Cover Story
There Will Be Trolls
My name is Fillintha Blank and I’ll be your commenter today. Let me give you some choices right off the bat. Choice #1: I just moved here from SoCal to trim weed. I’m hanging around until I save enough money to go back to school (I dropped out) and get a women’s studies degree. Choice…
HumBug: Glow Worm vs. Snail
Tonight I counted four glow worms (Pterotus intergrippinis) under my redwood trees. I have counted as many as 27 in the leaf litter beneath my small 20-foot-by-50-foot grove (roughly 1/50th of an acre.) The first ones I ever saw were beneath redwoods at Grizzly Creek Campground. So far I’ve seen them in every grove I’ve…
Nice Sweater
Some things are so ugly they’re cute. On Sunday, Dec. 4, nearly 300 people leaned into the ugly, donning bright, lumpy, spangly and snowman-festooned pullovers and cardigans for the Ugly Holiday Sweater Fun Run. Starting at the Arcata Plaza, the wild and wooly 1-mile or 5-kilometer race organized by Arcata Main Street benefitted Humboldt Educare.…
Man Shot by EPD Expected to Survive
Clayton Lee Lasinski, the 26-year-old suspect shot by Eureka police officers Tuesday evening, remains hospitalized but is expected to survive, Eureka Police Chief Andrew Mills said at a press conference this afternoon. Lasinski was shot once through the chest, Mills said. And Mills said that while it’s clear Lasinski brandished a handgun at officers at…
Dreaming of a Brass Christmas
For many, it’s not officially Christmas in Humboldt County until you’ve attended one of the all-brass Tuba Christmas performances, which have been led locally by Fred Tempas since 1988. Santa also showed up for Saturday’s 1 p.m. performance at the Gazebo in Old Town Eureka, along with board members of the Redwood Coast Music Festival,…
UPDATE: Officer Involved Shooting in Eureka
2nd UPDATE: EPD Chief Andrew Mills gave a statement to the press at around 7:40 p.m., saying that the incident originated with a call from the California Highway Patrol at around 4:43 p.m. asking EPD to assist with a suspect with a gun having “footbailed” from a car. EPD officers were in the middle of…
Taxpayer Advocate Leo Sears Dies
Longtime taxpayer advocate Leo Sears, known for his outspoken opinions, sometimes controversial criticisms of local government and a pair of high-profile lawsuits he helped file, has died. Eureka Mayor Frank Jager described Sears as a person who “put himself out there for what he believed” and had the facts to back up his argument. “Sometimes…
Arcata Welcomes Santa
Under clear skies, the Wonder and Light event on Friday, Dec. 2 attracted a crowd of adults and children to the Arcata Plaza with entertainment, social-awareness messages and a chance to decorate the Christmas tree and meet Santa and Mrs. Claus.
Huffman on DAPL: ‘Justice and Environmental Protection Have Won’
North Coast Congressman Jared Huffman issued a statement last night applauding the Obama Administration’s announcement that it will deny an easement needed for the Dakota Access Pipeline to cross Lake Oahe, forcing the project to abandon its controversial route and undergo an environmental review. “Since July, tensions have escalated to a boiling point at the…
Yurok Tribe Blames Feds for Salmon Die-Off
SAN FRANCISCO — The federal government was hit with a second lawsuit this week claiming its bungled management of waterways allowed a deadly parasite to infect 91 percent of endangered juvenile coho salmon on the California-Oregon border. The lawsuit from the 5,000-member Yurok Tribe comes four months after the 2,700-member Hoopa Valley Tribe in Humboldt…
Sometimes Voters Just Sit a Race Out
While the latest round of Humboldt County election results didn’t change any outcomes, the numbers do reveal some interesting tidbits about the races voters chose to sit out. Humboldt County Registrar of Voters Kelly Sanders said in an email to the Journal on Friday that there are “approximately 5,000 ballots left to scan, which includes…
Wrinkle in the Park
Past the convoy of trucks and catering tents, A Wrinkle in Time director Ava DuVernay (Selma, 13th, Queen Sugar) and her crew were set up in Sequoia Park running through an action scene today. People stopped to warm up by a glowing heater and chat quietly while the cameras and actors worked farther down the…
Ferndale Cowboy in National Rodeo Finals Tonight
Bill Bugenig, a Ferndale High School graduate and career rodeo cowboy, will compete in professional rodeo’s “Superbowl” tonight, as he rides into the arena at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas for the 2016 Wrangler National Finals Rodeo. Bugenig is a professional “bulldogger,” or steer wrestler, and tonight he will be riding a…
O, Little Town
There’s something transcendent about a small town decked out in its holiday best, with carolers a-wassailing and brass bands root-a-toot-tooting on street corners as smiling folks window shop and sip hot cocoa. Every year, Humboldt’s hometown jewel, the Victorian village of Ferndale, transforms into a type of Bedford Falls, delighting all of us with its…
Golden Aged
Reviews ALLIED. Writer/director/producer/industry titan Robert Zemeckis works … a lot. Perhaps because he is so prolific, I’ve long found his catalog to be a little uneven. From the beginning of his career more than four decades ago, one has had to contend with, say, a 1941 (1979) — to his credit, he wrote but did…
Arts Alive!
Presented by Eureka Main Street. Opening receptions for artists, exhibits and performances are held the first Saturday of each month. For more information, call 442-9054 or go to www.eurekamainstreet.org A TASTE OF BIM 613 Third St. Susan Strope, paintings. ADORNI CENTER 1011 Waterfront St. Erica Botkin, photography; Paul Rickard, watercolors; Barbara Saul, pastels. ALIROSE 229…
45 for 45
Editor’s note: In the wake of the Nov. 8 election, we invited readers to pen letters of 45 words or less to Donald J. Trump, the nation’s 45th president. Here are a couple we received this week. Send submissions to letters@northcoastjournal.com. Dear Trump, I didn’t vote for you because you are one of the few…
A Deadly Year
A 7-week-old baby girl suffered multiple skull fractures. Jerry Sisson, 81, was killed by his son in an apparent murder-suicide. Redway activist Stephanie Gawboy was shot dead in her home. Friends Faith Tsarnas and Kiya Kitchen, a pair of teenage girls, were run down while skateboarding along a Fortuna road. These are just a few…
All the World’s a Stage
Local author Doug Ingold’s new novel Rosyland is a tautly narrated thriller that uses Shakespeare’s theater metaphor to convey duplicity: “All the world’s a stage.” It’s not a new conceit but it gains something staged afresh in the 1980s among a colorful cast of Bay Area theater professionals, high rollers, drug dealers, cops and lawyers.…
Election Fallout
Editor: To answer Harry Wells (Mailbox, Nov. 17): Maybe you’re confused. There’s only one Jesus and one Savior and He never came to be a political leader. Yes, He sets an example and empowers us to individually relate to our neighbors, family, outcasts, the poor, the rich and our leaders, but in an election we…
Correction
A story headlined “G Street Squat” in the Nov. 24 edition of the North Coast Journal included a wrong address. The pictured Victorian is at 1635 G St., which neighbors 1625 G St., and the referenced 60 police calls were to both addresses, which are both owned by Floyd and Betty Squires.
Sickened by Fiction
Editor: I am sickened by the story “Mexican Revelations” (“Flash Fiction 2016,” Nov. 24) and the part about “with a cock tight in his ass he lost his virginity.” Was that really needed to tell the story, if so it should not have been written. This was disgusting. Joe Solmonson, Eureka
Yay, Eureka!
Editor: Thank you for your informative interview with Miles Slattery (“The Blight Fight,” Nov. 24) concerning Eureka parks and public spaces. Properly designed and maintained parks, trails and public use areas can radically alter our neighborhoods for the better. After observing, first hand, 24 years of drug deals, vandalism, litter and “off road” vehicle use…
The Way You Were in Paintings
Tell me the day, Your voice: echoed calls To draw the fetch of sickled fields And the time of old, warm winds Cast in cobbled cicada song. Tell me the story, Your fingers: places on point, Gesturing along hot, dry contours Deft as a shining leaf. Tell me the place, Window to a long passed…
Seed and Potatoes
Wild mustard greens frequent my table every winter and spring in a variety of dishes (“Spring Curry,” June 9). But until recently, I had never thought to try gathering the seeds from the dead-standing mustard plants that abound in the fields of the North Coast in late summer and fall. Once I realized the potential…
Teens These Days
In 1982, I was in my second week speaking from the intimidating side of the podium at Fortuna High School when an unknown high school senior named Barry Mendenhall — who has since become a very good friend — walked up to the front of the class shaking a coffee can. “Mr. Clausen (which isn’t…
Bye, Bye Baggie
Forget those dime bags, film canisters and jelly jars: The future of nug storage might look more like cat food. Two companies – one in Colorado and another here in Humboldt – are embracing the potential of the humble tin can to store their product. It’s no secret that the cannabis industry can be waste-intensive.…
Looking Back to Look Forward
Nostalgia has been floating around like a faint mist lately, not quite as thick as a fog, but I’ve walked through bits of it unexpectedly this past week. I think it all began with a chat with my old friend Monica, who’s been involved in the local music scene longer than I’ve been a musician.…
Through a Humboldt Looking Glass
Each year, Dell’Arte MFA students create a holiday show that plays, largely free of charge, to the community from Point Arena to Cave Junction. The students not only write, design, choreograph, costume, light and stage the production but also take it on the road to schools, community centers and theatres large and small. Being Dell’Arte…
High Tech, Hands On
Suk Choo Kim’s solo show at Black Faun Gallery represents a reckoning with the past. The large-format photographic images presented here resolve a project that began 40 years ago as a series of Polaroids. Kim learned how to manipulate Polaroids in and around New York City circa 1970, as a photo-obsessed, self-described “flower child” and…
Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum
It’s the holiday season and you know what that means. The rowdy revelers at the Arcata Playhouse have added an extra shot to their nog and extra merry into Merry Christmas with their annual holiday productions. Always lively, original and hilarious, the shows provide the fun, laughter and merriment that we need now more than…
