Best Of? 

Editor:

Really? Eight categories for best cannabis business but only one "Best Artist?" How about "Best Painter-Oils," "Best Painter-Watercolors," "Best Painter-Acrylics," "Best Painter-Silk," "Best Graffiti Artist," "Best Cartoonist," "Best Sculptor-Metal," "Best Sculptor-Ceramic," "Best Sculptor-Mixed Media," "Best Sculptor-Kinetic," "Best Glassblower," "Best Digital Artist," "Best Graphic Design Artist," "Best Jewelry Design," "Best Fabric Artist," "Best Performance Artist," "Best Storyteller," "Best Clown," "Best Filmmaker," etc.? Instead of "Best Band," how about "Best Rock Band," "Best Jazz Band," "Best Reggae Band," "Best Funk Band," "Best Classical Chamber Music Ensemble" etc.? There's good competition in all of those categories here in Humboldt County, and your readers would know that if you lived up to your name as a "Journal of People, Politics and Art."

Artists will never buy those stupid "vote for me" ads but it does not cost very much money to have a thriving art scene; all you have to do is pay attention to it. Art thrives on attention, and the more attention you pay to it, the more it thrives, and the more your art scene thrives, the more attractive your community becomes, and the more the quality of life improves for all of us. Supporting the arts won't solve all of our community's problems but it does give us something positive, vibrant and inspirational to focus on and identify with. If the NCJ can't be bothered to give our local art scene the attention it desperately needs and deserves, maybe it's time for a name change.

Perhaps you should change the name of the magazine to the North Coast Journal of Business, Politics and Marijuana, and we can all just get used to living in an area best known for greed, corruption and drug abuse, thanks, in part, to the efforts (or lack thereof) of your fine publication.

John Hardin, Redway

Editor:

Your "Best Of" issue (Aug. 6) has some very disconcerting news. Rex Bohn most popular politician? To read the NCJ and its Greek Chorus, one would think he'd be way down the list. Heck, if you listen to the couple hundred or so that went to the recent demonstrations to get their fair share of abuse, there's overwhelming sentiment to drastically defund the police in one of the highest crime areas in the entire U.S.

Everyone in their social circle feels that way. How can that be that there is huge untapped opinion of non-activist folks that plain disagree ... and they are a majority? Shameful. The great and powerful Oz says disregard those folks, as well as the man in the booth pulling levers.

John Dillon, Eureka