Cover Story
Uniting for Ukraine
Like many in the United States and the world, Humboldt native Ryan Knight spent much of early 2022 watching Russian forces gather on the western border with Ukraine with a sense of disbelief. But Knight knows the country far better than most, having spent a couple of years in the country — witnessing the birth…
Hanneke Cassel Trio this Thursday at Arcata Playhouse
Boston-based fiddler Hanneke Cassel, winner of the 1997 U.S. National Scottish Fiddle Championship and sought-after performer at Celtic festivals across the globe, brings her special blend of contemporary and traditional music, infused with flavors of the Isle of Skye and Cape Breton Island and Americana to Arcata Playhouse on Thursday, Sept. 22, from 7 to…
Nosferatu with Live Musical Score at the Eureka Theater
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the silent cinema masterpiece Nosferatu and to honor it, the Eureka Theater is taking the creepiness factor up to 100 with a special screening of the iconic horror film on the big screen paired with a live musical score. At ease, hair on the back of your neck.…
North Country Fair Returns this Weekend
Every third weekend in September (except for the last two years), the Arcata Plaza swells with families, revelers, artists, dancers, musicians, crafters, makers and producers for the annual North Country Fair, a two-day celebration of the Fall Equinox, diversity and community. This year, the fair falls on Saturday, Sept. 17, and Sunday, Sept. 18, from…
Humboldt Marks 157th COVID Death
Humboldt County Public Health reported today that the county has confirmed another COVID-19 death, a resident in their 60s, since its last report Sept. 7. Two new hospitalizations were also reported and, according to a state database, 12 people are currently hospitalized with the virus locally, including two under intensive care. The death reported today…
Rap Lyrics on Trial: Bill Would Limit Prosecutors’ Use of Words, Music as Evidence
Gary Bryant Jr. exchanged gunfire with a man in an Antioch apartment parking lot on a July afternoon in 2014. Both were struck by bullets. Bryant survived and the other man died. Police said it was part of a string of gang shootings in the East Bay. At trial, prosecutors alleged — and a jury…
Cal Poly Invites Community to Campus Plan Forums
With Cal Poly Humboldt undergoing major changes as part of its transformation into the state’s third and Northern California’s only polytechnic university, the campus is hosting a series of public forums over the next several weeks about physical plans for the campus. The transformation includes a host of new academic programs, more than $680 million…
Problems Plague California School Data System, Putting Local Funding at Risk
The data management system for California’s K-12 schools has been on the fritz for months after it was updated in April then rolled out with minimal testing, potentially jeopardizing school district funding. The California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System, or CALPADS, stores information for the state’s 6 million public school students. It’s how the state knows…
California to Give $2,500 Training Grant to Workers Who Lost Jobs During Pandemic
Living through a pandemic sucks, but for Diana McLaughlin, early 2020 was especially bad: A divorce in February 2020, societal shut-down in March, and as part of the COVID-19 economic fallout, she lost her job in April of that year, returning to full-time work only 18 months later. California lawmakers had economically distressed folks like…
Remembering Richard Guadagno, Passenger 19A on Flight 93
Editor’s note: Twenty-one years ago today, at 10:03 a.m., Flight 93 crashed into a Pennsylvania field after passengers and crew members fought back against 9/11 hijackers, sacrificing their lives to prevent the plane from reaching its intended target, thought to have been the U.S. Capitol. One of those passengers was Richard Guadagno, the former manager…
NCJ Preview: Ukraine to Eureka, Watson’s Support and Market Eats
The war in Ukraine is close to home this week as we look at how one Eureka family has taken a high schooler from the region and how folks in Humboldt can help sponsor refugees. As an update to Brett Watson’s re-election bid after a third-party investigation found he sexually harassed a city employee, the…
Looking Back: A Surreal Day Two Years Ago (Slideshow)
On this date, two years ago, Humboldt County residents awoke to the apocalyptic glow of an eerie orange sky created by heavy haze in the air from surrounding wildfires, some of which had already been burning for weeks. For weeks, residents across wide swaths of the region would face choking smoke, a series of evacuation…
Interior Department Removes Derogatory Term from Humboldt Sites, Hundreds of Others Nationwide
The Department of the Interior announced today that replacement names have been approved for hundreds of valleys, streams, ridges, summits and other geographic features across the nation, including several in Humboldt County, that contained a derogatory word for Native women. The final vote by the Board on Geographic Names — the federal body tasked with…
September Song
I spent Labor Day weekend participating in two of the more sublime and less evil American pastimes: the yard sale and the barbecue. The former was nice — I certainly met a lot of the neighborhood and even a few readers, which is always a nice encounter out in the wild. After having spent the…
Bongio Must Go
We begin this editorial by acknowledging two plain, undeniable truths: We are on unceded Wiyot land and, as such, Humboldt County Planning Commission Chair Alan Bongio must resign or be removed from his post because has revealed himself unfit to serve here. We encourage anyone doubting the first truth to double back to last week’s…
What’s Good at Friday Night Market
It’s a genuine pleasure holding a paper tray of street stall food aloft as you weave through Old Town’s blocked off streets during the Friday Night Market, the singer from a local band crooning along. It’s feels downright neighborly, combing through the art and handiwork of the vendors, saying hello to familiar faces. Then one…
Paul Reiser is Back at the Mic
Paul Rieser started with stand-up, prior to his roles as the jaded Modell in the cult classic Diner, the era-appropriately smarmy villain Burke in Aliens, dotingly awkward husband Paul Buchanon in the series Mad About You and, most recently, Dr. Owens, the better of two evil scientists in Stranger Things. He’s also contributed to the…
Arts! Arcata
Celebrate the visual and performing arts in Downtown Arcata during Second Friday Arts! Arcata. Enjoy a lively night market of local art displayed in downtown stores. *Listings for participating venues were not available at press time. For more information, visit arcatamainstreet.com.
Truth and Reconciliation
Editor: Thank you NCJ, Tamara McFarland and Jerry Rohde, (“Yes, They Are Racist. Now What?” and “This is Their Land,” respectively, Sept. 1), for acknowledging that we are all beneficiaries of historic violence and corruption, (commensurate with our individual class-status), and for suggesting modest penance, modeling an intact conscience. Only truth and reconciliation commissions have…
Along the Historic Yurok Loop
No matter how many times I walk along the Yurok Loop, I never tire of it. Whether sunlight dapples the forest path or the leaves glisten from mist, it makes no difference; just seeing the little wooden bridge at the start of the trail makes my heart leap. The Yurok Loop is a 1 ¼-mile…
No Respect
Editor: My take-away from news regarding our local state university is that the new regime of Cal Poly Humboldt is continuing the old HSU regime’s imperial disregard for our community (“Cal Poly Paid Triple Appraised Value in Land Purchase,” Sept. 1). In January of 2022, a local nonprofit with plans to build senior housing signed…
The Nerd Operas of Funny Pages and Mad God
FUNNY PAGES. While I maintain that I am not a true nerd, mostly for lack of commitment, I may well be, as intoned by my wife and now oft-repeated by dear friend and colleague Grant Scott-Goforth, “a bit of a weirdo.” I am not, nor have I ever been, a true fan/student of comics or…
‘Disgraceful’
Editor: In your Aug. 22 article on the appeal of the Humboldt County Planning Commission’s environmental review of Nordic Aquafarms’ proposed Samoa Penninsula industrial fish farm, you cite several reasons for the appeal (“Fishing Association, Environmental Groups Appeal Fish Farm EIR Certification”). You cite the under-calculation of greenhouse gas emissions by the omission of the…
‘Quite Astounding’
Editor: Terry Torgensen’s cartoon for the Aug. 18 edition of the NCJ was quite astounding in one respect. It depicted a doctor recommending the vaccine “to prevent the spread of the virus.” Really?! Surely by now, everyone knows that the COVID vaccines do not prevent the spread of the virus. They do not prevent you…
Cool Temps and Great Fishing Along the North Coast
You couldn’t ask for a better week of weather and fishing leading up to and through the holiday weekend along the North Coast. First off, the weather. While the rest of the state was sweltering and dealing with excessive heat warnings, our weather remained as coastal cool as always. And that was reflected in the…
‘Encourage Hitchhiking’
Editor: $38.7 million divided by 11 equals $3.5 million per bus (“Humboldt Moves to Overhaul Bus Fleet,” Aug. 25)! But wait, these are special busses that use fuel costing twice the cost of other fuels. And they need a special station costing another $26.4 million. We need these busses to get to Ukiah, even though…
‘Broke His Promise’
Editor: I drove through your lovely county recently and happened upon your front page story about the stop work order issued to Mr. Schneider (“Broken Trust,” Aug. 25). I worked 15 years as a building official in a major Canadian city. I worked a subsequent 15 years as a project manager in Canada’s artic with…
Hesiod: Farmer, Poet, Misogynist
“[Hesiod’s] personality behind the poems is unsuited to the kind of ‘aristocratic withdrawal’ typical of a rhapsode but is instead argumentative, suspicious, ironically humorous, frugal, fond of proverbs, wary of women.” — The Oxford History of the Classical World Misogyny — hatred of or contempt for women — goes back a long way, at least…
We once threw our spirits
we once threw our spirits across whole divides. we could land in and look from another point of view. we could sail our souls across the seen and and the hidden. we could walk our own bones to the source of the river. now we fling our bodies into places they could’ve never gone. we…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Aries-born Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was one of the greatest basketball players ever. He excelled at most aspects of the game. Some experts say his rebounding was only average for a player his size—seven feet, two inches. But he is still the third-best rebounder in National Basketball Association history. And he played for…
‘Outcry’
When embattled Arcata City Councilmember Brett Watson announced last month he would be seeking re-election in November, he cited “all of the encouragement from members of the community” he’s received, but that “encouragement” is all but absent from the public record. In the wake of Watson’s announcement, the Journal submitted a California Public Records Act…
