Cover Story
Why Your Vote Matters
How we did it In November, Humboldt State University journalism professor Marcy Burstiner was in Spain. She didn’t get her absentee ballot until a couple of weeks before the election. The last of three seats for the Northern Humboldt Unified School District was decided by 21 votes, but her vote wasn’t included. Her ballot was…
![[UPDATED: With More Zaniness] A Brief, Incomplete History of Local TV Ads](https://i0.wp.com/www.northcoastjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/corky.webp?resize=400%2C300&ssl=1)
[UPDATED: With More Zaniness] A Brief, Incomplete History of Local TV Ads
In case you haven’t seen it yet, this week’s cover is all about local TV ads. But, since we don’t have magical moving newspapers a la Harry Potter, readers are left with still images of some of our most (in)famous commercial productions. Except for here, online, where you can behold the glory of decades of…
Until Next Year, Kinetic Grand Championship
The Kinetic Grand Championship wrapped on Ferndale’s Main Street yesterday. Humboldt State University journalism professor emeritus Mark Larson, of Mark Larson Photography, was there for the finish. He was also there two days and 40-something miles earlier, when the glorious human-powered machines took off from the Arcata Plaza to embark on a colorful journey across…
The Final Kinetic Push
If you’ve missed out on Kinetic weekend, it’s not too late to rush down to Ferndale to catch the racers in their glorious push to the finish line. At this point, their machines are probably a bit waterlogged and sand-whipped after trekking 30-something miles over asphalt, dunes and the chilly waters of Humboldt Bay. And…
Tonight’s Setlist: A dilemma!
Did you get enough sun and fun this weekend, Humboldt? If you’re on the traditional 9-to-5 schedule, you’re looking at being able to sleep in tomorrow, yes? So no reason to stay home… Beloved soul man and local Trinidadian Earl Thomas reunites with The Rhumboogies, the band he started with 25 years ago in San…
Tonight’s Setlist: Kinetic Alternatives
Kinetics is happening (yay!) with the requisite “secret” Halvorsen Park party. But what else to do on a Saturday night? First, as noted yesterday, the Bob Dylan Birthday Bash continues out in Blue Lake. Second, the Jambalaya puts forth an interesting lineup: bassist Bobby Vega, whose credits include playing with Sly & The Family Stone and Etta…
Cash Flows into Supes Races
The last batch of campaign finance report statements came in this week to the Humboldt County Elections Office, with the county’s four supervisorial candidates reporting raising a total of more than $108,000 in the filing period, which ran March 18 through May 17. That means an average of about $1,800 poured into local supes campaigns…
Last Day For Mc’Ville’s Paul’s Live Pizza
Well, hell. Now there will be no more reason to detour off the highway, en route from Patrick’s Point to Eureka, for a pint and slice at Paul’s Live From New York Pizza in McKinleyville. Today’s the tasty joint’s last day. Today, as in May 23, 2014. There’ll be lotsa tears in beers, we imagine.…
Tonight’s Setlist: A Bash For Bob
Yes, the smell of Kinetics is in the air. Ah, sweat! Ah, grease! Ah, bribery! But that is not all the fair city of Arcata offers you this weekend. The fourth annual Bob Dylan’s Birthday Bash channels the iconic songwriter’s elegant and oft-obscure lyrics through a dozen-ish of your favorite local folk-flavored bands for not…
We Are the Champions
All over the county and beyond, men and women are wired with caffeine, hunched in backyards and garages, frantically welding and painting the finishing touches on their human-powered sculptures for the Kinetic Grand Championship race this weekend. View the strange fruit of their labor on Saturday, May 24 at around 10 a.m., when the parade…
Care Home Shut Down, Owner Suspended
The state has shut down Chamberlain’s Residential Care Facility for the elderly, at 3252 Lucia Road in Eureka, and suspended the license of the home’s operator, Gina Chamberlain, accusing her of numerous health and safety code violations, including taking a client’s prescription narcotics for her own use. The state’s “order of temporary suspension of license”…
Mad Funny
This weekend is all about wacky people in a madcap race around the county. Set the mood on Friday, May 23 at the Eureka Theater with a big-screen showing of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World at 7 p.m. ($5). Hard to fathom how the same director who chiseled out Judgment at Nuremberg rediscovered…
Tonight’s Setlist: Thursday is For Rocking
Let’s address the heavy riffs preparing to unleash themselves via Humboldt’s Lord Ellis and Austin’s Adrian (& The Sickness) tonight at the Jambalaya. Frontwoman Adrian Connor also handles the Angus Young duties in AC/DC tribute band Hell’s Belles, so she’s no stranger to delivering seriously charismatic performances. With (& The Sickness), the dread-locked Adrian expands…
Whispers from the Birth of the Universe
Cosmologically speaking, everything changed in May of 1965, when two radio astronomers working for Bell Labs detected a faint whisper of radiation, a fossil relic from the birth of the universe, which pretty much clinched the “Big Bang” theory. The irony is that they weren’t even looking for it, but they won Nobel Prizes anyway.…
Book ’em
Editor: When, oh please, please will Jada Brotman put out a cookbook! I am the first to admit that I am not a cook, I even have special dispensation from my book/gourmet meal group to just bring chips and dip (self-defense, I’m sure) yet I love Jada’s column and I always find myself cutting out…
For Those About to Vote
Editor: I really appreciate the hard work and careful reporting that went into all of your election articles, and I want to thank Chris Kerrigan, Virginia Bass and Sharon Latour for taking time from their busy schedules to talk with the press. Your readers are the people who make democracy work, by getting informed, by…
We Salute You
Editor: Up front let me say that regardless of family, I would not endorse my daughter Elan Firpo if I didn’t believe she is the best choice for district attorney. Here’s why: Elan routinely and voluntarily works a 60 to 70 hour week (no overtime paid). She’s politically neutral — no pattern of political indebtedness…
The Supes: A Retrospective
Letter-writer Leo Sears reminded Journal and Times-Standard readers last week that in 2012, in this opinion column, I gave “kudos to [4th District Supervisor Virginia] Bass for chairing an emotional discussion, keeping everyone civil, and for finding a solution — a way forward” as chair of the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors. The agenda item…
Vote Yes on Prop 42
Proposition 42, on the ballot for California’s June 4 election, will amend the Constitution to assure that local governments are legally bound to observe open-government requirements. If you prefer transparency to secrecy in your city government, local school board or county government, then the choice is clear: You should vote for Proposition 42. Proposition 42…
Trimming for Ramen
The starving college student is a cliché for a reason. Balancing work, school and pleasure requires careful fiduciary planning, or a good hole to stick your head in. Students unable to get parental support or government aid (or whose financial backing doesn’t quite cover that college town rent) need jobs. Jobs! The results of a survey recently…
Fresh Meat
The Journal’s new Menu of Menus, our annual listing of places to nibble, nosh, taste wine and sample brews, is plated and served up on newsstands. (This edition also features Linda Stansberry’s inspiring egg, cheese and carb odyssey, “Morning, Noon and Night.”) And since last summer, the roster of restaurants in Humboldt has changed like…
On the Edge
Toward the end of their final year, Dell’Arte International School MFA candidates are asked, “What are you compelled by?” For 10 weeks they work in groups to create pieces that answer that question, according to the school’s director, Ronlin Foreman. Then they develop these pieces in front of audiences at the annual Thesis Festival, which…
Overseas Visitors
Reviews GODZILLA. I don’t dislike monster movies, nor do I seek them out. So I met the news of (yet another) Godzilla with casual disinterest. But then I saw the teaser trailer. It’s a marvel of editing: striking, evocative images, David Strathairn’s booming monologue, all set to a ghostly chorale. And at the end, just…
Comprehension
There are many things I do not understand. The Shugborough Inscription. What a head gasket does. Why we continue engaging in behavior we know to be bad for us. Bitcoin. Non-Jamaican purveyors of reggae speaking in patois. But let’s turn to something I can help you with, dear readers. No, not how to make a…
