Inlander 06/29/2023

A RELUCTANT ABROAD

A RELUCTANT ABROAD

HOW ONE MAN’S JOURNEYS TO BELIZE AND HAWAI’I SHOWED HIM THE TRUE NATURE OF TRAVEL

BY PAUL LINDHOLDT

PAGE 16

| COVER DESIGN: DERRICK KING

EDITOR’S NOTE

Itry to lead a good life. I commute by bike as much as I can. I eat locally grown and produced food when possible. I avoid plastic. I also like to travel, and do so when fortune and work allow.

But it gets complicated, as is beautifully explored in this week’s cover section — A RELUCTANT AMERICAN ABROAD

I

Cane toads harboring neurotoxins beneath their flesh. Retirees as settler-colonists. Ships disgorging tourists as moray eels snake through forests of pastel coral. A spider, 4 inches wide, that only tolerates the wayfarers sharing its cabina. Local author and educator Paul Lindholdt describes his travels to Belize and Hawai’i as a “dyed-in-the-wool enviro” who is too often seized by the “imp of liberal guilt.”

How does someone who tries to lead a “green” life convince themselves that international travel is acceptable? How can they square their great fortune of being able to travel with the history of exploitation that taints the world?

Read Paul’s essays to find out. And while you’re at it, buy his book Interrogating Travel, which came out just this month. It’s available at your favorite local bookstore.

— NICHOLAS DESHAIS, editor

THE RETURN OF INDY PAGE 28

SPOKANE

• EASTERN WASHINGTON

• NORTH IDAHO

1227 WEST SUMMIT PARKWAY, SPOKANE, WA 99201 PHONE: 509-325-0634 | EMAIL: INFO@INLANDER.COM

GET

PAGE 34

• INLANDER.COM

THE INLANDER is a locally owned, independent newspaper founded on Oct. 20, 1993. Please recycle THE INLANDER after you’re done with it. One copy free per person per week; extra copies are $1 each (call x226). For ADVERTISING information, email advertising@inlander.com. To have a SUBSCRIPTION mailed to you, call x210 ($78 per year). To find one of our more than 1,000 NEWSRACKS where you can pick up a paper free every Thursday, call x226 or email frankd@ inlander.com. THE INLANDER is a member of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia and is published at least twice per month. All contents of this newspaper are protected by United States copyright law. © 2023, Inland Publications, Inc.

SPOKANE VALLEY IS SINKING PAGE

JULY 6

COMMENT

STAFF DIRECTORY

PHONE: 509-325-0634

Ted S. McGregor Jr. (tedm@inlander.com)

PUBLISHER

Jer McGregor (x224)

GENERAL MANAGER

EDITORIAL

Nicholas Deshais (x239) EDITOR

Chey Scott (x225)

ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR

Derek Harrison (x248)

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Seth Sommerfeld (x250)

MUSIC & SCREEN EDITOR

Samantha Wohlfeil (x234)

BREAKING NEWS EDITOR

Madison Pearson (x218)

LISTINGS EDITOR

Eliza Billingham (x222), Nate Sanford (x282), Summer Sandstrom (x232)

STAFF WRITERS

Chris Frisella COPY CHIEF

Young Kwak, Erick Doxey

PHOTOGRAPHERS

Sylvia Davidow, Ben Vandehey INTERNS

Elissa Ball, Nicholas K. Geranios, Chase Hutchinson, Paul Lindholdt, Will Maupin, Mary Lou Reed, Carrie Scozzaro

CONTRIBUTORS

ADVERTISING

Kristi Gotzian (x215)

ADVERTISING DIRECTOR

Carolyn Padgham (x214), Autumn Potts (x251)

SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES

Stephanie Grinols (x216) Tracy Menasco (x260), Claire Price (x217), Skip Mitchell (x247)

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES

Tamara McGregor (x233)

COMMUNICATION & EVENTS DIRECTOR

Kristina Smith (x223)

EVENT & SPECIAL PROJECTS MANAGER

Colleen Bell-Craig (x212), Raja Bejjani (x242)

ADVERTISING ASSISTANTS

PRODUCTION

Tom Stover (x265)

PRODUCTION MANAGER

Ali Blackwood (x228)

CREATIVE LEAD &

MARKETING MANAGER

Derrick King (x238)

SENIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Leslie Douglas (x231)

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

OPERATIONS

Dee Ann Cook (x211)

BUSINESS MANAGER

Kristin Wagner (x210)

ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE

CIRCULATION

Frank DeCaro (x226)

CIRCULATION MANAGER

Travis Beck (x237)

CIRCULATION SUPERVISOR

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE, WHERE WOULD YOU GO AND WHY?

JOE SCHIESSL

Germany, because I have some family roots there, and my spouse’s mother has sisters there, and it’d be cool to see them.

Do you have any concerns on the impact of air travel on our planet?

Yeah, I do believe that we should all be conscious of our impact and look for ways to offset that through our everyday life.

KIMBERLY STARR

Honestly, I really want to see the East Coast. I think there is so much history that I don’t know about because I haven’t seen it.

What interests you about the culture there? I lived in Maryland till sixth grade, then we moved out West here. But just knowing that there’s buildings that are hundreds of years old and that our history started there.

MADISON BEAN

Scotland. I have family from there and just something about this gorgeous little culture of people who extend back thousands of years.

Would you be willing to pay more for airfare to offset the carbon footprint?

Yes. I think that if we are going to make travel a continuing sustainable part of life… If you are able to afford to, I do think it’s important.

KAREN ORIZ

Immediately, Mexico. I would love to visit my family and all the land that we have down there. And especially since they’re in Colima, so they’re very close to the beach, and water’s my thing.

What interests you about the culture there? Seeing as I didn’t really grow up in authentic Mexican culture, I grew up here in America… I want to just experience it firsthand.

GABRIELLE ROUSE

I think Amsterdam? ’Cause it seems like such a beautiful place. I would love to be able to just travel around on bikes. It’s consistently the happiest place in the world.

Do you have any concerns on the impacts of air travel on our planet? I do. I also think that it’s important to still connect with other cultures and other people.

GIVE GUIDE

GET YOUR NON-PROFIT NOTICED!

Roll On, Idaho

It’s worth remembering that not too long ago, a bipartisan delegation from Idaho pushed through the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act

BY MARY LOU REED

PUBLISHER’S NOTE: When Scott and Mary Lou Reed took a tour of the Pacific Northwest, looking for the prettiest place to put down roots, Coeur d’Alene and its stunning lake were the end of the line. That was 1955, and while a lot has changed since then, the beauty endures. Now 92, Mary Lou wrote a column for the Inlander from 2011-18, drawing on her community service and 12 years as a state senator (a Democrat — yes, Coeur d’Alene sent Dems to Boise in the 1980s and ’90s). Together with Scott, who died in 2015, they helped bring people together to preserve and protect public lands, including Tubbs Hill. We loved presenting Mary Lou’s gentle reminders that, even in these heated times, we have more in common than cable news will ever admit. Here, on April 26, 2018, she offered a look back on what Idaho accomplished by working together.

Within its rugged borders, Idaho contains a glorious collection of wild waters. Here in the Panhandle, we have mountains that catch and hold the snow, which melts and becomes gushing rivers every spring. The torrents rush down the map to the Columbia River where the waters roll on to the great Pacific Ocean.

The Idaho Legislature, in its just-concluded session, unanimously passed a resolution celebrating the 50th anniversary of the passage of the national Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, which both honors and protects the designated rivers, chosen because of their natural beauty and relatively natural state.

Idaho is the appropriate state to acknowledge this anniversary. In 1968, a bipartisan group of Idaho’s national legislators participated in the effort to identify and protect these special waters.

Democratic Sen. Frank Church, who at that point had represented Idaho in the U.S. Senate for half of his eventual 24 years, was the principal author, sponsor and floor manager of the wild and scenic rivers legislation.

Republican representatives at the time, James McClure and George Hansen, carried the measure in the U.S. House of Representatives. The two were also acknowledged in this year’s resolution, co-sponsored in the Idaho Senate by Democratic leader Sen. Michelle Stennett and Republican Sen. Dan Johnston.

In these politically divided days, it is refreshing to honor and repeat such bipartisanship in action. I compliment the Idaho legislators for pausing to appreciate this historic act. Their action also reflects how Idahoans feel about water. Here in the Panhandle, we appreciate our abundance of water in which we play and on which we boat. In Southern Idaho where the potatoes grow, water is for nourishing the crops — work not play. Both are essential.

My husband, Scott, and I discovered Idaho at the same time Frank Church was first running for his U.S. Senate seat. When we first observed Frank Church, he was in a primary battle with Glen Taylor, who had won the moniker “Singing Cowboy” during his four years in the Senate (1944-48).

At a Democratic rally in Coeur d’Alene City Park in the summer of 1956, Scott and I listened to Glen Taylor croon some cowboy tunes and then ask the audience to vote for him so he could

Scott and Mary Lou Reed fell in love at first sight with Coeur d’Alene Lake — and they left a big legacy on the city.

afford to send his son to medical school. Needless to say, we lined up behind Frank Church. Church defeated Taylor by a scant 170 votes and went on to defeat the incumbent, Republican Sen. Herman Welker, in the general election.

As senator, Frank Church didn’t start out as a conservationist. In 1957 he strongly supported the concept of building a 700-foothigh dam in Hells Canyon. Church reversed his position early in his Senate days and soon was an acknowledged conservationist, a leader in the “save the Earth” mood of the ’60s and ’70s.

The Wilderness Act percolated for nine years before it passed Congress in 1964, carried in the Senate by Frank Church. By then, the wilderness had become a national cause, and the House of Representatives passed the bill with only one dissenting vote.

The Wild and Scenic River bill followed, partly in recognition that dam building had become a threat to free-flowing water everywhere, but especially in the mountainous West. So rivers designated wild and scenic were protected from the sprawl of dams.

Woody Guthrie wrote the song “Roll on Columbia” in 1941, just before the Grand Coulee Dam was dedicated. It glorified the power that “turned darkness to dawn.” World War II did require that power to build warships and airplanes.

Life is cyclical. The dam-building years of the 1900s have been followed by a new engineering challenge. Deconstruction of dams is now a realistic part of the riverscape. Solar and wind power have become attractive alternative sources of energy to turn darkness to dawn. Concern for endangered salmon and the health of the river waters are serious considerations.

But that’s an argument for another time. It’s important now to appreciate the wisdom of the decision 50 years ago to save freeflowing rivers in their natural state.

Sen. Church cast the blame for losing his election in 1980 on his environmental positions. But his widow, Bethine, never swayed from her advocacy of wilderness protection. She was always a partner in Frank’s political career. Their son, Forrest Church, in his biography of his dad, Father and Son, related the story of how a cowboy protested the River of No Return Wilderness by riding his horse through the door of the hearing room and out the door. After the rider disappeared, a reporter asked Bethine what she thought of the display. Her answer was, “I thought that was a right handsome horse.”

Frank and Bethine were the stuff of Idaho greatness, never to be forgotten. Let the wild waters flow. n

ELECTION 2023

The President’s Chair

The race for Spokane City Council president hinges on competing visions of accountability and compassion

The two main candidates running for Spokane City Council president are relative newcomers to electoral politics — but they aren’t new to Spokane. They both grew up in the city and have decades of experience as local business owners. They tout connections with community groups across the city and say they’re committed to Spokane.

They also agree that Spokane has an increasing number of vulnerable people who are suffering on the streets. It’s one of the most pressing issues facing Spokane, they say, and the city should help them.

But how?

Kim Plese, a former business owner, thinks that the city is spending too much money on homelessness, and that people need more “accountability” and a “hand up not a handout.”

Betsy Wilkerson, who currently represents the city’s

BY NATE SANFORD

southern District 2 on the council, sees it differently.

“When you invest in people, it’s not inexpensive, and it’s a long game,” Wilkerson says. “As with others, they deserve a second chance, and a third chance, however many it takes.”

Plese first got involved with politics last year, after three decades owning and running Plese Printing and Marketing. She sold the business in 2022 and ran for an open seat on the Spokane County Board of Commissioners. She ran as a Republican and lost by 10 percent to Chris Jordan, a Democrat.

It was a tough loss, but Plese says she wasn’t ready to give up.

“I just said, ‘I’m not gonna lose it emotionally,’” Plese says. “So I dusted myself off.”

When Plese announced her candidacy for council president in February, she thought she would be running

against Breean Beggs, the incumbent president. But in early March, Beggs said he wouldn’t be seeking reelection, and he enthusiastically endorsed Wilkerson to take his place. (Beggs has since been appointed as a Superior Court judge by Gov. Jay Inslee.)

Wilkerson was appointed to her council seat in 2020 to fill a vacancy left after Beggs was elected president. She won reelection in 2021 after her opponent, Tyler LeMasters, was disqualified for not meeting residency requirements.

Wilkerson says Beggs’ suggestion that she take his place as president came as a surprise. She had to think it over.

“It wasn’t on my bucket list,” Wilkerson says. “In leadership over the years, I’ve learned sometimes you just have to step up and do the work if there’s nobody else to do it.”

...continued on page 10

Spokane City Council will have its first female president if either Kim Plese (left) or Betsy Wilkerson wins. YOUNG KWAK PHOTOS

Join Our Team.

“THE PRESIDENT’S CHAIR,” CONTINUED...

Hours before the May filing deadline, a surprise third candidate entered the race, mostly on a whim.

Andy Rathbun is a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel who ran an unsuccessful campaign for Spokane City Council in 2019. He is a critic of progressive council members like Wilkerson and Beggs.

Rathbun says he doesn’t expect to make it past the August 1 primary election and plans to support Plese. He decided to run a few hours before the filing deadline and hasn’t raised any money.

He says he’s running because he wants to hold Wilkerson accountable and “get the word out” about how current council members have been running the city. He thinks they’re driving businesses away by letting homelessness and crime run unchecked. He compares them to the pilots on the Titanic steering Spokane toward an iceberg.

“We’re gonna die,” Rathbun says. “Our city will die with no strong businesses.”

lese isn’t quite as apocalyptic as Rathbun, but she shares many of his frustrations about the state of public safety and homelessness. She also pins the blame on the council’s five-person progressive majority, which she at one point refers to as the “Fraudulent Five.” (Rathburn prefers the phrase “Great Gang of Five.”)

If elected, Plese would represent a significant conservative shift in city governance.

Doorbelling last week in the Five Mile Prairie neighborhood on the northern edge of city limits, Plese met several voters who asked which side of the aisle she’s on. She told them she’s a nonpartisan business person, but also stressed her commitment to things like small government and lower taxes.

“There’s too much oversight and government telling you what to do,” she told one voter, who nodded approvingly. “It doesn’t say ‘We the government,’ it says ‘We the people.’”

Plese accuses the council of listening to “radical groups” instead of taxpayers. Sowing division. Twisting the narrative to make business owners, landlords and police officers look like the bad guys. Catering to homeless people and giving them free rein in downtown Spokane.

Worst of all, she thinks they aren’t listening to people.

“They’re gonna vote on putting fluoride in our water, in our aquifer,” Plese tells a voter. “Do you know how scary that is?”

Most of her criticism is directed at Beggs, not Wilkerson. She describes him as a “radical,” and points to a recent Inlander article that quoted Beggs describing himself as a “change agent” and saying we need “people protesting and marching in the streets” and “lawyers filing lawsuits.”

Plese sees that type of language as polarizing and promises that she’ll be a unifying force if elected.

“I just want to bring our community together so that we don’t turn into Seattle,” Plese says.

Wilkerson knows people are frustrated with the city’s response to Spokane’s problems with homelessness and public safety, but she pushes

back on the bleak characterizations of downtown. The problem was always here, she says, it was just more hidden.

People started moving to Spokane because the economy was doing well, but there wasn’t enough housing, Wilkerson says. Then the pandemic hit and took the lid off a problem that had been bubbling up for years.

“So if you want to be mad, be mad at [previous] councils and other [mayoral] administrations who hadn’t addressed the problem when it was smaller, and maybe could have been dealt with better when it was a little elephant,” Wilkerson says. “Now we got a big elephant, and we just have to do the best we can.”

If either Wilkerson or Plese are elected, Spokane will have its first female council president.

But if Wilkerson is elected, she’ll be Spokane’s first Black council president. She says it’s an honor, and that representation matters, but she’s also wary of being put in a box.

“[People] want to label me as a radical Black woman,” Wilkerson says. “I’m so far from radical I have to start laughing.”

Wilkerson thinks her experience sets her apart from her opponents. The job of council president comes with a lot of moving pieces, and Wilkerson says her time representing District 2, her experience as a business owner, and her work with community groups have helped her learn the ropes.

Beggs agrees. When he announced that he was stepping down, he told supporters that Wilkerson has “lived her whole life getting ready for this role to lead this city.”

Wilkerson has a lot of admiration for Beggs. But she stresses that they aren’t the same person and that she’ll bring her own leadership style if elected.

“He’ll admit he’s not the best communicator, because that’s just his lawyer style,” Wilkerson says. “Breean likes to lead with the law, and I like to lead with input from the people. That will be the difference.”

Wilkerson talks a lot about diversity and supporting communities. Her proudest achievements on the council include helping secure grant funding for communities of color during the pandemic and working with local Indigenous tribes to rename a street that had been named after George Wright, a murderous white general. She says one of her goals as president is to encourage more small business development and attract more young people and diverse groups to the city.

Council presidents are responsible for leading the council meetings. They get to hold the gavel and bang it when things go off track.

“There’s too much oversight and government telling you what to do. It doesn’t say ‘We the government,’ it says ‘We the people.’”

Wilkerson also thinks the council could do a better job maintaining decorum. In recent months, meetings have been interrupted by incidents involving people lobbing insults, shouting at council members and even a (very minor) scuffle between two politically polarized public commenters.

People have said they don’t feel safe, Wilkerson says, and that’s unacceptable to her. As president, she says she’ll be firmer about making sure meetings stay on track and stick to actual city business.

Plese is also unsatisfied with the way meetings are run — but for very different reasons.

“I tell people: ‘Just go online and listen to the meetings. It’s disgusting,’” Plese says. “It’s like, they’re on this pulpit where they think they’re better than us, and they’re smarter than us.”

She thinks council members are too disconnected from the people they represent. As president, she would want to have several meetings per year held in different parts of the city to make them more accessible to the public.

Plese says she would also require that council members spend one day a month in their districts walking around and talking to people so they can “see what’s really going on.”

Wilkerson and Plese are both unhappy with the state of the city’s homeless shelter on East Trent Avenue, a massive warehouse on the city’s outskirts with capacity for about 350 people.

Wilkerson thinks it was a mistake for the city to open such a large shelter in a part of town that’s far from services.

For future city shelters, Wilkerson wants to take a “scattershot” approach — which means smaller units with space for 20 to 30 people spread out in different parts of the city to minimize neighborhood impact.

But since the city is locked into a lease with the Trent shelter and stuck with it, Wilkerson says the city needs to focus on making the industrial warehouse more hospitable and inviting.

Plese, however, thinks the Trent shelter is too accommodating. She owns property in the neighborhood and describes seeing garbage and feces strewn nearby. She thinks the people staying there need more accountability.

“There are working families that don’t get three meals a day,” Plese says. “But yet you can go to the Trent shelter, do drugs and get three meals a day.”

She wants to see some sort of rule that requires people staying at the Trent shelter to agree to do garbage pickup in the neighborhood.

What about the people who don’t agree to those rules and prefer to continue sleeping outside?

“Well, then, go to another community,” Plese says, adding that she supports stricter enforcement of the city’s laws against public drug use and sitting or camping on public sidewalks.

Wilkerson has mixed feelings about those laws. People with houses do drugs in private, she says. Unhoused people don’t have that option.

But at the same time, Wilkerson says she doesn’t like what’s happening on the streets, either. She wants to see police fully enforce the laws, but with an approach that resembles a “steel hand with a velvet glove on.”

Plese takes a tougher approach.

“You talk to the West Hills neighborhood, the garbage and the drugs and the filth that they’re seeing is horrendous,” Plese says. “They want to take their neighborhood back. So we need to make it more difficult to be homeless in our city.”

In a later text message, Plese stresses that she has a lot of compassion for unhoused people. She clarifies that “make it more difficult to be homeless” means being tougher on those who “refuse help and continue to use drugs and camp along the river causing fires and tearing up the environment” — not the working families that can’t find affordable housing.

“There are more homeless people coming to Spokane because we are a compassionate community, and the weight of it is crushing downtown and all around the city,” Plese says. n nates@inlander.com

The Sinking City Hall

A trial is set for next year to determine who will pay to repair the flawed 6-year-old building

BY NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS, CROSSCUT

When the new City Hall in the newish city of Spokane Valley was completed in 2017, Mayor Pam Haley quickly knew something was wrong.

Big cracks were forming in some walls, around doors and in the concrete floor and brick exterior. And water was seeping into the City Council chamber.

“You could tell there were issues,” Haley said.

But the cracks were the symptom, not the real problem. The building was sinking, city spokeswoman Emily Estes-Cross said.

Once an investigation revealed even more cracks in the chamber, Spokane Valley moved its City Council meetings to another building and sealed off the chamber. They are suing the builders to pay the yet unspecified costs of repairs. The city has set aside $700,000 for legal fees.

Trial is set to begin in August 2024, although it will likely be delayed, Haley said.“We’re hoping to resolve it in mediation,” said Haley, who has been on the City Council eight years.

Employees still work in the building, which is three stories tall, Estes-Cross said. That’s because the problems appear to be confined to the City Council chamber.

“If there were any life safety issues, they were immediately fixed,” Estes-Cross said. “We stabilized it right away.”

Spokane Valley was once a sprawling suburban area. Worried they would be annexed by moreliberal Spokane, the residents voted to form their own city in 2003. With 107,000 residents, it is the ninthlargest city in Washington.

Employees of the new city first worked in a leased building on Sprague Avenue, which is basically the city center of this city without a true downtown.

Spokane Valley is perhaps best known as a conservative bastion. Former Republican state Rep. Matt Shea, who was booted from the GOP caucus for supporting domestic terrorists, hailed from here.

But politicians did not construct City Hall.The $14 million building was designed and built by Meridian Construction, Architects West, Allwest Testing & Engineering, and Eight31 Consulting. Spokane Valley sued those companies in 2020 to pay for the repairs. The companies tried unsuccessfully to get the lawsuit dismissed.

Shot Protects...

Rick Wetmore, an attorney for Dunn & Black who represents Meridian Construction, said the lawsuit was premature. While he acknowledged there are issues with the building, they are “greatly overstated by the city.” Meridian Construction would prefer a negotiated solution, he said. “Always negotiation is the best resolution,” he said. “We are continuing efforts toward that end.”

Haley said the lawsuit was not premature. “We have not gotten a whole lot of cooperation from Meridian Construction,” she said. “We had to [sue] to get them to come to the table.”

Spokane Valley officials are not waiting around for a court fix. They voted in January to award two contracts

The $14 million City Hall needs major repairs. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

totaling about $4.4 million to investigate and repair the defects in City Hall.

City officials believe the builders failed to properly compact the soil under the curved northeast wall of the building, where the cracks appeared and the foundation is sinking, Estes-Cross said.

Workers already have installed concrete pillars underneath that wall to prevent it from sinking further; improved fireproofing of the two main staircases; and repaired the HVAC system. These repairs have cost $800,000 so far.

The city is using a concept called progressive design build to do the work.

Basically, Spokane Valley is asking Garco Construction to physically assess specific areas of City Hall and determine whether the original construction met project specifications. Garco can fix problems as it finds them. Progressive design builds are uncommon, and the city needed approval from the state Department of Enterprise Services’ Project Review Committee to bypass some bidding requirements.

If the city had taken a traditional approach, it would have had to solicit bids from contractors every time it found a new problem.

Wetmore, the attorney for Meridian Construction, said the repair contract seems like a waste of money while the case is still being litigated.

The state of Washington demands that city projects go to the lowest bidder. “That has bitten us a few times,” Haley said. “There is an argument that the lowest possible price might not be best.”

But the City Hall issue has not resulted in political ramifications for elected officials, Haley said.

“Not at all,” she said. “Everybody understands what happened, and they are very positive.” n

Visit crosscut.com/donate to support nonprofit, freely distributed, local journalism

Free Speech Fight

A lawyer in a local wrongful termination lawsuit says the state’s argument could render Washington’s Constitution ‘toothless’

BY SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL

On Oct. 29, 2020, Spokane’s Health Officer Dr. Bob Lutz was abruptly fired by his boss at the Spokane Regional Health District, Administrative Officer Amelia Clark.

The public was outraged.

The firing came as the pandemic was growing in severity and schools were still operating remotely, as were many workplaces. Lutz had taken heat from those who wanted to end restrictions on daily activities, but he was widely respected by public health workers for trying to limit the spread of the deadly virus.

Among those who questioned his firing was Erika Henry.

Like many others shocked by the news on Oct. 30, Henry sent her thoughts to the local health board. But Henry’s message would later stand out, because even though she hadn’t included her title in the email sent from her personal account, some of the recipients learned she was acting assistant secretary for the Washington State Department of Health’s Emergency and Preparedness Response program.

In the email, Henry lambasted Clark and admonished the health board members, telling them “you let an insecure weakling of a leader strong arm you into ousting him based on vague claims of what…personality conflict? Tell her to grow up and do her job.”

Henry went on to defend Lutz’s choices during the pandemic and said that firing him endangered the health of the public. She wrote that the health board could still “right this wrong,” while warning that the consequences would “ripple for months.”

Henry was right about the ripples.

Clark didn’t have the authority to fire Lutz without first holding a public hearing before the local health board. It wasn’t until the next week that the board voted 8-4 to fire him. The fiasco triggered a state investigation and multiple lawsuits. Clark no longer works at the district.

And about seven months after sending that email, Henry would be fired from her job with the state Department of Health.

Now, as Henry fights in U.S. District Court to argue she was wrongfully terminated and her state and federal free speech rights were violated, her case could call the Washington State Constitution into question.

While the state constitution says that “every person may freely speak, write and publish on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right,” the state Attorney General’s Office, representing the Depart-

ment of Health and its staff, is arguing that there’s no “cause of action” to seek monetary damages if that right is violated.

Depending on the outcome of that argument, Henry’s attorney Marcus Sweetser says the state constitution could be rendered “effectively toothless when it comes to protecting our rights.”

But Brionna Aho, spokeswoman for the Attorney General’s Office, says that “Washingtonians have the right to assert their constitutional rights in court when they feel those rights are violated,” just not a mechanism to fight for financial relief.

Before sending her Oct. 30, 2020, email from personal equipment on personal time, Henry checked with legislative advisers at the Department of Health to ensure she was allowed to voice her concerns to local government officials as a private citizen. Without reading the message, they told her she could.

So, she hit send.

Months went by. Then, in early February 2021, Henry met the new state Secretary of Health Dr. Umair Shah and the two went to the Spokane Regional Health District for a meeting.

Before Shah and Henry arrived, the district’s Administrative Officer Clark met with two health board members, Millwood Mayor Kevin Freeman and Spokane County Commissioner Mary Kuney. With Henry’s printed email in hand, Clark informed Freeman and Kuney that Henry worked for the state health department and was on her way.

At the meeting with Shah and Henry, Freeman made comments about the state respecting local decisions, and admonished Henry for her email, saying the district doesn’t trust her. Shah was given a copy to take with him.

Henry excused herself to the bathroom to cry. She texted her boss, Jessica Todorovich, who told her “you have every right to express yourself as a private citizen to your local board.”

But Shah was upset about being blindsided and felt he should’ve been told about the email before the meeting. Despite her initial words of support, Todorovich started an investigation into Henry, who was fired

in May 2021 due to the email.

In early 2022, Henry filed a wrongful termination lawsuit, arguing that she had the right as a private citizen to express her thoughts about a matter of public concern to her local government officials.

On June 6, Washington Assistant Attorney General Jacob Brooks filed a motion arguing that the state health department can’t be sued and its employees have qualified immunity from the lawsuit.

Brooks also argued that the law on public employees’ constitutional free speech rights was not clearly established at the time Henry was fired. As for the state constitution, he argued that there is no statute that enables private citizens to address alleged violations of their rights, and state courts have refused to recognize a cause of action for damages.

Henry’s attorney Sweetser says that is astounding.

“It’s a misguided position, and it’s dangerous,” Sweetser says. “If the attorney general’s argument and position were adopted by our courts, it could effectively strip us all of the ability to enforce the rights guaranteed to us by our state constitution.”

Sweetser now wants the Washington Supreme Court to weigh in on a handful of questions.

Specifically, he asks, “Does the Washington Constitution give less protections to a government employee than to every other person in Washington, when the government employee speaks outside of their employment, in their private capacity, and in a public forum?”

He also wants to know whether the government as an employer has a compelling interest in restricting speech in a public forum, whether firing a government employee for petitioning the government violates the state constitution, and whether someone can recover damages from the violation of a fundamental right.

The federal judge on the case will decide whether to send questions to the state Supreme Court after an Aug. 9 hearing.

“Our state government derives its power from the people, not the other way around,” Sweetser says. “At the core this is about our state government respecting our state constitution.” n samanthaw@inlander.com

Erika Henry’s case could test the state on free speech. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

Parks After Dark

Spokane City Council bars late-night park activity. Plus, a tally of Hoopfest injuries; and the rising death toll of pedestrians

After several weeks of debate and revisions, Spokane City Council members voted 4-3 on Monday to pass a controversial new law giving police authority to arrest people in city parks between 11 pm and 5 am. The ordinance was introduced at the request of the police department and the Spokane Park Board, which said they were seeing an uptick in disorder and violence in parks at night. The new law raises the penalty to a misdemeanor punishable by jail time. Police have said they’ll use discretion and that people who aren’t causing trouble don’t have to worry, but the Spokane Human Rights Commission and a number of community groups are concerned that will lead to biased enforcement and criminalization of vulnerable people. City Council President Breean Beggs and members Betsy Wilkerson and Zack Zappone, voted against the ordinance. (NATE SANFORD)

HARMFUL HOOPS

The wins and dunks will be memorialized, but the injuries may hold a longer grip on the memories of Hoopfest players. With four tents stationed around downtown this weekend, MultiCare provided free services and medical care to participants. Recorded heat-related illnesses and dehydration were one-third of last year’s incidents, but this year accounted for only eight of the 1,185 total injuries treated at this year’s Hoopfest. Half of MultiCare’s services last weekend went to preventative care (604), such as taping players to avoid further injuries. Among the top injuries from this weekend were general wounds (251), strains or sprains (155), fractures (56), and blisters (37). The number of treated injuries increased by 200 this weekend compared to last year. While that may seem like a substantial increase, keep in mind that 750 more teams played this year, reaching a total of about 4,250 teams. (SUMMER SANDSTROM)

CARS KEEP KILLING

When you lay the past four decades of pedestrian traffic fatalities out on a graph, it forms an almost perfect “U” shape. After peaking in the early 1980s, the number of pedestrians killed by motorists per year steadily declined for decades. But as we previously reported (“Reclaiming the Streets,” April 27, 2023), in 2009 something flipped, and the numbers started rising, and rising, and rising. In 2022, the number hit a grim new milestone. According to a report from the Governors Highway Safety Association, 7,508 Americans were killed by cars in 2022 — the highest number on record since 1981. Researchers have offered various hypotheses for the sharp increase, including smartphones, increasingly large vehicles, and car-centric street and crosswalk design. Despite the nationwide increase, data shows that the number of deaths in Washington actually decreased — from 141 deaths in 2021 to 130 in 2022. The report highlighted a Washington law passed in March 2022 authorizing the state Department of Transportation to establish a maximum speed limit of 20 mph on non-arterial state highways. (NATE SANFORD)

Get the latest on Inlander.com

July Spa Special

FREE HYDRO GEL MASK

Looking for that summertime glow? Purchase any facial at Spa Ssakwa’q’n and receive a complimentary take home facial mask. This 3D Hydro Gel Mask will leave your skin refreshed, radiant, plump and hydrated in appearance. Its multidimensional moisturizing effect helps to improve the skin’s ability to store moisture.

Offer valid July 1ST to July 31ST, 2023. Offer not valid with any other offers or discounts.

The number of U.S. pedestrian fatalities continues to skyrocket. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

The blue-beyond-belief seascapes of Belize shed tensions, but raise questions for the green traveler.

A

RELUCTANT ABROAD

FOR THE GREEN-MINDED TRAVELER, THE JOURNEY IS ONE OF BOTH GUILT AND WONDER

BY PAUL LINDHOLDT

Traveling with my family in Belize, I first heard the assertion that “sustainable travel is an oxymoron.” Tourist-wrangler Judy duPlooy said it.

With my spouse, Karen, and our two sons, Chase and Reed, I was visiting Judy’s jungle lodge for some R&R and ecotours. The four of us shared two cabinas and kept eyes open wide for the ginormous spiders that are said to creep the tropics.

Judy’s U.S. clients begin their trip at a stateside airline hub and then jet down to Belize City. There they clamber aboard a bumpy puddle-jumper, wing it to San Ignacio, pile into a 10-person shuttle van, and twine past tiny Santa Elena to arrive at Sweet Songs Jungle Lodge.

“How did you come into the hospitality biz?” I asked my new friend Judy. Already I had confided to her how our resource-intensive voyage from Seattle had set my teeth on edge.

Judy arrived from South Carolina some 30 years before we met. With her husband, Ken, and their five daughters, they bought the riverside farm and transformed it into an ecotour destination. When Ken died from heart disease, Judy raised their daughters by herself.

In her resort of 48 employees, sun supplies the power for a large arboretum and another 160 acres of cabins and jungle. Guanacaste trees shade the grounds — towering, flowering deciduous giants whose limbs spread low and wide.

In an observation dome above the Macal River, day-blind bats swathed the rafters like mistletoe. Agoutis, known by the locals as bush rabbits, proved so adaptable to human presence that they resembled statuary on the grounds.

During breakfast our first full day aboard, Judy’s staff served hibiscus juice, the first time we had tasted it. Outside the window of the dining hall, a flock of toucans were likewise dining, swiveling upside down and plucking fruit from a palm tree.

Judy joined us at the table. She leaned in and murmured to me so no one else could hear, “Sustainable travel is an oxymoron.”

AMONG THE 4-PERCENTERS

Dyed-in-the-wool enviros, Karen and I travel abroad and take our kids along. We want them to get out and see the world. Too often, though, the imp of liberal guilt seizes me.

To spew so much carbon has always nagged. It grinds me to support chichi resorts and short-let rentals that blight the shorelines of so many nations. It badgers me to see our first-world tourist dollars quash indigenous lifeways and overturn economies.

One evening during our visit to Judy’s resort, a Maya guide named Mario took us on a sweltering nocturnal tour. He led us along jungle paths to try to spy nightthriving kinkajous. None showed. In the distance, though, we could hear strange grinding booms.

“What is that, Mario?” Karen pointed toward the sounds.

“Those are cane toads. Their familia traveled to our country and they stayed.”

Later I Googled the species and learned they are in fact native to the nation. Mario seemed to have confused those voluble amphibians with the settler-colonists, the retirees especially, that are growing so abundant in his country.

Cane toads can swallow other species whole by ratcheting their wide mouths wider. They dart long tongues to capture prey. Coordinated forelegs cram in writhing insects, birds, other amphibians, even small mammals. Their croaks like hand-rasps punctuate the night.

Cane toads also harbor cocktails of neurotoxins beneath their skin. Those cocktails contain DMT, a psychoactive some people ingest for therapy or fun. Foreign trippers dry and smoke it.

If it sounds too fantastic to be true, that is the Caribbean for you. The blue-beyond-belief seascapes shed tensions. Ruins the Maya people left behind prove too trippy to refuse. Cane toads have what it takes to gratify outsized postcolonial appetites that wing in on the jet stream every day.

Like Philip Larkin’s speaker in his poem “Church

Going,” we tourists blink aside certain tropical sensations and consider others a delight. The poet dubbed our species “ruin-bibbers.” People who are thirsty to imbibe the ruins of the past.

As much as we relished Judy’s jungle lodge, we were keen to see the Caribbean Sea. Soon we found ourselves on the water at Ambergris Caye.

Snub-nosed and scale-plated iguanas were creeping everywhere we went. Survivors like the ancient Maya of the region, those lizards resemble armored vehicles.

Iguanas wedge tight in Earth-cracks and baffle efforts to extract them. That gift became plain when a pair of boys and their dog chased one deep into a rockpile.

The boys dislodged the basalt. The dog beside them yapped and dug. The iguana crept further within the rocky recesses.

I approached the boys. “Why do you chase him?”

“We like to eat wish-willy!” one of them sang out.

Their smirks said they were messing with me, goading the gullible gringo. Still, people in Belize do eat iguanas. They dub them gallina de palo, meaning chicken of the trees.

A much larger iguana, spiky like a dragon, materialized for us the next day. We tiptoed so as not to scare it. From behind a pine its surprise handler rose, his lizard leashed as if it were a dog.

What were the two of them doing on that white-sand beach? The handler with his banded straw hat and aviator glasses, the lizard fastened by a harness so it could not wriggle free?

Just then a tourist in Bermuda shorts approached and leaned to snap a pic. The handler moved between the two, his palm outstretched, his prickly living prisoner his vehicle to navigate the gig economy. The tourist reached inside a vertical slot of pocket and paid up.

Seattle-based travel writer Rick Steves estimates that only 4 percent of the planetary population has the motivation and the means to travel internationally. Count us among the privileged 4-percenters.

...continued on next page

UNNATURAL SELECTION

Our next excursion took us to Barton Creek Cave, billed as a thrilling underground tour into the past. We rented canoes. The boys shared one paddle craft, their mother and I another.

The cave opened to a lengthy river within, a “singlepassage resurging stream cave,” our guidebook called it. Prehistoric people favored it for their religious rituals.

From the cave a cold breeze blew, as if the ancients were warning us away. Our guide Noel hinted that the Maya remain a potent presence, their energies contracted in that watery spot.

We huddled in our canoes at the cave mouth and whispered. Water dripped. Stalagmites and stalactites, some still growing, some long dormant, rose and fell like grinding teeth.

Noel’s mestizo mix is Maya and French. Formerly a cab driver, he speaks skillful English. He profiled the ancients as barbaric and ritualized. The beam of his laser pointer, a proxy for his voice, guided our gaze.

The gods demanded sacrifices, Noel said, and human blood appeased the rain god, Chaac. The dripping of blood, as I deciphered it, mimicked the rain that the people needed to survive.

The Maya enjoyed a good run, in my mind, but homage to a pantheon of savage gods brought about the murder of their women and their slaves. The fittest and most nubile among them were singled out to die. In a kind of unnatural selection, too few baby-bearers remained.

Other causes of the Maya decimation are subject to conjecture. A scarcity of food and water might have starved them out. A rise in cyclones might have weakened

them further. Mercury and blue-green algae toxified some aquifers and drove them from their towns.

Travelers are the primary agents of epidemiological exchange. Like Columbus, who brought contagion to the isolated and susceptible Americas, we travelers transmit viruses. It’s not if but when the next killer of a virus will

descend and take its toll, most scientists agree.

In the 2021 film Roadrunner, Anthony Bourdain poses before a hand-printed sign advising viewers “Be a traveler not a tourist.” His distinction is hazy, his operative borders porous.

...continued on page 21

Saturday July 8th 12-5pM

Like Columbus, who brought contagion to the isolated and susceptible Americas, we travelers transmit viruses. PAUL LINDHOLDT PHOTO

TASTE OF SUMMER

PACIFIC NORTHWEST SALMON SALAD | 18

Smoked salmon with couscous, roasted corn, tomatoes, pepitas, feta cheese, dried cranberries and pesto ranch.

BOOK EXCERPT INTERROGATING TRAVEL

PAUL LINDHOLDT HEADS TO A PLAQUE MEMORIALIZING CAPTAIN COOK, WHO “DISCOVERED” THE HAWAI’IAN ISLANDS, AND WONDERS ABOUT THE PROFOUND RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE LOCAL PEOPLE AND ECOLOGY

At the Kailua-Kona Harbor we gather with two dozen others on the 60-foot Fair Wind, a catamaran with a crew of eight. That fast ship will transport us to Kealakekua Bay. Advertised as an homage to Captain Cook, near whose monument we anchor, the trip turns out to be a feeding and snorkeling frenzy. Moving parts of that craze, we line up right behind the others.

When we arrive in the bay where the explorer died, igneous cliffs plunge to underwater canyons. Invisible lava tubes corrugate the cliffs. Islanders buried their chiefs in those tubes, we learn from a shipboard brochure. The Fair Wind drops anchor. Snorkels and masks are handed around.

The monument itself to Captain Cook, a 27-foot obelisk of marble, looks like a missile blasting off. Its shape and size seem so right. Its color is white, its configuration the same sort shared by hardware for military aggression and for space exploration alike. Forbidden from going ashore, we have a view of the vaulting monument from 75 yards out.

One shipside brochure tells its story and reprints a photo of the bronze plaque dedicating the stone: “In memory of the great circumnavigator, Captain James Cook, R.N., who discovered these islands.” Discovered? I read that assertion and I flinch. Such language generates rifts today between the colonizers and the colonized, between those who immigrate to the Hawai’ian islands or tour them, and those whose ancestors have inhabited them for ages.

I toss aside the brochure, take up snorkel, put on a mask, and plunge. Forests of pastel coral fall to sandy canyons undersea. Breathless and exhilarated, I spot legendary moray eels. One, white and black-spotted, flexes its formidable jaws from a grotto, until a swimmer jabs at it with his fin. Another eel, a 4-foot yellowmargin moray — thick, brawny, gold-flecked brown — snakes along the

bottom, still-hunting undercover before slipping across an expanse of sand to nose into the next floret of coral. Indigenous people call this species puhi-paka and eat it. In the cliffs above us, like balls in cannon barrels, the royals lie mummified inside lava crypts.

Back on the boat after swimming, we lunchtime passengers brazen our way to the foods, many of us wearing undersize swimwear. One in front of me, with a little boy, packs her plate and explains how hard it is to have to load up for two. Several of the passengers, already seasick despite the stopgap capsules the crew hands out, cling to the railings or collapse on the stairs.

Arousing us from our after-lunch slump, a deck mate cries, gestures, and points.

A woman has clambered up on the monument to Captain Cook! Dressed in shorts and T-shirt, she leans against the obelisk, hands clasped behind her, as if manacled. We’ve been asked to stay in the water to save the reefs, ordered to avoid the sacred monument to Captain Cook. The deck mate, never noticing that the woman is dry, assumes she swam from the boat. But she’s in fact an islander, a twenty-something local, solid, squat, her hair falling to her waist, her thighs and belly strong. She has hiked alone down from the road above the memorial site.

An Indigenous woman, she has watched the ship disgorge us tourists, as she has no doubt seen it do before. She has stood in silence at the base of the white stone. But now the mate is hollering at her, playing the heavy, ordering her off the monument and back to the ship where she should be. Her hands fly up like wings, manacles shed, as if to levitate her from the shore.

We have come to this sacred spot, a neon brigade in suits and swim masks, to be fed and swim and have a fine time. The Fair Wind has anchored at the spot the brochure names the Pathway to the Gods. But the ruleridden shipboard lecture tells us nothing about the gods,

loaded like cartridges in the cliffs above us, dormant or alive. Our barbecues are smoking, our 15-foot waterslide and high-dive platform splashing. Four stout poles, on the swift trip out, have trolled for billfish and tuna off the stern. What a sight we must be to residents like her.

Belatedly the mate realizes the woman is Indigenous. Explosive anger lights her face. She is wading into the surf now, stroking for our boat, pointing toward us every few yards. Off the starboard railing she stops and treads the water, unloading her words like so much weaponry. “You have no right to be here! You are ruining this spot! Why don’t you go away and stay?”

We have committed kapu, defiled the living lands, the people, and the seas. She might still be smarting from the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy by U.S.-backed forces in 1893. Five years later, the United States annexed Hawai’i. The kingdom of Hawai’i became a U.S. territory, absent any input from the people and amid much opposition. Attempts to restore the kingdom have always failed. Too much mainland money is tied up here. In July 2021, the late Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen’s sprawling, 22acre Hawai’ian property sold for $43 million.

This comely, muscular young woman begins to blur for me. She becomes one with the encrypted royals and the people who Cook colonized. “Our unfortunate commander,” one of Cook’s crew wrote, “the last time he was seen distinctly, was standing at the water’s edge, calling out to the boats to cease firing, and to pull in.” Our Indigenous hostess, the last time we see her, is rising by the white marble monument, trembling with fury, her long black hair slinging spray.

The “spectacular marine environment” that our brochure touts is “like swimming in an aquarium,” is squandered upon us. We have swarmed the coral in this “tranquil, secluded cove.” We have listened to the captain’s eloquence about “protecting and respecting”

the environment. We have imagined we are heightening awareness, raising a collective ecological consciousness. We have yet to understand the profound relationships between the local people and ecology.

Environmental education requires certain sacrifice zones, some pundits claim, places where ecological integrity must be relinquished for the sake of edification. The planet will begin to heal, they say, if people can absorb enough information and enjoy apt opportunities to bond. The same philosophy might hold sway within the tourist industry — that some locals need to be sacrificed for the betterment of cultural sensitivity and to build relationships on a larger scale.

If we infuriate the locals, when we practice slapdash environmental edification on their turf, we will have failed. Maybe Hawai’ian commerce instead ought to be propitiating the gods and risk affronting the tourists, like a certain healer at Lapakahi State Historical Park did for me.

Lapakahi lies on the Kohala coast, north of Kona and Kealakekua Bay. A partially restored precontact fishing village, its bits of old dwellings lie visible on the oceanside. We are fortunate to find it open, blessed to visit in the absence of commercial trappings so often found elsewhere.

Bart spurs up to the door carrying his hi-vis lime mesh sport bag. “No towels allowed,” the woman keeper tells him. We stiffen before her office-cum-museum and clinic. Bart trots his gear back to the car, too sobered to ask why. Visiting hotel guests have littered, we can surmise.

“This is a holy place,” she begins. “You enter the water here,” pointing to a spot on a mural-sized aerial photograph. “Don’t swim to the right or left. Go straight out only.” We meet her steely gaze. We turn around and follow her kinked finger pointing to an alley out from shore.

That alley, steep and boulder-strewn, looks daunting. “To the left are sacred spaces where our ancestors lived and bathed. To the right, we’ve had too many people hurt when they got tossed up on the rocks.” The cove looks like a graveyard, and she speaks like its guardian shade.

Her ancestors inhabited this place for more than 600 years, she informs us. Foundations of their buildings crumble. Rows of low rocks, grass-roofed huts reconstructed in some spots. The site has now become a rustic park of some 300 acres. She references the walls, plants, wind, and surf as the “lives accompanying you.” She never gives her name.

Stern curator, she is riding herd upon us like any paniolo, enforcing rules, contending for reverence. “Don’t make me follow you down there to keep you on the trails,” she warns. Her job entails the tricky task of breaking tourists of being boors. We are her only guests in the entire park just now. Several hundred yards offshore, the humpback whales are spouting and sounding.

Before she will let me swim, she grabs my hand and focuses on it. She noticed a wound she wants to treat, to show me how her healing may take place. Above my cradled and upturned palm, her downturned hand caresses the air. I had sliced the palm on a piece of coral when a wave flung me in shallow surf. “It’s best to do it when the wound is new,” she explains.

Now she has my full attention. Squat, gray, creased, and kind, she wears a ribbed tank-top above, a pair of baggy surfer shorts below, bone-print on the fabric. This docent is a welcome contrast to the starched and badged keepers we see in the 48 mainland states. Releasing me, she follows us partway down the sea-path, still lecturing, still contending for our reverence. n

Excerpted from Interrogating Travel: Guidance from a Reluctant Tourist. Reprinted by permission of LSU Press.

SURVIVAL IS AN ART

Our next excursion had us ecotouring under the direction of a different Maya guide.

Abel Coe was erudite in all Belizean ecology. His mustache gave him a serious air, but he was playful enough that he could feign an attack on Chase’s fingers with a captured crab. Chase set aside his handheld game console and elbowed to be first in line.

Abel used to bust his knuckles on a monkey wrench. As a leader of ecotours now, he seems to have found his calling. He is a rare instance of the tourist industry improving a native’s quality of life. The benefits he enjoys are unsustainable, though, as shown by the downturns suffered during the devastating pandemic by tourist-reliant peoples such as him.

Abel beached his boat at a breeding islet for American crocodiles. They reproduce in a brackish pond screened by trees. Drag marks from tails appeared once we stepped ashore. Every trope about marooning on a desert island came alive — from Robinson Crusoe to Willie Gilligan to the Tom Hanks character in Cast Away

Red mangrove trees, taking root upon and buffering the beach ridges, stabilize the islet. Aerating roots called pneumatophores rise above the water to help the trees to breathe. Leaves, carcasses, flotsam, and shells elevate and enrich the shoreline forest.

“If survival is an art,” my writing mentor Annie Dillard noted, “then mangroves are artists of the beautiful: not only that they exist at all — smooth-barked, glossy-leaved, thickets of lapped mystery — but that they can and do exist as floating islands, as trees upright and loose, alive and homeless on the water.”

In mangrove branches above our slough, boat-billed herons nested. Crocodiles scarf fledglings that tumble from the nests. Adult herons feed on fresh-hatched crocodiles in their turn.

It’s all ecology in motion, like the ouroboros, that mythical snake believed to tumble hooplike with its own tail in its jaws. That snake’s spherical enclosure, changing always while it keeps its shape, makes it a fit emblem for enduring hurricanes and civilization’s brutal sieges.

Crocodiles, underwater charismata 4 to 8 feet long, slunk from shore for my family and me. An old croc nest beneath our feet displayed crinkly epidermal shell debris.

Next, we followed Abel underwater to snorkel a Technicolor reef. Modeling good ecological behavior, he placed a single finger on underwater rocks and coral ledges and held himself stock-steady there. That single finger safeguarded vulnerable microorganisms.

Abel probed dark crevices to prompt marine creatures to reveal. He pointed out an eel, a nurse shark, a spiny lobster.

Finning up behind a yellow ray lying all but buried in the sand, he gave its tail an impish tug. The animal fled 10 feet before calling a halt at a silty spot, scooting fore and aft like a brood hen settling on a nest, then camouflaging itself to still-hunt once again.

In Abel’s wake we finned along for a mile. Eagle rays, electric rays, rough-tailed rays, yellow rays, and manta rays drifted by like lazy lapwings on their tranquil way nowhere. Those cartilaginous fish, flapping overhead, caused us reflexively to duck.

Abel thrilled the boys by putting a constellation of starfish in their hands. Squiggly bristle stars, puffy cushion stars, spooky serpent stars. After each

encounter, each abduction undertaken to enlarge their environmental education, he put the creepy-crawly back in its exact same spot.

A SECOND WIND

After our snorkeling excursion, we slumped back to our cabina all done in. We threw together a supper of rice and beans and shrimp ceviche. The boys began to fade. We almost followed them to bed, but a second wind freshened Karen and me.

We shut the door behind us and slid into the sea. Tiny teeming jellyfish shocked us dully, our hipwakes enhancing their pleasant prickles. Bioluminescent plankton swirled to mirror the stars that seemed to gawk at us from above.

Those stars made me wonder if the pagan gods approved, if they found our travel in Belize to be sustainable enough to satisfy.

Once we got back, the drowsy boys asked us to adjust the mosquito netting above their beds. Daddy duty, I was glad to do it. All of us had been stung and had the welts to show it. Mosquitoes spread Zika, yellow fever, dengue, and malaria.

Standing on a straight-back chair, I closed the gap above Chase’s netting, which flowed down from the ceiling like a wedding dress to tuck in at the edges of his bed.

When I stood up to adjust Reed’s mosquito net, I found myself eye-to-eye with the biggest spider I had ever seen. A tiger bromeliad, more than four inches wide, appeared to be using the cotton mesh like a web to capture prey.

What to do? If I let Reed in on my secret, he would not sleep. Already, before first light each day, howler monkeys were startling us awake, roaring through the treetops like a pride of lions. I was going to have to capture and haul away the monster spider unseen.

Slipping into the bathroom, I seized a hand towel and climbed back on the chair. Coolly as I could, I clapped my hand over the spider and crimped the towel around it like a baseball glove.

Assuring Reed that all was well, I headed for the door. Forty feet outside the cabina, I snapped the towel and flung the spider from me. That leggy creature hit the ground at full run and headed right back toward our lodging.

“Oh, yes,” the property manager told me the next day, “those spiders are territorial. That one considered the cabina to be his and was only tolerating you.” n

Paul Lindholdt is a professor of English and philosophy at Eastern Washington University, where he teaches literature and environmental humanities. He has published some 200 books, chapters, journal articles, essays, columns, reviews, and poems. His latest book, Interrogating Travel: Guidance from a Reluctant Tourist, was published this month.

“A RELUCTANT AMERICAN ABROAD,” CONTINUED...

THOSE STARS MADE ME WONDER IF THE PAGAN GODS APPROVED, IF THEY FOUND OUR TRAVEL IN BELIZE TO BE SUSTAINABLE ENOUGH TO SATISFY.

A PIONEERING PERSPECTIVE

BY CARRIE SCOZZARO

Living off the land like a modern-day episode of Little House on the Prairie sounds intriguing. Growing and preserving your food, fixing what you have, or building what you need, and working toward self-sufficiency. But in reality? It’s a lot of work. And it requires a vast set of skills, especially when animals are involved.

Sheep, for example, are versatile for clearing brush and providing meat or milk for cheese. And although adorable when young and fluffy, as they grow, so too does their wool, which if left untrimmed, can imperil the animals’ health, especially in warmer weather.

“For a wool breed, it would be abuse not to shear the animal,” says Trevor Hollenback, who

lives in Sandpoint, where he works for a local aircraft company and has a unique side gig of shearing sheep.

Hollenback says he gets a lot of calls from people who have jumped into owning sheep, not realizing they required shearing — once yearly, and sometimes twice, depending on the breed and climate. Sheep can’t shed their wool like animals with fur, and thus can’t cool themselves. Plus, sheep laden with excess wool are less able to evade predators, Hollenback adds.

But learning how to shear requires doing it, says Hollenback, who trained in New Zealand and Austria in 2014, then returned to the U.S. to start his company, Hollenback Shearing.

First-ever Modern Homesteading Conference in North Idaho teaches how to live off the land, from raising livestock to preserving food

Modern Homesteading co-founder Melissa K. Norris and other experts teach how to live off the land.

COURTESY PHOTO

Imagine holding a several hundred pound squirming animal between your knees with one hand and razor sharp clippers in the other as you deftly and quickly — two to three minutes, tops — remove fleece, ideally in one piece, without injuring or overstressing the sheep.

“It’s like dancing with someone who doesn’t really want to dance with you at all, but you’re required to get through every step of the dance with them, even though they’re trying their hardest the entire time to leave,” Hollenback says.

Want to see what that dance looks like? Hollenback will be shearing Norman, a handsome 263-pound neutered male sheep from North Idaho’s Wingsong Farm during the first-ever Modern Homesteading conference this weekend, June 30 and July 1, at the Kootenai County Fairgrounds.

Hollenback is one of nearly 30 speakers at the conference, which addresses a wide range of topics: milking dairy goats, butchering, beekeeping, permaculture, gardening, sourdough, homeschooling and Amish-style shed building (attendees can enter to win the latter).

The two-day ticketed event features local, regional and national experts, including Joel Salatin, a celebrated author and leader of the regenerative agriculture movement, whose Polyface Farm was featured in Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma. He’s joined by his son, Daniel Salatin, who addresses grazing methods and collaborating with other farms, both to increase output and, by extension, revenue.

Athol Orchards Antique Apple Farm & Bakery’s Nikki Conley is demonstrating how to graft apples, as well as create a profitable homestead business.

The economic potential of homesteading, says Modern Homesteading conference co-founder Melissa K. Norris, is one of the subtle differences between traditional and contemporary homesteading.

Norris defines homesteading as “the state of mind where you look to provide for yourself with less outside inputs [and] improve your family and land in as close to a holistic manner as possible.”

Modern homesteading, she adds, includes “becoming more of a producer than simply a consumer.”

Norris, who’s from Western Washington, developed the conference with fellow homesteader Katie Millhorn of North Idaho over the past two years. The pair were familiar with each other from the online homesteading community, so when they met in person at an East Coast-based homesteading conference, they bonded over their Pacific Northwest roots and similar personal histories.

“You know, it’s funny, because growing up I naively just thought that everybody raised a portion of their own food,” says Norris, a fifthgeneration Skagit Valley homesteader. “I thought everybody had a garden. I thought everybody’s mom canned and cooked from scratch.”

Like Norris, Millhorn grew up immersed in a rural lifestyle. The Freeman High School graduate remembers riding the bus with her future husband as a 6-year-old and now lives in Worley

in the house where he grew up. Their family of six is the fourth generation to farm there.

Millhorn and Norris knew from local forums and personal experience there was a need for homesteading information specific to the Pacific Northwest. Where to get food for certain animals. How to process meat. Which varieties of plants grow best in colder, drier climates.

“So that was really important to us that we really find people who are growing well, both livestock and produce in this type of climate, and can speak with the expertise on what they’ve learned works for them versus kind of what you just see as a blanket statement to growing across the whole U.S.,” Norris says.

The conference is geared toward all levels of DIY types, from novices to longtime practitioners, with an emphasis on building community.

“You’re going to wear yourself out both financially and emotionally if you try to do it all plus buy all the equipment,” Millhorn says.

She lists examples of ways to trade resources, from equipment and expertise to the animals themselves. If you don’t have a ram but your neighbor does, breed them and split the offspring, she says.

The conference also recognizes the value of hands-on, in-person demonstrations.

“I thought I would be really good at shearing sheep because I’m very strong physically,” says Millhorn, who can field dress an elk, no problem. “And then you walk away with like six stitches in your hand and you’re like, I failed at that. I need a real expert, in person, to show me how to hold this critter and do it.”

Beyond the physical toll of homesteading, says Norris, there’s an emotional component, both positive and negative. Even though she’s been around beef cattle and cows her entire life, she wasn’t prepared for the loss of her dairy cow earlier this year.

“But on the other side, it reinforced that even though this is very hard, that it is still very much worth it,” Norris says. “And the level of tiredness that I have at the end of a hard day homesteading. I am physically tired, but I am also so mentally proud of what we’re doing.” n

Modern Homesteading Conference • Fri, June 30 from 8:30 am-6:30 pm and Sat, July 1 from 8:30 am-7 pm • $49-$399 • All ages • Kootenai County Fairgrounds • 4056 N. Government Way, Coeur d’Alene

modernhomesteading.com

Trevor Hollenback demonstrates the art of sheep shearing. COURTESY PHOTO

BEAUTIFUL BETTAS

BY SUMMER SANDSTROM

Many children spend months, sometimes years, attempting to convince their parents to let them get a fluffy puppy or kitten as their first pet, only to land a slightly lower maintenance companion like a fish or guinea pig.

Yet as a child I opted for the later, desperately wanting a betta fish for my first pet.

Technically, my first pet was a goldfish named Goldie Fish Stick that I won at the county fair, and who resided in my parents’ fish tank filled with a variety of guppies, tetras and an algae eater. But I wanted a pet to care for on my own (minus the task of siphoning out the water and cleaning the tank).

Maybe it was my childhood obsession with Finding Nemo and The Little Mermaid that made me particularly akin to caring for a fish rather than a furry critter, but the pearlescent, vivid scales and elaborate, fan-like tail fins of bettas always caught my eye when I’d stoll through the pet store. They seemed like creatures straight out of a fairytale.

When my parents finally agreed to let me get one, I chose a lovely half-moon betta, named so for the 180-degree, moon-like shape of their tailfin.

Moonlight was teal with red scales dispersed throughout. Unfortunately, at 8 years old my photography skills were bordering on nonexistent, and my only very grainy images of Moonlight are buried in a mass of indistinguishable photos on my burgundy Nintendo DSI.

That said, I remember Moonlight very vividly even over a decade after he died at 4 or 5 years old. Betta fish are known to recognize their owners and get excited to see them, swimming to the front of the tank and dancing around the water in your presence.

Every time I’d enter my room or walk near the fish tank on my desk, Moonlight would rapidly swim around the tank and plant himself at the front glass pane, intently watching me as I would excitedly greet him.

Betta fish are playful, and I recently discovered you can teach them to jump through hoops. While Moonlight unfortunately never learned that, he loved to explore his tank, and upon that realization I moved him into new tanks twice throughout his life. Each time Moonlight moved into a larger tank, he’d swim around exuberantly for days, exploring every inch of water and darting under new resin sculptures I’d buy him with my allowance money.

Betta fish are also known as Siamese fighting fish due to their origins in Southeast Asia and their intensely territorial nature. They’re known to viscously attack other bettas, hence their solitary nature. The species has been bred for their decorative, color-saturated scales since the 1300s, and for a time bettas were made to fight for entertainment, which is thankfully now illegal in many countries.

Even though I knew they don’t tolerate other fish, I recall reading that bettas coexist well with some other freshwater species, resulting in a desperate desire to get Moonlight some roommates. He never got any, which may have been for the better, but Moonlight is the reason betta fish remain one of my favorite animals.

And upon writing this piece, I discovered that the Inlander used to be the home of Woodward, the office’s bright red betta fish with a blue tail stripe. Maybe it’s time for another betta fish to join the Inlander team. n

STANDING OVATION

For a town of its size, Spokane is overly blessed with some incredible, top-notch theatrical talent, a point that was proven numerous times when STAGE LEFT THEATRE recently landed a trio of national awards during the 2023 American Association of Community Theatre Fest. Among the accolades, Stage Left’s Malcom Pelles took home Outstanding Achievement in Direction for his work on Pass Over, and the organization was awarded Overall Outstanding Production and Outstanding Achievement in Ensemble Performance for the same production. Stage Left’s Alana Shepherd was also recognized for the lighting design of Sweeney Todd Additionally, actor Dahveed Bullis was honored for his outstanding monologue in Pass Over, performed at Stage Left one year ago. The play, by Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu, examines racial issues via the perspectives of two young Black men. (CHEY SCOTT)

A MAN(TLE) CALLED MARCELLUS

As author Shelby Van Pelt’s website boasts, fans of A Man Called Ove will love her debut novel, REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES. Set in Puget Sound (and a little bit in California), the book weaves a tale of heartache and human connection as people grieve those they’ve lost and those they’ve never known. At the center of the story is an unlikely character: Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus who’s incredibly intelligent and builds a friendship with the elderly cleaning lady at the aquarium in the book’s town, Sowell Bay. He plays a key role in helping the bumbling people around him connect with each other, even if he’s often fixated on sneaking out of his tank to get his next tasty meal. With plenty of mentions of familiar Washington places, including Spokane (albeit, in the typical “ugh” kind of reference), local readers will find even more reason to connect with the characters young and old. (SAMANTHA

WOHLFEIL)

THIS WEEK’S PLAYLIST

Noteworthy new music arriving in stores and online on June 30.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS, STORIES FROM A ROCK N ROLL HEART. After recovering from a stroke, the alternative country lifer trots out her 15th album, featuring an assist from Bruce Springsteen on the lead single, “New York Comeback.”

GRAIN CHATTEN, CHAOS FOR THE FLY. The singer of the excellent Irish post-punk band Fontaines D.C. trades some of his band’s dark, menacing edge for a bit more of a moody folk pep on his first solo record.

THE JAPANESE HOUSE, IN THE END IT ALWAYS DOES. I believe The Japanese House is the place where one eats Japanese Breakfast (also neither of those indie pop rock singer-songwriters are actually Japanese). (SETH SOMMERFELD)

Betta fish may not seem like exciting companions, but my childhood pet showed me there’s much more than meets the eye

A fish with beauty and brains.

‘Come on Out and Laugh’

The mid-Atlantic straight talk of a TV news anchor can set viewers on edge and signal the onslaught of awful headlines. But when news-savvy comedian Alonzo Bodden speaks, shoulders relax, palms unclench, and listeners settle in. With a velvet timbre that offsets cutting sarcasm, Bodden brings warmth, insight and hilarious commentary to absurdity in our world, whether that’s politicians gone haywire or your neighbor down the street. After winning season three of NBC’s Last Comic Standing, Bodden became a regular voice on NPR’s Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me and a recurring host of the Smooth Jazz Cruise. The Inlander caught up with Bodden before his threenight headline event at Spokane Comedy Club, June 29-July 1. You don’t have to agree with everything he says or like politics much to enjoy his show.

“Just come on out and laugh, people,” Bodden says. “I will tell you this — what I love is when somebody says, ‘I didn’t agree with you, but you’re funny.’ That’s as open minded as I can ask you to get.”

INLANDER: You’re a news junkie. What got you into reading the news?

BODDEN: I grew up reading the news. I grew up in Queens, New York, and back in those days there were morning and afternoon daily papers. So we got the Daily News in the morning and another paper called the Long Island Press in the afternoon. That’s what my parents did, so I picked up on it.

You do a lot of work that combines comedy and news. Why do you think they make a good pairing?

Well, it’s always been the comics job to tell the truth — especially speak truth to power. I’ve always been a fan of the court jester because he was the only guy who could tell the truth to the king. Of course, it had to be funny or they chop off his head. But still, comics have always been the truth tellers.

What do you think is necessary for healthy public discourse?

To listen. To try to listen to the other side. But I’ll tell you another problem we have, and I joke about it in my act. We’ve kind of lost respect for intelligence, right? I guess it started with the whole — what did they call them — alternative facts?

Which by the way, if I had alternative facts, school would have been so much easier. It would have saved all of that time reading and studying actual facts if I knew I could make them up. But, you know, during the pandemic, it was a huge thing — we looked at doctors and scientists and people who actually went to school and studied in labs and said, “Nah, Bill’s got 100,000 followers. I’m gonna listen to Bill.” Bill is an idiot, OK? So I think that was the problem. We’ve lost respect for actual intelligence and experience.

Your special is called Stupid Don’t Get Tired. Who gets to decide what “stupid” is? Each individual. There are some things I think we all consider ridiculous, but it can

Ahead of his Spokane show, comedian Alonzo Bodden talks alternative facts, jazz albums, and taking a break from headlines

BY ELIZA BILLINGHAM

be individual. When I talk about this stuff, it’s not just things in the news. It’s little everyday things. It’s things that happen at the grocery store. It’s the airport shuttle driver asking me if I’m going to the airport. I’m like, where else would we be going? (laughs) So it’s not always the big newsworthy events. It can be just little simple things.

You were an airplane mechanic, right?

I was. I spent 10 years building and repairing aircraft. I’m the only person in the world who built stealth fighters and entertained the pilots and flight crews at their base when I was doing USO tours. So, yeah, pretty much covered that airline, aircraft and comedy routine.

Is there a through-line between being a mechanic and loving jazz and being a comedian?

The mechanical part — and maybe this has to do with comedy, also — is knowing how things work. A plus B equals C. What I love about jazz and jazz musicians is the incredible creativity and the mastery of their instruments. They do say that there’s a numerical factor to music. So I guess you could relate that to the engineering involved in aircraft, but you’d have to be much smarter than me to put those together. Jazz — it’s the creativity and the freedom that I love. And comedy has that also. I’ve done shows where I’m making up the entire show as I go and I absolutely love doing that.

Do you have favorite jazz albums?

Oh, yeah. So many from the all-time great kind of blues. Marcus Miller live in Monaco was a tremendous album. Robert Glasper — he loves his new albums, Black Radio I, II, and III and they are phenomenal. But I am partial to the trio, so I like an album called Double-Booked Return to Forever The Romantic Warrior is probably the greatest instrument mastery I’ve ever heard. Weather Report Heavy Weather. There are so many records. And then the vocals. Samara Joy, who just won the Best New Artist Grammy, her album Linger Awhile — her voice is unreal. It is unbelievable how beautiful her voice is and how it reminds you of the classic jazz singers, you know, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday type stuff. Then Dianne Reeves, anything Lalah Hathaway sings. These people’s talent — it’s unfortunate that none of them are household names, but their talent is incredible.

How can people read a lot of news to stay informed and still be happy?

You have to take breaks. I do that. You have to take breaks from the news because it’s a barrage of stress. If you just read the news, if you just read the headlines every day, it would be the end of the world. So I think we have to take breaks from the news. I prefer reading the news to watching the news — I think you get a little bit more. And for God’s sake, keep your sense of humor.

Alonzo Bodden: professional comic, former aircraft mechanic, jazz enthusiast. TODD ROSENBERG PHOTO

The Element of DELICIOUSNESS

Dos Gordos’ unique take on tacos prioritizes tastiness and people from its Wandermere hub

CJ Callahan was stuck at his childhood home in Arkansas, grounded by a classic Midwest Christmas snowstorm. He should have been flying to Chicago in time for his shift at a premier bar and kitchen on the North Side. Desperate, he bought a train ticket — if Amtrak didn’t have any snow delays, a train ride to Union Station would be about 13 hours. But no matter what, he couldn’t get to work on time.

His boss called and immediately chewed him out.

“He yelled at me for the weather,” Callahan says. “He’s like, ‘Now, I gotta cover your ass!’”

That night, Callahan learned how not to be a chef.

Three decades later, Callahan is now the executive chef for Dos Gordos, a taco and tequila destination

BY ELIZA BILLINGHAM

opened by One Tree Hard Cider in the Wandermere neighborhood of far north Spokane. It’s a space infused with Callahan’s convictions — a well-paid staff who are treated like family, creative comfort food that aims solely at “deliciousness,” and unstoppable, all-encompassing, almost compulsive care.

After Callahan moved from Chicago to Spokane, he became the executive chef at Hogwash Whiskey Den in 2018, while also helping upstairs at Inland Pacific Kitchen. After taking a job with One Tree in 2022, the owners asked him to create a new menu around tacos and burritos.

Dos Gordos opened in late April. It’s easy to miss,

especially if you’re not looking for creative dining options in a brick stripmall across from Fred Meyer. Once you’re inside, festive colors, cute glassware and the slogan “Gimme Dos!” painted across the wall give the restaurant a fast-casual, family-friendly atmosphere.

But the first clue that you’re in a special place is the bar. Eighty-six tequilas are displayed behind the counter, many on the top shelf. Thirty-three mezcals confirm that someone is obsessed with quality and quantity. The menu seems approachable — most people recognize words like salsa, guacamole, slaw, and probably even crema, chimichurri, and pico de gallo. But when you see the food, and taste the food, it’s clear that you haven’t had anything like this before.

Dos Gordos’ fried chicken and carnitas tacos. ERICK DOXEY PHOTOS

“You’re getting a Southern gentleman with classic French techniques cooking Mexican food,” Callahan says. The mustachioed, broad-handed, big-hearted chef is a quarter Mexican and jokes that his food is only as Mexican as he is.

One of the most popular tacos ($6.50 each) at Dos Gordos is fried chicken, a fabulously confused combo of crispy chicken, hot honey and pickled chili in a tortilla. The chorizo con papas taco throws Mexican sausage and French fried potatoes together, which Callahan accidentally realized reveals his Mexican-Irish roots. He also brings his unique approach to pork and beef tacos, plus a mushroom option for vegetarians. Chips and salsa ($5), guacamole shrimp cocktail ($15), elotes ($9), and wings ($16) are all available as appetizers. There also are burritos ($14-$20), a giant quesadilla ($8) and Churro-nuts ($6), aka donut balls deep-fried in duck fat.

At Dos Gordos, kids can get their tacos served in an orange dinosaur toy. But it’s also the place where Callahan is dreaming up a five-course dinner paired with craft beer from YaYa Brewery Co.

With all his fine dining experience, Callahan is obsessed with excellence and creativity. But no matter what he makes, he’s haunted by an early mentor at — of all places — an Arkansas Holiday Inn buffet.

“He taught me about the element of deliciousness,” Callahan says. “If you eat it, and you don’t want a second bite, you don’t serve it. If you eat it and you keep going back, you know you got a good thing going.”

Tranquili-tea

Lunarium relocates its late-night, safe-haven cafe and tea shop to North Monroe

BY SYLVIA DAVIDOW

Have you ever heard of a “third place?”

It’s a term that describes spaces where people can feel comfortable and spend time between home (the first place) and work (the second place), such as churches, bookstores and coffee shops.

In Spokane, Aimee Clark and her partner Dorian Karahalios are on a mission to bring back the third place. Specifically, a late-night third place.

figure out if the concept of a late-night cafe that doesn’t serve any alcohol was worthwhile.

When they found their current location, however, there was fear that the customers they’d gotten to know and love would forget about Lunarium. So when all of their regulars came back, Clark and Karahalios were overjoyed with excitement.

The people are the heart of their business. Clark and Karahalios’ vision was to build community around a safe space where everyone feels included. Lunarium is pro-LGBTQ+, pro-nerd (they’ve themed summer beverages and treats after sci-fi franchises, such as “The Dune Days of Summer”) and supports anyone who struggles with their mental health.

A variety of seating is spread throughout the cafe: tables, a leather couch, a bar and spaced-out chairs. Lunarium also has gender-neutral bathrooms.

Above all, it’s intended to be a place where guests don’t have to spend money to feel welcome.

The only thing Callahan cares more about than food is people.

“I’m not a religious person,” Callahan says. “But I was raised religious, and I think the Bible does have some pretty good lines in it. I mean, for the most part, it’s garbage. But there was one thing that sticks with me. [Jesus] says, ‘However you treat the least of these is how you treat me.’”

On his day off, Callahan is marinating steak to throw a last-minute birthday party for an employee and friend. When he sits down to write next week’s staff schedule, he’ll organize it around picking up kids from school and going to weddings and honoring other personal requests.

To Callahan, being an executive chef means doing the extra, dirty jobs that no one else wants to do — fixing toilets, covering shifts, washing dishes when everyone else goes home. It means being the person his staff can trust, not fear.

“Work is a way to get away from this bullshit life,” Callahan says. “Life’s not fun for everybody. But work can be an escape, and it can be fun. Food is just a craft and the byproduct. For me, the kitchen is cultivating an environment and an atmosphere where people want to be.” n

Dos Gordos • 12501 N. Division St., Suite 6 • Open

“These places have been disappearing and have been replaced by large corporations or chains, and you’re missing that kind of element of the familiar neighborhood place or community place,” Clark says.

The couple opened Lunarium in early May at 1925 N. Monroe St., tucked behind Atomic Threads Boutique and next to a Baskin Robbins. As the sun sets, many locals flock to this safe haven where they can freely express themselves while reading, playing board games or just enjoying time with company. The cafe serves coffee, tea and club sodas flavored with homemade syrups ($5.50), along with fromscratch baked goods such as scones paired with strawberry balsamic pink peppercorn jam ($6) and a variety of seasonal cookies (two for $5).

While Lunarium now has a home of its own on the south end of the North Monroe Business District, its first run, from fall 2021 to last August, was as an after-hours pop-up inside Twenty-Seventh Heaven bakery on the lower South Hill. (The bakery has also since relocated to downtown Spokane, at 105 S. Madison St.)

“Once the bakery left for the day, we took over her space, and we brought in our full totes of all of our things and unpacked everything and served tea and coffee and treats,” Clark says.

The couple cycled through this rigorous process for about nine months, just enough time to let them

According to Clark, “People can just exist. We are really trying to be the most comfortable space, and the most welcoming, too.”

It’s not only the people who make Lunarium feel like home, it’s the tea as well.

Relax in a seat that best fits your needs and vibe with acoustics from a local musician while sipping on a cozy pot of Honeybush peach herbal tea ($6), a naturally sweet treat for the tastebuds that comes from a shrub native to South Africa.

This tea variety is also represented at Lunarium’s monthly tea tasting events, Tea Journeys, which showcase the unique elements of different tea served there. During Tea Journeys, customers learn the history behind each tea, why it tastes the way it does, and how it’s produced.

Lunarium is also rolling out monthly tea club subscriptions later this summer. Customers can pick up fancy, higher-end teas (which Clark says are too expensive for their in-house menu) and learn about them through a crafty presentation card.

Want a special tea that’s not on the menu? If you ask about the “secret tea” behind the counter, you just might get access to it. n

Lunarium • 1925 N Monroe St. • Open Thu-Sat 5 pm-midnight • lunariumspokane.com • 509-315-5605

Dos Gordos is easy to miss — so go find it.

Cozy up with a pot of tea at Lunarium. COURTESY PHOTO

TALES OF AN AGING GRAVE ROBBER

Harrison Ford and Phoebe Waller-Bridge are fighting for their lives in the otherwise lifeless Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

If there is one thing to take away from Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, it is that we owe the muchmaligned prior entry Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull an apology. At least that was well-directed and dynamic where this new entry is not.

While both are imperfect sequels that attempt to build on a trilogy that concluded decades ago, the first crack at it now looks downright charming. For any who bemoan its “nuking the fridge” scene, moments like that fit in well with the cartoonish roots of the character. Above all else, it saw series director Steven Spielberg returning to prove he is still a talented filmmaker whose passion and precision are now painfully absent here. All the fridge nuking in the world would be more fun than whatever this is. The only saving grace is the cast, but they are trapped in the confines of a surprisingly dull film.

Starting it all off is an extended flashback scene in 1944 where Indiana Jones must fight the Nazis once again. Yet, we don’t really see Harrison Ford in any real sense for quite a while. Rather, we see a digitally de-aged version of him that, while not the worst example of the technology, still holds viewers at a distance that grows increasingly distracting. Worse still, the stiffness of his voice sounds perpetually off, making it hard to get immersed in what is meant to be the movie’s exciting start, while also establishing the timey wimey artifact that the characters will spend the rest of the film chasing.

When the film then jumps forward decades into the

BY CHASE HUTCHINSON

future as the space race is in full swing, we pick back up with Ford’s Jones in the actual flesh in what is initially promising fashion. Drunkenly passed out in his apartment, he is stirred from his fitful slumber by the loud music of his neighbors. He grumpily yells at them to turn it off before going to his last day of work before a forced retirement. This is complicated when his goddaughter Helena, played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge (of the spectacular and shattering series Fleabag) pays him a visit to ask about said time artifact he recovered back in 1944.

Of course, since this is an Indiana Jones film, a group of Nazi goons — led by Mads Mikkelsen’s Dr. Jürgen Voller — are not far behind. Cue the classic John Williams theme as we then go on one last globe-trotting adventure. (At least, one hopes this is the last one, if any future sequels are going to be as banal as this one.)

hoped it would have learned something new rather than just regurgitating more of the same that we’ve all seen done far better before.

INDIANA JONES

AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY

Rated PG-13

Directed by James Mangold

Starring Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelsen, Ethann Isidore

It isn’t that Dial of Destiny does anything particularly egregious, as it mostly plays out as a greatest hits of Indiana Jones from solving puzzles to evading creepycrawlies, but there is nothing all that bold about it either. When the execution of these rather safe sequences are pedestrian at best and plodding at worst, it soon grows tiresome rather than thrilling. Though it picks up in the finale by taking us somewhere Indiana Jones has never gone before, the superficial and often empty road to get there undercuts the more bonkers swing it attempts. For a film about a character looking to the past, you’d have

There is still something more substantial Ford brings, but we only get small glimpses of it. Jones carries plenty of regrets, and we see they have taken their toll on him. Ford has portrayed this character more than any other, and it’s unfortunate to see the care for the role be let down by the slapdash film around him. Even the action — which had a kineticism in all of the past films, even in Crystal Skull is without the same spark. The back-and-forth Ford has with a delightful Waller-Bridge is the only thing keeping the film even close to afloat. This was obviously never going to be a fully somber affair, as the series has always been centered on adventure, but the scenes where the two performers are given space to delve into loss makes one wish this impatient yet also oddly rushed film had not been so averse to leaning into this pathos.

Though the way the ending leaves behind silly spectacle for genuine emotion is unexpectedly sweet, it comes far too late to matter much. Much like how Jones himself was haunted by the mistakes that accumulated in his past, the last-ditch attempt by the film itself to tap into something deeper can’t stop it all from slipping away. n

Less boulder, more older.

A Film To Last Lifetimes

Celine Song’s dynamic and romantic debut feature Past Lives is one of the year’s best movies

BY CHASE HUTCHINSON

In one of the many quietly magnificent scenes in Past Lives — writer/ director Celine Song’s dynamic debut feature that made a splash at Sundance before opening the Seattle International Film Festival — we are taken into a scene of a married couple discussing their lives. Nora, played by a transcendent Greta Lee of the recent Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, listens as Arthur, played by John Magaro of this year’s similarly sublime Showing Up, reflects on how moving of a story it is that she is reconnecting with her childhood friend after decades apart.

The friend is Hae Sung, played by Teo Yoo, who appeared in last year’s romance of a different kind, Decision to Leave. Hae Sung has recently come to New York from South Korea to visit Nora. What could be more romantic than that? Well, as we come to learn in authentic fits and starts, this is merely the launching point for an achievement of a film that turns its eyes toward the infinite wonder and pain of life itself while still keeping its feet firmly planted on the ground.

Though Arthur’s short monologue of sorts could be mistaken for the film patting itself on the back, his observation about this particular type of story is not about its strengths at all. Rather, it is about its history. There is a long cinematic tradition of characters, bound up in the allure of love and destiny, running away together after realizing they were meant to be together all along. It is almost the stuff of myth as we continue to cling to the idealized snapshots of what once was.

This is not that story, but it is one of many doors Song lets us peer through as she brings a deep awareness of the longing that comes from looking to the past while knowing life is not so simple. It is a push and pull that takes hold of you slowly then all at once, much like falling in love itself. As the film traces the lives of its two central characters through decades of departures and reconnections, the sense that they will always be tied together in some way becomes almost overwhelming. It expresses this without pretense, making it feel as though you have just yourself been given a small glimpse of the vast ocean of untold possibilities expanding before all of us.

All of this occurs even as the film may initially seem to be a smaller-scale story. There are only a handful of characters, a smattering of locations and a general emphasis on minute details. Its most devastating conversations play out in the intimate confines of an apartment, in a quiet bar where confessions come gently tumbling out or on a

dimly lit street that becomes a liminal space. And yet, these moments are not small at all. With each subsequent viewing, we see how weighty each of them is even as the story remains light on its feet. There is a playful humor woven throughout it just as there is a continual sense of a potentially looming heartbreak.

Be a part of this 36-year Spokane tradition that benefits Vanessa Behan!

July 12-16

Indian Canyon

ALSO OPENING

Rated PG-13

PAST LIVES

Directed by Celine Song Starring Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, John Magaro

The richness at the core of this rewards multiple viewings, bringing into focus little things that may escape you initially, only to lay you flat when watched again. Some of this comes from the cast, with Lee in particular giving one of the year’s most multifaceted performances in moments big and small, while some of it’s attributable to Song’s utterly complete command of the film. There is a truthfulness to each line of dialogue, a passion to every single cut or move of the camera, and a melancholy to the way memory comes rushing in.

One moment toward the conclusion on the street brings time and space together once more via a quick cut that is simple yet completely shattering. It’s a demonstration of the full emotional potential of what cinema can be, as it molds memory into something sublime. It is beautiful and brutal, serving as a gutting reminder of all that could have been just as it is likely far too late to go running back to it. For a film to capture even a small sliver of this feeling would already make it one of the year’s best. That Past Lives is able to uncover what feels like all the multitudes of its characters, laying bare all of who they are and who they could have been, makes it a cut above most anything of the last decade. Just as it holds tightly to time itself, it is a work with the power to endure in our own memories as well. n

EVERY BODY

The story of intersex people — those born with biological traits outside the traditional male/ female dichotomy — is examined through the lens of three intersex individuals in this new documentary from Julie Cohen (RBG). Rated R

RUBY GILLMAN, TEENAGE KRAKEN

Being a teenage girl is hard enough before discovering you’re actually a kraken princess who must defend the land and the seas from evil mermaids. But thus is the plight of the titular Ruby in this fantasy coming-of-age CG-animated DreamWorks feature. Rated PG

All volunteers get a t-shirt, food and beverages.

Lee and Yoo’s captivating chemistry is undeniable.

Jason Isbell Wants to Unlearn Lessons

Getting to know the acclaimed singer-songwriter through five songs

BY ELISSA BALL

When John Mellencamp sings about small-town America, it’s with rosy nostalgia.

But when Alabama-raised alt-country artist Jason Isbell sings about rural life — as he does on Weathervanes, the new record from his band the 400 Unit — it’s with loving criticism.

Turns out not everyone feels free to be themselves in a small town, Mellencamp! Especially given the current onslaught of drag bans, transphobic legislation and anti-gay “groomer” narrative hitting majority-conservative areas hard.

The Nashville-based Isbell played an LGBTQ+ benefit show for Tennessee Equality Project this March and frequently pushes back against bigotry online. He’s less of a “love-islove” T-shirt ally and more of a punchy tweet composer who told one homophobic fan, “I’m literally trying to keep people like you out of my audience…” Firm boundary-drawing like that irks some folks — especially in mainstream country — who label Isbell “divisive.”

But complaints that he’s tOo PoLiTiCaL haven’t defanged the substance of his lyrics. Weathervanes (released June 9) has a graceful, grateful-for-abortion song and a track (“Cast Iron Skillet”) that scratches at folksy sayings to expose sinister sentiments.

Fans of Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit’s albums Reunions and The Nashville Sound should find plenty to savor in Weathervanes. “Miles” is glazed with a smoky Neil Young sauce, deliciously so. Though “Save the World” initially made me

wince at its title, the haunting song delivers hardhitting material:

“Somebody shot up a classroom again,” sings Isbell over nervous percussion and jumpy guitar, “And when you said the cops just let ’em die / I heard the shaking in your voice.” Presumably about Uvalde, the track isn’t preachy or certain of solutions, but rather documents how the so-called “political” personally affects one’s heart and family.

A new album isn’t all Isbell’s got going on this year. The former Drive-By Truckers member is also the subject of an HBO documentary, Jason Isbell: Running with Our Eyes Closed (streaming on Max), that’s not entirely flattering. In October, he’ll appear on big screens as an actor in Martin Scorsese’s highly-anticipated Killers of the Flower Moon. On set, Robert De Niro heard Isbell’s Southern accent between takes and assumed the musician was method acting.

Nope, Isbell’s a real hick — the kind of country boy who has no problem pointing out big problems, be they personal or national. His song “Palmetto Rose” — off 2015’s Something More Than Free — uses bluesy lows and soaring, hymn-like highs to celebrate the regional beauty of Charleston, South Carolina, and acknowledge its horrific history and lingering attitudes that extend beyond the South. “I think there is a big systemic racial issue in our country,” Isbell recently told Time. “I think a lot of people are pushed to the margins intentionally.”

Of course not everyone wants to hear such criticism. But Isbell keeps singing, speaking out and tweeting anyway. He lifts metaphorical

Jason Isbell (center with beard) never pulls punches in his songs or activism. ALYSSE GAFKJEN PHOTO

stones to reveal slimy cultural legacies — like white supremacy, misogyny, violence — so people can seek a better way instead of looking away. Because some lessons, no matter how deeply ingrained, are worth unlearning.

Here are five songs to help you ace your Isbell lesson before he plays the Fox on July 6.

“DEATH WISH”

WEATHERVANES, 2023

In a tweet she sent Isbell on Weathervanes’ release day, fellow country-ish musician Jenny Lewis described “Death Wish” as “heavy, man.” With lines like “Everybody dies, but you gotta find a reason to carry on,” heavy is an understatement for this opening track.

“Death Wish” tells “the truth about love” — as poet W.H. Auden put it — even if that truth is sticky and complex. The speaker of “Death Wish,” disturbed by his partner’s shaky mental health and dangerous behavior, pops a hole in pop culture’s manic pixie dream girl trope. To watch a loved one’s inner world crumble despite attempts to relieve their suffering is a lonely kind of helplessness. “Death Wish” captures that frustration without shrugging off the situation’s severity.

Isbell’s subtle slant rhyme between “wild ones” and “violence” on this track proves his reputation as a poet’s songwriter — in a similar camp as literary lyricist John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats — remains solid.

Whereas younger country crooner Luke Combs sings, “She’s crazy / but her crazy’s beautiful to me” in his tune “Beautiful Crazy,” the clear-eyed, scared speaker of “Death Wish” would disagree.

“IT GETS EASIER” REUNIONS, 2020 Remember I Am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film

About Wilco, the 2002 documentary that chronicled Wilco’s making of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot? Well, that film’s director Sam Jones has a new rock doc out this year, the aforementioned Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed. The film follows Isbell and company as they record their album Reunions despite… tensions

“Most people don’t go to work with their wife,” explains Isbell in the film’s trailer. He’s married to solo songwriter and Highwomen supergroup member Amanda Shires, who often plays fiddle in the 400 Unit. The pressures of recording strain their marital bonds, and the cameras capture that intensity.

The stressful creative endeavor also tests Isbell’s decadelong abstention from alcohol: “When I have a hard day, I can’t just go home and have a drink,” he says. While Jones’ doc digs into autobiographical backstories of beloved Reunions tracks like “Dreamsicle,” it’s the layered “It Gets Easier” that perhaps best represents the album.

The sober speaker of the song, having admitted he has dreams where he still drinks, assures us, “It gets easier,” only to follow that optimism with the tough-truth kicker:

“But it never gets easy / I can say it’s all worth it, but you won’t believe me.”

Those lines don’t just apply to sobriety but also to romantic partnerships, writing, even cutting a record.

“ANXIETY”

THE NASHVILLE SOUND, 2017 “Sad rock” is a genre Isbell once jokingly used to describe his own sound to Variety. Well he’s right, and he’s in good company — Elliott Smith, Phoebe Bridgers, Death Cab for Cutie — there’s something special about songs you can cry to while headbanging. Isbell’s got both quiet and loud sad-rock songs.

No song encapsulates Isbell’s loud sad rock quite like “Anxiety,” a track that jolts to a start like a grandfather clock toppling over in a hallway.

The song’s foreboding guitar pushes on as relentlessly as worry itself. Isbell and his crew managed to make a nearly seven-minute song about anxiety… that’s also catchy?

While Isbell often writes in second-person (“you,”) in this case the “you” he’s addressing is anxiety itself: “Anxiety / How do you always get the best of me?... I can’t enjoy a goddamn thing.”

“HOW TO FORGET”

SOMETHING MORE THAN FREE, 2015

On track four of Something More Than Free, the song’s speaker watches the “scary movie” of his own past and pleads, “Teach me how to forget / …Teach me how to unlearn a lesson.”

A thematic string that stitches through Isbell’s career is the frequent contemplation of his past actions and attitudes — not in a mopey, shameparalysis way, but with a healthy hunger for self-improvement and social evolution.

In 2019, Isbell penned a piece for Men’s Health about the kind of father he strives to be (one who gladly shares domestic chores and child care) despite not seeing such models of masculinity during his Alabama upbringing in a time when “there was still a well-defined line separating the work of a mother and that of a father.”

“How to Forget” is just another example of how he constantly questions handed-down roles and opts to drop or alter those traditions that turn out to be harmful.

“COVER ME UP”

SOUTHEASTERN, 2013

“Doesn’t Morgan Wallen sing ‘Cover Me Up?’” you might be wondering. YES, BUT JASON ISBELL WROTE IT! NEVER FORGET IT’S JASON’S SONG!

Though Isbell initially supported and defended Wallen covering his song “Cover Me Up,” Isbell’s tune changed in 2021 after Wallen was caught on camera yelling a racial slur. Since then Isbell’s expressed anger at mainstream country for continuing to platform and praise Wallen (whose album sales actually spiked post-racisttirade news). Isbell also announced he’d donate royalties he earned from Wallen’s “Cover Me Up” version to the NAACP Nashville Branch.

Nevertheless, “Cover Me Up” remains a beautiful, crowd-pleasing track off Southeastern.

It’s a hot, specific love song: “So, girl, leave your boots by the bed / We ain’t leaving this room / ’Til someone needs medical help / Or the magnolias bloom” *vigorously fanning myself* n

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Deer Tick • Thu, July 6 at 7:30 pm

• $65

• All ages

• The Fox Theater • 1001 W. Sprague Ave. • foxtheaterspokane.org

ROOTSTRONICA INDUBIOUS

Your mileage with Indubious probably depends on how much you can stomach white dudes from Oregon singing with Jamaican accents. If you can get past that (not saying you should), Indubious offers up an interesting blend of reggae, EDM and rock music known as rootstronica. It’s very positive, good vibes, chill out music about finding spiritual ascension, no doubt a reflection of the band’s core brotherly duo of Evton and Skip Burton dealing with cystic fibrosis since childhood and having a unique perspective on life in the face of that. If you’re on board with Indubious’ chillaxed positivity, then this gig at the Big Dipper could be a stress-free musical meditation.

— SETH SOMMERFELD

Indubious, Northwest Breeze • Fri, June 30 at 8 pm • $20 • All ages • The Big Dipper • 171 S. Washington St. • monumentalshows.com

J

INDUSTRIAL METAL RABBIT JUNK

Thursday, 6/29

J ADELO’S PIZZA, PASTA & PINTS, Brassless Chaps

ARBOR CREST WINE CELLARS, John Hewitt

J BRICK WEST BREWING CO., Kyle Richard and Friends

CHAN’S RED DRAGON ON THIRD, Thursday Night Jam

CHECKERBOARD TAPROOM, Weathered Shepherds

COEUR D’ ALENE CIDER CO., Jason Perry

J D-MAC’S AT THE LAKE, Kevin Franklin

J EAST CITY PARK, MAC Band

J GARLAND DISTRICT, Just Plain Darin

J THE GRAIN SHED - CEDAR TAP HOUSE, Lucas Brookbank

J HISTORIC DAVENPORT HOTEL, Dr. Don Goodwin

MCCRACKEN’S PUB AND BBQ, Son of Brad

J PINE STREET PLAZA, Jon and Rand Band

STEAM PLANT RESTAURANT & PUB, Wiebe Jammin’

J STELLA’S ON THE HILL, Lucky Tongue

J TRUE LEGENDS GRILL, Jerry Lee Raines

ZOLA, Mister Sister

Friday, 6/30

AK ASIAN RESTAURANT, Gil Rivas

BARRISTER WINERY, Stagecoach West

J THE BIG DIPPER, Indubious, Northwest Breeze

CHINOOK CRAFTED BY ADAM HEGSTED, Keanu

J THE COEUR D’ALENE RESORT, JoJo Dodge

THE COEUR D’ALENE RESORT, Wild West Yacht Party

CONKLING MARINA & RESORT, Theresa Edwards Band

J THE GRAIN SHED, Dalton Davenport

J HISTORIC DAVENPORT HOTEL, Brent Edstrom Trio

IRON GOAT BREWING CO., Jason Perry

IRON HORSE (CDA), JamShack

NIGHTHAWK LOUNGE (CDA CASINO), Pastiche

J PARK BENCH CAFE, Under the Trees Concert Series

J PEND D’OREILLE WINERY, Chris Lynch and Lauren Kerschner

THE RIDLER PIANO BAR, Just Plain Darin

SILVER MOUNTAIN RESORT, Son of Brad

UP NORTH DISTILLERY, Wiebe Jammin’

ZOLA, Gigawatt

Saturday, 7/1

BECK’S HARVEST HOUSE, Christy Lee and Luke Yates

CHALICE BREWING CO., Son of Brad CHINOOK CRAFTED BY ADAM HEGSTED, Keanu

CONKLING MARINA & RESORT, Flipside

THE DISTRICT BAR, Rabbit Junk, US3R, Elektro Grave DJs

J HISTORIC DAVENPORT HOTEL, Sacha Boutros, Brent Edstrom Quartet

J HOOK’S LANDING RESORT, The Black Jack Band

IRON HORSE (CDA), JamShack

LUCKY YOU LOUNGE, No Soap, Radio, Zoramena

NIGHTHAWK LOUNGE (CDA CASINO), Pastiche

NOAH’S CANTEEN, Katie Mae Redl

PEND D’OREILLE WINERY, The Cole Show

ROCKET MARKET, Indy & Taylor

J SNOW EATER BREWING CO., Just Plain Darin

ZOLA, Blake Braley

Sunday, 7/2

ARBOR CREST WINE CELLARS, Grand Avenue

BECK’S HARVEST HOUSE, Kevin Shay Band

If you were putting together a soundtrack for a new sci-fi cyberpunk movie, selecting some songs from Rabbit Junk’s discography would be an obvious choice. The husband/wife duo of JP Anderson and Jennifer “Sum Grrl” Bernert craft glitchy twitchy pop rock tunes that inevitably give way to a digital hardcore thrashing and screaming. It’s the type of industrial metal music designed to get cyborgs in the mosh pit. In a slow week for touring acts swinging through Spokane, Rabbit Junk’s show at the District Bar (which has been hosting more and more concerts of late) should make for an energetic start to July.

— SETH SOMMERFELD

Rabbit Junk, US3R, Elektro Grave DJs • Sat, July 1 at 8 pm • $15 • 21+ • The District Bar • 916 W. First Ave. • sp.knittingfactory.com

J EICHARDT’S PUB, Monday Night Blues Jam with John Firshi

RED ROOM LOUNGE, Open Mic Night

Tuesday, 7/4

LITZ’S PUB & EATERY, Shuffle Dawgs

OSPREY RESTAURANT & BAR, Ben Vogel

ROCKET MARKET, Starlite Motel

J THE BIG DIPPER, Dragged Out, In Rapture, Cyclone, Tomb Ripper

J THE COEUR D’ALENE RESORT, Red Books Trio

CONKLING MARINA & RESORT, Usual Suspects

HOGFISH, Open Mic

J SOUTH HILL GRILL, Just Plain Darin

Monday, 7/3

CONKLING MARINA & RESORT, Wild Wooly

Wednesday, 7/5

CHAN’S RED DRAGON ON THIRD, Wednesday Night Jam

J D-MAC’S AT THE LAKE, Chuck Wasileski

THE DRAFT ZONE, The Draft Zone Open Mic

OSPREY RESTAURANT & BAR, Land of Voices

PEND D’OREILLE WINERY, Dwayne Parsons

RED ROOM LOUNGE, The Roomates

J = THE INLANDER RECOMMENDS THIS SHOW

= ALL AGES SHOW

COMMUNITY STARS & STRIPES

Patriotism is a fickle thing. As Americans, we’re privileged to live in a country with many freedoms and opportunities. However, our nation is still relatively young, and thus we still hope for real, positive change to occur within our lifetimes. Whether you celebrate the Fourth of July by double-fisting hot dogs and watching beautiful fireworks displays or reflecting on American values (and also double-fisting hot dogs), these events are filled with fireworks, fun and enjoyment for everyone. May the fourth (of July) be with you.

— MADISON PEARSON

MORE FOURTH OF JULY HAPPENINGS

DOWNTOWN SPOKANE FIREWORKS

10 pm, free, Riverfront Park

LAKESIDE 4TH FEST

6-10 pm, free, Coeur d’Alene Resort

COEUR D’ALENE FIREWORKS

9:45 pm, free, Coeur d’Alene Resort

LIBERTY LAKE CONCERT & FIREWORKS

7-10 pm, free, Pavilion Park

SANDPOINT 4TH OF JULY CELEBRATION

All day, free, downtown Sandpoint

SPOKANE INDIANS VS. EVERETT AQUASOX

7:05 pm, $8-$22, Avista Stadium

LASER LIGHT SHOW & FIREWORKS

10 pm, free, Grand Coulee Dam

FOURTH OF JULY CRUISES

8:30-11 pm, $36-$40, Lake Coeur d’Alene

COMMUNITY RIVERFRONT FUN

Nothing says the perfect summer weekend like cotton candy and riding the ferris wheel. This weekend, Idaho Central Credit Union is kicking off a new summer carnival in Riverfront Park leading up to the Fourth of July. For five days, the park hosts this festive outdoor event from afternoon to after sundown. Maybe you want to win your partner a teddy bear at a carnival game or take your kid on their very first roller coaster. Or maybe you just want to enjoy a sunny weekend with your pals in an environment that feels like the epitome of summer vacation. Regardless, anyone can have a blissful time during this epic course of pastimes, which culminates on July 4 with a fireworks show and concert by the Spokane Symphony.

— SYLVIA DAVIDOW

THEATER SOMETHING GOOD

The hills are alive! Trade the Cascades for the Alps and an evening of love, heartbreak, bravery, betrayal, and yodeling. Coeur d’Alene Summer Theater puts on The Sound of Music, the culmination of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s epic collaboration. Alongside raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, add this performance to your list of favorite things. The professional musical theater group is sure to win over your heart, whether you’re 16 going on 17 or a lonely goatherd. Let’s start at the very beginning and celebrate summer with Idaho’s oldest performing arts organization. Evening and matinee performances give plenty of opportunity to climb every mountain. I have confidence that soaring melodies, daring escapes and heartwarming nuns will make you dread saying so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen or adieu.

— ELIZA BILLINGHAM

ICCU

The Sound of Music • June 30-July 9; Thu-Sat at 7:30 pm, Sun at 2 pm • $50-$65 • Schuler Performing Arts Center • 880 W. Garden Ave., Coeur d’Alene • cstidaho.com • 208-769-7780

VISUAL ARTS GIDDY-UP!

The American West has a powerful pull. For artist Tanden Launder, the symbolism and imagery of this vast landscape is explored in large-scale pieces that often combine black-and-white portrait photographs with antique and vintage advertisements, newspaper clippings, wayfinding road signage, maps, and other ephemera. While the multidisciplinary artist can often be found at his studio inside Coeur d’Alene’s historic Rockford Building, a sampling of his work is next up at the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture for “Cowboy Says Wow!” While Launder’s art’s main draw is its Western Americana subjects — many are portraits of historical figures he devoured biographies on as a boy, like Teddy Roosevelt and Amelia Earhart — viewers are invited to step closer to the canvas to seek out hidden details of each piece. An artist reception is set for July 20.

— CHEY SCOTT

I SAW YOU

RED PICKUP ON 29TH SUNDAY Shame on me for not calling 911. Sunday evening just before dark traveling west on 29th. I was behind you and turned on Lincoln as you turned on Monroe. You were all over the road, but I was not 100 percent sure you were drunk. I should have called. You know who you are. Your neighbors know. I think I was correct in my assessment. You could have killed someone on Father’s Day. Get help.

UP IN THE AIR “W.N....you were in a relationship with a friend of mine for five years. It’s interesting to navigate amongst those whose “”paths” you crossed during that time. Your math doesn’t add up, “Sir.” I hope your attention to detail, otherwise, is not as concerning as those you discounted as not relevant. You weren’t so accurate with that history.

MORE RIVERSIDE BOLLARDS, PLEASE You put up a few plastic bollards to protect the city’s only “protected” bike lane, and now most of them are gone. Just this morning, a brown delivery van parked in the lane. It couldn’t have if the bollards were still there. Every time I ride in the lane, at least one car is in the lane, blocking clear passage. Let’s meet up and put more bollards in. This time, make them metal and substantial. Give these bike lanes protectoin and time to work.

CHEERS

HUGE THANKS TO SPOKANE POLICE My ‘93 Toyota Paseo was stolen on June 16

from the house where I was working as a caregiver. The officer I spoke with was very optimistic, caring and kind. Police recovered it approximately 15 hours later. My car has so much sentimental value as my fiancee had gotten it for me in 2007. He was later diagnosed with terminal cancer and died in 2009. Besides an ambulance, it was the last car he rode in. I can still picture him in the passenger seat sometimes. To say I was devastated by this loss is an understatement. Thank you so very much to the Spokane Police Department for finding it, to All Service Towing for safely towing and storing it, to all the wonderful people on Facebook who tried to help locate it, and to everyone at Preedys Tire and Automotive, who have kept a 30 year old car running like new. I am so grateful!

WE’LL SEE IF NONPARTISANSHIP IS REAL

Thanks Gavin Cooley, Theresa Sanders, and Rick Romero for your TIRELESS efforts to actually do something about a regional approach to addressing homelessness instead of getting mired in the politics of speak loudly-critisize-do nothing-take credit where no credit is due! I hold out hope that the Spokane Unite event will START meaningful and specific action. Unfortunately, regional history usually shows otherwise.

JEERS

CHEATER I have hope you are a decent person who would not want to hurt anyone. You are hanging out with someone and may not know that he is living with a wonderful girlfriend for 10+ years. This wonderful woman has stood by him through both the good and bad times, she has been helping him recover from a bad motorcycle accident this last year. She doesn’t seem to know about his cheating and you, yet. She deserves to know so that she can dump this lying POS for good this time and find a real man who will be faithful, honest and treat her right. My question to you is, are you a [bleep] or have you been lied to too? I hope that you will do the right thing and stop this deceitful activity and let his girlfriend know he is a liar and cheating POS. This type of so-called “man” is a loser who should be exposed for the POS he is. The next move is yours, do the right thing.

ILLEGAL DRIVING Upriver illegal drivers are everywhere! On Inland Empire Way as I was approaching a three-way stop sign, a huge pickup with no visible plates roared past me. They were in the wrong lane (duh!) and

SOUND OFF 1. Visit Inlander.com/isawyou

ran the stop sign. Are some people getting dumber or just incredibly inconsiderate?

DOGS OFF LEASH Jeers to the people who walk in public access areas including the Centennial Trail who don’t have the courtesy to follow the law and keep their dogs on a leash. Follow the rules of the trail.

SPOKANE TRAILS Why doesn’t law enforcement arrest those who live illegally along the river in tents? I thought the trails were supposed to be for walking and running. I notice the trails seem to be used less. Perhaps it’s because people don’t feel safe using them because of those who live along it. Spokane: near nature - near tents.

more time checking your ID, because that behavior is suspicious as hell.

NO RESPECT FOR PRINCE Jeers to all the local oldies and classic rock radio DJs in the area who cut and mangle Prince’s classics to make them “radio friendly.” Let’s Go Crazy’s brilliant intro gets mashed to potatoes,

Dogs are to be on leashes at all times. Also, control your dog. When I pass by you, I have no idea if your dog bites. When it’s straining at the leash, and you have too much slack and aren’t able to hold your dog back, am I supposed to guess that I’m not going to get bit? But, the worst by far are those who just don’t think the law pertains to them and just lets the dog be free. The laws are there for a reason. Why don’t you try and follow them a--hole?

REALLY SPOKANE? Loud cars. Big trucks. Tattoos. And Graffiti. What more Spokane?

RE: GREEDY MUCH? Washington state sales tax is only 6.5 percent, the county rate is 1.6 percent, and the city can charge as much as 1 percent. Spokane city rounds it down to an even 9 percent. That’s not where they’re fleecing you, but I’m sure they are somewhere.

SHARE THE ROAD I ride a bike. I wear a helmet. I have bright lights and use hand signals (the ones from the driver’s guide that you were supposed to have read) as a courtesy to those around me. Every taxpayer foots the bill for road maintenance. Car tabs and taxes come nowhere close to covering the cost, so I ride legally in the street. I approached a northside intersection heading south as you approached the side street heading west. I arrived long before you did, and I was to the right of you, so I exercised my right of way (see driver’s guide), but that didn’t stop you from blaring your horn at me. You then chose to double back for me. You even reversed through an intersection so you could chase, harass and threaten me with your big white SUV. So screw your window. I hope it was expensive, psycho.

TO ALL THE CAR-THIEVING PUNKS So, you think it’s funny to break into people’s cars and rip apart their windows and steering columns? Yeah, you’re only wasting your time, punks. Most newer cars have antitheft protection. You tried to steal mine, and it wouldn’t budge. But you also caused me and my family a lot of headaches and plan cancellations, not to mention loss of transportation. So, once my car is finished being repaired, which will take awhile, it will be parked outside my house, like always, but it will have a camera pointing directly on it and on our other vehicle. The sensors will alert my phone, which will be right next to me in my bedroom. Try it again, punks, and you WILL be caught. Lastly — here’s the deal, punks: Stop following your idiotic TikTok buddies and mentors, learn to be decent human beings, and leave other people’s property alone. You are all destined for only two things if you continue your stupid criminal behaviors: PERSONAL INJURY and/or JAIL. (I hope everyone who reads this will become more aware of the local epidemic, because these punks all need to be taken away and rehabilitated.)

RE: VOTERS Communists! Marxists!

Socialists! THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING! Signed, C. Little

BEING CARDED ISN’T PERSONAL When you throw a fit over being asked to show your ID, we customer service employees don’t feel properly shamed over inconveniencing you or not being able to guess your age on sight. We immediately assume your ID is expired, or suspended, or that there is some other reason why you should not be buying booze. Telling us we don’t know how to do our jobs does not help your case. Shut up, show your damn card, and get out of the store. Your adult tantrums make us spend

while songs like Little Red Corvette, When Doves Cry, and Purple Rain (at the very start of the solo!) are cut short like your favorite Netflix series — they deserve AT LEAST an extra minute. Yet you’ll still give full play to Stairway, In the Air Tonight, the Heartbreaker/Living Loving Maid combo...

CONFIRM! To the too-many-to-count medical offices that can’t get “the labs ordered”!! What gives, y’all? YOU require the lab-work. You “say” you have contacted said lab(s), you claim you don’t need “us” to confirm that the lab has received the orders, then “we” get to the lab for the work, and “We didn’t receive the orders!!” Why are YOUR patients, now at the labs, on their phones, attempting to contact YOUR office to determine where their lab orders are?? The orders you said you’ve sent! How about, if you’re understaffed, try this: Each time you send a request for orders, to a lab, you follow up with a phone call to determine if the lab got the orders. PLEASE!!! Come on!! Should we really trust our health care to you?! n

NOTE: I Saw You/Cheers & Jeers is for adults 18 or older. The Inlander reserves the right to edit or reject any posting at any time at its sole discretion and assumes no responsibility for the content.

EVENTS | CALENDAR BENEFIT

CDA4PRIDE: PRIDE ON THE RUNWAY! An evening of fashion, drag performances, music, food, fun and festivities to benefit North Idaho Pride Alliance. June 29, 6-10 pm. $30-$45. Coeur d’Alene. nipridealliance.com

SPOKANE MAGICKAL MOOT TRIVIA This third annual trivia night theme is “Who’s Who: Gods and Goddesses.” Imcludes raffles, food and prizes. Benefits Children of the Crossroads Church of the Old Ways. June 30, 6 pm. Free. Gaming Grotto, 3808 N. Monroe. fb.me/e/6Ay0nSA8e

COMEDY

ALONZO BODDEN Bodden is best known for winning the third season of Last Comic Standing. June 29, 7:30 pm, June 30, 7:30 & 10:15 pm and July 1, 7 & 9:45 pm. $15-$28. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. spokanecomedyclub.com

THE MATT BAKER COMEDY & STUNT

SHOW A combination of stand-up comedy and stunts. Baker has landed three Guinness World Records and many TV appearances. June 29. 6-8pm. East City Park, 900 E. Third St. ci.moscow.id.us

SPACE QUEERS: A PRIDE SPECTACU -

LAR This comedy show features a dozen local stand-up and drag performers. June 29, 8 pm. $15. Lucky You Lounge, 1801 W. Sunset Blvd. luckyyoulounge.com

BLUE DOORS & DRAGONS Improvised comedy celebrating table-top role-playing games, inspired by a roll of the dice. June 30 at 7 pm. $9. Blue Door Theatre, 815 W. GarlandAve. bluedoortheatre.com

CARL LEE The Washington-based comic has opened for Damon Wayans, Ron White, Bill Bellamy, Lewis Black, Mo’nique and others. July 2, 7 pm. $12-$18. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. spokanecomedyclub.com

STEVE HOFSTETTER Hofstetter is a podcast host and comedy YouTuber. July 3, 7 pm. $30-$40. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. spokanecomedyclub.com

GABRIEL RUTLEDGE Rutledge is a repeat comedy fest winner and has made numerous TV appearances. July 6, 7:30 pm, July 7, 7:30 & 10:15 pm, July 8, 7 & 9:45 pm and July 9, 7 pm. $10-$30. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. spokanecomedyclub.com (509-318-9998)

ART MEETS COMEDY Comics perform improv based on local artists’ work. July 7, 5-9 pm. Free. Shotgun Studios, 1625 W. Water Ave. shotgunstudiosspokane.com

COMMUNITY

GALACTIC SHENANIGANS NIGHT MAR-

KET & STREET FAIR This market features crystals, custom clothing, vintage, jewelry, apothecary, intuitive readings, energy healing, esoteric art and more. June 30, 5-9 pm. Free. Runge Furniture, 303 E. Spokane Ave., CdA. fb.me/e/4sfjBCYLb

ICCU SUMMER CARNIVAL This five-day event includes classic carnival rides, food and 4th of July celebrations. June 30, 4-10 pm, July 1, 12-10 pm, July 2, 1-10 pm, July 3, 4-10 pm and July 4, 12-11 pm. Free. Riverfront Park, 507 N. Howard St. fb.me/e/vzxX0oDX (509-625-6600)

SUMMER OF SNAP: RESOURCE CARNIVAL Enjoy games, slides, food and face painting while obtaining critical resources such as tax preparation, energy assistance and more. June 30, 11 am. Free. Mission Park, 1208 E. Mission Ave.

scarspokane.org (625-6200)

VINTAGE NIGHT MARKET This market features vintage vendors, snacks, and more. Visit link for vendor list. June 30, 4-8 pm. Free. Sprague Union District, 2400-1600 E. Sprague. fb.me/e/1ibeZQEss

WHEATLAND BANK HORSE & CARRIAGE RIDES Enjoy an 8-minute loop through the scenic Riverfront Park and downtown Spokane. Fri from 5-9 pm through July 28. Free. Downtown Spokane. downtownspokane.org

CHINA BEND SUMMER PARTY This annual party features live music, dancing, wine tastings and local arts and crafts vendors. July 1, noon. $10. China Bend Winery, 3751 Vineyard Way, Kettle Falls. chinabend.com (732-6123)

CONKLING MARINA FIREWORKS Find a spot on the deck, dock, water or shoreline and take in the show. July 3, 8:309:30 pm. Free. Conkling Marina & Resort, 20 W. Jerry Ln. conklingmarina.com

WALLACE STATEHOOD PARADE Ring in both Idaho and America’s birthday with a parade through Wallace’s main drag. July 3, 12:30-2 pm. Free. Wallace, Idaho. wallaceid.fun

LAKESIDE 4TH FEST Ring in the Fourth with a festive family-friendly event that includes a dinner buffet, live entertainment and a fireworks display. July 4, 6-10 pm. $125. The Coeur d’Alene Resort, 115 S. Second. bit.ly/42k7D8b (208-292-5678)

LIBERTY LAKE 4TH OF JULY CONCERT

& FIREWORKS Fireworks are launched from the baseball fields between Liberty Creek and the elementary schools. Fireworks are preceded by a concert on the Pavilion Park stage. July 4, 7-10 pm. Free. Liberty Lake. libertylakewa.gov

SANDPOINT 4TH OF JULY CELEBRATION This Independence Day celebration features a children’s parade, grand parade and fireworks at dusk. July 4. Free. Downtown Sandpoint. facebook.com/ SandpointLionsClub

SPOKANE 4TH OF JULY FIREWORKS:

A fireworks display in Riverfront Park in honor of Independence Day. Fireworks begin at 10 pm. July 4, 10 pm. Free. Riverfront Park, 507 N. Howard St. riverfrontspokane.org (509-625-6600)

THE REPTILE LADY Interact with reptiles from all over the world in this educational event with the Reptile Lady, April Jackson. July 6, 6-8 pm. Free. East City Park, 900 E. 3rd St. ci.moscow.id.us

TWEEN LIBRARY CARNIVAL Tweens are invited to test their skills at classic and unique carnival games and earn prize tickets. Ages 8-12. July 6, 2-3 pm. Free. North Spokane Library, 44 E. Hawthorne Rd. scld.org (893-8350)

WORLD TRAVELER TEEN ESCAPE

ROOM Practice teamwork by solving puzzles, riddles and conundrums to escape the room. Ages 13–18. Registration required. July 6, 2-3 & 3:30-4:30 pm.

Free. Otis Orchards Library, 22324 E. Wellesley Ave. scld.org (893-8390)

ALL WHEELS SWAP MEET This swap meet is Spokane’s largest indoor car swap. See classic cars and shop vendor goods. July 7, 9 am-6 pm, July 8, 9 am-6 pm and July 9, 10 am-2 pm. $8. Spokane County Fair & Expo Center, 404 N. Havana St. spokaneswapmeet.com

KURONEKOCON A three-day celebration of anime, video games and Japanese culture featuring cosplay events, panels, tabletop gaming, arts and crafts and more. July 7, 11 am-10 pm, July 8, 10 am-10 pm and July 9, 10 am-4 pm. $35-

$200. DoubleTree by Hilton City Center, 322 N. Spokane Falls Ct. kuronekocon. com (509-676-4405 ext. 562)

POST FALLS FESTIVAL This annual event includes a parade, live music, vendors, food trucks, movies in the park and more. July 7-9; Fri-Sat from 11 am-8 pm, Sun from 11 am-4 pm. Free. Q’Emiln Park, 12201 W Parkway Dr. postfalls.gov

FILM

FREE KIDS MOVIES: HOW TO TRAIN

YOUR DRAGON Hiccup is a Norse teenager who befriends an injured dragon he names Toothless. June 26-30, daily at 9:30 am. Free. Garland Theater, 924 W. Garland Ave. garlandtheater.com

SALVATION ARMY MOVIES IN THE PARK A series of family-friendly movies shown outside in Sally’s Park. Bring blankets and/or lawn chairs. Snacks and drinks available for purchase. Fridays at 7:30 pm through Aug. 4. Free. The Salvation Army Spokane, 222 E. Indiana Ave. spokane.salvationarmy.org

CARTOONS AT THE FARMERS MARKET

A selection of kid-friendly animated shorts run during the farmers market. Sat 9 am-noon through Oct. 28. Free. The Kenworthy, 508 S. Main St. kenworthy. org (208-882-4127)

FREE KIDS MOVIES: KUNG FU PANDA

Po, a lazy, clumsy panda, secretly dreams of becoming a kung fu legend. July 3-7, daily at 9:30 am. Free. Garland Theater, 924 W. Garland Ave. garlandtheater.com

FOOD & DRINK

BROWNE FAMILY PROPRIETOR DINNER Andrew Browne and representatives from Browne Family Vineyards provide wines paired with a chef-curated menu. June 29-30, 6-9 pm. $125. Beverly’s, 115 S. Second St. bit.ly/3WYHNFk

CHEF COLLABORATION DINNER A coursed dinner inspired by Helix Wine’s dedication to the Columbia Valley’s distinctive terrain, climate and soil type, paired with a wine flight hand-picked by Chuck Reininger. June 29. $150. Lodgepole, 106 N. Main St., Moscow. lodgepolerestaurant.com (208-882-2268)

COOKING CLASS: HAND-FORMED

PASTA Join Commellini Estate’s executive chef, Frank, and learn how to create versatile pasta noodles. June 29 and 30 at 6:30 pm. $85. Commellini Estate, 14715 N. Dartford Dr. commellini.com (509466-0667)

NEXT LEVEL SUSHI Learn more advanced skills used to create sushi rolls. This class is designed for those with prior experience. June 29, 5:45-8:15 pm. $90. The Kitchen Engine, 621 W. Mallon Ave. thekitchenengine.com (509-328-3335)

STRAWBERRY FESTIVAL The yearly festival includes u-pick strawberries, craft and food vendors and live music. Daily from 12-6pm through July 15. Siemers Farm, 11125 E. Day-Mt. Spokane Rd. siemersfarm.com (509-238-6242)

RIDE & DINE Enjoy a scenic gondola ride, live music and a barbecue meal on the mountaintop. June 30-Sept. 1, Fri from 3-8 pm. $8-$51. Silver Mountain Resort, 610 Bunker Ave. silvermt.com

CUPCAKE DECORATING BASICS FOR TEENS Learn basic techniques and discuss different supplies, terms and piping tips you can use to create beautifully decorated cupcakes. Ages 13–18. Regis-

tration is required. June 30, 2-3 pm. Free. Moran Prairie Library, 6004 S. Regal St. scld.org (893-8340)

NOVA KAINE’S DON’T TELL MAMA

CABARET & DRAG BRUNCH Inland Northwest drag performers perform pieces choreographed by Troy Nickerson. First and third Sunday of every month, 11 am. Free. Highball, 100 N. Hayford Rd. northernquest.com (877-871-6772)

WINE TASTING Taste regional wines. Buy two bottles and receive your tasting for free. Sun from 2-4 pm through Sep. 3. $10. The Culinary Stone, 2129 N. Main St. culinarystone.com (208-277-4166)

WINE DOWN WEDNESDAYS Beverly’s sommelier Justine Recor offers complimentary tastings of wine from around the globe as well as knowledge and conversations about their origins. Wed from 4-9 pm. Free. Beverly’s, 115 S. Second St. beverlyscda.org (208-765-4000)

PAIRINGS IN THE PINES A progressive tasting event through Pine Street Woods while enjoying locally crafted food and wines, immersed in the sights and sounds of nature. July 6, 4-8 pm. Pine Street Woods, 11915 W. Pine St., Sandpoint. kaniksu.org

COEUR D’ALENE BREWFEST This event features 30 beers and ciders to taste, food, yard games and live music. Tickets include six 5 oz. beer pours and a commemorative pint glass. July 8, 1-7 pm. McEuen Park, 420 E. Front Ave. cdadowntown.com (208-769-2252)

MUSIC

RALPH ALESSI Trumpet player and composer Ralph Alessi performs with Andy Milne, John Herbert and Mark Ferber. June 30, 7:30-9 pm. $15-$30. Holy Names Music Center, 3910 W. Custer Dr. imaginejazz.org (326-9516)

MUSIC ON MONDAYS: COEURIMBA This Coeur d’Alene marimba group performs traditional and popular music from Zimbabwe. July 3, 6-7:30 pm. Free. Coeur d’Alene Public Library, 702 E. Front Ave. cdalibrary.org (208-769-2315)

SPOKANE SYMPHONY: PATRIOTIC POPS Watch a Pavilion light show while the Symphony plays a lineup of patriotic tunes. July 4, 9 pm. Free. Pavilion at Riverfront, 574 N. Howard St. spokanesymphony.org (509-625-6000)

WALLACE BLUES FESTIVAL Live blues concerts from regional and national blues acts. Full schedule TBA. July 7 and July 8, 12-10 pm. $20-$45. Wallace, Idaho. wallaceblues.com

SPORTS & OUTDOORS

BASIC YOGA Strengthen, stretch and release muscle tension with instructor Robin Marks. Fri from 9-10 am through July 7. $67. John A. Finch Arboretum, 3404 W. Woodland Blvd. spokanerec.org

SCENIC CHAIRLIFT RIDES Ride the chairlift up and down the mountain with options to hike back down the mountain. July 1-Sept. 30, Fri-Sun from 10 am-3:30 pm. $9-$13. Lookout Pass Ski & Recreation Area, I-90 Exit 0. skilookout.com

WSU SPOKANE COUNTY MASTER GARDENER PLANT CLINIC Ask experts about your plant issues and get advice about plant selection, maintenance, pest management, and more. Sat from 11 am-3 pm through Sep. 30. Free. Shadle Library, 2111 W. Wellesley Ave. spokanelibrary.org

CDA FULL MOON RIDE A leisurely ride around Coeur d’Alene with no set route. Bring bike lights and helmets. July 2, Aug. 1, Aug. 31, and Sep. 29, 7 pm. Free. facebook.com/groups/CDAfullmoonbikeride

MOORE-TURNER HERITAGE GARDENS

TOURS Step back in time and experience this garden as it looked in 1915. July 2 and 9, 11 am. Free. Moore-Turner Heritage Gardens, 507 W. 7th. heritage-gardens.org

HIAWATHA FULL MOON NIGHT RIDE

Ride the historic route under the light of a full moon. Riders meet at the east portal. July 3, Aug. 1, and Aug. 30, 8-11 pm. $40. Lookout Pass Ski & Recreation Area, I-90 Exit 0. RideTheHiawatha.com

SPOKANE INDIANS VS. EVERETT

AQUASOX Promos during the six-game series include 4th of July Fireworks (July 4), Dollars in Your Dog Night (July 6), Fireworks Night (July 7) and Marvel’s Defenders of the Diamond Night (July 8). July 4, 7:05 pm, July 5-6, 6:35 pm, July 7, 5:09 pm, July 8, 7:05 pm and July 9, 1:05 pm. $8-$22. Avista Stadium, 602 N. Havana St. spokaneindians.com

PRACTICAL CENTERING YOGA Experience the benefits of yoga and pilates movements through these weekly sessions. Wed from 1:30-2:30 pm. $18-$20. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org

RIVERFRONT MOVES: SHALA LIVING

YOGA This class features a series of fundamental yet challenging poses along with mindful breath work. July 6, 6-7 pm. Free. Riverfront Park, 507 N. Howard St. riverfrontspokane.com (509-625-6600)

NATIVE & XERIC PLANT MASTERY SERIES This four-part class teaches how to replace lawns with native plantsand more. July 8-29, Sat from 2-3 pm. Classes can be taken together or separately. $10$30. Ritters Garden & Gift, 10120 N. Division St. 4ritter.com (509 467-5258)

THEATER

GREASE After a summer romance, leather-clad greaser Danny and girl-next-door Sandy are unexpectedly reunited. WedSat at 7:30 pm, Sun at 2 pm through July 2. $25-$40. University High School, 12320 E. 32nd Ave. svsummertheatre.com

THE SOUND OF MUSIC Maria takes a job as governess to the von Trapp family while she decides whether to become a nun. She falls in love with the children, and their widowed father. June 30-July 9; Thu-Sat at 7:30 pm, Sun at 2 pm. $50$65. Schuler Performing Arts Center, 880 W. Garden Ave. cstidaho.com

ALADDIN A production filled with unforgettable beauty, magic comedy and spectacle. It’s an extraordinary theatrical event where one lamp and three wishes make the possibilities infinite. June 27July 2; times vary. $35-$95.50. First Interstate Center for the Arts, 334 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. broadwayspokane.com

ACCORDING TO COYOTE This production is an encounter with the richness and vitality of Native American culture using age-old traditions of music, dance and theatre. July 7-9, daily at 8 pm. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org

MY 80-YEAR-OLD BOYFRIEND Based on the true story of performer Charissa Bertels, this musical reveals the thrill of chasing your dreams Presented by Idaho Repertory Theatre. July 7-9; Fri-Sat at 7:30 pm, Sun at 2 pm. $5-$25. The Forge Theater, 404 Sweet Ave. uidaho.edu/theatre (208-885-6465)

VISUAL ARTS

PATRICIA ROBINSON: WILD FLOWERS Robinson’s paintings showcase her connection with the natural world. Daily from 11 am-7 pm through July 29. Free. Liberty Building, 203 N. Washington. spokanelibertybuilding.com

POAC SANDPOINT ART WALK Local artisans, galleries, and business owners throughout downtown showcase local art throughout downtown Sandpoint. Through Sep. 5. artsinsandpoint.org

WILLOW TREE & GABRIEL LEE

GREENE: NERVUS. This exhibit highlights the exploration of self and the resulting effects anchored by societal stimuli and driven narratives of two local LGBTQ+ artists. Tue-Sat from 10 am-6 pm through July 8. Free. Emerge, 119 N. Second St. emergecda.com

THE WYETHS: THREE GENERATIONS

A collection of works by N.C. Wyeth, one of America’s finest illustrators; his son Andrew, an important realist painter; Andrew’s son Jamie, a popular portraitist; and extended family members. Tue-Sun from 10 am-5 pm through Aug. 20. $7-$12. The MAC, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org (509-456-3931)

CAMPBELL HOUSE 125TH ANNIVERSARY Explore the 1898 mansion and historic neighborhood with museum educators. Sat from 11 am-noon. through Sep. 23. $8-$10. The MAC, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org

CUT-OUTS: PAPER STOP-MOTION ANIMATION Students work together to make stop-motion animation videos. This class is intended to be as beginner-

friendly as possible. Ages 11+. July 1-22, Sat from 11 am-2 pm. $154. Spokane Art School, 503 E. Second Ave., Ste. B. spokaneartschool.net (509-325-1500)

DAVID HOYT Hoyt creates colorful images depicting animals, nature and local landscapes. July 1-30, Thu-Sun from 10 am-6 pm. Free. Dahmen Barn, 419 N. Park Way. artisanbarn.org

RUTHIE FRANKS Franks creates sculptures and bowls by growing, drying and decorating gourds. July 1-30, daily from 11 am-7 pm. Free. Pottery Place Plus, 203 N. Washington St. potteryplaceplus.com (509-327-6920)

TANDEN LAUNDER: COWBOY SAYS

WOW! This exhibition features western-inspired art by the North Idaho artist. July 1-Aug. 25, Tue-Sun from 10 am-5 pm. $7-$12. Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. First Ave. northwestmuseum.org (509-456-3931)

ART, ANIMALS & GARDEN WITH KIT

JAGODA & SEAN MITCHELL This class allows students to explore a variety of techniques and media in the presence of rescued animals who call River’s Wish home. Ages 8-14. July 3-7, daily from 9 am-12 pm. $195. River’s Wish Animal Sanctuary, 11511 W. Garfield Rd. spokaneartschool.net (509-325-1500)

THE HIVE OPEN STUDIO Stop by Tto see what the Artists-In-Residence are up to and tour the building. Wed from 4-7 pm. Free. The Hive, 2904 E. Sprague Ave. spokanelibrary.org

KINDNESS ROCKS Paint rocks with creative designs and uplifting messages and learn about the Kindness Rocks Project. Bring your own clean rock. July

5, 5:30-7 pm. Free. Medical Lake Library, 3212 Herb St. scld.org (509-893-8330)

WORDS

THE CHANGING FACE OF JOURNALISM: A DIALOGUE ACROSS GENERATIONS Journalists Karen Dorn Steele, Samantha Wohlfeil, Tracy Simmons, Amanda Roley, Valerie Osier, Emma Epperly and Leonard Kransdorf discuss the changing landscape of journalism. June 29, 6:30-8 pm. Free. Central Library, 906 W. Main. spokanelibrary.org

BUZZY BEES & POLLINATION Learn about what bees get up to with a Spokane County Master Gardener through stories, songs and activities. Ages 3-8. June 30, 10-10:45 am. Free. South Hill Library, 3324 S. Perry St. spokanelibrary.org (509-444-5300)

AUNTIE’S BOOK CLUB: GET LIT! Discuss Nicole Zelniker’s novel Until We Fall, at this month’s book club. July 2, 6-7 pm. Free. Auntie’s Bookstore, 402 W. Main Ave. auntiesbooks.com

BROKEN MIC Spokane Poetry Slam’s weekly open mic. Wednesdays at 6:30 pm. Free. Neato Burrito, 827 W. First Ave. bit.ly/2ZAbugD (509-847-1234)

THE SCOOP FROM SPACE Write and perform a playful newscast about the discovery of an alien planet of your own imagining. Grades 4-6. July 5-7, daily from 10 am-noon. Free. Spark Central, 1214 W. Summit Pkwy. spark-central.org

3 MINUTE MIC Readers may share up to three minutes’ of content. All ages. First Fridays from 7-8:30 pm. Free. Auntie’s, 402 W. Main. auntiesbooks.com n

Magic Bullet or Snake Oil?

Cannabis’ cure-all chemical shows promise in some areas, but not so much in others

BY WILL MAUPIN

These days you’re almost guaranteed to know someone who sings the praises of CBD. No longer confined to dispensaries, CBD is showing up everywhere from the gas station on the corner to the pet aisle or natural living section of your local grocery store. Problem is, there’s not nearly enough science to back up its spread. However, that’s beginning to change, and a study published this month in the Journal of Cannabis Research is contributing to our now growing knowledge of just what this chemical can do.

The study in question, by a handful of European researchers, adds validity to some of the many claims made by CBD proponents.

In recent years, especially since 2018 when CBD was made effectively legal at the federal level in the U.S., the non-psychoactive compound found in cannabis has blown up. The potential benefits it offers have blown up as well, at least in how products containing it are marketed.

The recent study shows that, based upon a review of other reputable studies, CBD has shown promise as an anxiolytic (anti-anxiety) as well as for other mental disorders such as PTSD or sleep issues, but that it has not shown proven therapeutic potential for other issues such as pain relief — something for which CBD is often promoted as a remedy.

This study looked only at purified CBD, which can be best explained as pure CBD and nothing else — smoking weed, for example, is a way to consume CBD, but countless other chemicals and compounds will also be consumed. In that situation, it’s hard to specify whether the CBD is responsible for any positive effects or if other chemicals are at play.

The takeaway is that there are potential benefits from CBD consumption. However, there is reason to pump the brakes because this study looked at CBD on its own. Does CBD from recreational cannabis, which also contains THC among many other cannabinoid chemicals, deliver the same effects? Science may not yet know the answer.

If you believe in these results, the best way to take advantage is to buy CBD from a licensed dispensary. In Washington, they are held to much higher regulatory standards than are the products sold at your local corner or grocery store. The bottom line, for now, is that CBD has shown promise as a treatment in some areas. Is it the panacea many hope or claim it to be? Science isn’t ready to answer that question just yet. n

WARNING: This product has intoxicating effects and may be habit forming. Cannabis can impair concentration, coordination, and judgment. Do not operate a vehicle or machinery under the influence of this drug. There may be health risks associated with consumption of this product. For use only by adults 21 and older. Keep out of the reach of children.

GREEN ZONE

NOTE TO READERS

BE AWARE: Marijuana is legal for adults 21 and older under Washington State law (e.g., RCW 69.50, RCW 69.51A, HB0001 Initiative 502 and Senate Bill 5052). State law does not preempt federal law; possessing, using, distributing and selling marijuana remains illegal under federal law. In Washington state, consuming marijuana in public, driving while under the influence of marijuana and transporting marijuana across state lines are all illegal. Marijuana has intoxicating effects; there may be health risks associated with its consumption, and it may be habit-forming. It can also impair concentration, coordination and judgment. Do not operate a vehicle or machinery under the influence of this drug. Keep out of reach of children. For more information, consult the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board at www.liq.wa.gov.

Be aware of the differences in the law between Idaho and Washington. It is illegal to possess, sell or transport cannabis in the State of Idaho. Possessing up to an ounce is a misdemeanor and can get you a year in jail and up to a $1,000 fine; more than three ounces is a felony that can carry a five-year sentence and fine of up to $10,000. Transporting marijuana across state lines, like from Washington into Idaho, is a felony under federal law.

to advertise: 444-SELL

1. Crafty website

5. Lip

9. Face-planted

14. Half of seis

15. Trade show

16. Gas-X rival

17. Los Angeles dispensary with a penchant for marijuana and wordplay (and, yes, it really exists)

19. “____!” “Polo!”

20. Prefix with center

21. Largest island in the Bahamas

23. What aspirin can prevent

24. Permissible

26. Denver dispensary with a penchant for marijuana and wordplay (and, yes, it really exists)

28. The “N” of the celeb whose Twitter handle is @ActuallyNPH

PHONE:(509)444-7355

E-MAIL:BulletinBoard@Inlander.com

INPERSON: 1227WestSummitParkway Spokane,WA 99201

31. Neighbor of an Omani

32. Somali-born supermodel

35. Oscar-winning 2020 Pixar film

38. Spooky

39. Gumshoe

40. Washington State dispensary with a penchant for marijuana and wordplay (and, yes, it really exists)

42. Extra WNBA periods

43. “Good thinking!”

45. Actress Polo

46. Obnoxious sort

47. Lose one’s hearing

49. “My Way” memoirist Paul

51. With locations in Portland and Bend, dispensary chain with a penchant for marijuana and wordplay (and, yes, it really exists)

54. John who sings “Cold Heart”

with Dua Lipa

58. Docile

59. Most festive

62. Regret

63. How checks are written

65. Alaska dispensary with a penchant for marijuana and wordplay (and, yes, it really exists)

67. 1701, on cornerstones

68. “Night” author Wiesel

69. Adderall target, briefly

70. Grade-boosting class

71. Florida’s Miami-____ County

72. Boeing 747s, e.g.

DOWN

1. Tony winner Merman

2. Familiar theme

4. DKNY rival

stitches?

size

30. Heist haul

32. “Let’s do this!”

33. Office notes

34. Campus figures

36. It’s strummed by Elvis in “Blue Hawaii,” for short

37. Actress ____ Flynn Boyle

40. Headliner

41. Diarist Anais

44. Hyatt hotel line

46. Vulcano of “Impractical Jokers”

48. Skyline concealer

50. Low-carb diet

52. Tested the waters, say

53. Spiral-horned antelope

55. Line of work

to do the trick”

57. Requirements 60. Oklahoma

My mother & grandmother’s player piano rolls. If interested, please call or text

Play where the big winners play.

$40,000 Giveaway on Each Drawing Date!

FRIDAY, JUNE 9 TH | 7 PM | 30 WINNERS

FRIDAY, JUNE 30 TH | 7 PM | 30 WINNERS

Yippee-ki-yay! It’s time for the $80,000 Cowboy Up Giveaway. We’re giving away $40,000 on each drawing date.

Join us on Friday, June 9TH and Friday, June 30TH to win one of 30 prizes of up to $4,000 cash on each giveaway date. Plus, five of the prize winners on June 9TH will pre-qualify into the June 30TH giveaway.

Earn entries starting June 1ST. Play your favorite video gaming machines with your Coeur Rewards card and get one entry for every 500 points earned.

See the Coeur Rewards booth, CDA Casino app or cdacasino.com for promotional rules.

Fireworks Show

SUNDAY, JULY 2 ND | 10 PM

Celebrate 4TH of July Weekend with a spectacular fireworks show!

No fireworks show will be held on Tuesday, July 4TH

Play the newest games first at Coeur d’Alene Casino!

Check out the Discovery Den, our newest gaming area which is the first and only testing room in the Inland Northwest. Featuring an ever-changing variety of video gaming machines from the world’s leading manufacturers, you won’t find these video gaming machines being tested anywhere else in the Inland Northwest—or possibly even in the US. Play them first and help decide which ones stay and which ones go.

Chill out at our newest bar, located on the casino floor. The Chill Bar serves frozen blended drinks in foot-long plastic glasses, wine, beer and more. Open on large event nights, Fridays and Saturdays from 5 pm to midnight.