Top 10 Stories of 2011
The Earth shook. The waters parted – or at least sloshed disturbingly. And the politicians talked.
Cover Stories
Richardson Grove
Ever since Caltrans decided to realign the narrow, 1.1-mile squiggle of redwood-lined Highway 101 through Richardson Grove State Park, there’s been trouble — the kind of trouble familiar to split-heart Humboldt County, where people have been battling over big trees and economic prowess for decades. Some folks say the realignment will kill big old redwoods…
Tsunami
The 9.0 earthquake in Japan on March 11 triggered a massive tsunami that tumbled already damaged and burning cities into rubble; killed almost 16,000 people and left nearly 6,000 wounded and 3,500 missing; and caused meltdowns in three nuclear power reactors, leading to the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people. Next to that horror,…
Sophia’s Death
When a mother stands accused of killing her own child, it triggers deep confusion and anger — a morbid fascination that can feed a media frenzy. Witness the public outrage following the acquittal of Casey Anthony, the Florida mom who’d been accused of murdering her 2-year-old daughter. Millions of people found themselves emotionally invested in…
But what do we know?: Your Top Ten(s)
Another year, another NCJ editorial staff meeting where we drink wine, eat chevre and decide for you what the top 10 Humboldt-y issues of the last 365 were. But what do we know? This time, we also logged into our Google analytics site — where all web traffic for northcoastjournal.com is cyber tracked — and…
Marijuana Murkiness
For anyone trying to regulate medical marijuana, 2011 was a mess. A somersaulting, upsidedown-roller-coastering, stomach-churning flip-flop of a mess. Although the Obama administration started out a couple of years ago making nice to states that allowed some kind of medicinal pot use, it seemed to forget all that this year. In June, a federal…
Nursing Home Woes
Back in April, almost all of the nursing homes in Humboldt County were taken over by a new operator, owned by unspecified investors and a Los Angeles man named Shlomo Rechnitz. The arrangement allowed the previous owner/operator to sidestep a monitoring agreement that was part of settling a huge class action lawsuit over understaffing. Instead…
Occupy
“We are the 99 percent.” The international Occupy movement, the Arab Spring-inspired, Adbusters-organized campout to raise awareness of big businesses’ role in the undeniable increase in global economic inequality, would undoubtedly be on any year-end list of the world’s top 10 stories — likely at the top. The official birthday for the Occupy movement will…
Klamath Whales
For the first summer in their 60-year-plus residency, Trees of Mystery’s Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox were overshadowed on their stretch of Highway 101 by another — albeit unintentional — tourist trapping duo. The mama gray whale and calf that conveniently occupied a stretch of the Klamath River underneath the 101 bridge earlier…
Power Plays in Eureka
In Eureka this year, politics got ugly. Or uglier, if you prefer. It actually started at the tail end of last year, when the new conservative majority on the City Council torpedoed the previous council’s decision to buy the empty, deteriorating Jefferson School and hand its management over to a West Side community group. That…
Landslide
We can’t decide which was more impressive — the massive slab of forested hillside that kerthumped onto Highway 101 several miles north of Garberville on the morning of March 30, or the hop-to-it public-service response of the locals as soon as they saw that their main access to and from anything town-like had been demolished.…
Top 10 Stories of 2011
The earth shook. The waters parted — or at least sloshed disturbingly. And the politicians talked. Starting in January with a reshaped Eureka City Council and ending in December with confirmation that Humboldt’s first Wal-Mart is on its way, 2011 was a year like every other and like no other. Amid the deaths and births,…
Logs to China
You may have noticed a lot more logging trucks on the roads this year — trucks loaded with Douglas fir, white fir, spruce and hemlock logs. But chances are those logs weren’t headed to one of the handful of remaining Humboldt County sawmills. More likely they were loaded onto ships, either here in Humboldt Bay…
The Solomon Show
He brought us atheists! He brought us breakdancing and hip hop! He brought us a mass demonstration of audience fainting spells! Wait, that last one was a hoax delivered unto him by an apparent quality control artist. But anyway, yes — we’re talking Phil Donahue, baby! And now — toot-da-do! — anti-war activist, Emmy winner…
Hospital says state is wrong, declines to provide details
UPDATE, Dec. 29: Surgeons at St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka did not leave two different objects inside two different patients after surgeries this summer, the state Public Health Department said Thursday. That only happened once. Two episodes involving “retained foreign objects” show up on the state website because St. Joseph doctors reported them, as required…
Redundant Broadband Fiber Complete
That’s right, folks. Just in time for Christmas, Humboldt County now has a back-up umbilical for all of our technology babies, including credit and debit card machines and Internet-based communications, which have become virtually indispensable for everything from medical care to law enforcement, education and business. Plus, high-speed Internet will now be available in such…
Wal-Mart Redux
Editor: Thanks NCJ for staying on top of things that deserve examination. You will get a flood of letters regarding the sneaky incursion of Wal-Mart (“Touchdown Wal-Mart,” Dec. 15) into our community. Why “sneaky?” While there are people who long to flock to this economic mecca, a majority (61 percent in 1999) has deep reservations.…
Holiday Homecoming
Editor: As people get ready to celebrate the holidays, (“The Final Countdown,” Dec. 15), I joined a group of family and friends Sunday night who welcomed several servicemen from our local National Guard unit returning home from deployment in Iraq. I saw tears on many faces and lots of wordless hugging, and I felt a…
Occupy Xmas
Occupy Xmas
Herzog’s Top Five Books (+5)
Zazen by Vanessa Veselka Set in an America on the precipice of collapse, this novel follows Della, a waitress who becomes increasingly obsessed with the bombs going off throughout the industrial northwestern city she lives in. On a whim she calls in a bomb threat, which sparks a fiery plot beyond her control. Della’s inner…
Redwood Jazz Alliance 5+5 Top Jazz Albums 2011
1. Narratives – Steven Lugerner Septet (self-released) — The other half of the double-album debut by this talented young multi-reedist, These Are the Words, features some stellar sidemen (Darren Johnston, Myra Melford, Matt Wilson) playing knotty compositions that draw from the Torah. We like this half even better. With his working septet of Brooklyn-based up-and-comers, Lugerner…
The Cheese Stands Alone
I have been known to throw fits about cheese, citified, hoity-toity fits that publicly I eschew and privately I pursue, defending my position alone in my head for hours. We who live in this veritable cornucopia of verdancy, overflowing with local organic meat, produce, grains and dairy, we who positively wallow amidst plump, cream-producing cows,…
Recreating the Colorful Past
The process of restoring works of art frequently turns up surprises. Nowhere is this more in evidence than on the carvings in the west portals of Amiens Cathedral in northern France. Starting in the mid-1990s, technicians engaged in cleaning the hundreds of statues were amazed to find flecks of ancient paint on virtually every figure…
2011’s Tops
Looking back over the last year’s collection of musical events, it wasn’t hard to pick a few of my personal favorites. Top of the list: the recent visit by Sharon Jones, who filled The Depot with powerful soul and took us to the land of 1,000 dances. The Dap-Kings were the tightest, funkiest band I’ve…
A Child Becomes Herself
She won’t hear what I have to say….
Didn’t We Say No?
Slipping in almost after the Top 10 deadline and almost under the radar, it’s … (chirpy/gagging adjective of your choice) … Wal-Mart. In a nation full of loathsome business practices, Wal-Mart has become symbolic of the slimiest of the slime. Pay lousy wages? Check. Offer miserly benefits? Check. Rely on oppressive overseas labor practices? Check?…
Shikuma’s Top Shelf Music Picks 2011
The year 2011 brought a bumper crop of excellent recordings, so many it was difficult to narrow the field to 10. An overwhelming number of female artists led the charge with superb eclectic releases. There were a plethora of outstanding solo releases: the innovative hybrids of tUnE-yArDs (aka Merrill Garbus), the dark, intense lyricism of…
Where’s the Airport Manager?
Humboldt County Airport Manager Jacquelyn Hulsey has been on administrative leave since early October — with taxpayers supplying her $6,146-per-month salary — and no one with the county will say why she was sidelined or when, if ever, she’s expected to return. Public Works Director Tom Mattson will say only that Hulsey remains on leave…
Local is Relative
Editor: I think it is kind of lame that NCJ pointed a finger at the soils industry (“The Dirt,” Dec. 15) to call the bluff on what “local” really means. To define, I believe that local business means that someone who lives in Humboldt owns the business. Locally produced means that raw materials were assembled…
Ho Ho Holmes
SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS. I didn’t exactly dislike Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes, but I can’t say it left much of an impression on me, either. Like a lot of people, I enjoyed the fighting but had a hard time accepting Holmes as a street brawler. Plus I found the atmosphere oppressive and distracting.…
