An oversight group, launched five years ago, outlined a myriad of ways Congress could better protect Indigenous people from going missing, getting killed or falling prey to human traffickers, with particular focus on tackling gender-based violence. Among the recommendations of the Not Invisible Act Commission were specific protections for foster youth, who end up lost […]
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Posted inMusic
The Merry Minuet
Today’s column is named after a Sheldon Harnick song, as performed by The Kingston Trio. It’s a satirical piece about unrest and violence in the world being solved by the modest proposal of unleashing the atomic bomb on the whole of humanity because “What nature doesn’t do to us, will be done by our fellow […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Keeping the Beat for 50 Years in Humboldt
I felt like a stranger in a strange land when I drove into Rio Dell in March of 1975 to play a six-month job with a country band. Fortuna native Jerry Cooper, a musician I’d played with in San Francisco, had moved back home. He called me in San Francisco and offered six months of guaranteed […]
Posted inNews
Youngest North Coast Condor Dies of Lead Poisoning
B7, the youngest member of the North Coast’s California condor flock, has died from lead poisoning after just three months in the wild. The death of the 18-month-old male marks the first in the Northern California Condor Restoration Program — a Yurok Tribe-led effort to return the endangered bird they know as prey-go-neesh to the […]
Posted inNews
Trickle Down
As the Trump administration continues to slash and burn parts of the federal government in its avowed mission to weed out “waste, fraud and abuse,” embers continue to land on the North Coast, scorching services. In recent weeks, news arrived that cuts at the United States Department of Agriculture will hamper nutrition assistance programs supporting […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Wing Man
When chef Jeremy Shaffer emerged onto the patio of Six Rivers Brewery with a steaming stainless steel bowl of hot wings in his arms, the tang wafted into the crowd, setting jaws tingling. Fourteen contestants in the brewery’s annual wing eating competition stood in a line between a long table and the back fence, kitchen […]
Posted inArts + Scene
All the President’s Frantic Women
POTUS Or, Behind Every Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive by Selina Fillinger is a fast-moving farcical comedy set in the White House during a fictional presidency. The President has (yet again) said something awful at the worst possible moment. His chief of staff Harriet (Christina Jioras), her beleaguered intern Stephanie (Ximena […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Patrons in the Arts
As Leo Tolstoy once said, “All happy families resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Every member of the MacTwatt Clan’s 10-year family reunion reveals unique unhappiness as they meet again after years apart in the Logger Legends, Liars and Lookers, the third in the Logger Bar-located series of plays written and directed […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Gardening Undercover
Despite the early morning temperatures in the middle 20s, I made a visit to the winter garden during a lull between rainstorms. Because of the cold and the rain, much of the vegetable garden is muddy and even the winter-hardy cole crops look mushy. But this is the perfect time to check on the garden […]
Posted inNews
The Foilies 2025
The public’s right to access government information is constantly under siege across the United States, from both sides of the political aisle. In Maryland, where Democrats hold majorities, the attorney general and state Legislature are pushing a bill to allow agencies to reject public records requests that they consider “harassing.” At the same time, President […]
Posted inNews
Ten Years of The Foilies
In the year 2015, we witnessed the launch of OpenAI, a debate over the color of a dress going viral and a Supreme Court decision that same-sex couples have the right to get married. It was also the year the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) first published The Foilies, an annual report that hands out tongue-in-cheek […]
Posted inNews
Judge Orders Patrick Harvey’s Release
Patrick Harvey, reportedly the first Humboldt County defendant sentenced under California’s three strikes law, will soon be a free man after serving 9,954 consecutive days — more than 27 years — incarcerated for a trio of nonviolent felony convictions, a judge ruled March 11. At the request of the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office under […]