OK police. OK occupiers. You’re being watched. Or more accurately, you’re gonna be watched, very soon, by specially trained independent observers. (No, not TV reporters!) An independent observer program that was active in the early 2000s during timber protests is being revived and will start training new observers next month. Mark your calendar for Sunday, […]
Activism
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Occupy Winter Break!
Deck the walls of your Occupy tent and color the sidewalks, then get yourself on home for your usual seasonal merrymaking. Occupy Humboldt’s takin’ a break. That’s the news from Humboldt State University’s campus-based Occupy camp — news graciously passed along by the university’s official media arm via Paul Mann. The news release notes a […]
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Occupy Together? Down Twinkle For Now
Could they all get along? Over 100 people representing Humboldt’s various Occupy groups gathered in HSU’s Kate Buchanan Room Monday night for what was billed as a countywide General Assembly to explore the local movement’s options going forward. Numero uno on the list of topics: should/could/would OccupyHumboldt, Occupy Eureka and Occupy Arcata consolidate their energies […]
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HumCo’s Pepper Spray Precedent
As media outlets and the public reflect on last week’s disturbing U.C. Davis pepper spray incident, many are comparing it to a dark chapter in Humboldt County’s own history — the 1997 protest inside Rep. Frank Riggs’ Eureka office, where officers with the EPD and Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office used Q-tips to apply pepper spray […]
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Win in Orleans
Sometimes an amicable, chatty protest where you invite your enemy to the party works best. On Nov. 9, Orleansian mushroom pickers, upset over a new matsutake gathering policy, staged a protest outside the Six Rivers National Forest’s Orleans district office. They invited Forest Service personnel, who took notes and answered questions. Yesterday, Nov. 17, Six […]
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Occupy Eureka Wiped Out (PHOTOS)
… at least for now. The most elaborate encampment constructed on the Humboldt County Courthouse lawn by Occupy Eureka to date — a society that lasted from Friday afternoon until early Monday morning — has been removed by the Eureka Police Department. Monday morning, the police taped-off area was heavily protected by EPD officers. New […]
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Mushroom Protest! Updated
UPDATE: Orleanser Rhonda Olson (aka Grandma Rhonda) emailed us to say the new mushroom picking permit policy is “insane at best,” and she suggests it might even backfire: “It encourages people to have to pick more mushrooms than they need for a meal just to pay for the permit.” And if you don’t want to spring […]
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Occupy Eureka Raided [Updated]
Update: Eureka attorney Laura Cutler arrived at the county courthouse this morning to find the scene pictured above — the lawn scattered with debris and cordoned off with police tape. The protesters, she said, were given only 10 or 15 minutes to vacate the encampment in the dark, early-morning hours under threat of tear gas. […]
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Eureka Police Accuse Occupiers of Defecation, Assault
One day after the EPD arrested an alleged Occupy Eureka protester for stealing a carafe of cream from Starbucks, things take a turn for the worse. The press release: On 11-04-2011, Officers of the Eureka Police Department responded to several crimes involving subjects who appear to be affiliated with the “Occupy Eureka” group. At about […]
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Mega-bank Run Saturday
This Saturday, Nov. 5, has been designated “Bank Transfer Day,” a consumer activism event designed to stick it to the greedy mega-banks that nearly decimated the world economy, only to be bailed out by taxpayers. The idea — which has been claimed by L.A. art gallery owner Kristen Christian, though it was suggested elsewhere much […]
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Guest Post: View from the Occupation
(UPDATE: Arcata Police Chief Tom Chapman released this letter calling on Occupy Arcata to “remove all tarps, tents, and structures from the Plaza immediately. Continued violation … will be subject to arrest.”) The following was posted by Travis Turner — a Navy veteran, freelance writer/photographer, and Humboldt State student — on his Facebook page Thursday […]
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Go, civil liberties!
A passing shout-out to Arcata from a writer who dared to read the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution in a New Mexico airport when TSA wanted to scan, scan, scan: People walking to the gate stare wide-eyed, but no one stops. In my hometown of Arcata, someone would have whipped out a cell phone and […]