Trying to be an ethical person in the modern world is hard. How should we weigh the site-specific impacts from wind energy development against the potential climate benefit? How far should we go to try to save an endangered species (and at what point is that resource allocation better served somewhere else)? Should we rely on our intuition or does that risk confirmation bias? Does climate change clarify our moral obligations or does it make finding the “right thing” even murkier? (Is there even a “right thing”!?)

Do you think about these things? Because Gang Green does. Colin Fiske of the Coalition for Responsible Transportation Priorities, Matt Simmons and Tom Wheeler of EPIC, Caroline Griffith of the Northcoast Environmental Center, and Alicia Hamann and Scott Greacen of Friends of the Eel River talk about how they make decisions as local environmental leaders.

Send your own probing ethical questions to tom@wildcalifornia.org and we may feature your question on a future episode!

Empress Gennie considers herself the Humboldt Dreadlock Queen.

Like any queen, Gennie, 31, feels the most comfortable and safe behind her castle walls. In this case, she guards her castle by keeping people at more than arm’s length. She cyber-meets each new client with skepticism, and did the same with this reporter.

Photos courtesy Empress Gennie.

“Back when I was doing hair in my home, I had an incident where a client started posturing and threatening me because I told him that he needed to cut his hair a little before I could work with it,” Gennie continued. “I’ve seen that multiple black-owned businesses have been vandalized and I don’t want to be targeted.”

Now working out of a studio separate from her home, she operates under the name Humboldt Naturalista. Even with the separate studio, the address is not readily available for anyone to drop in anytime.

“I always ask for pictures of the person’s hair before I even schedule an appointment with them,” Gennie said.

Each picture she receives is vetted to ensure that she has the ability to work with that person’s hair. For example, she does not feel confident working with straight hair and is unlikely to take a client with such a hair texture. As a loctician and braider, Gennie specializes in working with coily and kinky hair. Serving the black community and true to Humboldt fashion, her greatest emphasis is being a “Naturalista,” where any and all materials she uses are strictly plant-based.

When she started, her popularity was limited to word of mouth until he began to use Instagram. With over 1,200 followers, she still relies on making appointments via phone call, text message or email. The process is: You contact her asking what you want to get done, you include pictures of your hair currently, and wait for Gennie to work out the date and time of the appointment. With all of those things confirmed, only then will you receive the address to Gennie’s studio.

Originally from Oakland, the generations of women in Gennie’s family made a lasting impact on her interest in hair. Her great-grandmother owned a hair salon in Louisiana before moving to California in the 1950s with her family. Her grandmother, also named Gennie, would tell stories about those days and it became a part of their family identity.

When Gennie was five years old, her mother bought what she describes as “little big dolls” that had coily and kinky hair textures for her to play with. She began styling the dolls’ hair and the traditions lived on. She then practiced on herself throughout her life but never considered doing someone else’s hair until she was in middle school.

“A friend of mine asked me to braid her hair because her mom didn’t know how,” Gennie said.

From then on she would regularly braid other people’s hair and then became a self-taught loctician at 19 years old. However, between 2013 and 2016 while earning her degree, she stopped doing hair entirely.

Gennie moved to Humboldt in August 2014 after transferring from Diablo Valley College alongside her sister. Graduating with a degree in psychology in 2016, she quickly realized how competitive her field was going to be.

“They don’t tell you about getting your hours in at a counseling center or anything like that. You have to build your experience while going to school,” Gennie said. “I needed to apply for anything in my field. I love children so I started there.”

She managed to land a job with an agency that offers services for autistic children, but was ultimately fired for having unreliable transportation. She then worked with another agency for a stint but it turned out to be overwhelming for her.

“It weighed too heavy on my heart, I wasn’t mentally prepared for it. The circumstances with some of the children in Humboldt County are horrific,” Gennie said. “After working these jobs I had to tell myself that I’m just not fit for this.”

That is when Gennie took a shot at working with an agency that offers services to adults instead. During the year she began working with adults she also worked with the Boys & Girls Club of the Redwoods. All the while holding her jobs, Gennie would also post listings on Craigslist offering to braid hair and style hair into dreadlocks.

Humboldt Naturalista was born.

At work.

“It was crazy. On the days I wouldn’t work, I’d do hair,” Gennie said, “Even when I worked short days, I would do hair.”

It was not until 2018 where Humboldt Naturalista really started to pick up. More and more people were contacting her to get their hair done. She would try her best to take one or two clients a week while holding her jobs. When she finally committed her time to Humboldt Naturalista, she started booking one or two clients per day. It might not sound like a lot but it is.

Dreadlocks can take anywhere between 45 minutes and two and a half hours. Braids can take anywhere between two and 12 hours depending on the person’s hair type. This quickly fills up Gennie’s time and regularly works seven days a week. Only now that she keeps a scheduling system, she can force herself to take a day or two off.

“It’s hard to take a day off. I love doing hair because it allows my community to breathe,” Gennie said. “There hasn’t been a place for us here. I’m trying to make that place for us.”

Gennie also crochets on the side. Primarily selling out of her studio, she also sells online through her website bak2rrootz.com. Most of her designs include color patterns inspired by the Rastafarian and Pan-African Movements.

“About 40 percent of my wardrobe I crocheted myself,” Gennie said. “It’s my second passion.”

It is easy to see that Empress Gennie’s identity heavily influences her hustle. Like her grandmother, she wants to carry a legacy of being a proud black woman. As Humboldt Naturalista, she is hoping to extend herself out to the community to make something larger than herself.

“Black Humboldt is a movement and it means me being black in Humboldt,” Gennie said. “I want to be proud and help create light for people like me.”

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Got an interesting story about living the Humboldt Hustle? Email eddie@lostcoastoutpost.com. He’d love to hear it!

The holidays are upon us! This time of year is when I like to take stock of my personal and professional life. I’m not ready to make new commitments (save it for January) but looking back helps me see the big picture.

One of the things I have been looking back on is this series of columns on COVID. When I began, it seemed like a lot of the information coming into our community was very authoritative, and also absolutely relentless. I wanted to speak to people where they were at, without judgment, and also infrequently. Too much information isn’t much better than none at all.

This is what makes infection messaging so challenging. As we have learned, there is no silver bullet for diseases like COVID: You don’t get to do one thing right and then you’re good. There are always ways to make yourself and those around you safer, or more at risk.

So when I give you a huge list of steps you can take, don’t look at it as an impossible test you’ll never pass. Think of it as a buffet. You can have everything, but you don’t have to. Start with me at the salad bar, or skip right to the ice cream. Any steps you take for your health is to be celebrated.

Let’s recap what we’ve talked about over the last several months:

In August we covered things like COVID-fatigue, masking (KF 94s and KN95s), COVID testing, vaccination and – very important! — ventilation. Remember the Corsi-Rosenthal box? All of these mitigations are still valid.

In September, topics were lightened protective guidelines, checking the county levels on the CDC website, Corsi-Rosenthal boxes for ventilation (yes, again), staying home if you are sick, getting tested, mask-wearing if you are sick and long COVID.

October brought the news that the pandemic was “over,” and reminders about exercise — how are you doing with that? I walked for a minute, but now I’m back to simply encouraging others. But I refuse to get too down on myself for it, as I have been good about masking, ventilation and several other methods. I am hereby granting myself and you a pass for letting this slip.

Graphic: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

November’s article brought up the (surprisingly to me) controversial topic of hand hygiene. Apparently, some are still debating on whether or not it is a worthy step to take when trying to avoid illness.

Maybe I confused people by listing it in a COVID article. General infection prevention strategies usually begin with handwashing. That means that — generally — the best way to not get sick is to wash your hands. I know this is the Internet, and the head of a pin can be many different sizes, but for the love of your mother, wash your hands.

Now that we’re all washed, I would like to whip up a few more food metaphors. Our buffet of choices to prevent sickness has a name - the Swiss Cheese Model.

As we dive into the holidays, we need to bring the Swiss cheese back!

That’s a lot of cheese!

As many of you already know, along with COVID, RSV and Flu are making the rounds this year in our communities. So if you’re not feeling great during the holidays, here’s how long you may be contagious:

Flu: 1 day before the start of symptoms and 5-7 days after the start of symptoms

RSV: 1-2 days before symptoms and 3-8 days after the start of symptoms (or longer for some people with immunosuppression)

COVID-19: 1-2 days before symptoms begin, and 2-3 days after symptoms are gone

Testing with antigen tests after COVID-19 will help with decisions about returning to your usual activities and being around others after a COVID-19 infection. It is recommended that you test twice 24-48 hours apart to make sure you have a negative result. Have plenty of antigen tests available for repeat testing.

Sickness will inevitably spread, but you can protect yourself and others by a layered swiss cheese strategy. Enjoy your holidays and I will see you next year!

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Michelle Lewis-Lusso (she/her) is an Infection Prevention and Control nurse at United Indian Health Services, serving the 11,000+ clients and staff at their seven area clinics. Michelle wants you to use the buffet of choices for infection prevention, but take it easy on the actual buffet.

Darlene Hodgson Phillips was born December 13, 1935 to Lew and Elva Hodgson in Stockton. She was the first of three children, later joined by her sister Joy Barraco and baby brother Lew Hodgson Jr. The family moved to Eureka in 1946. She graduated from Eureka Senior High School in 1953. She attended college in Pasadena.

Upon her return from college she met a soldier on leave, Rodney Phillips, on a blind date. They fell in love and married within six months, staying married for 64 years. They had three children, Denise, Kevin, and Brenda Phillips. When her youngest daughter started school, Darlene went to work with the school system, as a teachers aide, where she stayed for 25 years.

When she and Rod retired they enjoyed traveling with Cal and Lois Phillips, and snow birding in Mesa, Arizona. Darlene loved to volunteer her time, and did weekly at the Discovery shop in Henderson Center for over 15 years. She was also very active in her church, the Faith Center, where she attended and volunteered in the nursery. In her own words she “felt so fortunate to live in such a beautiful world her god created.”

Darlene felt extremely blessed to have an amazing husband and wonderful children. Her icing on the cake were here four grandchildren Kristen Webb, Tayler, Emily, and Justin Phillips, and later her great-grandchildren Danica Phillips and Prince Bean. She was excited to meet her newest great-grandbaby, due in late November.

Darlene went peacefully to heaven on October 18, 2022 to join her loving husband and youngest daughter Brenda.

She is survived by her two children Denise and Kevin, her grandchildren Kristen, Tayler (Brandon), Emily and Justin. Her great grandchildren Danica, Prince and Baby Bean. Her siblings Joy and Lew, and her best friend of many years Val Christensen. She is also survived by many loving family members, whom will miss her very much.

A private family interment will be held in December, followed by a celebration of life in the new year.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Darlene Phillips’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.

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For Humboldt makers and crafters, especially those who prefer upcycling materials, it was a sad day when beloved creative reuse store SCRAP Humboldt closed its doors. But now a new space is opening up in Old Town to fill the hole left in our hearts. 

Makers Apron – a new creative reuse center led by Kati Moulton, Eureka City Councilmember, former SCRAP director and Kinetic royalty (known to many as Kati Texas) – will soon open at 317 E Street in Old Town Eureka, selling the same types of reusable supplies that SCRAP did. 

“It’s definitely a spiritual successor to SCRAP,” Moulton told the Outpost on Thursday, as she was readying the space to open during this Saturday’s Arts Alive. 

For those who may not be familiar with SCRAP Humboldt, it was a nonprofit that carried donated items – including yarn, fabric, paints, picture frames, postcards and all sorts of random trinkets – that people could use for art, crafts or anything that they could think of! Creative reuse, also known as upcycling or repurposing, aims to reduce waste by encouraging people to find a new use for items that might ordinarily be thrown into the landfill, while also helping creative types find materials that fit into their budget. 

Kati Moulton inside the new Maker’s Apron space

When SCRAP permanently closed its doors in July, 2020, Moulton had the idea to start another reuse center to fill the need in the community. SCRAP donated some items to Moulton to help with her effort and she purchased some of SCRAP’s items too. But it was a difficult process trying things going right away (you know, a global pandemic and all that.) Luckily, Recology offered to store the stuff for Moulton and has been holding on to it for the last two years. 

In 2021, Moulton was able to launch the Makers Apron nonprofit with help from the Ink People’s DreamMaker Program. Moulton then started fundraising to help cover the costs to open the storefront. Recently Moulton met her $3,000 goal and very recently — as in, earlier this week —she officially moved into the E Street space and Recology helped move the stuff over from storage. 

Moulton wants Makers Apron to be very similar to SCRAP, with the bulk of the inventory consisting of donated supplies. But Moulton also wants to feature upcycled products from local makers. Since Old Town gets a lot of tourism and holds events like Arts Alive, Moulton thinks it makes sense to have some pre-made items that people can purchase as gifts. She also plans to stock some new items – mostly tools, like embroidery needles or crochet hooks – so that people can find everything they need to start a project. SCRAP did not usually have many tools in stock, because people don’t donate them very often. 

Moulton also wants to focus a lot on education, and has been working with some local teachers to offer creative reuse classes and workshops at local schools, clubs and other community groups. There will also be workshops and workspaces for people to craft in the storefront location. 

Once the retail and education pieces are running smoothly, Moulton also wants to focus on “community redirection of waste,” she said, which consists of making connections with local businesses to help find a use for products that they might regularly throw away, either finding an individual or another business that wants it.  

If all goes to plan, Moulton expects Makers Apron to be up and running by the end of January.  Though Moulton isn’t ready to fully open the business yet, she wanted to have something going for the December Arts Alive. So she reached out to local makers who reuse materials and will be holding a crafts and gifts pop-up in the space this Saturday, Dec. 3. From 6 to 9 p.m. 

Moulton holding a chicken headband knitted by Esther Trosow

The featured makers will include Lifestyle Art by Jess, who makes shopping bags out of plarn (yarn made from plastic bags); Esther Trosow, who knits chicken headbands and other whimsical accessories from upcycled yarn; Q Crafted, which crafts knives and other utensils from scrap metal and wood; Put a Cork in It, which makes decorations out of wine corks, and more. 

Moulton is really looking forward to opening the space to the public and is excited for the Old Town location, which she thinks will get a lot more foot traffic than the old SCRAP location on south G Street in Arcata. 

“My heart is in Arts Alive, in Old Town and in the art community supporting each other,” Moulton told the Outpost. “We can reach a lot of different parts of the community from here, that I don’t think we could [by] the Arcata Marsh.” 

Christmas has come early, Humboldt! 

More than four years in the making, the fine folks at Dick Taylor Craft Chocolate are ready to unveil their brand new chocolate factory on Eureka’s waterfront. The big reveal will take place at their new cafe storefront – 333 First Street – from 6 to 9 p.m. during this Saturday’s Arts Alive. 

There’s still a bit of work to do before the factory is fully functional. The owners, Adam Dick and Dustin Taylor, say it will take a few more months to move operations from their current Fourth Street location to their new Old Town home. Humboldt Bay Coffee roasters will move into the same building in the coming months. 

“You know, there were periods where we would refer to this place as our Never Never Land,” Taylor told the Outpost in a recent interview. “It has taken us years to get to this point, so it’s really, really exciting to see the space come together. Once we get the sidewalk done and Humboldt Bay moves in we’ll have a big block party.

The duo purchased the former Co-op building in January 2021. Its previous owners, Pierre LeFuel and Karen Banning, began renovations on the structure a little over six years ago, but those efforts ceased following LeFuel’s untimely death. Shortly after, Banning fell ill and offered to sell the building.

“The previous owners bought it and they did a lot of the rehab work … so they really gave us that launchpad to get over a lot of the structural work,” Dick said. “We’ve wanted this building for a long time, even when it still had a big huge six-foot sag in the wall and we’re like, ‘That place is cool!’ We’ve done a tremendous amount of work but the previous owners’ work was what allowed us to get it going.”

The new space is about twice as big as their current location. Down the line, they hope to expand operations even more.

“We’ve been in this limbo state with needing a bigger space and moving has really put the brakes on buying new equipment and adding more efficiencies, so this will help us further out plans of really going into bulk chocolate,” Taylor said. “Craft chocolate is really expanding all over the world and we’ve been blessed to be a part of that.”

They’re hoping to bring back tours and tasting events once things settle down and promote their lineup of chocolate confections. 

“We’re really hoping the retail and cafe experience will bring people back who haven’t participated in the tours or the tastings in the last couple of years,” Dick said. “When we first started we were more of this wholesale business and we weren’t as focused on Humboldt County and we never put that much effort in marketing here. But we’ve really pivoted and, sure enough, you people eat a lot of chocolate. … I think we’ve always wanted to do more education and make this more of a customer-facing thing.”

Dick and Taylor were kind enough to let the Outpost take a sneak peek of their new digs ahead of Saturday’s festivities. Scroll for more pictures.

At the end of a year in which Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed several bills that would have fundamentally changed how California prisons operate, CalMatters conducted a Q&A with the 2022 recipient of the Stockholm Prize in Criminology, which Stanford University’s Institute of International Studies calls “equivalent to the Nobel in criminology.”

That recipient, Francis Cullen, is a former president of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and his research has been cited tens of thousands of times. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has brought him in to address its administrators, particularly concerning community corrections programs.

Cullen discussed how California went from being an international model for rehabilitation to being a cautionary tale. Among his thoughts: This state needs to learn the difference between liberal and stupid.

This interview has been condensed for clarity and length.

Q: The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation — In its most recent update to a federal court mandate that it reduce its prison population — reported that its facilities were filled to 112% of their capacity. Even that is a big improvement over the drastic overcrowding that prompted the order. Can you help put in context how California got into this situation?

A: It used to be the model of prisons in the country. Even when Ronald Reagan was the governor of California, he cut the prison population from about 26,000 to 18,000. They used to have a big treatment orientation, they hired social workers, and basically it was at the forefront of a rehabilitative model of incarceration.

And then in the ‘60s and into the ‘70s, there was an attack on rehabilitation, for a whole bunch of reasons. But the biggest reason is, if you have a rehabilitation model, then you give a lot of discretion to judges and parole boards. In 1976, California … went to determinate sentencing, and basically gave up rehabilitation as a part of their mission. And you gotta understand, liberals went along with that, because they didn’t like parole. They felt the parole boards were keeping in people that were politically active and weren’t letting them out.

(“Rehabilitation” would be added to the prison system’s name in 2006.)

California became punitive with its politics. The things that were done, not just in California, but generally, were all justified on the notion that we want inmates to suffer. The more they suffer, the less likely they will be to reoffend, which actually isn’t true. But that was the logic. And the result, I think, was a disaster. When you get rid of rehabilitation, you take the conscience out of the system.

In California this year, we had what has been called the “Norway Prison Bill,” which would have created a pilot program in prisons, with campuses that resemble the prisons in Norway — prisoners who were chosen could cook their own meals and live in communal spaces while getting job training. Newsom vetoed it along with two other measures related to prisons. His veto message wasn’t that these won’t work. His veto message was we cannot afford to spend the money right now. How do you respond to that assertion?

It was stupid to veto that legislation for this reason: the Norway model works. Now, would it work here in the United States, where you have issues of race and other conflict in prison? We have a different population here, we have racial conflict, we have other issues. But having said that, why not do an experiment?

That is, if you did a Norway unit in our prison, you could have studied it for its effectiveness. Can I say definitively that it would have worked here? No. Do I think it would have? Yes, because the principles make sense.

We have had court cases showing that the medical treatment of inmates is insufficient and the conditions in prison are bad. The recidivism rate is high, and there’s a lot of (probation) revocations. It seems to me that arguing that we shouldn’t spend money is a pretty weak rationale. We spend money on punishment, building prisons and locking people away for a long time. So why can’t we spend money on things that are humane and effective?

The other problem with this is, if you don’t invest in people and they come out and they commit crimes, do people understand the cost of that? There was one study that looked at the cost of, if somebody is a juvenile and becomes a serious offender for a number of years, it’s like $1.3 million dollars.

Not wanting to spend money, when spending money is the only way you invest in people and make them less criminal — it saves money later on. How much is that worth to you?

California had a major prison realignment in 2011. Now, the sheriffs who run county jails say that realignment simply shifted prison populations — and prison politics and prison gangs — into jails. You’ve written, specific to realignment, that “successful downsizing must be liberal but not stupid.” What’s a liberal idea here, and what in your view is a stupid one?

What we’re basically saying by liberal is concern for social justice, not focusing on punishment. An attempt to see that crime is rooted in diverse factors, whether it’s poverty or mental health concerns, rather than saying that crime is just simply a choice, that we need to get tough.

‘Not stupid’ meant that whatever we do in the system should be evidence-based, based on the best science, so the interventions we use should be based on what what criminology has shown works to change people’s behavior.

The question is, when liberals make suggestions about what to do, are they making it based on ideology? Are they making it based on science? Are they looking at the research? Recommending programs that are not rooted in solid science can end up being stupid.

Let’s take bail reform. Now, I’m not against bail reform. There’s some evidence that it works, right? But some bail laws don’t pay enough attention to the risk that people pose. You’ve had problems in San Francisco, where they recalled the prosecutor (former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who had ended his office’s practice of asking for money bail.)

And maybe that was a bad thing to do. But if you implement bail reform that doesn’t have the support of the staff, that is going to end up letting people out who inevitably are going to commit serious crimes. That’s the kind of thing that can delegitimize liberal approaches. Now bail reform is being attacked all over the country.

So that would be an example of, did they do an empirical investigation of what the effect of bail would be? In other words, you can do bill reform scientifically, or you can do it politically.

Is that what you meant when you wrote, “The failure of past reforms aimed at decarceration stand as a sobering reminder that good intentions do not easily translate into good results.”

Yeah, one would probably be when we decided to pretty much empty and close down most mental institutions, the hospitals for the mentally ill.

We dumped a lot of people onto the street, and didn’t have services for them. And so it was a good thing that people weren’t in mental hospitals, right? But we didn’t create a system to care for those people in the community, so a lot of those people ended up on the street, homeless, in the jail system, in the criminal justice system. And we still haven’t completely dealt with that.

It’s one of the sources of homelessness. It’s not the only one, but that would be the biggest example of when we essentially de-institutionalized a whole bunch of people and then didn’t have any programs to deal with that.

The point is, even today, I mean we do have more (post-prison) reentry programs, but a lot of people we let out of prison, they have mental problems, they don’t have medicine, they don’t have a place to live, they don’t have a job. And it makes no sense to do that.

It seems, in California, that there’s an attitude that nothing works, and nothing will work, to reduce the prison population and improve rehabilitative outcomes. You’ve written about that sentiment in corrections, which you describe as a period of pessimism. Is there a feeling of helplessness when you study this issue?

(Cullen sighs.)

Corrections is sort of like trying to fight cancer. You gotta chip away at it, look for the small benefits. But over 20 years, it can make a difference.

It’s almost like no one whose responsibility it is to change what’s happening is doing anything about it. If no one takes responsibility, then it won’t change. There needs to be almost a social movement, a demand that we do prisons better. Any other business that was run like the prisons would be out of business. They’d be bankrupt.

We do not hold the wardens responsible for the recidivism rates of the people in their prisons. Think about this, okay: If you look at people who are released from prison, which would include both the people who are in for the first time and people in for the second, third, fourth time, you get 50 percent to 60 percent recidivism rates.

If you’re spending that much money and you’re having a failure rate of 60 percent, what does that cost us? Not just the money, but people injured and dying or property damaged? I mean, that degree of failure shouldn’t be acceptable. Think about a hospital where 60 percent of the people die or get worse.

What’s disappointing is that something as small as a Norway experiment can’t even be funded. It’s just gonna lead to a lot of misery inside institutions and a lot of high recidivism rates.

It’s like, you’re California! You should want a return to greatness. You should be the best in the world.

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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.