Like a lot of people, I’ve been doing some serious ruminating over the past week. Among those ruminations has been whether we’re living through a repeat of previous critical eras in history. The decline and fall of Rome comes easily to mind, as well as the period in Germany from Jan. 30, 1933 to Aug. 19, 1934 (look it up).
While casting around for comparisons the other day, I ran across a YouTube video posted Dec. 10, 2024 by user Kate Alexandra, titled “Are We Entering a New Romantic Era?” The video is OK, but more interesting are the articles to which she linked.
One, from Ross Barkan writing for The Guardian in December 2023, suggests that there is a “strange, romantic backlash to the tech era” either on the horizon or already here. He cites growing rejection of algorithms, distrust and fear of AI, dislike of always-on smartphone addiction and even a rejection of empirical science in favor of “astrology, art and a life lived fiercely offline.” (Witness the trend of “raw-dogging” long plane flights; that is, eschewing any form of entertainment or distraction while in transit.)
“The amusement phase [of the 21st century tech boom] has passed,” Barkan wrote. “The modern creative class, beleaguered enough, barraged by two decades of digital technology that has radically cheapened music, television and cinema, is ready for combat ...”
In another piece, published on honest-broker.com in November 2023, Ted Gioia wrote, “Imagine a growing sense that algorithmic and mechanistic thinking has become too oppressive. Imagine if people started resisting technology. Imagine a revolt against STEM’s dominance. Imagine people deciding that the good life starts with NOT learning how to code.” Imagine cottagecore, â la Thoreau at Walden Pond.
But it’s not all off-grid hygge and spiritual contemplation. Richard Nilsen, at richardnilsen.com, directly connected the rise of the new Romanticism to Donald Trump, writing in November 2021 about the “adolescent” nature of the zeitgeist, which it shares with its 19th-century predecessor. “It is too concerned with the self and not enough with the community,” according to Nilsen. “There is at heart a great deal of wish fulfillment in it, and a soft pulpy core of nostalgia and worse, an unapologetic grandiosity.” He had a point, particularly writing in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, when distrust of science reached a level not seen on a widespread scale for more than a century. In that Romantic vein, “The individual should be the arbiter of truth; if it feels true, we line up and salute. In a classical age, the judgments of society are taken as a prime value.”
Nilson even diagnosed the “neo-barbarianism” of the Romantic Trumpists, whose “nostalgia is for a pre-immigrant, pre-feminist, pre-integration utopia that never actually existed,” along with “a glorification of violence, both criminal and battlefield.” I was particularly taken by Nilson’s connection between the beginning of the most recent Romantic era with the “tactically meaningless act” of storming the Bastille, which served to trigger the French Revolution and became France’s chief national holiday. “We have our Jan. 6, just as meaningless and perhaps just as symbolic,” Nilson wrote. “But perhaps that riot has more in common with a certain putsch in Munich.” Perhaps.
DEAR READERS,
It appears my weekly intake of hate mail has increased over the past seven to ten days. Hmm, I wonder what happened to spur on this uptick in vitriol?
Seriously though, if you’re reading this and think your snarky salvos pierce my skin, you’ve got another think coming. It is entertaining, though, seeing the mental gymnastics some will perform to properly kiss the ring of the billionaire grifters who now rule America.
I’ve been doing this for a decade and practicing journalism for close to two decades. I’ve heard it all and I’m not impressed by much. If you think a letter filled with misspellings and devoid of facts will cause me to “seek help,” as several have suggested I do, take a look in the mirror and ask yourself what brought you to this: defending the most powerful people in the world to a small-town newspaper publisher who happens to believe in the First Amendment. As long as I’m publisher of this newspaper, we will continue to report the truth and speak that truth to power every chance we get.– Ben Olson, publisher
READER
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About the Cover:
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Trump administration causes nationwide whiplash on suspension of federal grants, loans
Memo cutting off payments for wide swath of recipients rescinded after court order, while White House spox says ‘funding freeze’ is still on
By Zach Hagadone Reader Staff
The Trump administration walked back a temporary pause on a swath of federal loans and grants Jan. 29, adding a coda to more than 24 hours of nationwide chaos resulting from a surprise Office of Management and Budget memo on Jan. 27 that seemed to indicate thousands of government agencies and entities, nonprofits, and other public and private sector recipients would be cut off from federal dollars.
According to Idaho Reports, state agencies had been directed by the Division of Financial Management as of Jan. 28 not to use general fund monies to backfill shortfalls resulting from the freeze on payments, which according to the Jan. 27 memo were intended to provide a period for review of financial assistance programs in order to ensure they were “consistent with the President’s policies and requirements.”
Specifically, the memo targeted recipients of federal money that purportedly advance “Marxist equity, transgenderism and green new deal social engineering policies,” going on to cite Trump’s hair of executive orders issued during his first week in office.
Agencies, organizations and other entities identified on a list that accompanied the memo were directed to “complete a comprehensive analysis” of the federal assistance they receive, and “identify programs, projects and activities that may be implicated by any of the President’s executive orders.” Meanwhile, “to the extent permissible under applicable law,” their federal support would be temporarily suspended.
Those analyses were to be submitted to OMB no later than Monday, Feb. 10, after which they would be reviewed in order to “modify
unpublished Federal financial assistance announcements, withdraw any announcements already published and, to the extent permissible by law, cancel awards already awarded that are in conflict with Administration priorities ...”
The memo caused recipients of federal assistance across the country to scramble throughout Jan. 28 to determine which — if any — of their programs and services would be affected, creating what the Associated Press described as “the most chaotic day for the U.S. government since Trump returned to office,” as the president sought to conduct “an across-theboard ideological review to uproot progressive initiatives.”
Meanwhile, a federal judge blocked the order until Monday, Feb. 3, minutes before it was intended to go into effect at 5 p.m. (Eastern) on Jan. 28.
Then, in a midday announcement on Jan. 29, OMB Acting Director Matthew Vaeth rescinded the memo with the brief statement: “If you have questions about implementing the President’s Executive Orders, please contact your agency General Counsel.”
However, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt posted Jan. 29 on X, “This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze. It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo. Why? To end any confusion created by the court’s injunction. The President’s EO’s [executive orders] on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented.”
Statewide agencies were working to parse through the potential implications of the order prior to it being rescinded — even as the administration tried to narrow the scope of the funding freeze in a Jan. 28 press conference, during which Leavitt said that
individual assistance such as Social Security, Medicare, SNAP and welfare benefits would not be affected.
Heads of Idaho government departments, speaking to Idaho Reports on Jan. 28, expressed uncertainty and confusion, while representatives of statewide city and county government associations were also left wondering about the potential impacts.
Association of Idaho Cities Executive Director Kelley Packer told Idaho Reports that the freeze could cost billions of dollars in federal funding for Idaho’s municipalities.
“You have big transportation projects already going in the state that have federal funds,” she told Idaho Reports. “Some of it could be emergency service needs, like fire trucks and police fleets and other things. I mean, there’s a lot of different funding sources that the cities reach out for to help subsidize the dwindling property tax money they receive.”
In a statement to the Reader on Jan. 28, Sandpoint Mayor Jeremy Grimm wrote, “Federal funding plays a critical role in Sandpoint, supporting infrastructure projects like our wastewater treatment plant upgrades, economic development initiatives and essential services that residents rely on every day. Rural communi-
ties like ours also depend on state and federal partnerships, including Idaho Commerce, the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (IDEQ) and the USDA to provide resources for infrastructure, small business support and wildfire assistance. A sudden funding pause jeopardizes these partnerships and risks leaving rural areas like Sandpoint without the tools we need to thrive.”
Grimm added that he supports the goal of ensuring the efficient operation of government programs; and, while some may need to be reevaluated, “change must come thoughtfully and incrementally. Broad, sweeping actions can unintentionally harm the very people they aim to help, particularly in rural communities that do not have the resources to fill the gaps left behind. Stability and predictability are not luxuries — they are the foundation upon which progress is built.”
Bonner County commissioners, Clerk Michael Rosedale and other officials were in Boise for a conference on Jan. 29, and could not be reached for comment by press time.
Idaho Gov. Brad Little’s office issued a statement Jan. 28, writing that, “Governor Little is all in on President Trump’s
efforts to rein in federal spending. As Governor Little has stated many times in the past, Idaho is better positioned than any other state to handle changes at the federal level because of how well we have managed government and the budget at the state level.”
In a Jan. 28 press conference, Idaho Republican Sen. Jim Risch described the OMB funding pause as coming from a “50,000-foot standpoint” and “a work in progress” meant to curb inflation by looking at “government overspending.”
“For all of you who haven’t noticed, this is a different day in Washington, D.C.,” he said, adding later, “Everybody take a deep breath. Stay calm. Every one of these programs is going to be looked at.”
The Idaho Democratic Party blasted the move as “illegal” and “a dangerous assault on the Constitution.”
“It flagrantly disregards the separation of powers, stripping Congress of its authority over federal spending,” IDP Chair Lauren Neochea wrote on Jan. 28. “The order jeopardizes vital services that thousands of Idahoans depend on every day, including prenatal health care for expectant mothers, early education programs for our youngest learners, crop insurance for farmers and suicide prevention resources for our veterans.
“Across the nation, attorneys general are fighting for their residents, defending their states against Trump’s unlawful power grab,” she added.
“Yet here in Idaho, Republican leaders remain unwilling to challenge him. Their silence is not only a failure of leadership but also a betrayal of Idaho families whose health and economic well-being hang in the balance.”
< see CHAOS, Page 6 >
Illustration by Marcos Silva
Bill would give Idaho governor veto power over voter-approved ballot initiatives
Governor’s veto ‘is a good protection for a misinformed electorate if they don’t get the information like we get to have’
By Kyle Pfannenstiel Idaho Capital Sun
State lawmakers on Jan. 29 introduced a bill that would let the Idaho governor veto laws passed directly by voters.
The bill by Rep. Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa, would let the governor veto successful ballot initiatives — similar to how the governor can veto laws passed by the Idaho House and Senate.
In the Legislature, lawmakers can hear from experts and staff to understand bills, he said. The governor’s veto “is a good protection for a misinformed electorate if they don’t get the information like we get to have,” Skaug said.
If an initiative passes with at least two-thirds support from voters, the bill says, “the initiative petition shall be approved without the need for the governor’s approval.” Skaug said that’s similar to the legislative process, which lets two-thirds of state lawmakers override gubernatorial vetoes.
Idaho House Minority Caucus Chair Todd Achilles also noted the bill doesn’t appear to add gubernatorial vetoes to referendums — another voter power outlined in the Idaho Constitution that lets voters approve or reject laws passed by the Legislature.
The Idaho House State Affairs Committee on Jan. 29 introduced the bill on a unanimous voice vote.
“This is an extreme attack on the rights of Idaho citizens,” Luke Mayville, who co-founded the group Reclaim Idaho that has supported several recent Idaho ballot initiatives, told the Idaho Capital Sun in a text message. “No other state in the country gives a single elected official the power to overrule the will of the voters.”
Skaug told the Sun in a
text message he did not work with the Governor’s Office on the bill, but he did notify the governor’s staff that he intended to introduce it. A spokesperson for Gov. Brad Little declined to comment, saying the Governor’s Office doesn’t comment on pending legislation.
Introducing the bill tees it up for a full committee hearing, including public testimony and a possible vote to advance it to the Idaho House floor.
The bill is expected to be publicly available shortly on the Idaho Legislature’s website.
If passed into law, the bill would take effect immediately through an emergency clause.
In addition to Skaug, Sens. Ben Adams, R-Nampa, and Doug Okuniewicz, R-Hayden, are listed as bill co-sponsors.
Bill draws on Idaho’s legisla tive processes
If voters pass a ballot initiative with less than twothirds support, the bill would give the governor five days to approve or veto the initiative.
If the governor vetoes the initiative, the bill says the Idaho Secretary of State “shall then cause the initiative peti tion to be once again submit ted to the voters at the next general election.”
The governor can veto laws passed by the Idaho Legis lature. But state lawmakers can also override gubernato rial vetoes — with two-thirds support.
The Idaho Constitution lets voters pass laws indepen dent of the Idaho Legislature, through ballot initiatives. But Skaug said the Constitution “is silent on the role of the governor.”
“Case law says the people’s right to initiate legislation is essentially the same as the Legislature’s,” Skaug said. “And because the Legislature
cannot enact law independent of presentment to the governor for a veto or a signature, should not the initiative process undergo the same: to be presented to the governor for a possible veto or signing?”
Achilles asked if any other state lets governors veto ballot initiatives or referendums.
“I do not know,” Skaug replied. “I didn’t bother to look.”
Bill follows years of attempts by Idaho lawmakers to limit citizen ballot initiative process
Skaug is also sponsoring a bill this year that would require ballot initiatives to receive at least 60% of approval votes to pass. To pass now, Idaho ballot initiatives must receive a simple majority
of support, or 50% of the vote plus one.
Skaug told the Sun in a text Jan. 29 he would not pursue the heightened approval threshold bill if the governor veto bill advances to the House floor.
The bills this year follow years of legislative proposals targeting the Idaho ballot initiative process.
In 2021, the Idaho Supreme Court blocked a ballot initiative law that would’ve raised the signature threshold required for initiatives to get on the ballot, ruling that the law violated the Idaho Constitution, the Sun previously reported.
In 2018, nearly 61% of Idaho voters approved a law expanding Medicaid to cover
a broader range of low-income earners, after years of stalled legislative proposals to address a health insurance assistance gap in Idaho. Reclaim Idaho spearheaded that effort.
Last week, the Idaho House introduced a bill to repeal that law.
But in November 2024, over 69% of Idaho voters rejected an election reform ballot initiative that would’ve opened Idaho’s closed, partisan primary elections to all voters; create a top-four primary; and allow voters to use ranked-choice voting in general elections.
Reclaim Idaho supported that initiative, commonly called the Open Primaries
< see INITIATIVES, Page 6 >
Lake level undergoing temporary drawdown for power generation
By Reader Staff
Pend Oreille lake levels are in the midst of a temporary drawdown, with Albeni Falls Dam raising outflow to reach an elevation of between 2,051 and 2,052 feet by Monday, Feb. 3.
The fluctuation — which represents about a three-foot overall decrease in the lake level — is the result of flexible winter pool operations requested by Bonneville Power Administration, which increased the lake level before lowering it in order to generate power.
< CHAOS, con’t from Page 4 >
Dist. 1 Sen. Jim Woodward, R-Sagle, told the Reader in a Jan. 28 email that “everyone was caught off guard today,” but couldn’t elaborate on how the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee — which he serves as vicechair — would react to a sweeping suspension of federal funding.
Given the fluidity of the announce-
< INITIATIVES, con’t from Page 5 >
Initiative, along with a coalition of groups. Out-of-state campaign spending accounted for at least $1.9 million out of $2.8 million raised by a political action committee supporting the measure by October, the Sun reported.
Skaug says that influx of out-of-state spending was part of why he is bringing the initiative bills this year.
“Why, after 100-plus years and only 15 successful initiatives in Idaho history, you would think now is the time to assume that the Constitution was inappropriately silent on the role of the
Bits ’n’ Pieces
From east, west and beyond
One of President Donald Trump’s first blitzkriegs: an order to suspend all federal aid, including food assistance, except for Social Security and Medicare. In another surprise move, the administration announced Jan. 29 that it was rescinding the order, but a White House spokesperson wrote on X that the “funding freeze” is still on. Sen. Chuck Schumer said the funding allocations are “not optional; they are the law,” per the Impoundment Control Act. The suspension impacts loans, research, charities, schools and universities, community projects, climate efforts, infrastructure and foreign aid.
According to some observers, the suspension is “wildly illegal” and could facilitate a constitutional crisis.
According to a notice from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which manages Albeni Falls Dam, outflows from Flathead Lake were also set to slowly decrease beginning Jan. 23.
Outflows from Albeni Falls and estimated lake elevations are subject to changes depending on conditions upand downstream from the dam. Meanwhile, flexible winter pool operations are controlled under an agreement with BPA that allows the federal agency to ask that Lake Pend Oreille be raised up to five feet during the winter months and lowered to generate power during periods of higher demand.
ments coming from the administration since Jan. 27 — and Leavitt’s post on X suggesting that the Jan. 29 rescission was of the OMB memo only, and not the “funding freeze,” as she described it — it remained to be seen by press time how federal assistance policy would or wouldn’t be affected in the coming days and weeks.
governor?” Achilles asked.
“We just went through an initiative process where the initiative failed. That there were so many lies that were out there, propelled by millions of dollars from out of state, some in state,” Skaug replied.
This story was produced by Boise-based nonprofit news outlet the Idaho Capital Sun, which is part of the States Newsroom nationwide reporting project. For more information, visit idahocapitalsun.com.
Trump said on social media that his plan to end Russia’s war against Ukraine is to threaten Russia with “high levels of Taxes, Tariffs and Sanctions,” which has already been put in place by other administrations.
The Bitcoin industry, started in 2009, wants widespread investment in the cryptocurrency by federal and state governments, the Lever reported. That effort includes trying to eliminate environmental regulations, since cryptocurrency uses vast quantities of energy. To amass a foundation for Bitcoin investments, advocates urge use of both taxpayer funds and workers’ retirement funds.
Just shy of 2% of accounts own more than 90% of all Bitcoin circulation, standing to benefit 10 times over if governments invest in the digital currency. Critics at Americans for Financial Reform see government Bitcoin reserves as a “dumb idea,” due to risks to taxpayer funds. Federal regulators warn of possible widespread financial chaos due to poor regulation and extreme price swings. A proposed bill in Congress calls for the purchase of 5% of the Bitcoin supply over five years. The proposal would require the Treasury Department to revalue the price of gold to fund cryptocurrency purchases.
Backers include the Koch Network (a collection of oil and petrochemical companies, including pesticides), and the Heritage Foundation (the conservative organization that created the Project 2025 blueprint for reshaping government under Trump).
According to various media, recent orders and actions taken by Trump include executive orders repealing former-President Joe Biden’s order to lower prescription drug prices, ending EV mandates, ordering a national emergency for overhauling U.S. energy policy and requiring the U.S. Attorney General’s Office to review “weaponization of the Intelligence Community.”
By Lorraine H. Marie Reader Columnist
In addition, Trump ordered rollbacks of climate and environmental rules; stripped energy efficiency standards for household appliances; instituted an IRS hiring freeze that is expected to allow ultra-wealthy tax cheats to avoid detection; announced a 25% tariff on products from Mexico and Canada effective Saturday, Feb. 1; authorized ICE to make arrests in previously off-limits areas, like places of worship; repealed expansions of health care access and options for the middle and lower class; rolled back federal diversity and equity efforts; proposed abolishing FEMA; suspended refugee settlement in the U.S; and, in defiance of the 14th Amendment, has called for an end to birthright citizenship (18 state attorneys general immediately sued and a federal judge temporarily blocked that order).
Finally, among his other actions, Trump ordered a freeze of all civil rights cases at the Justice Department; ordered no more health advisories, scientific reports or website updates; fired heads of various agencies; halted all foreign aid, impacting things like HIV meds and landmine removals; and pardoned all Jan. 6 Capitol rioters, despite many having violent convictions. Polls show 70% of respondents are opposed to the pardons. Two of the rioters rejected their pardons and some have already engaged in other crimes following their release.
Trump’s Jan. 6 pardons have been opposed by the Fraternal Order of Police, the International Association of Chiefs of Police and The Wall Street Journal. NBC reported on released rioters who performed Nazi salutes and have posted their intention to start a civil war, saying “there will be blood.” According to MSNBC, top Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes met with congressional lawmakers shortly after his pardon and release.
Former Fox News host Pete Hegseth, in a 50-50 Senate tie broken by Vice President J.D. Vance, became Defense Secretary — despite scant qualifications.
Three Republican senators, including Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., voted “no.” Blast from the (recent) past: Regarding Trump’s self-proclaimed election mandate, forensic economist and data journalist Greg Palast — who authored The Best Money Democracy Can Buy — recently released his report on voter suppression in 2024. Palast found that if all legal ballots had been counted, presidential candidate Kamala Harris would have won the presidency with 286 Electoral College votes and would have 1.2 million more popular votes than Trump.
Lake Pend Oreille in winter. Photo courtesy of Lakes Commission
When heartbreak is a lost trail
By Ammi Midstokke Reader Contributor
My favorite trail segment on my favorite trail in my favorite place in the world has been closed. I am heartbroken, despondent even, at what feels like the loss of a thousand tree friends.
It’s not just any section of trail. It’s a little corner of forest with thick trees — the kind that offer heavy shade and lower temperatures in the summer, and something mythical and silent in the winter. The trail had the perfect short rises and descents to be delightfully playful, with twists and turns that reminded me of childhood running.
In the late fall and early winter, the tamaracks left a brilliant orange carpet, sprinkled with cedar needles, letting one move along the trail without making a sound. Occasionally, a gnarled root would rise from the dark soil, and like the arm of a slumbering creature, lay across the soft ground. It always smelled at the same time like something primordial, metallic, ancient and earthy. In rain and snow, the petrichor hung like a veil heavy between the trees.
The cedars here felt old and wise. They had a kind of patience for our pattering and our bike bells. The trail marked the top of the hill for me, a forest reward for all the other beautiful forest I’d just run through — a halfmile or so connector that felt like the Meow Wolf opened a room of wooded witchcraft. A place haunted by the ghosts of the caribou or prehistoric bison that once wandered here.
I liked how close the trees were, because when I ran through them I felt fast and light. I liked how one day I would enter from the west and another day I would enter from the east, and each direction would offer an entirely different perspective. I liked how if I came early enough on a summer morning and tucked in through the branches of the west entrance, I knew I was first because there was, without fail, a spider web waiting for me. I liked how when winter gave way to spring, the detritus took its time getting warm or sprouting green.
I liked that I have a clear memory of a group of volunteers shoveling and raking one of the first banked corners in the trail system, giving it a name while we ate the cupcakes I’d delivered (via trail running) to the crew. I liked
that this particular section holds other memories for me: I once curled up in tears on its tender spring soil and cried away a decade of fear and abuse and the trees kept my sobbing and snot a steadfast secret until now.
When I saw the yellow ribbons and sign, I thought maybe a cougar had left half a deer in there and the stewards of the trail were ensuring we give it space. What I’ve also loved about our local trails is how carefully they have been managed by private land owners; the land trust; and, to the (questionable) best of our ability, the users of this beautiful space. This land belongs first to the flora and fauna. I agree: We should come last.
I am naively optimistic about such things. It is true I have caught mountain bikers dragging their bikes around fences and used choice words to express the community risk of blatant disregard for owners’ rights. I always want to think that people break rules because they don’t know about them, that it is our responsibility as benefactors of these spaces to learn about and educate each other on what proper etiquette is.
Crossing property lines, ignoring signs that express private landowners’ wishes, leaving trash, not picking up after dogs, riding our bikes too fast and — for the sweet love of preserved forest floor ecology — going off trail are all detrimental to the sociological ecology of these resources.
When a private landowner offers their land to conservation and public use and we fail to adhere to the rules, we risk losing not just this privilege of access to those lands: We make other potential owners resistant to putting land in conservation and offering public access.
I have made this mistake myself, for a variety of what I now see as inexcusable excuses (barring a bushwhack rescue and a behind-the-tree-pee or two).
I pay penance for my prior sins by trying to share the importance of respect to others in the woods, by picking up errant dog poop and trash, by staying on trail, by learning about the conservation priorities of the owners. Sometimes by being that lady on the trail, I suffer the abuses of someone telling me “they’ve always gone this way.”
For the longest time I have argued for better public relations. “If the people understand, they will support the cause!” Or I assume the egregious
ducking of fences and dragging of bikes is some flatlander from some geographic location we’ve labeled as problematic or entitled. Sometimes it is those folks, but sometimes it’s our neighbors, people who should know better, people who just ignore the signs.
I just wish they’d have learned before this pristine and beautiful swath of land was closed to all of us, before I had to trot up to the cathedral cedar gates one morning and feel my heart sink to my shoes.
And I wonder: Will we learn now? Or will we have to lose all access to these lands, be sequestered to city parks, national parks, paved bike paths and paid parking because a few people
could not walk along the fence just a little farther to the actual opening?
I wonder how I can alchemize my grief into something useful, something that feels less powerless than this profound loss. Maybe other — or more normal — people mourn their pets and humans, and surely I do, too. But right now, I am mourning the trees I’ve come to know for years and can no longer commune with, or speak to, or watch change with the seasons, or seek shelter in, or run through, and I am inconsolable.
Ammi Midstokke can be contacted at ammimarie@gmail.com. For once, she begs you to follow the rules. This article first appeared in the Spokesman-Review.
Photo courtesy of Stuck in North Idaho blog
Bouquets:
• I’ve always appreciated hearing constructive feedback from our readers. One, who I’ll keep anonymous, receives a Bouquet for writing, “Thank you, Ben, for acknowledging Musk and Trump for what they are. I have so much respect for you doing that. I also have a suggestion. Please don’t refer to those of us and yourself who see the injustice, disgusting crimes and actions of the perpetrators as ‘we’ who have made the gross errors in judgment or votes. We did not do it; they did.” As I wrote in my reply, “Fair point ... some of us are pulling oars and some are just splashing around in the water.” Which one are you?
Barbs:
• I’m growing tired of having AI shoved down my throat everywhere I turn. Whenever I start an email with Gmail, a prompt now urges me to let AI do all the work for me. Then, after closing that prompt, another one pops up if I hesitate for a moment while composing an email, this time urging AI to help “polish” my writing. It’s maddening how much AI is being force fed to us. I managed to successfully stop the “AI Overview” from showing up on my Google searches, but only after spending nearly an hour researching how to do it. I’m ready for the resurgence of dumb tech.
• I was behind a car the other day with two bumper stickers. One proclaimed support for Donald Trump. The other stated, “I support our police.” The fact that someone can drive around with those two bumper stickers and not see the irony is the most American thing I saw last week. This is the same week, mind you, that Trump pardoned about 1,500 people who rioted on Jan. 6, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol. The rioters were armed with stun guns, pepper spray, baseball bats, hockey sticks, flagpoles and caused more than 100 injuries to police officers protecting the Capitol. “From even the greatest of horrors, irony is seldom absent.” — H.P. Lovecraft.
Trump pardons for Jan. 6 rioters are the opposite of ‘backing the blue’…
Dear editor, Trump just pardoned the sentences of about 1,500 people who were found guilty of crimes during the Jan. 6, 2021 riots in a court of law. About one-third of the defendants were charged with assault of law enforcement officers, others found guilty of trespassing, theft, vandalism, defecating on the walls of the Capitol and seditious conspiracy.
Imagine, now, if some folks unlawfully went into the Bonner County Administration Building, assaulted officers and threw feces on the walls, were then found guilty and sentenced to jail, and then our governor pardoned them. Would our local law enforcement be OK with that? I highly doubt it. They would probably be just as disheartened as all those officers who were assaulted on Jan. 6 are now.
If you’re on the side of praising the pardons of those found guilty of crimes against law enforcement on that fateful day, you’re not “backing the blue,” you’re the complete opposite.
Tim French Sandpoint
A ‘voice
echoing in the dark wilderness’…
Dear editor,
I see now that our illustrious Sandpoint City Council and the Planning and Community Development Director Jason Welker is recommending parking fees in city lots and the beach to pay for improvements at the beach, etc. Of course they don’t bother to explain where all the tax money they are getting through the near doubling in property taxes go… Does anyone out there know? Anyone? So, just my voice echoing in the dark wilderness… how dare we ask such a question.
Lawrence Fury Sandpoint
Idaho Legislature must stop ‘whittling away’ at public school funding…
Dear editor, Every time I read articles about our Legislature, I’m made aware of just how many times our public schools funding has been screwed over by that body.
In November 1988, the Idaho Lottery Act became law, when 51% of Idaho voters approved a constitutional amendment repealing the constitutional ban on lotteries. Idaho set a new industry record by implementing a lottery within 200
days. The mission of the Idaho Lottery “is to responsibly provide entertaining games with a high degree of integrity to maximize the dividends for public schools and buildings.”
The formula for dividing the lottery dividend has changed over the years. In 1989, when the lottery was set up, 50% would go toward public schools’ maintenance and operations, and 50% would be for the Permanent Building Fund.
In 2009, the formula changed: 37.5% to public schools’ M&O, 37.5% to the state’s Permanent Building Fund and 25% to the bond levy equalization fund.
In 2024, the Idaho Legislature again made changes, marking the third time the formula has been altered to the detriment of public schools.
Now the Legislature appears intent to make further inroads in the money for public schools by giving money to private/religious schools. This whittling away must stop!
Gil Beyer Sandpoint
First in last place…
Dear editor,
Wow, where to start. To borrow a phrase from a friend who ran for office, “I don’t have all the facts, but I have a lot of opinions.”
It seems to me that Idaho is first in everything that it should be last in, and last in everything that it should be first in.
To name just a few: voter suppression, minimum wage, racism, funding for public schools, marijuana laws, abortion laws, censorship of reading and viewing materials, the list seems to grow every day.
I for one find it a bit suspicious that none of these things ever make it onto a ballot.
I wonder who is running this state; it is certainly not the voters, who are never given a choice.
This is just a very brief and incomplete list of some of my thoughts. I sometimes think that I could fill a Reader from cover to cover with my complete list.
As a citizen of Bonner County for over 41 years, I would like to thank the Reader staff for their dedication to free speech and facts. Keep up the good work. Thank you.
Bob McKeon
Hope
Will new paid parking plan make Sandpoint a ‘haunt of the wealthy’?…
Dear editor, Jason Walker, Sandpoint’s
Planning and Community Development director, seems to think that downtown and City Beach parking needs to be charged to the tune of “hundreds of thousands of dollars.” Good luck. Parking is a necessity for us who come to town to shop.
I question if Jason Welker’s job is. Perhaps he wants the town to be the exclusive haunt of the wealthy, who park their boats at City Beach. Yes, we live outside of Sandpoint. We come to town several times a week to shop. We spend money with the local merchants. They pay taxes; without income they would not exist. Without the merchants of Sandpoint we would have to go to Coeur d’Alene or Spokane.
Mark Chapman Vay
Dear editor, Heather Scott is worried about what type of flags can be flown at public schools. Perhaps she should worry if public schools continue to exist in Idaho. Not likely.
It is sadly ironic, watching recent television coverage of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, where an estimated 1.1 million people perished under authoritarian extermination, that in the same news broadcast was coverage of hundreds of people — mostly of particular non-white ethnicities — being rounded up, handcuffed and hauled away, here in the United States of America, under the direction of the new president.
Potentially millions of people at a cost of billions of our tax dollars could be affected by his authoritarian ethnic cleansing propensities. The American people need to stand up against the degradation of our democracy.
George Loustalet Priest River
‘Fill
Dear editor, Panamanians live in Panama, Palestinians live in __________, Chinese live in China, Palestinians live in __________, Argentinians live in Argentina, Palestinians live in __________, Americans live in America, Palestinians live in __________, Africans live in Africa, Palestinians live in
__________, Norwegians live in Norway, Palestinians live in __________, Portuguese live in Portugal, Palestinians live in __________, Italians live in Italy, Palestinians live in __________. Take Action! Request your congressional leaders put pressure on Israel to demand the return of Palestine and make a home for Palestinians (just like they did for the Jews after WWII).
George Rickert Sandpoint
Dear editor,
Our American government is often compared to a tree with three branches. The trunk of the tree is our Constitution. The roots of the tree are the American people. The first branch (Article 1) is the legislative branch: the House of Representatives and the Senate. The second branch (Article 2) is the executive branch: the president and vice president. The third branch is the judicial branch (Article 3): the United States Supreme Court and all the federal courts.
Our Constitution is written in such a way that the three branches need to work together, performing as guardrails, so that no single branch has all the power. This system of checks and balances has worked very well for much of our history. Unfortunately, in recent times, neither Congress nor the judiciary have been an effective check on the executive branch. The executive branch has steadily increased its power.
There is one guardrail the executive branch cannot ignore: the economy. The American people will most often “vote their pocketbook.”
When Congress, the courts and the president fail to represent the American people, it is oftentimes the economy that provides the most effective guardrail. When prices increase dramatically (inflation) the people react. If tariffs lead to a trade war that increases the cost of food, cars and housing, the politicians who imposed the tariffs will be held accountable. Similarly, if large numbers of the workers who harvest our food and build our homes are removed, inflation will increase. Congress, the courts and the president will hopefully do what’s best for the American people. If they don’t and inflation continues, the American people will elect new leaders next year in 2026. “It’s the economy, stupid!”
Steve Johnson Sagle
By Emily Erickson Reader Columnist
My writing has never been accused of being succinct, and I’ve been told a time or two that I can be a bit unclear. I get swept up in my mind, a place where I think in metaphors and feel in images, and haven’t yet mastered the art of short, punchy sentences — always pulled to say a bit more beyond the last punctuation mark. (See? Even there I couldn’t help myself.) My edit sessions feel like surgeries, cutting off clauses like third limbs so lines are more recognizable, and paragraphs easier to digest.
But I recently read a short story that felt like looking into a mirror — not in the content or subject matter, but in the way the author tried to pack so much into each sentence (which he did, with mastery). It literally took my breath away, and I found myself returning to it; my new North Star for honing how my mind tries to cobble together thoughts and feelings into sentences.
Pulled from the 2024 O’Henry Prize Winners anthology, the story Orphans, by Brad Felver, was one I wanted to both climb inside and dissect to find its magic.
I came across it in my morning practice of the last few months, reading a short story to prompt my own writing. The practice has not only helped me expand the things I write but also starts
Emily Articulated
Meaning-making
Emily Erickson.
my day with kinship and awe at the things people create — at the stories we all have to tell and the bravery people demonstrate by sharing them.
Orphans is about an old furniture maker, shaken out of mundanity and loneliness by a teenage boy, sent to intern by his shop teacher. The main character, as observed by the apprentice, is a master of his craft.
“He was brilliant, there was no ignoring that, but he was so quiet about it. Maybe even ashamed. Brilliant the way an oak tree is brilliant,” Felver wrote.
This phrase made me stop. I returned to it, running my finger over it again and again as if I could siphon out all that it had to say. I wondered about the kind of brilliance it described and all that it said about the character, without having to say it explicitly.
The lack of total clarity allowed me to ponder how a person could become so stoically brilliant. Was he always this way? Did he ever feel the need to justify his own brilliance, or did he
always know he was creating something special (and how foreign would that be in a world where confidence is often mistaken for brilliance, and mediocrity is carefully packaged and sold as something more)? It was phrased in a way that invited exploration, allowing me to fill in the gaps and make the connections I needed for it to feel true.
Felver wrote: “He felt old, and his body felt heavy, little more than a repository for so much grief accumulated along the way, which was just what happened to people who managed to live long enough.”
The vividness of this sentence, plus all the lived experience packed into just a few lines, is what I love about writing. I’ll never know all the specific things that make this man feel this way, but I can know the feeling — can understand the cumulative nature of grief, and the relentlessness of life, and find companionship in it.
I finished Orphans the morning of a new art installation at Evan Brothers. I walked into the cafe and took in the pieces on display — beautiful bodices constructed from foraged bark, set against backdrops of moss. I was consumed by a simple, comforting thought: people are always up to something inspiring.
Even in a time when so much of the world feels distant, art remains a bridge. Someone puts something into the world — a sentence, a sculpture, a melody — and
others find what they need in it. The artist may feel one way when creating it; the observer might interpret it entirely differently. But they interpreted it. And that’s the power of artful expression: it invites us to fill in the spaces, to explore, to connect.
I may never master the art of a perfectly concise sentence. Then again, maybe I will. But what is most encouraging is the thought
that, whatever form my art takes, someone might find something special in it. Or perhaps, more importantly, they’ll find exactly what they need — if only I keep putting it out into the world.
Emily Erickson is a writer and business owner with an affinity for black coffee and playing in the mountains. Connect with her online at www.bigbluehat. studio.
By BO
Retroactive
Science: Mad about
butter
By Brenden Bobby Reader Columnist
Most carb-heavy cuisine is enhanced by the addition of butter. Smooth, creamy, melty goodness that clogs up your arteries and triggers salivation. It is a unique culinary creation that acts as a solid until heat converts it into something akin to liquid oil. The behavior of butter makes it easy to store for long periods of time under refrigeration, without fear of spilling and creating a mess like other liquids and oils.
Have you ever wondered where butter comes from?
Cows, obviously!
Butter begins as milk harvested from dairy cows. The quality of milk can change based on how the cow is feeling — a happy cow produces more milk, while a stressed or sad cow may produce very little or none at all. Most, if not all dairy cows are mothers that actively feed their calves between milkings.
Milk is transported from the farm to a production facility via refrigerated trucks. It’s likely you’ve seen a number of these trucks cruise through town with large cylindrical chrome tanks on the back. These containers are specifically designed to transport milk, and it needs to go from farm to facility in under 24 hours. If you spend any time on Baldy Mountain Road or Division Street, it’s likely you’ve seen some of these trucks heading to or from the Litehouse Foods facility.
Once at the processing facility, the milk is tested for a number of factors, including the presence of bacteria or other contaminants, as well
as quality and fat content. If milk taste-tester is your dream gig, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but this is done almost exclusively with equipment and chemicals to avoid accidental poisonings. If the batch is cleared and deemed safe by federally mandated standards, as well as the manufacturer’s standards, it moves on to the next step of the process.
The milk next undergoes a process called ultra-high temperature pasteurization. This occurs by heating the milk to a temperature of 280 degrees Fahrenheit to sterilize the milk of any and all bacteria. Anyone paying attention during science class would know that water becomes steam at 212 degrees, so this process is not applied for a prolonged period of time — generally for only up to four seconds. It is then cooled to 39 degrees to slow any possible bacterial growth from occurring in the milk.
If you’re wondering how other bacteria may have survived such extreme temperatures, bacteria tend to play a numbers game. A small amount can become overwhelming in number if left unchecked. Additionally, transferring milk to new storage containers can expose the milk to pathogens, but keeping it just cold enough to slow the bacteria without freezing the milk is sufficient for the most part.
Milk and butterfat need to be separated after pasteurization. It is deposited into large stainless steel drums rigged to axles that spin the milk up to 1,500 times per minute. Centrifugal force pulls the cream from the milk to create two components: butterfat and skim milk.
The butterfat is pasteurized again and then fermented. During the fermentation process, the fat content of the butter can be altered with skim milk, while adding lactic acid bacteria can change the acidity. The butter is then churned to bind the fat and cream and create the form of butter as we know it. In days past, this was painstakingly done by hand using a butter churn; but, today, it has been mechanized using a piece of equipment that is essentially a giant-sized baking mixer.
At this point, the butter is ready to be smeared onto a delicious bagel, so it is poured into large blocks for transport.
These butter blocks typically weigh at least 40 pounds each and generally aren’t shipped commercially, but instead are stored and then cut down to specified sizes for distribution. The typical butter sticks you see from the grocery store are cut from these larger blocks using a slicing machine, then packaged by another machine that wraps them in paper or foil to reduce the chance of bacterial contamination during the shipping process.
The process of creating butter has been greatly refined since its Neolithic roots, but the processes largely remain the same. Seal milk in a leak-proof container, jostle it around for hours on end and eventually it will clump together into something resembling butter. Heating liquids to kill microorganisms has been a technique known since the 1100s — though the knowledge of bacteria wouldn’t come until much later. In 1864, Louis Pasteur heated wine to kill microbes and hastily age wine, a tech-
nique that was later explored for dairy. This technique was later called pasteurization, and is still used today.
The earliest forms of butter are believed to have been milk stored in a sheep’s stomach that had been converted into a bag and jostled by a day of horseback riding. A similar technique is still used in Syria to create a crude butter, though many west-
ern societies adopted some form of a mechanized or hand-powered churn.
Butter can be mixed with a number of other flavors.
Artisanal butters are frequently crafted in France by chefs who purchase butter from a manufacturer and then rechurn it with a number of different spices and ingredients to create a unique spread.
Stay curious, 7B.
Random Corner
• There isn’t a consensus on who actually invented the snowboard. Some say the sport originated in Turkey more than 150 years ago, when wintertime travel between villages involved balancing on a large piece of wood equipped with a rope handle (described as “not much more than a piece of a plywood”) and sliding through the snow.
• A 13-year-old named Vern Wicklund made a modified sled deck in 1917 which he and friends called a “bunker.” Wicklund and his relatives patented the device in 1939.
• Many consider Sherm Poppen as the man who developed the first actual “snowboard,” with his Snurfer design in 1965, which had bindings to keep riders’ boots secure — though commercially sold Snurfers had no bindings. It also had a lanyard rope attached to the front, which the rider would hold onto to help steer.
• Jake Burton Carpenter and Tom Sims are credited with inventing “modern snowboarding” when they introduced bindings and steel edges to snowboards in the late 1970s.
• By 1985, only about 7% of ski resorts in America allowed snowboarding. Today, only 5% of resorts in North America and Europe prohibit the sport.
• Technically, snowboarding is more dangerous than skiing, with an average of 3.9 accidents per 1,000 in snowboarding, compared to 2.5 in skiing. Both sports are still much safer than basketball or football, though.
• Edmond Plawczyk set the world record for the fastest downhill speed on a snowboard in 2015 with his 126 mile per hour run.
• Snowboarding debuted at the 1998 Winter Olympic Games on Nagano, Japan, with male and female athletes competing in giant slalom and halfpipe events.
• Canadian Ross Rebagliati won the first snowboarding Olympic gold medal, but he was temporarily disqualified when blood tests returned positive for marijuana. The disqualification was later overturned and Rebagliati went on to become a medical marijuana activist.
Looking toward a more resilient Sandpoint
Sandpoint Forward asks for community involvement to make natural disasters less risky
By Katie Botkin Reader Contributor
Los Angeles may be 1,200 miles away, but its wildfires still have many in Sandpoint asking “what if it happens here?”
The Southern California fires are already on track to be the most damaging in U.S. history, with long-term cost to the region’s economy, housing market and insurance industry. But this issue is not isolated to California; in coming years, wildfires are expected to increase nationwide. In the past decade, more than 70 million acres have been lost to wildfires across the U.S. — a 10% jump from the previous decade. The impact of these fires can be felt hundreds of miles from the flames themselves. Last year, economists estimated that wildfire smoke in Idaho and other western states results in $2.3 million billion annually in losses to outdoor recreation.
So are Bonner County residents and economies able to adapt to such risks?
To answer this question, the grant-funded project Sandpoint Forward is looking at what the community needs to be more resilient in the face of changing and sometimes disastrous weather patterns. Community members are meeting from now until the end of July to explore strategies to increase the resilience of Sandpoint and surrounding areas, defining “resilience” as the ability to adapt to disasters effectively. These volunteers are also seeking input from the wider Sandpoint community on what to prioritize and how officials should be involved, via a survey and an upcoming forum.
Retired firefighter and
Northside Fire Commissioner Vern Roof is one such volunteer.
“If what we’re seeing in L.A. came here,” said Roof, it could affect Sandpoint as well as the surrounding areas. “People feeling like they’re safe in the city is perhaps not as accurate as we once thought. When Mother Nature goes on a rampage, it’s difficult to put up any parameters.”
Architect Reid Weber, another volunteer, said that he’s looking at fire-safe home-building practices even though none are required by the county. He said there are several things homeowners can do to reduce the risk of wildfire, including limiting surrounding structures that could ignite, having simple rooflines and making the house tight enough that no sparks get in, including through crawl spaces and attics.
“Many things can impact your home’s fire resistance, especially in a more rural area where you typically have options for where to place the home,” said Weber.
In addition to changing weather, Bonner County faces unique challenges that affect populations most at risk in disasters. According to data produced by Headwaters Economics, Bonner County has more older people and fewer children under 5, both in terms of percentages over time and national averages. Young people are leaving, and older people are retiring here. To complicate matters, the number of children born in Bonner County has seen a decline since Bonner County lost all four OB-GYNs who worked at Bonner General, and the hospital shuttered its OB ward in 2023.
More than half of all the income reported in Bonner County is from non-labor sources such as rent, dividends and social security payments — meaning retirement is arguably Bonner County’s biggest source of income. Bonner County’s poverty rate is higher than the national average, and the cost of housing exacerbates this. The median house value in Bonner County was $427,018 in 2022 — more than $133,560 higher than the national average. Seasonal unemployment is also higher than the national average overall.
At initial Sandpoint Forward meetings, volunteers acknowledged that these stressors could play a role in how Bonner County adapts to weather. Aging populations tend to be more at risk due to both extreme heat and extreme cold, for example, and the pressure to sell family farms to developers increases if younger generations do not wish to stay.
Volunteers voiced various weather-related concerns, from lack of snow to extreme temperatures to wildfire. Fire was the most concern-
ing overall, and volunteers acknowledged that their concerns are not localized to Bonner County — because residents breathe the air from Canada, Montana, Washington and southern Idaho, an isolationist approach won’t address smoke concerns.
Roof also noted that the Northside Fire District is “two guys,” and that if a major fire event came to the area, they’d need to call in outside help.
maintain forests outside the 200-foot wildfire protection zone around homes. He noted that hotter, drier summers increase fire risk and that North Idaho’s forests are naturally dense, which helps them retain moisture the same way towels stay wet longer if they’re wadded up in a pile.
How to get involved
• Take the resilience survey or volunteer at bit.ly/SandpointReady;
Snowpack, “fire-safe communities,” grassroots organizing and proper forest management for wildfire were also mentioned — conventional logging does not mitigate wildfire risk because forests, particularly mature forests, help cool the ecosystem.
• Come to an in-person forum at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 18 at Evans Brothers Coffee Roaster (524 Church St., in Sandpoint). Kid-friendly area with coloring will be included.
“Thinning the protective canopy of mature and oldgrowth forests leads to hotter and drier forest floors and increasing wind,” he said. Sandpoint Forward was made possible with a grant to the Model Forest Policy Program, which works with communities to become stronger and more resilient for the future.
Volunteer Paul Sieracki, of the Inland Empire Task Force, said it’s important to
Katie Botkin is a freelance writer who has been based in North Idaho since 1997.
Theory of Unknown Origin:
By Soncirey Mitchell Reader Staff
The unseasonable weather, preponderance of misinformation and popularity of social media have recently coalesced to produce a dense fog of conspiracy theories — about fog. People have taken to social media to hypothesize about the allegedly sinister origins of fog banks that have blanketed the U.S. on and off throughout the winter months, with most coming to the conclusion that government agencies or extraterrestrials are to blame.
Though the theories are outlandish and unsubstantiated, they draw from a longer history based on pseudoscience with a sprinkling of fact.
What is fog?
Fog is a thick, low-hanging cloud made of tiny water droplets or ice crystals formed when the “temperature and dew point of the air approach the same value,” according to the National Weather Service. This occurs when the air cools or when the humidity increases.
There are six types of fog — advection, radiation/ground, upslope/ Cheyenne, steam/Arctic Sea smoke, frontal and ice — meaning it exists in a wide-range of terrains and climates and can be predicted somewhat reliably. The National Weather Service issued fog warnings to most areas where people reported seeing and smelling the “mystery fog.”
Unknown technology
Online conspiracy theorists have proposed several ideas for the possible origins of “the fog” — none of which acknowledged climate change and the unseasonable warmth that has left many areas, Bonner County among them, bereft of snow.
Some have claimed that the fog is actually millions of “smart dust” particles, which are theoretical microelectromechanical systems dreamed up by science fiction writers as early as the ’60s. Researchers began looking into the idea in earnest in the early ’90s, but the technology needed to disperse clouds of minuscule machines does not yet exist.
In the 2022 article “Wind dispersal of battery-free wireless devices,”
authored by University of Washington researchers and published in Nature, scientists created functional, millimeter-sized sensors capable of traveling on light breezes. By comparison, actual dust ranges in size from 0.0005 to 0.1 millimeters, meaning it would be impossible to unwittingly inhale clouds of the comparatively chunky “smart dust” prototype.
A related theory maintains that the fog is full of extraterrestrial or otherwise nefarious material — either microscopic machines or simple “fibers” — that cause a scientifically unsubstantiated illness known as “Morgellons.” Those self-diagnosed with Morgellons believe that sores on their bodies excrete mysterious fibers, possibly left behind by bugs under their skin.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted a six-year investigation into potential causes of Morgellons and determined that patients were actually suffering from a form of delusional parasitosis, whereby a person believes that they’re infected with parasites. The patients likely had pre-existing skin conditions or bug bites that were exacerbated by compulsive scratching. According to its report, the CDC found no evidence of parasites or mycobacteria and discovered that the majority of the “fibers” found in the
wounds were cotton, likely from the patients’ clothing.
Modern miasma
The most popular conspiracy theory hypothesizes that the U.S. government is manufacturing the fog using chemicals or biological agents to make people sick. Promoters of this theory claim the fog has an odd chemical smell and causes irritation to the eyes, nose and throat — which can be true without the need for a government conspiracy.
When the water in the air merges to become fog, rain or mist, it also traps particles, which can range from mushroom spores to airborne pollutants. Whether pollen or car emissions, the particles trapped in fog can affect sensitive groups, causing the above symptoms and smells.
Humanity has a deep-seated fear of bad odors going back more than 2,000 years to the Greek philosopher and physician Hippocrates in the fourth century B.C.E. Hippocrates — often called the “father of medicine” — is the first known proponent of what would become known as “miasma theory,” which argued that foul-smelling air spreads disease. The theory remained popular until the late 1800s, when germ theory took over; but, until that point, it was widely believed that smelling things
like waste or rotting flesh brought on diseases like cholera or typhus.
Nineteenth-century doctors even claimed that smelling food made people obese, according to the article “Death and Miasma in Victorian London,” published by the British Medical Journal.
Typhus, malaria and bubonic plague were most commonly attributed to miasma, all of which are primarily spread through insect bites. The fear of miasma eventually led to the famous 17th-century “plague doctor” masks, which had long beaks stuffed with aromatics to ward off the sinister smells.
There was some level of correlation between smell and sickness, given that they were both spread by poor hygiene and sanitation, and so attempts to avoid miasma by cleaning up cities worked to a certain extent — just not in the way everyone thought.
The historical theory of miasma lacks the modern conspiratorial spin, which is loosely based on experience. Though there’s no evidence that the government is responsible for the current fog, the Department of Defense has experimented on U.S. cities to test their susceptibility to biological warfare.
In 1950, a U.S. minesweeper ship spent six days releasing the bacteria Serratia marcescens two miles off the coast of California before tracking its spread throughout San Francisco as part of “Operation Sea Spray.” According to Smithsonian Magazine, officials chose that bacteria because it was easy to test for and believed to be harmless to humans.
The operation inadvertently led to the first recorded outbreak of Serratia marcescens, which caused 11 confirmed urinary tract infections and possibly one surgical complication, resulting in death.
The U.S. military performed similar tests across the country until 1969, when then-President Richard Nixon ended germ warfare research. It took another seven years for news of Operation Sea Spray to reach the public.
If it’s any consolation, of the many, many known instances of unethical human experimentation in the U.S., the government has never been so conspicuous as to drench half the country in fog.
An 1831 color lithograph depicting cholera as a robed, skeletal creature emanating a deadly black cloud. Artwork by Robert Seymour
To submit a photo for a future edition, please send to ben@sandpointreader.com.
“
when
— named Reader — takes a well-deserved afternoon nap atop
“
Top left: Sunrise over Sandpoint City Beach. Photo by Linda Navarre.
Top right:
Bjorn, 10 months, seems to always fall asleep
we get on the ice,” wrote photographer Paige Belfry.
Middle left: The Clark Fork Library cat
the 3-D printer. Photo by Diane Newcomer.
Middle inset:
An old skull covered with cool moss at the ranch in Cocolalla,” wrote photographer Karen Hempstead.
Bottom left: Evening on Gamlin lake, right before the freeze (see bottom right photo). Photo by Marjorie Trulock.
Bottom middle: The famed “ghost trees” on the Schweitzer summit. Photo by Jim Rosauer.
Bottom right: “Heidi and Brenda low stickin’ at Gamlin Lake,” wrote photographer Ted Wert. “Best skating in years!”
Behind the jewelry counter at Bizarre Bazaar
By Kathryn Larson Reader Contributor
Let’s go behind the scenes at Bizarre Bazaar, the unique upscale resale shop that generates nearly $250,000 for grants and scholarships in Bonner County Community. It’s a unique collaboration of those who donate possessions, shoppers who seek gently used treasures and Community Assistance League volunteers who dedicate hours to operate a world-class operation. This wonderful partnership works through generosity, elbow grease and a little magic.
Each department is led by one volunteer who builds their team. Healthy competition between the departments results in continuous improvement to the display, pricing and curation of donations.
Jewelry brought in more than $50,000 last year with an average price of $10 per item. That’s where Marilyn Haddad, “the Jewelry Lady,” makes things tick. Literally, she makes the
She expressed an interest in the jewelry department eight years ago; and, the next thing she knew, she was running it. It was a steep learning curve, but she’s developed a robust process by which each donated piece is handled multiple times: inspected, researched, cleaned, repaired, valued, tagged with its story and displayed. Meanwhile, Haddad has formed a team and each volunteer brings unique talents. Donna Hutter’s smile lights up the jewelry counter.
Haddad taught herself to research and value jewelry with the help of Google Images, customers and experience. Key markings that prove provenance can be hard to see, even with a jeweler’s loop. She takes stewardship seriously.
“Jewelry shouldn’t be significantly underpriced. This was someone’s cherished possession. We want to get a fair price and move the inventory,” she said.
Every sale funds a local nonprofit or helps educate a student. Underpricing shortchanges the mission.
Haddad spends hours each day going through the donations and encouraging her team. No donation is dismissed. A necklace with a worn or broken chain often becomes three necklaces with matching earring, after undergoing a masterful redesign by jewelry team member Pamela Lawrence, of PL Designs.
Haddad learned a valuation lesson the hard way on a Steuben glass trout leaping for an 18K gold fly. Research showed that the piece would bring a very high value, if authentic. Because
she could not authenticate it with a signature, the piece had to be lowered to a fraction of that price. A regular and generous customer was interested in the piece, and Haddad explained the dilemma of authentication. The customer quickly found a tiny, faded signature and purchased the piece — and Haddad learned how to find hidden marks.
These are the win-win situations where the Bizarre Bazaar team improves skills and the customers get a better deal than usual.
Bizarre Bazaar was merely a huge rummage sale for 22 years. In 2006, CAL opened the first physical store. It’s brought more than $2 million dollars into the community in the form of grants and scholarships. We could not operate without the steady stream of generous donations from the community, faithful shoppers recognizing the multiplier that their purchases make here in Bonner County, and our dedicated volunteer heroes who forge lifelong friendships and develop skills to be good stewards.
Please bring in those random jewelry items. If they don’t get a makeover, they may become part of one of the popular jewelry pieces bags coveted by local artists. We will find a home for your precious item with someone who will love it.
Bizarre Bazaar has something for everyone. Come be part of the magic.
Kathryn Larson is a volunteer with the Community Assistance League. Learn more about the organization at calsandpoint.org.
watches tick and jewelry shine.
Marilyn Haddad, behind the jewelry counter at Bizarre Bazaar. Courtesy photo
COMMUNITY
BGH announces launch of transitional care ‘Swing Bed Program’
By Reader Staff
Bonner General Health recently announced the launch of its new transitional care program, also known as “swing beds.”
A successful survey of BGH from its accrediting organization led to approval by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to begin admitting patients to the Swing Bed Program, which is designed to allow patients to transition seamlessly from acute care to skilled nursing care without leaving the hospital.
According to BGH, the program is ideal for individuals recovering from surgeries, strokes or other conditions that require ongoing support, including physical therapy, speech therapy and medication management.
“By keeping patients in a familiar environment, we can provide comprehensive care while minimizing the need for transfers to other facilities,” BGH stated. “Additionally, local patients admitted to other regional facilities, such as Kootenai Health and Sacred Heart, will have the option to transfer to BGH for the remainder of their care.”
The Swing Bed Program is intended to provide easy access to a range of services, reduced readmissions, decreased length of stay, and the ability to receive continued care in the same environment and with the same care team.
Most importantly, the hospital stated, it allows our community members and their families to remain close to home for the duration of their care.
“The successful implementation of the Swing Bed Program is a testament to the dedication of our incredible team here at BGH,” stated Chief Nursing Officer Becki Dotson. “From the nurses, therapists and case managers to our administrative staff, everyone has brought an immense amount
of energy and effort to bring this valuable service to our community.
“Our goal is to ensure that every patient receives the care and support they need right here at home,” Dotson added. “I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished together, and I’m excited to see the positive impact this program will have on our patients and their families.”
Specific insurance eligibility requirements for swing bed admission apply.
Several departments, including Acute Care, Pharmacy, Case Management and Rehab Services, played a vital role in implementing the Swing Bed Program and will care for swing bed patients during their stay at BGH. Pictured are staff members from each team.
PERSPECTIVES dumb of the week
Now with more fascism!
By Ben Olson Reader Staff
In the War of the Dumb, there are some clear winners.
Mississippi state Sen. Bradford Blackmon, a Democrat, earned a special mention this week.
Blackmon introduced the “Contraception Begins at Erection Act,” a bill that would make it unlawful for “a person to discharge genetic material without the intent to fertilize an embryo.”
The bill would seemingly ban masturbation, homosexual acts or heterosexual acts unless they’re, erm, completed in the service of procreation, fining scofflaws $1,000 for a first offense, $5,000 for a second offense and $10,000 for any subsequent offenses.
It’s unlikely to pass the GOP-led Mississippi Legislature, and has been widely viewed as a troll move on Blackmon’s part to highlight that the majority of the bills introduced in his Statehouse targeting contraception or abortion focus solely on the woman’s role.
“[M]en are 50% of the equation,” Blackmon wrote. “This bill highlights that fact and brings the man’s role into the conversation.”
While the bill is a political stunt, it received a Dumb mention this week solely because this is where we’re at in America: introducing bills just for the LOLs. But, it begs the question: If the bill were to advance and become law, how would it be enforced?
Republican Laura Smith, vice chair of the Towamencin Township Board of Supervisors in Pennsylvania, posted a video on TikTok in which she mimicked Elon Musk’s Hitler salute with a closed palm and arm raised in front of her.
“Just checking in on my friends who are struggling this week,” Smith said in the video before making the salute, also mimicking Musk’s words by ending with, “My heart goes out to you. Hope you’re doing OK.”
Smith later deleted the video, claiming that it had been “mischaracterized,” and that she “abhor[ed] racism, anti-Semitic (sic) or discrimination in any fashion.”
A day later, Smith an-
nounced she had resigned from the town’s board of supervisors after nationwide backlash to her video. She also resigned her position as a board member of the town’s public library.
Word to the wise: When you have to explain that the awkward gesture you made isn’t a Hitler salute, you’ve already lost the argument.
Finally, to round out this week’s Dumbest of the Dumb, the Trump administration plunged the nation into chaos with a memo initiating a broad freeze on federal grants and loans by 5 p.m. (Eastern) on Jan. 28. Organizations struggled to make heads of tails of this presumably illegal move, thanks in part to a vaguely worded order released Jan. 27 by the Office of Management and Budget filled with pejoratives and purity tests aiming to “end wokeness” and target recipients of federal money that advance, “Marxist equity, transgenderism and green new deal social engineering policies.”
The directive would halt hundreds of billions of dollars worth of federal funding for vital programs that cover everything from feeding kids and seniors to health care, conducting what the Associated Press called an “across-the-board ideological review to uproot progressive initiatives” in the federal government.
Naturally, it was met with confused outrage. Meanwhile, doctors in all 50 states were not able to secure payments from Medicaid, which provides health coverage to 70 million low-income Americans. (The administration blamed an “outage,” but many including Sen. Ron Wyden, Ore., weren’t buying it.)
The chaos continued as a federal judge temporarily blocked the order on Jan. 28. Then, the next day, the OMB rescinded its memo, but Trump Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters it was just a rescission of the memo, not of Trump’s federal funding freeze.
This isn’t governing, this is tyranny and incompetence at the highest level — and we’re only 10 days in so far.
Supermajority, super disconnected
By Lauren Necochea Reader Contributor
In a representative democracy, The people elect leaders to represent and serve their interests. However, in a familiar pattern, recent polling shows that Idaho voters hold views and priorities light-years away from the GOP supermajority’s agenda.
The newly released 2025 Idaho Public Policy Survey revealed that home affordability is the top priority for Idahoans. This makes sense, as families face soaring rents and home prices. A few years ago, Idaho Democrats unanimously cast deciding votes to make the first-ever state investment in workforce housing, which a majority of Republican lawmakers opposed. Idaho Democrats consistently champion basic consumer protections to level the playing field for renters in a lopsided market. Meanwhile, Republican leaders have undermined such protections, making it even easier for unscrupulous landlords to use dishonest, unethical and exploitative practices.
Idahoans are also clear on education. A majority oppose using taxpayer dollars to fund private or religious schools. Yet, the Republican supermajority continues to advance school voucher schemes, proposing three voucher-style bills in the first weeks of the session. Idaho Democrats, by contrast, consistently work to strengthen your neighborhood public school, ensure teachers are paid adequately and give every child in Idaho a great education.
Nearly half of Idahoans report difficulty accessing health care. Rather than expanding access, Idaho GOP House Speaker Mike Moyle, R-Star, announced his caucus would seek to repeal Medicaid expansion, taking coverage from 85,000 Idahoans. And Republican lawmakers contin-
ue to push laws that threaten doctors and nurses with prison for making decisions in the best interest of their patients.
A key example is the state’s extreme abortion ban, which has caused undeniable harm. Idaho women are being denied critical care to protect their health and future fertility, with some even being airlifted out of state during emergencies.
The new survey shows a majority of Idahoans support expanding access to abortion and broadening exceptions to the current law. Despite this, Republican leaders in the Idaho Statehouse announced their refusal to consider any exemption to the abortion ban to protect health and future fertility, let alone restore our reproductive freedoms.
How did Idaho’s leaders become so disconnected? The closed Republican primary forces candidates to obey the most extreme voters in their party. Add to that hundreds of thousands of dollars flowing from out-ofstate donors to prop up extreme-right candidates. Voters who identify with
traditional Republicans have little in common with the farright candidates who dominate November ballots. This system silences common-sense voices and fails the vast majority of Idahoans.
To restore balance and accountability in Idaho, we must break from a Legislature where one party holds 85% of the seats. Electing Democrats will give Idaho a more representative government that works for everyday Idahoans, not the extreme fringe.
Lauren Necochea is chair of the Idaho Democratic Party and outgoing District 19 House member in the Idaho Legislature. Necochea spent a decade leading nonprofit programs dedicated to research and advocacy in tax policy, health care and children’s issues.
Lauren Necochea. File photo
Send event listings to calendar@sandpointreader.com
January 30 - February 6, 2025
THURSDAY, january 30
Truffle Making Party • 4-6 or 6-8pm @ Sandpoint Chocolate
Tour Sandpoint Chocolate Factory, snack on hors d’oeuvres and sip champagne/beer/wine before donning your aprons and learning to make truffles, chocolate bars and chocolate dipped strawberries. You’ll go home with $100 worth of chocolate for $75 fee. 208-304-3591 to RSVP
Cribbage Night (double elimination)
6pm @ Connie’s Lounge ($5 entry)
Live Music w/ Hannah Meehan
6-8pm @ Idaho Pour Authority
Live Music w/ TJ Hoops
5:30-8:30pm @ Idaho Pour Authority
Live Music w/ Ken Mayginnes
6-9pm @ 1908 Saloon
Live Music w/ Ian Newbill
6:30-9:30pm @ MickDuff’s Beer Hall
Live Music w/ One Street Over 5-8pm @ Pend d’Oreille Winery
Live Music w/ Aaron Golay & The Original Sins 9pm-midnight @ 219 Lounge
Live Music w/ Brenden McCoy
5:30-8:30pm @ Barrel 33
Live Music w/ Ian Newbill
5:30-8pm @ Ice House Pizza (Hope)
Live Music w/ Mason Van Stone
6pm @ Connie’s Lounge
Free First Saturday / Hands on History 10am-2pm @ Bonner Co. History Museum
Free admission and hands-on activities and imaginative play for kids
Live Music w/ Jacob Robin
6-9pm @ MickDuff’s Beer Hall
Sandpoint Chess Club
9am @ Evans Brothers Coffee Meets every Sunday at 9am
Monday Night Blues Jam w/ John Firshi 7pm @ Eichardt’s Pub
Trivia Night
6-8pm @ Sandpoint Senior Center
Live Piano w/ Jennifer Stoehner 5-7pm @ Pend d’Oreille Winery
Taste of tango (dance lessons)
5pm @ Barrel 33
Social hour at 5pm, class at 6pm
Sandpoint Sasquatch Under 26 Takeover
6-8pm @ Smokesmith BBQ
Fundraiser to support the baseball team accepted into a huge tourney in Utah. Portion of sales will benefit the team
Traditional Irish Music Jam • 5pm @ Connie’s Lounge Open format. Come down and play!
FriDAY, january 31
Live Music w/ Austin Miller (full band)
8:30pm @ The Hive
A full band with classic country sound and rock/Americana influences ($5).
Line dancing lessons ($10) at 7:30pm
Live Music w/ Sammy Eubanks
6-8pm @ Smokesmith BBQ
Live Music w/ Big Phatty & the Inhalers 5pm @ Connie’s Lounge
Classic rock and blues
SATURDAY, february 1
Live Music w/ Mobius Riff
6-8pm @ Idaho Pour Authority
Live Music w/ Isaac Smith 5-8pm @ Pend d’Oreille Winery
North Idaho Old Time Fiddler’s jam
2-4pm @ Sandpoint Senior Center
Model UN fundraiser and silent auction 5pm @ Marigold Bistro
Support SHS International Relations honors class for their upcoming trip to NYC for the Model UN conference. Tickets $55. nthaete@gmail.com
Live Music w/ Justin Lantrip
6-8pm @ Baxter’s on Cedar
SunDAY, february 2
Magic with Star Alexander 5-8pm @ Jalapeño’s Up close magic shows at the table
Outdoor Experience Group Run 6pm @ Outdoor Experience 3-5 miles, all levels welcome
Pool Tournament ($10 entry fee)
6pm @ Connie’s Lounge
february february 3 tuesDAY, february 4
wednesDAY, february 5
Live Piano w/ Dwayne Parsons 5-7pm @ Pend d’Oreille Winery
ThursDAY, february 6
Truffle Making Party • 4-6 or 6-8pm @ Sandpoint Chocolate
Tour Sandpoint Chocolate Factory, snack on hors d’oeuvres and sip champagne/beer/wine before donning your aprons and learning to make truffles, chocolate bars and chocolate dipped strawberries. You’ll go home with $100 worth of chocolate for $75 fee. 208-304-3591 to RSVP
Customize your own trucker hat workshop
5:30-7:30pm @ Barrel 33
Living Voices — The New American 7pm @ Panida Theater
Presented by POAC, a step back in time to bring alive the narrative of a young Irish immigrant’s voyage to a new land in the early 1900s. $15/$10
Live Music w/ Dag Zaggenz
8pm @ The St. Bernard (Schweitzer)
Live Music w/ Brian Jacobs
6-8pm @ Baxter’s on Cedar
From Sandpoint with Love! Opera Soiree 5pm @ Little Carnegie Hall (MCS)
A delightful opera presented by the Music Conservatory of Sandpoint
Rhinestones for Royalty 5pm @ Bonner County Fairgrounds
Celebrate the 2025 rodeo queen Yesenia Cisneros. Live/silent auctions
Friends of the Library monthly book sale 10am-2pm @ Sandpoint Library
We have many books in all genres Open Mic Night 5:30-7:30pm @ Evans Brothers Coffee All are welcome to perform
Sunday Cinema: Groundhog Day 1 & 6pm @ Panida Theater The Bill Murray comedy classic
Intro to salsa dancing 5pm @ Barrel 33
Social hour at 5pm, class at 6pm
Live Trivia ($5 entry fee)
7pm @ Connie’s Lounge
Artist Reception: Stewart Anstead
5-7pm @ Pend d’Oreille Winery
Vintage ski culture is Anstead’s focus for this new art series at the winery
Cribbage Night (double elimination) 6pm @ Connie’s Lounge ($5 entry)
Documentary film Jim Henson: Idea Man shows new side of visionary puppeteer
By Soncirey Mitchell Reader Staff
Anyone who doesn’t know the name “Jim Henson” should go sit in a corner and think about their life choices. The legendary creator of the Muppets revolutionized American puppetry and has shaped countless minds for more than 50 years, yet most don’t know the full breadth of his vision.
Enter Jim Henson: Idea Man, a documentary directed by none other than critically acclaimed filmmaker Ron Howard, of Apollo 13 and A Beautiful Mind. You know right from the start it’s going to be a tear-jerker — and the in-depth exploration of Henson’s life and career doesn’t disappoint.
As it always seems to be with people who change history, Henson never intended to enter the field that made him famous. Though the art of puppetry has been alive and well around the world since ancient Egypt, before Henson, it couldn’t find a footing in the U.S. Henson had never even seen a puppet show until he created one.
Born in 1936, Henson was fascinated by TV because of its exponential growth in popularity and the potential innovations that came with it. He viewed TV as a means of shaping the world; and, when a local station put out an ad for a puppeteer, Henson grabbed his craft supplies and applied.
He and Muppet co-inventor Jane Nebel — a fellow artist, visionary and puppeteer — then set out to change the world with only a vague sense of direction and a dream.
Henson’s true genius was his determination to expose people to different ways of thinking, whether that meant building puppets from scratch, creating absurdist short films or designing a series of artistic nightclubs in geodesic domes, where different movies would be projected onto each facet of the wall at the same time. Every decision was designed to pave the way for the next innovation.
After toiling over bit parts and advertisements, writer and producer Joan Ganz and psychologist Lloyd Morrisett asked Henson and other in-
novators to create a children’s TV show that would both entertain and educate. Sesame Street debuted in 1969, and while it was a drastic change from Henson’s nightclub ideas, it presented another opportunity for him to mold minds through his artistry.
Sesame Street’s massive success gave Henson a great deal of creative freedom but also hampered some of his aspirations, as the world now viewed Muppets as children’s characters.
Henson set out to break those bonds by pitching The Muppet Show to just about
every U.S. network — selling it as an adult variety show and creating two unsuccessful pilots including The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence. It took an eccentric British aristocrat — the Right Honorable Lord Lew Grade, Baron of Elstree — to finally see the potential. He was familiar with puppetry from Gerry Anderson’s older marionette shows and saw Henson’s true potential. Backed by Grade’s branch of ATV Network, The Muppet Show became a smash hit, with Hollywood’s biggest stars vying
for guest appearances.
Henson worked himself to the bone convincing the world that puppetry had artistic merit through works like The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth — which only became cult classics after his death — and pushing the boundaries of modern media through his combination of absurdism, slapstick, burlesque, parody and social critique. In the end, his dedication killed him. Henson refused to take time off work to see a doctor and died from organ failure due to streptococcal toxic shock syndrome. For every goal he reached, Henson simply made another, defining childhoods and changing worldviews along the way. No matter when or how he passed, he would have left hundreds of visions unrealized. What Idea Man highlights most — and what makes it so heartbreaking — is the sheer amount of joy Henson created during his 53 years, and how much his death robbed the world of what could have been.
POAC presents Living Voices — The New American — at Panida Theater
By Reader Staff
The Pend Oreille Arts Council will offer audiences a unique historical experience Friday, Jan. 31 with its Living Voices production of The New American at the Panida Theater (300 N. First Ave., in downtown Sandpoint).
Scheduled for 7 p.m., the performance combines live performance with archival film and photos to tell the story of Bridget — a young Irish immigrant who voyages to the U.S. in the early 1900s in search of a new life.
Part of POAC’s Ovations program, The New American invites attendees to join Bridget’s journey from the
cramped quarters of steerage on a transatlantic ship to Ellis Island and the bustling streets of New York City. Along the way, the audience will learn of her challenges and triumphs (through tenements and sweatshops, as well as the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire), as she navigates the obstacles of immigrant life and strives for acceptance and belonging in a new homeland — and ponder the question: “What does it truly mean to forge a new path and start afresh in a foreign land?”
“Our long relationship with the incredible Living Voices program continues with this latest production of The New American,” stated POAC Ex-
ecutive Director Tone Stolz. “Celebrating our culturally rich American history, POAC believes this is an important story to share. We hope that community members of all ages will join us for this live theater presentation at the Panida Theater.”
Ovations is a free outreach that provides educational experiences in the performing arts for students in the community. A study guide focused on the history of the times will accompany performances in multiple schools in the Lake Pend Oreille School District prior to the public performance.
Living Voices offers 12 original programs based on real people and events. Pre-
and post-show visual aids and discussion extend the learning. All programs are available both in-person and online. Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for youth, available at the POAC Gallery (313 N. Second Ave., in downtown
Sandpoint), by calling 208-2636139, online at artinsandpoint. org or at the Panida box office, which will open at 6 p.m. — an hour prior to showtime.
Watch Jim Henson: Idea Man on Disney Plus.
Jim Henson with his creations. Courtesy photo
Actress Liane Davidson playing “Bridget.”
Photo by Michael McClinton
Ski hill safety: Be mindful of your speed
By Tom Eddy Reader Contributor
As we finish January — which is Skier Safety Month — and progress into the remainder of the winter season, it’s important to remember how to stay safe on the slopes. Last year, we revisited the new “Your Responsibility Code” and spoke of the changes that have been made. This year, I would like to talk about speed and stopping distance.
Skiing and riding on the mountain is one of my favorite things, but I did not appreciate just how fast I move on a daily basis until I tried out a ski tracking app. The results were surprising.
Just tooling down the cat track, I averaged 24 miles per hour without even trying. This led me to some online research. One of the most direct research studies I found was written in 2023 by Lenka Stepan (Skier and Snowboarder Speeds at U.S. Ski Areas), consisting of almost two decades of research focusing on eight resorts spread across the country.
Stepan, et al., utilized a multiple linear regression model to account for the variables of terrain, snow conditions, skier ability, equipment choice and whether participants wore a helmet. Briefly, they found that with more than 4,200 observations, a beginner skier on beginner terrain averages about 15 mph. Intermediates averaged close to 10 mph more than their less experienced counterparts. Advanced skiers add another 10mph for an average of 35 mph.
No disrespect, but snowboarders across ability levels averaged a speed 1.5 mph less than skiers.
Not surprisingly, the more experienced you are, the faster you tend to ski or ride.
What does this mean and why do I reference this study?
Easy: As with vehicles, conditions, equipment and ability, all affect stopping distances.
If it’s the afternoon and the grooming has been skied off, it will take you longer to stop from any speed than fresh-groomed or powder — the more friction, the shorter the stop.
Another study I stumbled across shows that the average reaction time for a skier or boarder to recognize the need to stop is 420 milliseconds. It
then takes another 470 ms for said skier to initiate the stop. Without getting into a bunch of coefficients and physics, many factors affect stopping
distance: how steep is the slope, whether you tuned your skis/board, slope angle, friction, snow quality and many others.
The point that I’m trying to get across is that many of us ski or ride faster than we think. That’s probably OK when you have a run to yourself, or conditions are nice and soft. It’s not OK to come screaming into Jam Session when it’s full of young children and beginners.
There is a time and place to feel the wind in your hair and make your eyes water, but that’s not at noon on a weekend on a crowded run.
Even if you’re an expert skier or rider, tone it down as you approach the “Slow Skiing Zones” around the mountain. If ski patrol or mountain hosts wave at you to slow down, slow down. We aren’t trying to steal your fun; rather, we’re trying to make the mountain safe and enjoyable for all users.
Tom Eddy is the Hill Safety supervisor at Schweitzer, a member of ski patrol and manages the Mountain Host Program.
Panida screens Groundhog Day for $5 on Groundhog Day
By Zach Hagadone Reader Staff
Anyone who works in local media knows the peculiar exhaustion that goes with covering the same event year after year. There are only so many ways to frame a familiar story without repeating yourself, and it’s one of the fastest ways to feel the dreaded burnout.
That’s the setup for the iconic 1993 darkly comedic Groundhog Day, starring Bill Murray as a weather man named Phil who has to report on the rodent’s annual appearance for the fourth time in a row.
Phil — who shares a name with the titular woodchuck Punxsutawney Phil — is fed up with the assignment, but also jaded and arrogant. Yet,
he has a crush on his much more well-adjusted producer Rita (Andie MacDowell), but she’s turned off by his general nastiness. Everything changes when a fluke in the space-time continuum has Phil waking up every morning to relive the same day: Groundhog Day. It’s never explained why or how this time loop manifested, but Phil is stuck in it for what could be eternity. His confusion transforms into acceptance, which turns into boredom and eventually suicidal attempts to break the cycle. Even driving off a cliff with the groundhog in the passenger seat results in Phil reawakening in the same bed, listening to the same Sonny and Cher song on the morning radio show, in the same
town on the same day.
Eventually, Phil uses his apparent immortality and recurrent temporal existence to cultivate various skills and — crucially — get to know everything about Rita so as to woo her for a romance that resets each midnight. Along the way, his do-overs culminate in some measure of personal growth and he ceases to be the grumpiest weather man in Punxsutawney, Penn.
Though seemingly lighthearted, and with a romantic tinge, director Harold Ramis played with some profound concepts about change over time and the meaning of life (I even watched Groundhog Day as part of a college course on German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who theo-
rized the concept of “eternal return”).
Most of all, it’s a stellar vehicle for Murray to create one of the most memorable characters in late-20th century cinema. Appropriately, the Panida Theater is bringing Groundhog Day to the big screen on Sunday, Feb. 2 (the
actual Groundhog Day), as the first in its Sunday Cinema Series. Showings are at 1 p.m. and 6 p.m., with doors open 30 minutes beforehand. Tickets are $5 at panida.org or the box office (300 N. First Ave., in downtown Sandpoint).
Photo courtesy of Schweitzer
Bill Murray in Groundhog Day
Courtesy photo
MUSIC
Festival at Sandpoint announces Sierra Ferrell will take the stage July 25
By Reader Staff
Described as “one of the brightest young luminaries in roots music today,” West Virginia-born singer-songwriter Sierra Ferrell is headed to the Festival at Sandpoint stage for a Friday, July 25 performance that promises to introduce local audiences to her brand of “beautifully strange magic.”
Following the release of her 2024 album Trail of Flowers (Rounder Records), Nashville-based Ferrell took home the Artist of the Year and Album of the Year prizes at the Americana Honors and Awards, and earned four Grammy nominations for Best Americana Album (Trail of Flowers), Best American Roots Performance (“Lighthouse”), Best Americana Performance (“American Dreaming”) and Best American Roots Song (“American Dreaming”).
For such an impressive resume, Ferrell hasn’t been on the scene for too long. She self-released her first two albums Pretty Magic Spell and Washington by the Sea in 2018 and 2019, respectively, followed by Long Time Coming with Rounder Records in 2021.
Long Time Coming drew praise from outlets like Pitchfork, Paste, Pop Matters and No Depression, and Ferrell
has since collaborated with the likes of Old Crow Medicine Show and Post Malone while bringing her high-spirited live performance across North America and Europe.
A multi-instrumentalist, Ferrell’s musical upbringing included playing everywhere from truck stops to boxcars to New Orleans street corners, and her latest album journeys from freewheeling bluegrass to heartrending old-time music to gritty honky-tonk and beyond.
Featuring guest appearances from fellow singer-songwriters Lukas Nelson and Nikki Lane, Trail of Flowers fulfills Ferrell’s longstanding mission of making music that transcends the barriers of time, making listeners “feel nostalgic for the past, but excited about the future of music,” as she says.
The opening track, “American Dreaming,” is an example of how she merges timeless musicianship with lyrics exploring modern concerns — a world-weary, yet soul-stirring track that speaks to the struggle to build a good life in a culture consumed by capitalism.
Meanwhile, the track “Fox Hunt” takes the form of a furious, stomping epic driven by galloping rhythms and feverish fiddle work.
On “Rosemary,” she delves further into her old-time roots
and delivers the album’s most haunting moment: a stark but spellbinding story-song graced with a few bars of soulful yodeling. Tracks like “Dollar Bill Bar” — a swinging but wistful number on which she cycles from longing to regret to a devil-may-care attitude — showcase her profound gifts as a vocalist.
As a listening experience, Trail of Flowers presents an all-enveloping and off-kilter beauty.
“I’m just trying to put words and melodies together
and build it into something people can pour their feelings to, all their happiness and sorrows so that it changes their reality a little bit and gives them some comfort,” she says.
Member presale tickets are available until 10 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 30, while tickets will go on sale to the public on Friday, Jan. 31 at 10 a.m. General admission is $54.95, with tickets available at festivalatsandpoint.com.
A snapshot of notable live music coming up in Sandpoint
Dag Zaggenz, The St. Bernard, Jan. 31
Sandpoint is swimming in talented folk and country artists, which is why it’s so rare for someone to take the stage with a completely different sound. Dag Zaggenz brings something new and exciting to the table with his original indie-pop electronic songs that leave a spring in your step and a smile on your face.
Using live looping, Zaggenz transforms into a oneman band, complete with
retro keyboards and guitars that can lean rock, pop or disco, depending on the song. Combine that with his stellar vocals, and you’ve got a sound akin to MGMT with a little something extra.
— Soncirey Mitchell
8 p.m., FREE. The St. Bernard, 479 NW Passage on Schweitzer, 208-920-5521, thestbernard479. com. Listen on Spotify.
Aaron Golay and The Original Sin, 219 Lounge, Feb. 1
The soul-rock-Americana trio of Aaron Golay, Darcy Erickson and Michael Tetro are making a return visit to Sandpoint from their homebase in the City of Trees (a.k.a. Boise), for a Saturday, Feb. 1 show at the 219 Lounge.
It’s always a treat when Aaron Golay and The Original Sin swing through town, and even more so since it hasn’t been all that long since the last
This week’s RLW by Zach Hagadone
READ
The New Yorker seems to have a stealth beat among its contributors on the subject of “attention.” In the May 6, 2024 edition, the magazine carried a lengthy and absorbing profile of The Order of the Third Bird — an undercover society of assorted intellectuals who practice a radical form of concentration by converging at various locations to stare intently at an object or piece of art (“The Battle for Attention”). In the Jan. 20 edition, we get “What if the Attention Crisis is all a Distraction?,” which explores “attention capitalism.” Read them both at newyorker.com.
LISTEN
It’s been a while since I recommended the YouTube channel Epic Rap Battles of History, but I recently revisited some of the greatest hits on the stream and must again direct attention to its stellar writing, production quality and performances. Run by Lloyd “EpicLLOYD” Ahlquist and Peter “Nice Peter” Shukoff since 2010, the videos put real and fictional personalities in head-to-head verbal combat, sometimes across centuries. My current favorites: “Frederick Douglass vs. Thomas Jefferson” and “Henry Ford vs. Karl Marx.”
WATCH
time they played the Niner in October 2024. If you missed them then, don’t repeat that mistake and get thee to the barroom for an evening of rhythm and energy courtesy of Golay and his original sinners.
— Zach Hagadone
9 p.m., FREE, 21+. 219 Lounge, 219 N. First Ave., 208263-5673, 219.bar. Listen at aarongolaymusic.com.
What’s wrong with our public education system? Casey Pilgeram proposes that it’s Prussia. Specifically, our school model, with its age-segregated classrooms, compulsory attendance, standardized testing and packed schedules, has its roots in the militaristic, autocratic and industrial-minded German state in the 19th century. Pilgeram — a Sandpoint-raised, DePaul University-educated school psychologist — argues that we need to restructure public ed. to a “person-centered approach” that fosters the safety and connection necessary for learning. Watch her TEDx Spokane talk on the subject on YouTube.
Sierra Ferrell will play the Festival at Sandpoint on Friday, July 25. Courtesy photo
From Pend Oreille Review, January 29, 1925
FIFTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE COBBLER’S BENCH
“Rap-a-tap-tap, tick-a-tat-too, this is the way to make a shoe,” is the song to which A.E. Stutsman has listened for fifty-five years. For eighteen winters Mr. Stutsman has watched the snow come and go in Sandpoint, while he hammered away at his cobbler’s bench. He thinks this the most healthful climate of any place he has ever lived and he has “traveled about a bit.” Fifty-five years is not so long when one loves his work. Mr. Stutsman began life as a bridge carpenter by day, working in a shoe shop evenings, so great was his desire to learn the latter trade, always looking forward to the time when he could have a shop of his own.
In the winters of ‘76 and ‘77 he worked in the woods in Saginaw, Mich., with neither gloves nor overshoes, even in the severest weather. He tells reminiscently of hearing a sermon in which the preacher stated that if apparatus were devised whereby messages could be sent by wire it would be purely the work of the devil.
When the Populist party sprang into existence in the state of Kansas, Mr. Stutsman was state lecturer, always leaving whatever he took up to return to the bench. No machinery, nothing but wooden lasts and meager tools were at hand when he drove his first pegs. Like many old time needlewomen, he can boast that everything he did was “hand made.” A son is foreman of the C.P. Ford shoe factory in Rochester, N.Y. also formerly working with his father in Sandpoint. Together they made many a pair of logging boots, as well as finer shoes.
Mr. Stutsman will celebrate his seventieth birthday soon.
BACK OF THE BOOK
The revolution will not be live-streamed
By Soncirey Mitchell Reader Staff
Gen-Z has the kind of energy, passion, anger and morality that lights rebellions, and most have dreamed of overthrowing fascist governments since their first time reading The Hunger Games. Still, for every Greta Thunberg and Malala Yousafzai fighting for the future, there are a thousand young people sitting in front of cameras passively playing revolutionaries.
Social media has manufactured the image of the perfect protester — someone with a full face of makeup listening to “Fascistnista” by Jessilyn and loudly proclaiming they would have hidden Anne Frank. I won’t condemn them — their hearts are, I think, in the right place — but they’re pretending that making political change and human rights into a cutesy aesthetic will combat the racist, homophobic, sexist, transphobic, misanthropic political faction that is currently hollowing out every level of government.
It won’t. But again, the passion is there.
According to most polls by organizations like Pew Research Center, “Zoomers” overwhelmingly support human rights, same-sex marriage, health care, education... you know, the compassion some people call “liberal commie bullshit.”
(Those statistics get dragged down by straight-white-Joe-Rogan-loving-male Zoomers who voted for Trump, but the point still stands.)
Despite these intrinsic beliefs, Gen-Z has two massive hurdles to overcome to enact any kind of real change: cynicism and Main Character Syndrome.
Most Gen-Z grew up under former-President Barack Obama, benefiting from Obergefell v. Hodges, the Affordable Care Act, and increased representation for women and people of color in government. Still, Gen-Z’s childhoods
STR8TS Solution
were also marred by school shootings, 9/11 and most of Bush Jr.’s choices, and so we came of age in a time of relative prosperity with the simultaneous belief that the U.S. government doesn’t care if its citizens live or die. Donald Trump has only solidified that idea.
This combination of prosperity and defeatism has meant that Gen-Z is too far removed from the Freedom Riders and bra-burners of their grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ generations to know how to organize and too convinced that nothing we do makes a difference to try. The Gen-Z understanding of politics comes from The Hunger Games, Divergent and Harry Potter — fantasies that no doubt build on real-world fears, but nonetheless claim that a chosen few are capable of combatting fascism with nothing but morals and a superficial understanding of politics. If only it were that easy.
As inspiring as those books and films are, they aren’t exactly how-to manuals. That hasn’t stopped Zoomers from casting themselves as the main characters and taking to TikTok to chatter mindlessly and invent useless codes, as if fun slogans are enough to stop Nazis.
The Zoomers’ version of the Enigma Machine is tagging posts with the phrase “Cute winter boots” to hide from social media algorithms that might hide or censor anti-Trump posts. If they’re smart, the content creator will then talk about resources people can use to petition the government, organizations they can volunteer with, or ways to hamper U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents attempting to deport friends and neighbors.
That’s why the code exists; after all, “winter boots” protect against I.C.E.
Most people who use the “secret” code make superficial videos, nullifying any potential benefit so they can make vague political statements that signal to their followers they’re on the “right side of history,” and apparently free them
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from the obligation of actually working toward a better future.
Social media has been used as a tool to spread ideas, organize protests and connect with like-minded people, but Gen-Z needs to learn that the revolution will not be live-streamed. The people filming themselves writing messages on $1 bills are not making meaningful contributions to combat hate and protect human rights — in fact, most of them are inadvertently stripping themselves of the ability to help. Making a post about how they’ll smuggle pregnant people to pro-choice states or hide immigrants in their homes puts anyone who comes to them for help in jeopardy. Like a secret code everyone knows, it does little more than make the person feel included with little to no effort on their part.
That doesn’t mean TikToks of young people singing along to “United Health” by Jesse Welles can’t be useful. Take these showy, half-baked posts as symbols — they have meaning, but only if we give it to them. Gen-Z should use the emotions these posts inspire to incite action. Real change will come from the people who put their phones down to raise up their signs, their voices and their fellow human beings.
Laughing Matter
Solution on page 22 Solution on page 22
By Bill Borders
well-nigh /wel-nahy/
Week of the
[adverb]
1. very nearly; almost
“It’s well-nigh time for the American people to wake up before it’s too late.”
Corrections: We are tapping out of the Schweitzer chairlift name debate. It’s information that is nearly impossible to fact check, as it relies on decades-old memories. Lenny Hess weighed in correcting the correction issued by ex-lifty Jon Nylund in the Jan. 23 edition: “Hate to be ‘that guy,’ but Chair 1 was Grandpa Bear and Chair 4 was Papa Bear,” Hess wrote. “Then came Chair 5 and Chair 6 with no bear monikers.” Another reader, Ted Wert, claimed Nylund was correct. Other emails contradict this, assigning different bear names to different chairs. As we said, we’re tapping out of this debate. My knowledge of chairlift names begins with the numbers they were called since the 1980s, and that’s what I stick with to this day.
— Ben Olson, publisher
CROSSWORD
ACROSS
1. Scottish landowner 6. Odor
11. Master of Ceremonies
12. Long and tiresome
15. Gland that produces melatonin
16. Noncommissioned officer
17. East southeast
18. Food-related
20. Golf ball support 21. Backside 23. Military
Fraud 25. Diva’s solo
Applications
Dregs 28. Jump 29. Anagram of “Eat”
Destitute 31. Book of scriptures
A rustling sound
Guff 37. Frosts, as a cake 41. Expresses relief 42. Assistant 43. Naked 44. Teller of untruths 45. Skin disease 46. Smile 47. Paintings 48. Spartan 51. Stomach muscles, for short 52. Menacing
Tales
Ancient Roman magistrate
Genders
DOWN
Solution on page 22 9. Falsehood
Despised
Apprehensive
Flower stalk 15. Flower feature
Style of train 19. Artist’s stand
More content
Inability to remember
Roam 1. Relaxation
Frozen water
Anagram of “Dear”
Sandwich shop
Water vapors
Joyous
Jittery
Searching 26. Mormon state 27. Fifth sign of the zodiac 30. No
