The Yurok Grift
Questions linger in million-dollar embezzlement scheme after fugitive surrenders
Cover Story
The Yurok Grift
It was shortly after 4 a.m., still 2 ½ hours before dawn on Monday, Oct. 24, 2011, and Roland Raymond was behind the wheel of his new Chevy Tahoe. In front of him, dual cones of light spread across the black asphalt rushing beneath and brushed the thick forests whizzing past. Raymond, who had recently…
Free Books!
Do you like to read? Since you’re reading this, we’ll assume yes. How do you feel about books? Despite any rumors you’ve heard, the book is not about to die — not if serious book lovers have their way. You may find a few local book fans giving away books next Monday, April 23 (and…
Humboldt’s Wal-Mart Resistance
(Above: Jesse Hughes-MacArthur protests Wal-Mart. Click pics to “biggify.”) With construction of Wal-Mart at Eureka’s Bayshore Mall well under way, it’s perhaps more accurate to say “Wal-Mart is here” instead of “Wal-Mart is coming.” But even though the world’s largest retailer is mere months away from flipping the switch on its latest money vacuum, Humboldt…
New Revelations About Congressional Candidates
A story in yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle offers a bemused overview of the candidates running for the newly redrawn second congressional district, which writer Joe Garofoli describes as “a political world like no other … where all but the two Republican candidates are running to the left of President Obama.” Garofoli brings up the poor voting…
Meet Your New Neighbor!
The Robert Greenwald-directed documentary Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price concludes with a segment highlighting communities that have banded together to prevent the megacorp from setting up shop. Intended to inspire other towns that may be staring down the barrel of the world’s largest retailer, the gospel music-infused montage features pictures of sign-carrying, anti-Wal-Mart…
Coors Blight
Pit free market economics against Humboldt’s soul-satisfying bay views and what happens? Even beer loses. Coors’ “Silver Bullet Aluminum Pint,” tossed out there in front of the eyeballs of southbound drivers on Highway 101, took the dubious top honor in the North Coast Journal’s Ugliest Billboard Contest this week, snagging 12 percent of the votes.…
Stoner Fables
There’s a note after the listing on KHUM’s Goodtime Guide for the Todd Snider show Monday at Humboldt Brews saying, “finally on the North Coast.” It ignores the fact that the songwriter has played at least a couple of local shows — opening for folk icons Joan Baez and John Prine. You could call Snider…
The Crass Rehash Cash-In
Reviews AMERICAN REUNION. As we left the theater, my wife turned to me and said, “Well, that wasn’t very funny.” She’s right; there are a handful of successful jokes in the latest American Pie sequel, but the whole thing is generally flat and pointless. I was never much of a fan of this franchise. When…
Chartreuse
The directions from Lyon to the Chartreuse distillery go something like this: Exit the parking garage while trying to fire up your GPS. As it searches listlessly for a satellite (shouting “Look up!” or pointing it at the sky does not help), drive across the river with the vague feeling that the freeway might be…
Antarctic Memories
Editor: I really enjoyed the March 29 Journal, cover to cover. The redevelopment article was top notch. But I got chills when I turned to page 39 and Field Notes (“Scott of the Antarctic: Glorious Failure?”). Great Scott! The photo brought back a flood of memories of one of the most marvelous theatre experiences I’ve…
From Eohippus to Percheron
Soon after Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, Thomas Huxley (“Darwin’s Bulldog”) claimed that an unbroken 52-million-year-long sequence of fossils, cumulating in the modern horse, demonstrated unarguable proof of evolution. Would that it was that easy! Since the discovery of the original succession of proto-horse fossils by American paleontologist Othneil Charles…
Ugly Contest
Editor: I am writing in response to your article/poll about what you call the “ugliest billboard” (March 29). What kind of thought process led you to write an article that demonizes good local businesses? Not only are you throwing honest, hard-working businesses under the bus, but you are attacking local children’s nonprofit organizations. You are running an ad for Mid City…
Port of Morrow
After The Shins’ last record, the 2007 release Wincing the Night Away, bandleader, songwriter and vocalist James Mercer dismissed his entire band. He then reconfigured the line-up with a group of indie musicians including drummer Joe Plummer from Modest Mouse, Crystal Skulls bassist Yuuki Matthews and Eric D. Johnson from The Fruit Bats. It’s no…
Bonds to the Rescue?
Editor: I think that each of our cities ought to move on and sell bonds for redoing areas that are planned redevelopment (“The Death of Redevelopment,” March 29). This would need to be done in such a way that the state would not be able to touch the bonds. This would not be a tax,…
Stop and Smell the Ceanothus thyrsiflorus
Living in Humboldt County, it’s easy to become desensitized to our beautiful surroundings. Majestic redwoods, dramatic seascapes and an abundance of wildlife are all right outside our windshields during just about any local commute. But rushing through our daily lives, filled with appointments and deadlines, it’s often hard to appreciate the magnificence of our coastal…
‘Surly Cur’ Salzman
Editor: In response to Sylvia De Rooy’s letter (Mailbox, March 29) beginning “Shame on you Richard Salzman” for doing what he promised her he wouldn’t do on “a question of ethics,” it strikes me, sadly, that Ms. De Rooy’s outrage is unfortunately misplaced. As all the higher attributes of human decency are founded upon being…
At 5 pm damp cold
but lighter yes lighter than last week lighter…
Foreclosure Help
Editor: As a financial counselor at Consumer Credit Counseling, I and my fellow staff members were astounded at the huge glaring omission — namely, no mention of our agency or the housing services we offer — in the Journal’s March 1 cover article, “Going Once: Who buys, who wins and who loses at foreclosure auctions.”…
Ethnochoreological Fun
The Humboldt Folk Dancers are gearing up to present the 13th Arcata International Folk Dance Festival the weekend of April 13-15. This biennial event (as in every two years), started in 1995 as an annual affair until it “grew too big for our little community” to put together every year, explained Craig Kurumada, one of…
Caltrans Proposal
Caltrans Proposal
Thoughtless Thinking
Editor: I’d like to take a shot at neutralizing the disservice your reviewer may have done to thoughtful readers with last week’s remarkably obtuse hit piece on Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking: Fast and Slow . (In Review, April 5) I’ve been a fan of Kahneman and Tversky’s unexpected insights for years, so of course I bought…
The “Right On!” Campaign
Will ponders the best path to becoming congressman of California’s new Second District.
Dairy Diary
On a glistening green pasture at the far northern end of McKinleyville, goats leap and jostle as they run toward the man who is managing their sex lives. They are a soft creamy white, or a dozen combinations of brown or black edged with white. Many bear the telltale smear of chalk that is the…
Journal honored
This time last year, I thought that I’d probably never work for another newspaper. I’d had a long career, and figured I was going to be happier freelancing. Then I met Heidi Walters, Ryan Burns, Andrew Goff, Bob Doran, Holly Harvey, Judy Hodgson, Carolyn Fernandez and the whole amazing crew who make the North…
Four Indie DVDs
MELANCHOLIA. Never one to shy away from mischief, director Lars Von Trier feels that “a film should be like a rock in the shoe.” Uneasiness plays a large role in most of his films: Breaking The Waves, Dancer In The Dark, Dogville and The Idiots are full of characters driven to insanity and forced to…
Party Girl
It was more than 50 years ago when Wanda Jackson started mixing country with rock and earned a crown as the unofficial “Queen of Rockabilly.” The woman who once dated Elvis Presley and scored hits in the ‘50s and ‘60s is now 74, but she hasn’t stopped rockin’, nor has she been relegated to the…
An Epic Gala
Environmental Protection Information Center. The name might seem a bit unwieldy, but that’s only because it was designed around the awesome acronym: EPIC. The Humboldt-based organization has been fighting one epic fight after another for 30-plus years, mostly revolving around forests, rivers and wild lands in general (details on the latest battles at wildcalifornia.org). Saturday’s EPIC…
