Cover Story
The Humboldt County Fair is at a Crossroads
If the Northern California horse racing industry was one of the thoroughbreds on which it depends, it’s come up lame and may not reach the finish line. And if you extend the metaphor to the Humboldt County Fair Association, it would be the jockey, frantically trying to decide whether to stay in the saddle, hoping…
NCJ Wins James Madison Freedom of Information Award
The Society for Professional Journalism of Northern California has announced its annual awards “recognizing people and organizations who have made significant contributions to advancing freedom of information and expression in the spirit of James Madison, the creative force behind the First Amendment,” naming the North Coast Journal among the winners. It’s the third time in…
Memorial Set to Honor Life of Patty Berg
Friends, loved ones and former colleagues will gather to remember the life of former state Assemblymember Patty Berg at a memorial service from 2 to 5 p.m. on Saturday, March 1, at the Baywood Golf and Country Club in Arcata. Berg, the founding executive director of the Area 1 Agency on Aging who went on…
Comedy Tonight: Tuesday, Feb. 11
As an elder millennial, I have to be careful with my endorsements of podcasts, as it seems to be the medium which neither the kids or the fogies enjoy as much, and will probably become extinct as soon as my generational cohort collectively figures out that walking into the sea is a better end than…
Music Tonight: Monday, Feb. 10
As more and more OG members of the Grateful Dead slip off into the cosmos and out of this dirtball living on Earth, we are faced with the next generation of noodle-smiths married to the craft of playing the odd notes at the right time in between more conventional song structures and tunes. One of…
Music Tonight: Saturday, Feb. 8
It seems as though the struggling Siren’s Song Tavern is keeping the doors open for now, and so I will do my part and spread the word about what’s going down on the glass and sidewalk stage while I still can. Tonight’s offering is a free 8 p.m. show featuring Good Time Charlies, Redwood Revolution…
Event Sunday to Commemorate 140th Anniversary of Chinese Expulsion
In memory of the 140th anniversary of the government sanctioned expulsion of Chinese residents from Eureka, the Humboldt Asian and Pacific Islanders in Solidarity (HAPI), a DreamMaker Program of the Ink People Center for the Arts, is hosting an informal gathering, altar and walk at the Eureka Chinatown Mural on Sunday. The expulsion, which took…
Music Tonight: Friday, Feb. 7
Offered various choices in my research for tonight, I ended up landing on a flyer for a free show at the Kaptain’s Quarters at 8 p.m. for a band called Battle Mountain Gold Co. Blame it on the Mardi Gras-adjacent colors, or the grinning skeleton brandishing a trumpet, or the promise of “Let’s get weird,”…
Horse Racing Crossroads, A Better Crab Season and Chinese Expulsion Monument
Eureka Chinatown Project to Create Chinese Expulsion Monument, Fishers Make the Most of a Better Crab Season, The Humboldt County Fair is at a Crossroads
Former Fortuna Councilmember Mobley Indicted for Fraud
Former Fortuna City Councilmember Kris Mobley has been federally indicted on three counts of mail and wire fraud stemming from allegations she embezzled more than $500,000 from a local construction company that had employed her for 30 years. Journal attempts to reach Mobley, who was elected to the council in 2022 and resigned her post…
Music Tonight: Thursday, Feb. 6
Under the Canopy is an indie and folk-rock duo of the sensitive and confessional variety who hail from the 503 area code — Yuba City, as far as I can tell. There’s a sweet earnestness to their tunes and nothing lost is the cover charge over at the Logger Bar tonight at 8 p.m., if…
Re: Rick
Editor: Gosh, what a caustic review of election season and including the fire tragedies from R. Brennan (Mailbox, Jan. 30). As an antidote, I’d love to see a copy in print of the Episcopalian bishop’s address I hear about from the inauguration. Susan Pence, Eureka Editor: Rick Brennan of Eureka seems to be ignorant of…
‘The Wrong Invasive Species’
Editor: So let’s see If I understand this. The westward migration of the invasive European human species resultedin trees being planted all across the Great Plains. Those trees, in turn, paved the way for the barred owl to migrate westward across the continent to invade the old growth forests on the West Coast (“‘Complex Tradeoffs’,”…
‘A Long and Desperate Fight’
Editor: Feb. 6 through Feb. 9 marks the 140th anniversary of the Eureka expulsion: when anti-Chinese activists engineered the expulsion of 300-plus Chinese community members (about 5 percent of Eureka’s population at that time). On Feb. 6, 1885, an argument between a few Chinese men escalated into a shooting, and a Eureka City Council member…
‘It’s Doable’
Editor: Tired is a modest term for what we consider a wearying repetition of the “OMG, ain’t it awful; the state of health care in Humboldt (and the rest of the nation).” Once again we hear policy experts and healthcare leaders bemoaning the reality of a system that ope rates like a business where profit…
‘Support the Good Guys’
Editor: Americans are deeply divided by their beliefs, often supported by untruths or poor arguments (Mailbox, Jan. 30). We allowed ourselves to become so divided today because we don’t question our sources. We waste our time (at best) arguing without the facts? As I said before; “Let’s remind ourselves that we are responsible for the…
‘A Start’
Editor: In response to the “Lemmings” letter (Mailbox, Jan. 16), while it’s true that history is full of instances of people supporting leaders against their own interests, extrapolating from that that Jews didn’t fight back and the Palestinians in Gaza didn’t resist is short-sighted and completely erroneous when looking at the reality. It is a…
More Yeo
Editor: Thanks to John Dillon (“Yeo Appreciation,” Mailbox, Jan. 30) for his letter. I’ve been wanting to ask the NCJ to assign Yeo an additional column so he can expand on the brilliant, humorous and always moving with a hint of heart narratives he writes. Give him more space and give us more of him.…
The Last Apple (A Haiku)
Hanging all alone, the last apple in the tree, thinks about the fall. — Sherman Schapiro
Decertified Cop Faces Few Consequences for Illegal Cannabis Grow
Last year, while former Rohnert Park Sgt. Brendan Jacy Tatum awaited sentencing on federal charges related to a years-long conspiracy to illegally seize cannabis and cash from motorists, including ones traveling to and from Humboldt County, Sonoma County code inspectors discovered a large, unlicensed indoor cannabis grow at his property, according to records recently obtained…
Un Bel Dì Vedremo
I grew up with a mother who loved opera, and was taken by her in utero in San Francisco to experience Puccini’s Turandot. As a teenager, I volunteered at that same SF Opera, handing out cookies and coffee to the minor extended cast in exchange for the experience of lurking in the back of the…
Fishers Make the Most of a Better Crab Season
The rain is misting over Woodley Island Marina’s Dock B, where the Jenna Lee is moored. Kristen Pinto, in a bright yellow slicker, pulls three Dungeness crabs from the trickling bin on the deck of the adjacent home-built pontoon boat from which the Pinto family sells to the public as Jenna Lee’s Seafood. “It’s been…
Eureka Chinatown Project to Create Chinese Expulsion Monument
As the 140th anniversary of Humboldt County’s expulsion of Chinese residents approaches, the Eureka Chinatown Project has taken a significant step toward creating a monument to commemorate the dark chapter of local history. Started in 2021 through the DreamMaker program of the Ink People Center for the Arts, Humboldt Asians and Pacific Islanders’ (HAPI) Eureka…
A Gentleman’s Guide Kills Again
I think many directors salivate at the idea of reworking their theater pieces despite knowing it is a double-edged sword. As a production runs, actors’ discoveries, relationships and the merging of tech solidifies, creating a slew of nuance that can be explored and expanded. However, that evolution could result in the production feeling overworked to…
The Brutalist‘s Hard Edges
THE BRUTALIST. Although the nerd wires have been hotly humming for what seems like years, the arrival of Brady Corbet’s prospective magnum opus has felt decidedly anticlimactic here in the hinterland. Granted, most small towns lack a 70mm projector to do justice to the movie’s vaunted, arcane Vista Vision format, and the matinee crowd with…
Behind the Curtain
From woodworkers to landscape painters, our county boasts countless artists along with a large community of people who support the arts. One standout event showcasing a community within that community is the annual Faculty and Staff Exhibition at the College of the Redwoods. Running now through Feb. 13 at the college’s light and airy new…
Guns, Germs and Steel
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” — First sentence of Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy This is the second of two discussions about Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel, published in 1997. Last time, I focused on the role of “Eurasian” diseases (to which European invaders had…
