Cover Story
Whales. In a River.
NOTE: For more pictures and video of the Klamath River’s gray whale visitors… … click here. She wasn’t getting the message. Clink-clink, clang-clang, clink-clink, clang clang… Two miles upstream from the mouth of the Klamath River and surrounded by boats, the mottled 45-foot female gray whale lurched slowly through the waters, in between and sometimes…
![It’s a Walmart…Or Is It? [Updated]](https://i0.wp.com/www.northcoastjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/walmart1.webp?fit=352%2C54&ssl=1)
It’s a Walmart…Or Is It? [Updated]
Update, 1 p.m.: Common mistake, as Mark notes below: Not Eureka, Yreka. Despite doing two other jobs in the Humboldt County seat, the Millcon Group still got Eureka mixed up with our country cousin over in Siskiyou County. So, for now, the mystery continues. Original post: Resourceful blog commenter “James” has tracked down the evidence. The above…
![It’s Not Best Buy! [Corrected]](https://i0.wp.com/www.northcoastjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/smiley.webp?resize=200%2C150&ssl=1)
It’s Not Best Buy! [Corrected]
[Corrected at 3:12 p.m., Friday, Aug. 5. Note: An earlier version of this post, which was also printed in last week’s paper, overstated the degree of knowledge that Eureka City Manager David Tyson had regarding the identity of the new tenant at the Bayshore Mall.] If you were hoping for a Best Buy in the old…
List of Items Confiscated at County Courthouse
Here’s a partial list of items confiscated and/or rejected by Humboldt County Courthouse security over the past year six months: Three guns 2,024 knives 294 pairs of scissors 202 razor blades 824 “pointed devices”* 31 “sharp objects”* 94 knitting needles 54 screwdrivers 53 corkscrews 96 metal forks 52 bullets 21 toy/replica guns 127 chains (12…
The Alibi in Eureka is Closed
And we were just getting to know each other. Justin Ladd, owner of both the Arcata and Eureka locations of the bar/restaurant/music venue, posted this morning on The Alibi’s Facebook page that the Eureka venue, at 535 Fifth St., has been summarily shuttered due to family medical issues. The watering hole has had a troubled…
Redistricting Maps Approved: Thompson Out
The above map shows new congressional district boundaries, approved earlier today by the 14-person Citizen Redistricting Commission. The nonpartisan commission also redrew the borders for state senate, assembly and Board of Equalization districts (see the full maps here), but it’s the Congressional map that’s most newsworthy to us here on the North Coast. Why? Because, as…
Blue Sea
The sound of billowing Blue sea Washing green…
Highland Fling
If running around on the beach and throwing large objects sounds like a great way to spend a Saturday, Linda Stansberry has a game for you. Three games, actually. And you can wear kilts! Stones will be thrown, wars will be tugged, and cabers (sort of) will be tossed at the Second Annual Clam Beach…
The Goat Test
Last month the City of Arcata unexpectedly found itself faced with a test of its moral character, a test administered by a herd of hypothetical goats. Gourmet goat cheese producer Cypress Grove Chevre wanted to build a large goat dairy just outside city limits, on the border between a residential subdivision and the verdant pastureland…
It’s Good to be President
Humboldt State’s head honcho Rollin C. Richmond is raking it in as one of the highest-paid California State University presidents, despite Humboldt’s near-last position on the enrollment charts. Richmond made $297,870 last year, making him the eighth-highest-paid president in the 23-school CSU system. HSU places 20th in enrollment, with 7,903 students, but Richmond makes more…
Attractive and Talented
Reviews FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS. Inevitably, and inaptly, this film will be compared to the recent No Strings Attached, a completely lame romantic comedy despite the presence of Natalie Portman and perhaps partly because of the presence of Ashton Kutcher. Friends with Benefits is in a different league. For one thing, it has a savvy script…
Smokin’ Cubans
Unless you were up on the Humboldt State campus this week and heard the drumming, or perhaps stopped by the Jambalaya on Saturday for Ponche’s set, you were probably unaware that some of the world’s top AfroCuban folkloric dancers and drummers are in town. Since 1996 local music teacher/musician Howie Kaufman has led Explorations in…
Big, Bad Boxes
Editor: After reading “Blog Jammin’ ” in the July 21 issue of your paper (“Walmart, Jesus and Books Without Borders”), I was reminded by Ryan Burns, in his footnote, of what the Humboldt County Ad Hoc Committee on Big Box Development, a group appointed by the Board of Supervisors at that time, had to say…
Not that Simple
Editor: The quote from me highlighted in your article on redistricting (“Drawing It Out,” July 21) conveys the opposite of my intent. In conversation with Ms. Walters, I spoke at some length on three topics: 1) how lucky North Coast fishermen are to have a congressman, Mike Thompson, who pays so much attention to our concerns; 2)…
The Lost Art of Happiness
In The Great Disruption, Paul Gilding foresees that the onrushing climate crisis in combination with resource depletion and other factors will create catastrophes that force major changes, including (and especially) the transition to a no-growth, steady-state world economy. So in such a society, what will replace material acquisition and the joy of shopping as the…
Don’t Blame Ink
Editor: I read the article about the beauty pageant in your 30 June issue (“Really?”) and was disappointed by the framing of the pageant as a product of The Ink People. Although you later noted that the Ink People has over 60 programs, the text implied (in particular, the phrasing on the front cover) that…
Summer Food Notes
Hooray, it’s summer! And it totally is less crappy thus far than last summer. Sun, bearable wind, not too much rain. While I appreciate our temperate clime, I sometimes long for the psychologically comforting seasonal delineators of Actual Weather Changes. In the Midwest and back East, seasons are specific. There’s snow. You wear a big…
Slow Train
Editor: There was one glaring error in the article on Brian Willson (“Still Protesting,” July 14) that I’m surprised no one commented on. At the time there was a video on TV of the incident. The train was stationary with Wilson sitting on the tracks a few yards in front. I guess the engineer decided…
The Magic Place
Contemporary composer, musician and performer Julianna Barwick uses her vocals as an instrument, and with the assistance of loop machines constructs intricate layers that weave into unique compositions. After catching the ear of Pitchfork, who bestowed Barwick’s haunting EP Florine an honorable mention for last year’s “Best Releases,” Barwick has drawn more critical attention, including…
Reggae on the River Goes International
Seun Kuti grew up in the liberated zone of Kalakuta in Nigeria. His father Fela Anikulapo Kuti had declared a small section of the city of Lagos to be an area where good music could be heard, cannabis could be smoked, dissident politics were welcome (so long as you didn’t criticize Fela), and sexuality wasn’t…
Sleep, Pray, Sleep
What do you call a habit of regularly waking up at 1 a.m. and not getting back to sleep until 3? Sleep disorder, perhaps? Not if you happen to be Roger Ekirch, professor of history at Virginia Tech and author of At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past. His term for such behavior? Normal. After…
Apocalypse Party
This summer’s political musical comedy by the San Francisco Mime Troupe is fairly self-referential. 2012: The Musical! finds the members of the left-leaning theater company playing members of Theater BAM!, a left-leaning theater company struggling to get by while putting on none-too-commercial shows like the Shakespearean political comedy, The Revolution Will Not Be Downloaded. While…
Happy Zumba
Editor: It was great to read that your staff writer Stephanie Silvia has found a Zumba class she is excited about. (“Joyous Zumba,” July 21) As a teacher of two out of the 60 Zumba classes that are being taught within a 25 mile radius of Arcata, I always love to see that Zumba Fitness…
