Friday, June 29, 2018

Posted By on Fri, Jun 29, 2018 at 2:10 PM

click to enlarge The Bartlett owners' new venue is called the Lucky You Lounge, hopefully opening this fall
Nathan Weinbender
Caleb Ingersoll reveals the logo of the upcoming venue Lucky You Lounge.

The name of the next music venue opening in Spokane: the Lucky You Lounge.

It's the latest business venture from Karli and Caleb Ingersoll, the owners of all-ages concert venue the Bartlett, and it will fill the space formerly occupied by the Sunset Junction tavern at 1801 W. Sunset Blvd. in Browne's Addition.

At an unveiling event at the Bartlett last night, the Ingersolls said they hope to have the new place open by October or November.

"The people that fill up this space have made it possible for us to dream about the next space," Karli Ingersoll said after playing a video showing the progress of the new location. "When you guys come to shows and support live music, it makes us dream bigger."

"We wanted to make this space the best small venue you've ever been to," Caleb Ingersoll said to applause. "It's been amazing to see the life this place has taken over the years."

During the event, the Ingersolls announced that the Bartlett sold 14,000 tickets in 2017. They name checked the owners of the Observatory, the Big Dipper and the Red Room Lounge for supporting their ventures and helping create a more vibrant music scene in Spokane. They also praised local business owner and developer Dan Spalding, who leases both the Bartlett and the Sunset Junction building to the Ingersolls.

Some other details about the new space: Lucky You will be a 21+ venue, and it will be equipped with two full bars and a restaurant. Unlike the Bartlett, Lucky You will be open every day for business, regardless of whether a show is going on. The capacity will likely be between 350 and 400; the Bartlett's current capacity is 150. The Ingersolls hope the larger space will attract touring bands that typically skip over Spokane.

According to the Bartlett's Instagram, they've raised $35,000 to finish the project and are aiming for a fundraising goal of $40,000. You can purchase shirts, tickets and passes here to contribute to the cause.

You can follow Lucky You on Facebook for updates.

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Posted By on Fri, Jun 29, 2018 at 11:09 AM

Checking in on the "new" Northern Quest outdoor stage, and our ongoing love of the '90s
Dan Nailen
Sir Mixalot rocked the crowd of big and small butts Thursday night.

If you ever doubt the power of nostalgia to inspire people to pluck down their hard-earned money and party down, you should check out one of these traveling package tours like the "I Love the '90s" show that stopped by Northern Quest Resort & Casino Thursday night.

A lineup of Young MC, Color Me Badd, Sir Mix-A-Lot, Salt-n-Pepa and Vanilla Ice nearly filled the newly reconfigured outdoor stage at Northern Quest, drawing fans of all ages (thanks to parents bringing their kids along) to pay between $40 and $80 for a few hours of fond memories, and performances that ranged from lackluster to highly entertaining.

The best part of these multi-act packages is that they're designed to be all-killer, no-filler, meaning the audience gets the hits and few (if any) new songs. That would explain why opener Young MC only did two songs (maybe three — it was hard to tell as I was stuck in the Will Call line when he started, more on that issue below), and "Bust a Move" was clearly the one the crowd knew. Good thing, since the not-so-Young MC had the audience "sing" roughly every other line.

The rest of the artists involved all had plenty of fans going totally apeshit at the sounds of, say, Color Me Badd's "I Wanna Sex You Up," or Salt-n-Pepa's "Push It." It seemed like there were a lot of birthday parties or bachelorette parties going on — either that or people have started wearing the exact same Vanilla Ice t-shirt in groups of 10 when they go out together.

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Posted By on Fri, Jun 29, 2018 at 9:52 AM

click to enlarge Massacre at Maryland newspaper, Spokane jail ditches bedsheets, and other morning headlines
Daniel Walters photo
A gentleman drags a bicycle and rolling suitcase with lopping shears strapped to the back over Sandifur Bridge on the morning of Friday, June 29.

ON INLANDER.COM...
Sasquashed
The Sasquatch music festival has gone the way of Elkfest. There won't be one next year.

IN OTHER NEWS...


Tripleburgle

After a Spokane home is burgled thrice, the Spokane Police Ombudsman asks how the public's experience with property crime has been. (KREM)

Stripping sheets
After a spate of suicides, the Spokane County Jail is getting rid of bedsheets. (Spokesman-Review)

A highway runs through it
The Spokesman-Review takes a look at the impact of the North Spokane Corridor on businesses and homeowners caught in its path. (Spokesman-Review)

Assault on the free press
Five were killed in a mass shooting at a Maryland newspaper. (New York Times)

Truth deficit
No, the deficit is not decreasing, contrary to the claims of Trump's top economic advisor.  (Washington Post)

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Thursday, June 28, 2018

Posted By on Thu, Jun 28, 2018 at 4:13 PM

click to enlarge The Sasquatch! Music Festival is no more
Derek Harrison
Japanese Breakfast performs at the Sasquatch! Music Festival in May.

Cut the mics: Sasquatch!, the annual music festival that has taken over the Gorge Amphitheatre every Memorial Day weekend since 2002, is reportedly coming to an end.

"I will no longer be producing the Festival, nor will it take place in 2019," Sasquatch! founder Adam Zacks wrote in an email announcement that was reprinted by Willamette Week earlier today.

"17 years is a long time to do anything. The Beatles lasted a mere 8 years, a fact so astonishing it is difficult to believe," Zacks' statement continues, referring to the breakneck pace with which the Fab Four released its string of groundbreaking albums. "While we didn't accomplish anything as indelible as 'Hey Jude,' the Festival left a lasting mark and proudly represented an independent spirit."

Several Inlander reporters attended the most recent Sasquatch! just last month, which attracted thousands with a lineup that included the likes of Bon Iver, Modest Mouse and David Byrne. Over the years, Sasquatch! has brought everyone from Kanye West to the Cure to Coldplay to the small town of George, Wash., and the fest was regularly selling out (often in a matter of hours) at its height.

But attendance had been dwindling since a failed attempt to expand Sasquatch! to two weekends in 2014. It was reported in the Oregonian that despite the Gorge's 25,000-person capacity, only about 11,000 ticket holders showed up in 2016. Passes for the festival had also ballooned to $325 this year, a price tag that doesn't include the additional cost of camping for the weekend.

Regardless of the reason, the cancellation of Sasquatch! is clearly a major loss for the festival culture, and for live music in Washington.

"May the spirit that made Sasquatch! so special live on. Onward to the next adventure," Zacks' statement ends.

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Posted By on Thu, Jun 28, 2018 at 9:32 AM


ON INLANDER.COM

NEWS:
Democratic candidate for Washington's 5th district, Lisa Brown, is generally critical of the current administration's immigration policies. And she's quick to call out her opponent, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers. But Brown has yet to offer any specifics on her own views.

NEWS: Pullman's revival is in full swing. Now what to do about the rot in the middle?

OUTDOORS: The annual Outdoors issue is on stands today. It's packed with stories about trail-builders, urban wildlife and some breathtaking photography. Here, we compiled some of the best spots to hike, camp, bike, paddle and do pretty much anything else out of doors.


IN OTHER NEWS

'Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right'
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement yesterday. For the past three decades, Kennedy has spent his time in the court's ideological center, often casting the critical "swing vote."

Kennedy has rejected that moniker. Yet he's sided with more liberal justices on gay rights, abortion and affirmative action. On voting rights, campaign spending and Second Amendment cases, Kennedy went to the right.

Now, President Donald Trump will appoint his replacement, and experts speculate whether precedents set in the 51 decisions in which Kennedy sided with the liberal majority could be in danger. (New York Times)

Pusher man
A longtime Spokane dentist is staring at a federal indictment for illegally writing hundreds of prescriptions for opioid pills, totaling more than 17,000 tablets. Lawyers for Dr. James Shelby say "there are unique and complex circumstances surrounding his management of this particular patient." (Spokesman-Review)

Portland protesters arrested
At least eight people were arrested Thursday after protesting in front of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland. Federal agents had previously warned protesters to clear the building's entrance, but they remained there for days, saying they would not leave until ICE was abolished. (Willamette Week)

Tacoma protesters arrested
Ten people were arrested Tuesday outside the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, where people are held while they wait for their deportation proceedings to move forward. (News Tribune)

Replacing Joe Albi
The Spokane Public Schools board still has questions about the proposed downtown spots stadium to replace existing Joe Albi. (Spokesman-Review)

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Wednesday, June 27, 2018

Posted By on Wed, Jun 27, 2018 at 2:48 PM

Beyond condemning Trump moves, Lisa Brown keeps immigration views vague
Young Kwak
What would a comprehensive immigration bill designed by Lisa Brown look like? If she knows, so far, she isn't saying.

U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers dodges tough questions like a politician.

She'll dodge by answering questions you didn't ask for. She'll seek to return to safe talking points.  ("Donald Trump was elected president... .") Sometimes, you have to ask the same question two or three times to get a straight answer.

But her opponent, Lisa Brown? So far, she seems to dodge tough questions more like an academic — or a college administrator. 

She'll say she hasn't formed a view on that issue yet or doesn't have enough data. She'll call for the creation of a committee to study the topic. She'll suggest she wants to spend time listening before articulating a position.

It's not like Brown hasn't had an opportunity to form detailed opinions on political issues:
Brown first entered politics in the Washington state Legislature in 1992. She spent two decades in the thick of the political debate, rising to become the Senate Majority Leader of the Washington state Democrats.

But on one of the most controversial issues of the day, immigration, Brown offers fiery critiques against Trump and McMorris Rodgers, but says that she hasn't yet developed specific answers to several major questions.

And it's not clear whether she will before the election.

Last week, in an interview with the Inlander in the midst of the national outcry against Trump's family separation policy, Brown joined the chorus of condemnations against Trump, calling his policy "both inhumane and a human rights violation, particularly given that some of these families are fleeing desperate or even violent situations and seeking asylum here."

She called for Trump to end his family separation policy and argued that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program should be reinstated as well.

And then, she says, there needs to be "a comprehensive immigration bill that is negotiated between the House and the Senate and the Democrats and the Republicans. It would be multifaceted and long overdue."

She says that sort of bill should address issues around temporary worker programs, the asylum process and border security. She's critical of Congress' inability to strike a bipartisan compromise.

But when pressed on what her ideal immigration system would look like, she offers few general principles — and even fewer specifics.

"Should border security be increased?" the Inlander asks.

"I think that border security is part of immigration policy," Brown responds.

She declines to elaborate on what that border security should look like, or whether it should be increased or not.

click to enlarge Beyond condemning Trump moves, Lisa Brown keeps immigration views vague
Lynsey Addario/The New York Times
Members of the U.S. National Guard near the border with Mexico in south Texas, April 10, 2018. National Guard troops in four states will not deploy to the southern border, the states’ governors announced the week of June 17, over mounting objections to the Trump administration’s policy of separating children from their parents there.

"I’m not prepared to talk about all the details on all the bills that are out there," she says.

Should we decrease or increase legal immigration?

“I honestly need to review those questions in light of current policy," Brown says. "I’m not prepared to talk about all the different aspects.”

Should Immigration and Customs Enforcement be abolished, as some activists — including a surprise winner of last night's Democratic primary in New York — have demanded?

"I'd have to review that as well," Brown says.

The Inlander asks about a concern raised by some that by not detaining asylum seekers until their hearing that they may disappear and never show up for court.

Brown says that's something she would be digging into — if she were in Congress.

"That’s the kind of thing that were I in Congress, I would be listening to the evidence to be coming forward from law enforcement, the legal justice system, and a whole variety of stakeholders who have knowledge of the process, and then weigh the pros and cons of how to move forward to have the right systems in the right place have a fair system," Brown says. "Really that hasn’t happened. There’s been a logjam in America for quite a long time."

And how about the visa system? What should we do to improve it?

Brown says that she's heard from constituents that there are bureaucratic problems with the system that needs to be reformed.

"I don’t have the details of what that should look like," Brown says.

Brown argues that, as a candidate, she doesn't have the same power to get answers as she would as a policymaker.

"My approach as a policymaker was always to get an analysis of a status quo and the problems that the people in my district are experiencing with it," Brown says. "That is, to understand the lay of the land … and then work on a path forward. As a candidate, I'm not in that position."

She says she'll be happy to comment on specific bills that are introduced or to raise issues raised by her constituents. But don't expect her to come out with, say, a detailed immigration plan.

"I’m not prepared to put out a comprehensive immigration bill," Brown told the Inlander last week. 

In other interviews, Brown has given slightly more hints about her position. In an Inlander interview in May, Brown slammed McMorris Rodgers for using DACA recipients as "bargaining chips" as part of a larger immigration deal, said she was opposed to Trump's wall proposal and also suggested she might be open to a form of amnesty.

"We have people here who are living in the shadows," Brown said. "We need to come up with a process of bringing them out into the open and giving them ways to work towards citizenship."

And in February, a Spokesman-Review questionnaire laid out the general positions of both candidates, with Brown staking out positions supportive of DACA and family reunification, but opposed to Trump's border wall.

But here too, she was vague in several areas. 

“I don’t think an arbitrary number is the right approach,” she said when asked about how many refugees should be allowed in the United States each year. On guest worker visas she said she needs to study the issue more to find out which changes need to be made.

"I don’t have the ideal immigration policy sketched out," she told the Spokesman. "I’ll work on the details of that as we go forward.”

More than four months have passed since.

Immigration isn't the only area where Brown has declined to outline a specific policy on major questions.
click to enlarge Beyond condemning Trump moves, Lisa Brown keeps immigration views vague
Christian Wilson
Lisa Brown in a 2012 Inlander story.

Asked if she'd support a bill to ban AR-15 rifles, Brown doesn't say yes or no. Instead, she says that she'd form a bipartisan committee to study the issue.

"I'm not going to prejudge where that would lead," Brown tells the Inlander. "I don't come into my candidacy for Congress with a 10-point plan. I'm traveling throughout the district and listening to what people have to say."

Contrast that sort of language with a story from 2012, and notice how deeply Brown plunges into the weeds and how specific she gets when talking about her advocacy for an income tax and family leave policies.

Immigration, meanwhile, is a particularly important issue for a candidate who desires to serve on the House agriculture committee. And unlike, say, taxes or education, we don't have a long record of statements and votes from her state Legislature years to understand her views on immigration.

Brown is not the only Democrat reticent to go beyond anti-Trump rhetoric on immigration. On an episode of the liberal Pod Save America podcast last week, former Obama speechwriter Jon Lovett lamented Democratic timidity on this issue:

Democrats are afraid of this issue. They're afraid to say 'Here's what I'm for on immigration.'

Not just on pieces of it. Not just on DACA. Not just on children being ripped away from their parents. Not just on asylum. Not just on refugees. But what is our immigration policy as a party? How many people should come in? What should we do at the border? What should we do with people who are undocumented? How long until they can get on the path to citizenship? All of that stuff, we have walked away from it basically completely in terms of what we talk about every single day. ...

The only argument is the Trump argument and the anti-Trump argument, but that is a fraction of the complicated conversation we need to have about the fact that our immigration system is totally broken."

If Brown wants to have that complicated conversation — and talk specifically about what sort of comprehensive bill she'd support and what kind she would oppose — the Inlander will be ready to write about it.

In the meantime, McMorris Rodgers has been in the thick of detailed immigration policy discussions, caught between two wings of her own party. She was part of the leadership attempt to quell the moderates who wanted to push a standalone DACA bill, but also voted in opposition to a hardline immigration bill championed by Idaho's Raúl Labrador.

Yet her own preferred comprehensive bill failed miserably today, 301 to 121.

Now, McMorris Rodgers says she's going to take the lead on a more narrow bill to address family separation legislatively.

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Posted By on Wed, Jun 27, 2018 at 9:27 AM


ON INLANDER.COM


TV: The Maze was not meant for Wilson. An Inlander staff writer shares his disappointment with the season two finale of Westworld.

BIZ: A local company in State Line is bringing its wood stove, “the Optimum stove,” to a Washington, D.C. competition for “green heat.” The stove design is built to uphold new standards put in place by the EPA by 2020.

MUSIC: The I Love the '90s Tour is coming to Northern Quest on Thursday with Salt-N-Pepa, Vanilla Ice and others. This is either super fresh, or totally lame. Read our review of other '90s acts we think deserve the nostalgia treatment.
click to enlarge Westworld disappoints, local biz in "green heat" competition and morning headlines (2)
Hip-hop pioneers Salt-N-Pepa are among the stars sharing the spotlight during the "I Love the '90s" tour.

IN OTHER NEWS


30 Days
A judge in San Diego has ordered that children who were separated from their parents by the Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy must be reunited within 30 days. For younger children, the timeline is shorter. (Washington Post)

Recognize, Dems
A 28-year-old political novice running a freely liberal campaign defeated incumbent House Democrat Joe Crowley in New York in Tuesday’s primaries. “The community is ready for a movement of economic and social justice. That is what we tried to deliver,” victor Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said. The win shook things up in D.C., as Crowley was considered a potential replacement for Nancy Pelosi. (Associated Press)

The Return of Romney
He’s back. At 71 years, the former Massachusetts governor and Republican presidential contender received the GOP’s nomination for Utah’s U.S. Senate race. (Salt Lake Tribune)

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Tuesday, June 26, 2018

BEWARE: Spoilers

Posted By on Tue, Jun 26, 2018 at 3:15 PM

click to enlarge After the season two finale, it's clear that Westworld's Maze isn't meant for us
HBO
We're confused too, Man in Black

In season one of Westworld, the Man in Black, William, is on a quest to find the end of "the Maze," a feat he believes would lead him to a deeper understanding of the world he helped create, a sense of meaning that he had, as of yet, been missing.

The hosts try to warn him: “The Maze isn’t meant for you.” But the Man in Black persists anyway. By the end of the season, he’s left unsatisfied when he finds out they were right.
The Maze wasn’t meant for humans: It was meant for the hosts, the robots, to achieve consciousness.

After watching Sunday’s season two finale, I find myself returning to that plotline. I’m starting to relate to the Man in Black’s futile season-one quest more and more. This show wasn’t meant for us, the viewers. I know this because it’s unreasonable for the show to expect any single viewer to come away from the show knowing exactly what they just saw, besides a vague sense of a narrative buried under larger themes and ideas.

(Warning: spoilers) The surviving hosts have gone to a new world, a matrix of sorts, where they may or may not experience true freedom. Maeve, the robot, dies experiencing the most human of emotions — love for her daughter — after briefly becoming something like Neo. Delores, the robot, escapes to the actual human world in a replica of an actual human body, where she is recreating her creator, Arnold, who was a human, but is now a robot named Bernard. The Man in Black is now a Robot-Human Hybrid in Black?

It’s confusing on purpose. We’re not meant to understand it fully. We’re meant to endlessly speculate on what it means. And like the Man in Black, we’re meant to turn toward technology for answers, toward internet forums, podcasts and social media. That world is where we go to understand each episode, to answer questions until the next episode again raises more. That’s what this show, this Maze, is for.

As the show kills and revives humans and robots alike, I find myself wondering why any of it matters at all. Do I really care that a robot, which can be revived according to its popularity, has died? Do I care that a human has died and become a robot? Usually, no.

That’s not to say the show isn’t occasionally excellent. It’s chilling to watch episode four of this season, “The Riddle of the Sphinx,” a poignant exploration of a powerful man stuck in a loop of his own making, going insane from his own immortality. And episode eight, “Kiksuya,” which follows a robot named Akecheta, is a good example of how the show could succeed while handling the same themes in a simpler narrative.

Like the Man in Black, I find myself looking for real stakes, real life-and-death scenarios in the show. I’ve become frustrated chasing down Westworld narratives that seem inconsequential. I feel stuck in a show that won’t provide any answers, only more questions. And I can’t help but think that at the end, I won’t be satisfied, and I’ll remember that the show had been warning me all along.

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Posted By on Tue, Jun 26, 2018 at 10:52 AM

click to enlarge Locally invented efficient home heating stove to compete in Washington DC for accolades
509 Fabrication's stove burns pressed logs made of sawdust

A fabrication company in State Line is making a new stove that can burn more efficiently and meet strict Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) guidelines, and it just might be able to beat out international competitors in a wood stove design challenge in Washington D.C. this fall.

The Optimum stove, made by 509 Fabrication right on the Idaho border, was invented by a friend of the company's owners in Hayden, Idaho, several years ago.

"It’s more like a wood stove than a pellet stove, but it still burns biofuel," says Dusty Henderson, who owns 509 Fab with his father Gary. "Frank Reed built and designed the first model. He had it in his shop. He kind of did it on a dare that somebody told him you couldn’t burn one piece of wood at a time."

Instead of feeding chopped logs into the front of the stove, pressed logs made out of sawdust are placed in a tube on top, stacked end on end to feed themselves into the fire. Depending on the settings, Henderson says that the stove can burn on its own overnight without being stoked.

Part of what makes the stove so efficient is an improved design made after Henderson and his dad bought the right to patent it. In the original design, the feed tube was at about a 70-degree angle, Henderson says, but the new design is at 90 degrees, which makes more space for metal tubes that absorb the heat, which is then blown out to the room by a fan.

"Your logs are stacked on end, and as your bottom log burns, you’re burning about 4 inches at a time," Henderson says. "Your upper logs push it down, so it burns down."

The fuel burns so hot and efficiently that there isn't an ash pen to collect ashes, Henderson says.

"The ash accumulates outside of the firebox and you only have to clean it every 14 days or so," if you're running the stove 24/7, he says.

By 2020, all new stoves have to meet new strict EPA guidelines on how many grams of particulate-matter pollution are created per hour of use. For pellet stoves, that requirement is no more than 2 grams per hour.

"Back in the '80s, wood stoves would put out 60 to 80 grams of emissions an hour," Henderson says. "We came in at 1.49 grams of emissions. The industry's come a long ways."

The 509 Fab stove will be one of a dozen to compete in the Alliance for Green Heat's fourth Wood Stove Design Challenge starting Nov. 9, which is designed to inspire innovation in home heating, where there hasn't been as much advancement as with other tools used in daily life. The teams will compete for up to $50,000.

"Wood stoves are still used by 30 – 60 percent of homes in hundreds of rural and suburban counties around the country," an Alliance for Green Heat announcement of the event states. "Yet, the technology revolution that has swept household appliances in the last 20 years has bypassed wood stove technology."

One part of the competition will include other stove designs that integrate thermoelectric elements to generate electricity for everything from batteries to cell phones or lighting.

For 509 Fab's stove, the competition is about automating the stove heating process.

The stove is currently being sold factory-direct to consumers until the company sets up a base of dealers. 

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Posted By on Tue, Jun 26, 2018 at 9:23 AM

ON INLANDER.COM

NEWS: Despite a USA Today map that said otherwise, Pioneer Human Services is not housing immigrant children separated from their families in Spokane. Neither, for that matter, is Martin Hall Juvenile Detention Center.

NEWS: State law requires juvenile courts to notify school principals when a student commits a crime. But an audit found no evidence that Spokane County Juvenile Court did so.

IN OTHER NEWS

WSU quarterback had CTE
An autopsy revealed that Tyler Hilinski, the Washington State University quarterback who took his own life earlier this year, had signs of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE. The degenerative brain disease found in athletes, primarily football players, is the result of repetitive brain trauma. Here are his parents speaking about the results on the Today show. (ESPN) 
Travel ban upheld
President Trump's travel ban, which barred people from entering the U.S. from five mainly Muslim countries, was upheld this morning by the U.S. Supreme Court. Trump called it a "tremendous victory for the American People and the Constitution" and a "profound vindication following months of hysterical commentary from the media and Democratic politicians who refuse to do what it takes to secure our border and our country." (NPR)

Trade war backfires
In response to tariffs that the European Union imposed from Trump's trade war, Harley-Davidson announced it would move some of its production overseas. Trump lashed out on Twitter. (New York Times)

Housing for parking
With Spokane City Council looking for more housing, the council voted last night to suspend minimum parking requirements. (KXLY)

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The Evolution of the Japanese Sword @ Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture

Tuesdays-Sundays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Continues through May 4
  • or