The $10 Million Dash
Open Door has two years to build a new health center, or its ObamaCare windfall disappears
Cover Story
The $10 Million Dash
Hermann Spetzler’s accent is hard to place. A stately man of 62 with a beard gone mostly gray, a head gone mostly bald and sprightly eyes behind wire-rim glasses, Spetzler speaks in a warm tenor that curls around “r”s and nestles between sharp consonants. Like Spetzler himself, the accent was born in Germany and spent…
Eureka Gets Queer Eyeballed
Old Town was significantly more fabulous than usual this afternoon as former Queer Eye for the Straight Guy Carson Kressley was in town filming segments for a new show called Carson Nation that will appear on Oprah Winfrey’s OWN Network and air this coming May. The Journal caught up with Kressley and his film crew…
Woman Sues County For Lost Fingers
In a complaint filed in November in Humboldt County Superior Court, Nancy Nunez accuses Redwood Memorial Hospital for improperly treating her after she was in a motorcycle accident, resulting in the loss of parts of her fingers that had been cut off in the accident. Nunez’s complaint alleges that she was not transfered quickly enough…
Energies Made Available
Remove art from the world and not only would its beauty be blunted, but minds, hearts and even lives would be lost. If we had the proverbial dollar for every time an artist said, “Art saved my life,” we could fund art in schools around the world. Not every artist suffers the sort of torment…
In the Black
With an iconic name like Clint Black, you’d think he was born to be a country singer — until you notice that he was born in New Jersey. At least it was a town called Long Branch, and truth is, his dad moved the family back to Texas while Clint was still a babe-in-arms. By…
Pollanization
The morning after esteemed food writer/activist Michael Pollan discussed the sad state of modern groceries and the future of eating with an adoring crowd at Humboldt State, he had a simple breakfast at Café Brio. “I didn’t have anything complicated, but I thought it was good,” he said. He didn’t really know about the aesthetic…
HONK, HONK, HONK… HONK, HONK, HONK… HONK, HONK, HONK… HUH-HONK!
Did you know that all truckers are tone deaf? At least, that’s the logical conclusion any rational person would have to arrive at after collecting evidence any given year at Eureka’s annual Truckers Parade. Honk-a-phobes beware! See, those of us that took Professor Ed Macan Ph.D’s Music 1 class at College of the Redwoods know…
Santa Slurs
Christmas is a stressful time of year, for sure. But when you think you’ve got it bad, take a minute and be thankful you’re not the dude in charge. Believe you me, right about now, Santa’s swamped. So what does the Claus do at the end of the work day to take the edge off?…
Knife Beats Rock
Opening THE TOURIST. Johnny Depp is Frank, a tourist visiting Venice who meets the lovely Elise (Angelina Jolie) and gets pulled into a world of intrigue. German director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck won a “Best Foreign Film” Oscar for his brilliant debut, The Lives of Others. 103m. Rated PG-13 for violence and brief strong language.…
Killing Dogs
Strolling past the kennels holding adoptable dogs inside the Humboldt County Animal Shelter is an overwhelming experience. No, not the stink. It doesn’t stink; they keep things shipshape here. But the beseeching, barking, eye-begging, eager-leaping, snout-pressing, pathetic cuteness of it all — that floors you. Here’s Anna, a bluetick coonhound, boring her sad-eyed guilt into…
Funkin’ the Fab Four
Some things never change. This past week, because of the impending 30th anniversary of John Lennon’s death, The Beatles music and influence seemed even more inescapable than usual in both media and conversation. How intense was it? Forget the lame iTunes announcement; to the horror, one would imagine, of a healthy portion of its viewers,…
Ad Con
If Bill Morrill was hoping for satisfaction — some kind of closure, maybe, or at least an acknowledgement that he had been wronged — he would be disappointed. Morrill, a salesman for Eureka Television Group and host of Fox 29’s popular “101 Milestones” feature, made sure to be there in Humboldt County Superior Court last…
Arts! Arcata
AMPT Skate Shop 1040 H St. Chris Hitchcock, paintings of Native-American imagery. Arcata Artisans 883 H St. All artist show Arcata City Hall* 736 F St. Edmund Metheny, fine photographs Arcata Exchange 813 H St. Maureen McGarry, watercolor paintings; Greg Willis, acoustic blues guitar. Arcata Main Street 791 8th St. Crabs gear: hats, tee shirts,…
Real America
Editor: It is a very sad and shameful story about Hansen’s Truck Stop (“Empire Falters,” Dec. 2). To me it is just another part of a vanishing America that we all have come to rely on, which includes a good meal and a fair deal. I bet if Hansen’s was on I-5 or some other…
More Pulp Obits
Editor: There are lots of interesting angles to the demise of the Samoa pulp mill, any one of which would’ve made a fine piece (“Dead at 45,” Nov. 25). There’s the story about how Louisiana-Pacific strip-mined the forests here and then left town, discarding its newly chlorine-free pulp mill as collateral damage. Or the corporate…
Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1
The figure of Mark Twain still looms large in the national consciousness, though there’s still a danger of him becoming merely an avuncular caricature, a harmless grandpa figure full of cracker-barrel wisdom. The first volume of three of his autobiography has just been released, and it reveals aspects of his personality heretofore hidden. Twain made…
Genesis of a Gripe
Editor: Regarding Hank Sims’ friendly swipe at those who complain that our leaders are less than “business friendly” (“Town Dandy,” Nov. 25): Since 1995, Humboldt County has lost 3,500 manufacturing jobs, the kind of jobs that pay enough to afford mortgages, buy cars, take a yearly vacation, etc., assuming there are two incomes in the…
Coals to Newcastle (box set)
The Scottish band Orange Juice was a quartet of young overachievers. Led by quick-witted vocalist, guitarist and songwriter Edwyn Collins, the Glasgow-based band joined a fledging indie label, Postcard Records, under the helm of equally young pop music enthusiast Alan Horne. When it formed in 1979, Orange Juice also featured drummer Steven Daly, bassist David…
Mr. and Mrs. Winter Wolf
The winter wolf licks its wounds bleeds onto…
A Mind of One’s Own?
Do I have free will? Do you? How did you decide to read that title? Are you going to keep reading? How are you making these decisions? From the ancient Greeks to David Hume, John Dewey and William James, the issue of why we act the way we do has usually been framed as a…
