The Lumberjack



Students Serving The Cal Poly Humboldt Campus and Community Since 1929

Author: Sophia Escudero

  • What It’s Like Living On Campus After the Exodus

    What It’s Like Living On Campus After the Exodus

    Despite Humboldt State University going digital, campus housing remains open

    Humboldt State University President Tom Jackson announced via email March 18 that the school would be going entirely online, and he encouraged students to vacate campus housing if possible.

    “It is important we reduce the number of people on campus,” the email read. “We encourage students who can return to a home off-campus to do so. We will not displace students who are facing housing insecurities or homelessness.”

    “They should have just made the choice before people left for spring break to keep it as safe as possible.”

    Calista Tutkowski

    Freshman Calista Tutkowski was among those who decided to move back home after learning that classes would transition online. Tutkowski considered her choice the right one for her own physical and mental wellbeing.

    “It felt like things were just going to get worse and worse on campus and around the world, so if I was going to be doing online classes, I wanted to be home with my family,” Tutkowski said.

    Tutkowski was frustrated with the sudden notice from the school. By the time the school sent out the notice that they were going online and encouraging students to leave the dorms, she had already gone home for spring break and was out of state. Like many other students, she had to return to campus to pick up her things, potentially putting herself and others at risk by traveling.

    “They should have just made the choice before people left for spring break to keep it as safe as possible,” Tutkowski said.

    Some students are still on campus. Emma Bradley-Solis is one of those who elected to remain in campus housing despite virus concerns.

    “I live in Washington and it is a lot worse there,” Bradley-Solis said. “I thought it would be smarter for me to self-quarantine here.”

    According to an April 7 Enrollment Management report, about 300 students remain on campus. Most of the campus facilities are closed, including the library, computer labs and University Center.

    With the severely reduced numbers of students left behind, pickings are slim. There isn’t much variety left in the food selection, and many staples such as rice, pasta and fresh fruit are out when Bradley-Solis goes to the marketplace. For students who rely on J-points to eat, this is both a serious problem and a waste of the money spent on their meal plans.

    “I feel like they could take care of the students still here better—like better food,” Bradley-Solis said. “We paid a lot of money for J-points.”

  • Mike Bloomberg is Democratic Trump

    Mike Bloomberg is Democratic Trump

    Mike Bloomberg is just another billionaire with outdated views looking for attention

    We’ve all seen the campaign ads. “Mike will get it done,” they profess. What exactly has he done? He’s had 64 sexual harassment cases brought against him. He’s expanded the infamously racist stop-and-frisk policy in New York. He’s spied on the Muslim community. And he has bought his way into the primary.

    Not to bring everything back to another bigoted New York billionaire who got bored with having too much money and went into politics, but Mike Bloomberg certainly does remind me of someone.

    Were it not for the mark on the ballot calling him a Democrat, people would assume based on his fiscal policy and social track record that he was at least a centrist-Independent, if not a conservative-Republican.

    Despite being a registered Republican from the beginning of his political career up until 2007, and an Independent until 2018, he chose to run as a Democrat. Presumably, to gain the support of both Republicans and party-line Democrats.

    He’s an authoritarian, plain and simple. Party isn’t the real issue here. He cares about power.

    Bloomberg has a long history of bigotry. While his predecessor, Rudy Giuliani, first implemented stop-and-frisk, it was under his watch that the program grew to the widespread excuse for police brutality and racial profiling.

    When it was brought up by critics that New York police officers were disproportionately targeting black and brown communities, he gave the rationale that, “That’s where all the crime was.” In addition, he justified having undercover officers stalk Muslim New Yorkers as preventative measures against another 9/11.

    “We had just lost 3,000 people at 9/11,” Bloomberg said in an interview with PBS Feb. 27. “Of course we’re supposed to do that.”

    If anything, Bloomberg is a more dangerous version of Trump. He’s smart. He knows that putting up a polished front and playing up the establishment card will make him look like the opposite of the current president.

    Aside from his dubious past, Bloomberg’s current policy proposals are anything but progressive. While his website claims that Bloomberg will defend equal rights for LGBTQ+ Americans, he has stated as recently as 2019 that he considers transgender individuals as just “some guy in a dress,” or “he, she, or it.”

    On his website, aside from a reference to overturning the military ban, he has nothing to say on transgender rights. By considering equal rights for the transgender community to be reaching too far, he betrays the entire LGBTQ+ community.

    Being progressive is about supporting the oppressed and the marginalized. No ally insults the people they claim to stand with behind their backs and considers the value of their identities negotiable.

    According to his website, his plan for climate change is to “restore America’s leadership in fighting the global climate crisis, propel the United States toward a 100% clean energy future, make environmental justice a national priority.” These promises are all incredibly vague, and his campaign has been silent on the specifics of how they’d achieve any those goals.

    General promises of somehow solving climate change aren’t going to help us. If we want this planet to be livable for ourselves, our children and our grandchildren, we need to take serious and quantifiable steps to ensure it. The science says we need ambitious action. All he offers are glossy advertisements.

    If anything, Bloomberg is a more dangerous version of Trump. He’s smart. He knows that putting up a polished front and playing up the establishment card will make him look like the opposite of the current president.

    I’m not afraid that he couldn’t defeat Trump in an election. If Bloomberg wins the Democratic primary, the general election won’t matter. It’s a self-serving billionaire in office either way.

  • Deadly Fire at Arcata Apartments

    Deadly Fire at Arcata Apartments

    Fire leaves one dead and one hospitalized

    A fire at an Arcata apartment complex on Sunday, Feb. 2, left one resident hospitalized and another dead.

    Eyewitness Jalen Zerkel-Loomis was woken up by the fire and recounted what he saw.

    “You could see, like, directly into the inside of the building,” Zerkel-Loomis said. “It was like in The Sims where you can just remove one of the walls and perfectly see everything going on inside. The second story didn’t so much collapse into the first—it was like the floor inside the frame fell out under it.”

    “It was a pretty crazy sight.”

    Jalen Zerkel-Loomis

    The Arcata Fire District responded to calls reporting a heavy structure fire and at least one resident that had jumped from a second-story window around 5:30 a.m. Four units of the Meadowbrook Apartment Complex and a nearby car were engulfed in the flames.

    Zerkel-Loomis also noted several nearby gas tanks, which did not catch fire. He also said he heard several loud bangs.

    “It was a pretty crazy sight,” Zerkel-Loomis said.

    AFD said police provided aid to the injured resident until paramedics arrived. Firefighters contained the fire and searched the apartments for trapped residents. After the fire was extinguished, the remains of one resident were found on the first floor. The identity of the victim has not been released.

    The cause of the fire remains under investigation. Arcata Police Chief Brian Ahearn has not yet named any suspicions.