The Fireball
Experienced backpackers, they had lit their cookstove uneventfully hundreds of times. Then game a gust. And, later, the bill.
Cover Stories
The Fireball
Cal Fire confirmed Sunday that the nearly 500-acre wildland fire located at the Spanish Flat in Kings Range is 100 percent contained. … The fire, which started Friday night, ended up covering 498 acres of grasslands with minimal effect on timberlands. No injuries were reported. — Times-Standard, July 4, 2011 Five seconds after I…
Advice for Backpackers (Novice and Veteran)
I started backpacking and camping when I was 13, and I’m now 70. I’m a 57-year wilderness veteran, Queen Scout (U.K. equivalent of an Eagle Scout), Sierra Club member, champion of outdoor ethics, and I don’t like open wood fires (too dangerous). So how do I explain the fact that I burned down almost a…
Recovering Costs
Since 2008, when Cal Fire’s Civil Cost Recovery Program began, the state has recovered more than $93 million from folks whose wayward fires required suppression, investigation and followup by the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire). That’s taxpayers’ money, says Cal Fire spokesman Daniel Berlant, and it goes straight back into the…
The Professor and the Supreme Court
Yesterday, the Supreme Court tackled a prickly issue: Is Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional because it makes some states (and some counties and townships), but not others, report to the feds before they can make any changes in their voting procedures? That’s what Shelby, Ala. (which sued the federal government) and other…
‘Move Over,’ Killed Cyclist’s Brother Says
Joe Mello, 56, has built a 10-foot by six-foot steel cross, bedecked it with bicycle sprockets and the busted-up remains of the Calfee bicycle his big brother, John Mello, treasured, and planted it on a slope beside Highway 101 — and he doesn’t care if Caltrans doesn’t like it. John, 57, of McKinleyville, was riding…
Happening Now: Planned Parenthood Courthouse Rally/40 Days For Life Pray-In
Around 60 people gathered in front of the Humboldt County Courthouse this afternoon to show public support for women’s health rights and Six Rivers Planned Parenthood. Signs, honks and pink were plentiful. Simultaneously, across town, three members from the local 40 Days For Life campaign stood quietly in front of SRPP’s driveway praying for an…
You Have One Last Chance To Put Bon Boniere in Your Face
“Bon Boniere is currently closed. We will be serving our last ice cream on March 2nd starting at 5 p.m. Come say goodbye. We have enjoyed serving you over the years.” Thus proclaimeth the answering machine message for Eureka’s Bon Boniere signaling that, after more than 100 years in Humboldt, the scooping will soon cease.…
The Passing Of An Elder
The Del Norte Triplicate writes that Ada Charles, who was born Dec. 17, 1909, has died. She was the oldest member of the Yurok Tribe, and for the past several years her birthdays have made the news. A 2010 Times-Standard announcement of her 101st birthday celebration in Klamath, to which the community was invited, noted:…
Ulansey Appointed to Planning Commission
The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors today appointed the politically pugnacious property rights advocate Lee Ulansey to an at-large seat on the Planning Commission. In the pre-vote discussion, several supervisors alluded to concerns from county residents about Ulansey bringing an agenda to the commission. As chairman of the developer-friendly group Humboldt Coalition for Property Rights,…
Small Business Planning With Zoltar
For several years now, a certain fancy foretune-teller has heckled and charmed walkersby in Old Town with his commanding come-hithers. And for a diviner-in-a-box, Zoltar’s been surprisingly mobile. He spent a few years in front of Sea Breeze Candy store down in the Bayfront One complex at the foot of F Street. After that closed,…
839 Marijuana Plants Seized From Redcrest Industrial Park
(Click images to enlarge.) Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office: On 02-25-2013, approximately 1:00 p.m. the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office Community Response Unit served a Humboldt County Superior Court Search Warrant at the Englewood Industrial Park located at 26459 Highway 254 (Avenue of the Giants) in Redcrest. When deputies served the search warrant…
Kai, We Accept Your Photobomb
The Journal has no idea why interwebs megastar Kai granted us the unsolicited photo bomb below. And we can’t really ask him about it — dude is pretty tough to get a hold of, being “homefree” and all. The picture popped up on his Facebook page last night with the following message attached: “big ups…
Pitchin’ Woo to the Arcata Eye (Updated)
(Update at end of post.) As fans of the Arcata Eye know — and that’s gotta include just about most of the sentient newspaper-browsing world — its hardworking, break-not-taking, fearsome and fearless founder/leader, Kevin L. Hoover, is goddammit calling it quits next year. He announced his plans to get a life — or more from…
Sean Hawk Caught
Sean Hawk, the possibly armed fugitive suspect in a fatal hit-and-run earlier this month, has been reeled in by the California Highway Patrol. Hawk is wanted as a person of interest in a Feb. 10 incident on State Route 96 that left Orleans resident Virgil Martin dead. He almost turned himself in last week. On…
Kick Some Flower Butt
Though still prettily leaved, Lupinus arboreus (yellow bush lupine) mostly seems just another unassuming drab denizen of the muted dunescape this time of year, a blob of dark green here, there, amid cream-gold grass, shiny ice plant and fragrant, though even drabber-green, coyote bush. This is the time– the best time — to sneak up…
My Crazy Auntie
Is preparing a meal, Whipping up stuff That no one wants. Flour is flying, Grease is spilling And we all avoid her. Memories aren’t always Warrants of affection Or kind testimonials, Sometimes they just Break our hearts And settle nothing. I hear her voice And see her face Behind the mirror That hides the Tums.
Art Miner
A synopsis of The Pitmen Painters, now on stage at Redwood Curtain in Eureka, has a familiar sound: based on a true story, it’s about coal miners who take up painting and astound the art world. But this is not The Full Monty (unemployed British steel workers triumph with a male striptease), Calendar Girls (Yorkshire…
Mindful Suggestion
Editor: The Social Action Committee of The Humboldt Unitarian Fellowship strongly supports the separation of church and state as articulated in the United States Constitution and the Constitution of the State of California. We feel that the founding fathers were firm in their belief that government should operate without the influence or participation of…
Charter Decisions
Editor: On Feb. 6, I attended the Fortuna Elementary School District board meeting where the Facilities Use Committee presented its ideas in answer to the request from Redwood Preparatory Charter School to share facilities. (“Charter School Rift,” Jan. 24.) I wonder how many parents knew the meeting had been rescheduled to Wednesday night instead…
Boats Like Stars
Editor: Thank you for your article on Stone Lagoon (“By the Breach,” Feb. 14). My morning commute from Arcata to Orick must be the prettiest in the world: Four days a week I drive past Big, Stone and Freshwater Lagoons. In winter, the commute is made in the dark. But this time of year,…
Offering and Receiving
Matt Wilson is a jazz drummer, an in-demand sideman who works in all sorts of contexts. He’s also a bandleader with four different working combos including a quartet, Arts and Crafts, whose West Coast tour comes to Arcata Friday night. What does being a bandleader mean, particularly when you’re in the drum chair? “I…
Now What Are They Teaching The Kids?
Last year’s revelation that Humboldt State University has an affiliation with marijuana shocked late night talk show hosts … oh, and the world. “What are we letting our higher education institutions do with our children?” someone somewhere probably shouted. Oh. They were just getting started, I’m afraid. This week, HSU will grant use of…
We Be Shameless
Look. We’re not going to pretend this is anything it isn’t. Every once in awhile, you’re entitled to some perks. Flip ‘em at Stars Hamburgers? You’ll score free milkshakes. Ticket ripper at The Minor? Enjoy some free Hollywood. And if you toil down the hall in the North Coast Journal’s production department while simultaneously being…
The Yurok Casino Wager
This week, the Yurok Tribe Election Board will tally votes to decide how to spend $27.5 million in settlement money from the U.S. government. At stake is a proposed $10 million casino and hotel, which proponents say would revitalize the tribe while opponents call the idea ill-conceived. As proposed, the hotel and casino would be…
Collaboration and Cooperation
While surfing the Net researching the band Sound Tribe Sector 9, I received the latest Lefsetz Letter, a mass email sent out periodically by ex-lawyer/music industry pundit Bob Lefsetz. “We’re in the midst of a creative renaissance,” he began. “But it’s the majors’ worst nightmare, from the networks to the labels to the studios,” he…
Outliers — Malcolm Gladwell
During Malcolm Gladwell’s decade and a half tenure at The New Yorker, he’s demonstrated a talent — in his regular articles and in books like 2000’s The Tipping Point — for synthesizing insights from seemingly unrelated fields and for challenging conventional wisdom. In Outliers he applies his far-ranging approach to dispelling the widespread belief that…
Dying the Harderest
Reviews A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD. There are very few ways a Die Hard film can let you down. When your expectations are so low, there’s really nowhere to go but up. The 25-year-old franchise is a comforting diversion at this point, coasting by on gratuitous explosions and groan-worthy one-liners. It is pure,…
Coasting
The day before my friend Lars and I had planned to explore a section of the California Coastal Trail, a storm system swept through that was cold enough to blanket Kneeland, Liscom Hill and the entirety of the Coast Range with a thick coating of snow. Squalls buffeted our house into the early morning. I…
Eureka Oxymorons Pt. 3
Eureka Oxymorons Pt. 3
Meditation: Stress Reduction or Induction?
What [the Buddha] taught … the path that we think will lead us to happiness leads instead to sorrow. Donald Lopez, Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies, U. of Michigan Every week or so, I receive an email announcing the latest scientific finding about meditation or, as it’s usually termed, “Buddhist meditation.” Not only is…
Will Connects Dots
You think you know what’s going on in the world? You are wrong.
