HSU Student Killed in Holiday Weekend Crash
A 19-year-old Humboldt State student was killed Nov. 30 when the 1996 Honda Civic he was driving westbound on State Route 20 in the Clearlake area lost traction on the wet roadway. According to the California Highway Patrol, the car crossed over the double yellow lines and into the eastbound lane, colliding head on with…
APD: Driver Sought in Suspected ‘Intentional Assault’ for Hitting Victim with Car
The Arcata Police Department is searching for a driver who is believed to have been intentionally struck another man with a vehicle around 2:30 p.m. today in a case of assault with a deadly weapon, Arcata Police Chief Brian Ahearn said. The victim was driving his vehicle with his adult son in the car when…
3.8 Earthquake Strikes Redway
The U.S. Geological Survey recorded a magnitude 3.8 earthquake that struck Redway at 11:40 a.m., close to the Garberville-Briceland fault zone. According to the USGS “Did You Feel It?” Community Internet Intensity Map, the earthquake was lightly felt in Myers Flat, Whitethorn and even in Petrolia. The late morning quake hit at a depth of…
Lone Swan Graces Benbow
A lone swan is swimming on the Eel River at Benbow. Though swans are not unknown in the area, it is somewhat rare to see one in Southern Humboldt. The swans breed and raise their young in Arctic areas at the tip of the North American continent. Then they migrate south to winter on estuaries…
Fortuna’s Chief Dobberstein to Retire
The city of Fortuna announced today that Police Chief William Dobberstein will be retiring next month. Dobberstein, who started with the city’s force in 1994, has been at the department’s helm since 2011. According to a release, Dobberstein was “instrumental in the department adding a drug task force agent, school resource officer, two police detectives,”…
North Coast Night Lights: Looking for a Monocerotid Unicorn
The other week I was finally made aware of the existence of an elusive annual celestial phenomenon nicknamed the Unicorn meteor shower, or Alpha Monocerotids. So dubbed in part no doubt for its mercurial habits, the name is also eponymous for the constellation Monoceros, the Unicorn, from which the meteors appear to radiate. The constellation…
Photos from the Thanksgiving Vigil
This morning, while many were preparing for holiday feasts with friends and family, some 50 people gathered on the steps of the Humboldt County Courthouse to hold a vigil for those immigrant families and individuals who are spending Thanksgiving in detention centers. As attendees held protest signs, speakers from Centro del Pueblo the Seventh Generation…
A Harry Potter Party at Redwood Raks World Dance Studio
Are you Sirius? Make sure to show off your house pride (calm down, Gryffindor) on Thursday, Dec. 5 from 4 to 6 p.m. as Redwood Raks World Dance Studio hosts an all-house, all-schools kids’ party with music, themed activities, treats and a splendor of Hogsmeade. Kids ages 5 and up are welcome but must be…
Electric Vehicle Parade and Expo and Tree Lighting at Blue Lake Casino
Didn’t hear that coming? It’s probably an electric vehicle heading over to the Electric Vehicle Parade and Expo and Tree Lighting at Blue Lake Casino on Saturday Nov. 30 from 1 to 8 p.m. (TBA). The expo includes demos, incentives, rides, drives and more. All full electric and people-powered vehicles (sorry, no gas or hybrids)…
Thousands Could Face Days Without Power as Temperatures Plummet
Thousands of Humboldt County residents woke up on this frosty Thanksgiving morning still without power and many are looking at several more nights in the dark. A scattering of outages continues in the region after a so-called “bomb cyclone” hit Tuesday and Wednesday, leaving a swath of damage, including downed trees and power lines. While…
Christmas Yet to Come
Forget the eager retail beavers of early October, the holiday season is now officially here. You’ve got Thanksgiving leftovers to fuel you as you strongarm shopping crowds or bake up batches of snowflake-shaped cookies to take to the office. Not feeling it? Could be impeachment hearing glut or that second round of the Humboldt crud.…
A New Holiday
I have been getting a lot of pushback for some of my opinions lately. This is good, people should talk. And if I’m right, I don’t need to worry too hard about defending myself, assuming that there is such a thing as objective reality and the spin cycle of post-modernism hasn’t melted us into insanity…
A Multitude of Squash
I am not a fan of winter, mostly because of the short days. The only time the word winter brings a smile to my face is in winter squash, one of my favorite foods. Thanksgiving-related cooking activities dominate this week. While I have nothing to add to your tried-and-true set of recipes for turkey and…
Blackouts and Enchanted Gardens
Here on the home farm, we used October’s electricity-free hours to get ahead of winter gardening chores. Our clover cover crop has successfully germinated and the leaves on the apple trees and blueberries are turning lovely shades of yellow and crimson. We carefully stacked firewood, cleared out the summer vegetables and got out the barrels…
Life Underground
Reviews PARASITE. We are truly living in a golden age of scammers. Behold the sea of catfishing schemes, the jet-setting Anna Sorokin enjoyed on the tabs of rich Manhattanites by posing as a German heiress and the puffed-up conman we’ve installed in the White House, from whence he uses his position to fill his coffers…
Corrections
A story in the Nov. 21, 2019, edition of the North Coast Journal headlined “Planning Commission Gets an Earful from Wind Farm Opponents” spelled Commission Chair Robert Morris’ name incorrectly. Additionally, the story in the same issue headlined “Recycling’s New Reality” incorrectly attributed a statistic regarding the percentage of recycling California historically sent to China…
Lost in Space
The planet hung silently in space. A tiny jewel in the blackness, it was a half-lit marble of greens and browns and blues and whites. But it was more than a planet, it was a life-bearing droplet, a little oasis of life journeying in infinite patience in its timeless passage around the sun. Soft moonlight…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Humans invented the plow in 4,500 BC, the wheel in 4,000 BC, and writing in 3,400 BC. But long before that, by 6,000 BC, they had learned how to brew beer and make psychoactive drugs from plants. Psychopharmacologist Ronald Siegel points to this evidence to support his hypothesis that the yearning…
Death, Taxes and McConnell’s Obstruction
In case you thought the U.S. House of Representatives couldn’t impeach and chew gum at the same time, the House made history last week and it had nothing to do with all those quids and quos rolling out in the House Intelligence Committee hearings. The House Judiciary Committee voted 24-10, with two Republicans joining the…
The End of the Intertribal Gathering is the End of an Era
Many people were recently left without what has become their fall tradition. For 38 years the Northern California Indian Development Council (NCIDC) has put on the Intertribal Gathering and Elders Dinner around Veterans Day. This year there was no reveling in the reunion of friends and family, no basking in the glow of honor placed…
Wind Skeptics
Editor: It’s natural to see climate catastrophe as an environmental problem: CO2, wind and rain, melting glaciers … The environmental knowledge which drives your solution has at its roots in the wisdom acquired over 10,000 years or more. Traditional Ecological Knowledge, TEK for short, values sharing life with all creatures and plants — their well-being…
‘Everyone Was In The Loop’
Editor: According to the Nov. 20 bombshell public congressional testimony of Trump’s high-dollar donor Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the EU, “Everyone was in the loop. It was no secret.” No kidding! Could the Trump crime family possibly be any more transparently guilty than they already are? Not possible. (Mailbox, Nov. 14.) Or, as…
Yeah, About Bernie
Editor: I’d like to offer a response to Jake Pickering’s recent letter (Nov. 14) and the idea that “politics inform everything,” including Bernie Sanders, music and Russia. I volunteer with the grassroots Bernie 2020 Humboldt group because I believe that Bernie’s ideas and proposals would benefit working families throughout Humboldt County. Part of the work…
Planning Commission Denies Wind Farm Project
For the third week in a row, overflow crowds filled the supervisors’ chamber for nearly five hours on Nov. 21 to hear the county planning commission discuss the possible permitting of the Terra-Gen Wind Farm Project. Thirty-one members of the public who had not been given time to speak at the previous meeting were allowed…
Annie the Musical at the Arkley Center
Leaping lizards! What could be more fun than taking the kids to see Main Stage Musical’s production of Annie the Musical? See it Friday, Nov. 29 at 7 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 30 at 2 and 7 p.m. and Sunday, Dec. 1 at 2 p.m. at the Arkley Center for the Performing Arts ($15-$35). Sing along…
