industry, particularly the estimated 10,000 or so farms that haven’t taken any steps toward…
Call Your (or Somebody’s) Mother
I will make this short and sweet, like these fragrant May nights we are lucky to share. Your life started with a womb — unless you were hatched like my friend Walt the bearded dragon — and if you are lucky enough to still have its owner as a positive part of your life, you…
Vote Bass!
Editor: Operating Engineers Local #3 District 40 is supporting Virginia Bass for Fourth District supervisor in the 2018 election. Virginia has been a staunch supporter of job creation in Humboldt County and has worked tirelessly to bring more projects to our area. In her position as vice president of the California State Association of Counties,…
Shift Happens
Overwhelmed by a failed marriage and a traumatic broken engagement, Margot Genger found temporary relief in alcohol and casual relationships. When she careened into a manic episode that led to a complete and very public psychotic breakdown, she recognized she needed to change her life trajectory. She came up with a rather unusual plan while…
Vote Madrone!
Editor: It concerns me that for eight years, our county Board of Supervisors has often operated with a 4-to-1 voting block that represents a limited set of values and opinions, and tends not to engage the wide range of scientific and academic knowledge abundant here. Or when scientists and experts are engaged, the weight of…
What we did, and didn’t, learn from the state’s audit of skilled nursing facilities
Brius Healthcare, LLC, did nothing illegal when its local skilled nursing facilities spent millions of dollars on related party transactions, according to a state auditor’s report on the practice that was released May 1. In 2015, Brius spent $65.7 million on services such as building leases, medical supplies and administrative services from companies also owned…
Townsend’s Solitaire
o townsend’s solitaire you are likely unaware how much you stir the air – when we see you there robins perched upon the height of douglas firs in sweet delight compose verse at day’s last light that begins and ends o townsend’s solitaire
A New Generation and a Legacy
This month the Humboldt State University graduating class takes over the Reese Bullen gallery space on campus for the annual grad exhibition, curated by the HSU Museum and Gallery Practices class under the direction of lecturer Ian Carey, gallery director Britt Sheldon and gallery assistant Brittany Britton. Artworks of every stripe and medium pack into…
Arts! Arcata
Arts! Arcata is Arcata Main Street’s monthly celebration of visual and performing arts, held at locations in Arcata. Visit www.arcatamainstreet.com, Arts! Arcata on Facebook, or call 707-822-4500 for more information. ARCATA ARTISANS 833 H. St. Kris Patzlaff, jewelry; George Bucquet, Hot cast glass; Wine pour benefits Breast and GYN Health project. ARCATA EXCHANGE 813 H.…
Bad Samaritan is … Bad
Reviews BAD SAMARITAN. There can be fun in a bad movie. The histrionics of ill-prepared actors, the guilty satisfaction of DIY-grade effects, the cheap thrill of catching a boom microphone dipping into frame. It can shrink the distance between the makers and the audience. Earnest effort can be endearing, charming for its lack of charm…
Free Spirits
The House That Will Not Stand The 2014 play The House that Will Not Stand, written by poet/playwright and Oakland native Marcus Gardley and now playing at Redwood Curtain Theatre under the direction of Michelle “Chelly” Purnell and Clint Rebik, is a spirited historical comedy with music and a voodoo spell, set in antebellum New…
‘Straight from the Source’
Editor: Letters here and on social media about my role as Fifth District supervisor concerning the withdrawal of Mercer-Fraser’s permit application for a cannabis refinery at its Glendale aggregate plant on the Mad River are far removed from the facts (Mailbox, May 3). Here’s the truth with no hidden agenda and straight from the source.…
Menu of Menus 2018
The North Coast’s complete dining directory.
Straight to Pot
Editor: A visiting friend just shared a copy of the Journal with me. I no longer live in California but can not get through this day without commenting on your “Canni-bias” article (April 19). Tony Smithers’ comment about millennials and wanting “to reach that new generation of consumers …” (via heavy marketing of marijuana, pot,…
My Hometown Has Changed. Or Maybe I have.
Maybe it’s because I had just finished re-reading a news story about a family member’s murder. Maybe it’s because I had just written up a press release about a homicide investigation. Maybe it’s just the road — it’s such a terrible, long, pock-marked, winding, bone-jarring road. Whatever the reason, I did not want to drive…
Upcycle to Remove McKinley
Editor: The marijuana industry is changing, the snow in the mountains is melting and equipment is rusting, some of it never to be used again. Rather than littering the mountainside, why not donate this equipment to a good cause? The Art of Removing Art is a DreamMaker program of The Ink People Center for the…
The Big Skate
So, you know about the theory of evolution by natural selection, right? A tiny random mutation in an organism’s DNA results in better fitness and gets passed on to future generations, etc. And, after hundreds of millions of years, this process is responsible for the diversity of life on Earth. But who has time for…
‘A Cheap Journalistic Trick’
Editor: I was troubled by your recent cover page showing girls, heads bowed, under the title “‘We’re Scared'” (March 22). A caption that casts these girls as meek, mild, frightened, helpless — passive lambs to the (not always proverbial) slaughter. Yet these girls, and the many others that stood with them, were part of a…
