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PEOPLE compiled by

Susan Drinkard

watching

“What is the worst book you have ever read?”

“Surprising for an English teacher, but it’s One-Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

I tried many times.”

Bret Johnson Lake Pend Oreille High School Sagle

“My vote for worst novel is Moby Dick. Very boring, and totally a guy’s story.”

Susan Kirkpatrick Retired English professor Sandpoint and San Diego

“We were required to read The Grapes Of Wrath in high school. For a bright-eyed kid who was wet behind the ears, some of it was hard to take. It was pretty morose.”

Nate Rench Banker at Washington Trust Sagle

“The Shack. I didn’t like the philosophy.”

Alice Magleby Homemaker Sandpoint

“Clifford. It’s about a big red dog. I just didn’t like how it was written.”

Bradley Thompson 11 years old Sandpoint

DEAR READERS,

Looking at our cover photo this week (taken by Sandpoint native Annie Love), I’m reminded of that Talking Heads song that goes, “We’re on the road to nowhere.”

We’ve had a lot of great submissions for our covers the past month or so. Please keep it up. We’re always interested in your artwork and photography for future covers. Readers can always make a cover submission by emailing me at ben@sandpointreader.com. When submitting cover ideas, please let me know when and where you took the photo, the name of the art piece, the medium and any other pertinent information.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy weekend out there. Please be kind to one another during these trying times.

Personally, I’m looking forward to a time in the future when we can get back to the whole “live and let live” mentality, because life is too short to be angry all the time.

Be well and thanks for reading.

– Ben Olson, publisher

READER 111 Cedar Street, Suite 9 Sandpoint, ID 83864 (208)265-9724

www.sandpointreader.com Publisher: Ben Olson ben@sandpointreader.com Editorial: Zach Hagadone (Editor) zach@sandpointreader.com Lyndsie Kiebert (News Editor) lyndsie@sandpointreader.com Cameron Rasmusson (emeritus) John Reuter (emeritus) Advertising: Jodi Berge Jodi@sandpointreader.com Contributing Artists: Annie Love (cover), Susan Drinkard, Lyndsie Kiebert, Bill Borders.

Contributing Writers: Zach Hagadone, Ben Olson, Lyndsie Kiebert, Lorraine H. Marie, Shawn Keough, Jenna Bowers, Jason Welker, Brenden Bobby, Hannah Combs, Clara Cave, Mike Wagoner, Marcia Pilgeram.

Submit stories to: stories@sandpointreader.com Printed weekly at: Tribune Publishing Co. Lewiston, ID Subscription Price: $115 per year Web Content: Keokee The Sandpoint Reader is a weekly publication owned and operated by Ben Olson and Keokee. It is devoted to the arts, entertainment, politics and lifestyle in and around Sandpoint, Idaho.

We hope to provide a quality alternative by offering honest, in-depth reporting that reflects the intelligence and interests of our diverse and growing community.

The Reader is printed on recycled paper using soy-based ink. Leftover copies are collected and recycled weekly, or burned in massive bonfires to appease the gods of journalism.

Free to all, limit two copies per person.

Sandpoint Reader letter policy: The Sandpoint Reader welcomes letters to the editor on all topics.

Requirements: –No more than 300 words –Letters may not contain excessive profanity or libelous material. Please elevate the discussion.

Letters will be edited to comply with the above requirements. Opinions expressed in these pages are those of the writers, not necessarily the publishers.

Email letters to: letters@sandpointreader.com Check us out on the web at: www.sandpointreader.com Like us on Facebook.

About the Cover

This week’s cover photo was taken by Sandpoint local Annie Love, who was searching for a geocache.

“There just happened to be this short stretch of pretty nice road that didn’t connect to any other road. Some folks still use the road anyway,” Love said.

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NEWS

‘We’re all in this together’

LPOSD proposes draft plan for school reopening, emphasizing blended in-person and online ed

By Zach Hagadone Reader Staff The Lake Pend Oreille School District is nearing a final plan for how the 2020-2021 academic year will play out amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which has risen to 19,679 cases in Idaho and 139 in Bonner County since data tracking began in mid-March.

LPOSD trustees met July 28 to consider the draft plan, and Superintendent Tom Alberston provided an overview of the protocols being considered — with an emphasis on as much face-to-face instruction as possible for area students.

“This plan is designed to get school open and keep schools open,” he said.

Based in large part on the framework proposed by the Idaho State Board of Education on July 9, LPOSD’s tentative reopening strategy will direct policies based on a color-coded rubric denoting levels of COVID-19 community transmission: green for no community transmission, yellow for moderate transmission and red for widespread transmission.

The local version of the guidance adds a fourth category — orange — which Albertson said was built into the plan to give some flexibility between the blended online/in-person instruction called for in the “yellow” phase and the fully online model required in the “red” phase.

LPOSD’s “orange” category provides for as many as two days of in-person instruction with the rest of the school week conducted online.

Yet, Albertson said the district has focused most of its attention on crafting policies pertaining to the “yellow” phase, which “gives us the most parental choice and also puts policies in place to keep us as safe as possible.”

As such, much of Albertson’s presentation at the July 28 board meeting focused on the nuts and bolts of how district schools might confront a moderate level of COVID-19 transmission at 4 /

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least through the fall of 2020. The emphasis of the plan, as he underscored, is for schools to safely reopen for face-to-face instruction while balancing as much as possible the freedom for parents and caregivers to determine how much potential viral exposure they are willing to risk for their students.

According to the most recent survey from LPOSD, about 68% of 1,014 respondents said they are planning to return their students to school on Sept. 8 — down from 77% in an identical survey released in June. As many as 12% said they were not planning to return their students to school while 21% said they remain undecided.

While acknowledging that any plan would have its detractors — cueing off comments from a trio of area residents who testified at the top of the meeting that they didn’t believe COVID-19 posed a serious threat to young people — Albertson stressed that the district is attempting to “provide as many educational choices as possible.”

Still, those who testified during the open forum portion were critical of any option other than full, face-to-face instruction. Area resident Ron Korn asked, “What’s the deal with our teachers? Are teachers still being paid?”

“You might be working, you might call it that ... but you’re not teaching our kids,” he said, after stating that his children had to attend summer school because the online-only instruction in the spring did not adequately prepare them to go on to the 2020-2021 academic year. “You’re sitting in your classroom by yourself or whatever it is that you’re doing, looking on the computer, grading work that people have turned in or whatever’s going on, I don’t know, I didn’t see it.”

Another resident vowed to start a co-op and enlist others in the community to educate students who won’t participate in online education.

“I feel that the left side of the liberal agenda is always, you know, what’s catered to, so maybe you should open your eyes to the

people that don’t live in fear, trust Jesus and live our lives,” she said.

As with the state’s guidance, under “green” conditions, in which no community spread of the virus is evident, five-day instruction would continue face-to-face but with increased sanitization and social distancing policies in place.

Staff and students exhibiting symptoms would be encouraged to stay home, facilitated in large part by parents and caregivers actively monitoring school children before sending them to school.

Under the “yellow” plan, the school day would follow a “modified traditional schedule,” with elementary students organized in “cohorts” — meaning, they would arrive at school to be met by their teacher, with whom they would have breakfast in the classroom from 8 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. Face coverings would be “expected” on busses and in hallways and “encouraged” in the classroom.

Those groups of students would spend the entirety of the day together — including recess — so that if any positive cases should arise, that particular cohort would revert to online-only instruction for a period of time, rather than requiring a full shutdown of the school. Dismissal would be at around 12:45 p.m., with students leaving the building between 1 p.m. and 1:10 p.m. and additional academic time being made up for at home: as little as 10 minutes per day of online instruction for students

in first through third grades, and 40 minutes for fourth- through sixth-graders. Kindergarteners would not be required to perform any additional school work after dismissal, Albertson said.

“We feel that if we can strongly cohort we will not have to shut schools down,” he told the board.

Secondary students — those in middle and high school — would pose additional challenges, as they attend several different classes in various rooms throughout their respective buildings. Cohorting would not work in those schools, Albertson said; rather, the strategy is to reduce class sizes by reorganizing teacher prep periods to the end of the day, thus freeing up more class sections.

Like the elementary schedule, secondary students would arrive at school between 8 a.m. and 8:30 a.m., with instruction from 8:30 a.m. until about 12:45 p.m.

Online instruction would be provided via Schoology for secondary students and Google Classroom for elementary. Those tools, Albertson stressed, are “not the end all be all” and emphasized that “we really need parents to partner with us to keep our schools open” by monitoring their students’ health and keeping them home when manifesting symptoms of illness.

Likewise, staff will be keeping active track of any potential signs of sickness, with a positive case — for staff or students — triggering a 14-day self-isolation at

The LPOSD building in Ponderay.

Photo by Ben Olson. home. Those with close contact, defined as being within six feet of a confirmed case for at least 15 minutes, would be required to self-isolate for 14 days from last contact and be allowed to return to school or work after a minimum of 10 days after a positive test, 10 days after symptoms arise, and/or 10 days after symptoms have improved and no fever is present for at least 24 hours without fever-reducing medication.

In cases where staff or students are in self-isolation, instruction would turn to the appropriate remote learning platform. No COVID-19 tests will be administered at the schools, and individual buildings will be tasked with creating their own unique policies within the district’s framework.

The LPOSD plan remains a work in progress, and the board agreed to table adoption of the plan until its next meeting, which is scheduled for Tuesday, Aug. 11, when it is expected to make a final determination.

“I’m not the scientist; I’m not the person that’s going to tell you the right theory,” Albertson said, reiterating that the goal of the plan is to “get our kids in the schools and keep them in the schools.”

“This is one of the strangest times in society in my lifetime,” he said. “We’re all in this together.”

NEWS

The great mask debate

Mask tensions and COVID-19 cases rise in N. Idaho

By Lyndsie Kiebert Reader Staff When the Panhandle Health District board met July 23 to vote on a possible mask mandate for Kootenai County to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus, the motion passed 4-2 — the two dissenting votes coming from Bonner County board representatives Glen Bailey and Allen Banks.

Board members from Kootenai, Shoshone and Boundary counties voted in favor of the mandate, which requires people in Kootenai County to “wear a face covering that completely covers the person’s nose and mouth when the person is in a public space and physical distancing of 6 feet from others cannot be maintained,” with a list of exceptions. Chairman Marlow Thompson of Benewah County did not cast a vote, as no tie needed to be broken.

The Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office addressed the mandate on its Facebook page, asking citizens to stop calling 911 to report people not wearing masks.

“We will favor education over enforcement and will take a measured response to enforcement with a strong focusing on warnings [sic],” KCSO officials wrote in a Facebook post, adding that a violation of the order would be charged as a misdemeanor.

The PHD mask mandate comes as several municipalities across the state — including towns as small as Wallace and as large as Boise — are invoking similar rules to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. According to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, state case totals reached 19,679 on July 29, including 173 deaths attributed to the virus.

In Bonner County, PHD reported 139 total cases that same day, 69 of which were active.

In Kootenai County, where the PHD approved the mask mandate, 1,415 total cases were reported as of July 29 — 726 of which were active — as well as eight deaths.

The July 23 PHD meeting began with public comment from mostly anti-mask citizens, except for a couple of pro-mandate speakers. After about an hour, Thompson announced the board would be moving into regular agenda items and that there was no more time for public comment. One woman, voicing concerns that not everyone who signed up to speak was able to, attempted to approach the chairman after being told repeatedly that she was out of order. A KCSO deputy escorted her from the meeting room.

Nearly three and half hours of public testimony and discussion about the state of COVID-19 in Kootenai County ended in the 4-2 vote in favor of the mandate.

Immediately following the vote, the room erupted in angry shouts from meeting attendees who insisted that they would not wear masks. A group of anti-mask protesters gathered outside the building following the meeting.

People in Bonner County are also making their voices heard at establishments where face coverings are required. About 20 unmasked people attempted to enter the East Bonner County Library in Sandpoint on July 28, but were stopped by library employees. The East Bonner County Library District currently has a face covering rule in place, which protesters alleged violated their constitutional rights — especially since they claimed the library was a public building paid for with taxpayer money and that they were being denied services.

Employees explained that the mask requirement was a board policy, and that no services were being denied — they could gather and deliver materials to people

who would not or could not wear a mask into the building.

The East Bonner County Library District is an independent taxing district, and the library board — made up of five publicly elected officials — holds the authority to create rules for library buildings. Sandpoint police made that much clear after a library employee called for assistance, and the small crowd eventually dispersed.

Library Director Ann Nichols told the Sandpoint Reader that, when asked whether they were card-holding library patrons, several protesters said they were

from out of town — one man stating he was from Seattle.

“People from out of town are trying to tell our town what to do, and I don’t think that’s right,” Nichols said. “I don’t think people who live here would want that to be happening.

Who knows, maybe they do, but it’s hard to tell.”

Nichols said the protesting group “did not come in violently,” but they repeatedly refused to wear face coverings.

“People are very volatile right now, and it’s making people afraid to come to the library, and we don’t want them to be

A Bonner County sheriff’s deputy speaks with anti-mask protestors who attempted to enter Sandpoint library July 28 without face coverings as mandated by library board policy.

Photo by Ben Olson. afraid,” she said. “We don’t want them to come into an unsafe environment, and so we’re trying everything we can to give as much access to everything we have to everybody, but there are responsibilities for these people who want everything, and just wearing a mask seems like a small price to pay to keep other people safe.”

County pursues new Laclede dump site New site would replace unmanned Wrenco location

By Lyndsie Kiebert Reader Staff Bonner County Board of Commissioners gave the unanimous go-ahead July 28 for Solid Waste personnel to pursue a new waste collection site in Laclede.

The board approved a contract with James A. Sewell & Associates to complete a legal description and minor land division in order to establish land costs.

This comes after more than a year of searching for a new

location along Highway 2 west of Sandpoint to replace the unmanned waste collection site on Wrenco Loop. When county officials recommended closure of the site in June 2019 — characterizing the location as an unkempt “nuisance” — citizens who regularly dumped their household waste there came out in force. Many voiced concerns that they weren’t given adequate warning that the site would be closed, and pointed out that since the 2016 closure of a previous

Laclede waste collection site, options for dumping on the west side of the county were limited.

County officials ultimately chose to leave the site open until another nearby location could be created.

Solid Waste Director Bob Howard told the Sandpoint Reader that the new Laclede dump site would be “staffed, paved and fenced,” and that if the county successfully secures the land, the Wrenco site would be closed.

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NEWS

Dates set in Ramey murder trial

By Lyndsie Kiebert Reader Staff Judith Carpenter, the woman accused of shooting and killing 79-year-old Hope resident Shirley Ramey at her Trestle Creek home in April 2017, will see a jury trial in December 2020, according to court documents.

Authorities arrested Carpenter in Coeur d’Alene on Aug. 1, 2019, after an ongoing investigation between local and federal agencies matched ballistics found at the Ramey home to a Glock Model 19 9mm pistol registered to Carpenter.

The defendant was found to have been in possession of that firearm when she was arrested in a Lincoln County, Mont., road rage incident the same day as Ramey’s death. Carpenter also had a Savage Model 99 rifle in her vehicle at the time of the Montana arrest — allegedly the same weapon that had gone missing from the Ramey home on the day that the longtime Hope city clerk was shot dead.

The case has been largely quiet since Jan. 13, when Carpenter pleaded

A booking photo of Judith Carpenter.

Courtesy BCSO. not guilty to first-degree murder. In the interim, legal counsel for the defendant has been working with the court to secure a medical examination for Carpenter.

Bonner County District Court Judge Barbara Buchanan approved an examination during a hearing July 7, though the reason behind the doctor visit is not stated in the available court documents.

A pre-trial conference is set for Nov. 13, and the trial is slated to begin Dec. 15.

Angels Over Sandpoint 2020 Back to School Program

By Reader Staff This year marks the Angels Over Sandpoint’s 18th annual Back to School program, providing school supplies to students in Bonner County. The nonprofit organization remains committed to continuing the much-needed tradition in the community, regardless of whether the 2020-2021 academic year takes place in-person, online or some combination of the two.

Due to COVID-19, the Angels are implementing some necessary changes to ensure the health and safety of volunteers and the families it serves.

School supplies will be delivered directly to all schools in Bonner County to avoid having a large group of people gather at the Farmin-Stidwell Elementary School gym to pick up supplies.

Rather, supplies can be requested at the front offices of Lake Pend Oreille School District schools on the first day of school or shortly after.

Families do not need to register their children to receive supplies. Supplies will be available on a first-come, first-served basis at each school. A limited supply of 6 /

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backpacks will also be available. Contact the front office of your children’s schools to obtain supplies.

“We look forward to handing out supplies to our local families in person every year,” the Angels stated in a news release.

“Thank you for your understanding and support as we focus on the safety of our volunteers and the families we serve. We look forward to resuming normal operations next year.”

The Back to School program is only possible with grants and donations made by businesses and individuals in the community. According to the organization, COVID-19 has resulted in a “significant decrease in our annual grants this year.” To make up for the shortfall, the Angels are asking the community for support and help in continuing to provide the Back to School program to the families of Bonner County.

Every dollar helps, the nonprofit stressed, asking supporters to consider donating and helping support the Back to School program on the Angels’ Go Fund Me page at https://bit.ly/333HkYg or by mailing a check to PO Box 2369, Sandpoint, ID 83864.

Bits ’n’ Pieces From east, west and beyond

East, west or beyond, sooner or later events elsewhere may have a local impact.

A recent sampling: The Trump administration’s Food Safety and Inspection Service recently approved a request to sell chicken infected with leukosis, according to Food and Water Action.

The virus causes tumors in a chicken’s skin and organs. The government had previously said such meat was unfit for human consumption.

COVID-19 and reopening schools: President Donald Trump claimed that children don’t readily contract or transmit COVID-19, and if they do, “they get better fast,” The Washington Post reported.

But risk of COVID-19 transmission is higher for children, according to a paper published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. According to the Miami Herald, five children in Florida have died from pediatric COVID-19, even though schools were closed at the time.

A four-month moratorium on rent collection and evictions has expired, putting as many as 23 million people at risk for eviction, The Washington Post reported. People can’t shelter in place without shelter, which can lead to even more COVID-19 cases, the Center for Public Integrity has pointed out.

There is speculation that eviction could also mean some people would be hampered in their ability to vote.

The mayor of Portland, Ore., Ted Wheeler recently took time to listen to protesters and was tear-gassed by federal forces currently patrolling the city against the wishes of local authorities. Wheeler told a New York Times journalist that, “I saw nothing which provoked this response … I am pissed off.” Law enforcement also recently shot a protester in the head with an impact munition. The woman — a professor of history who specializes in the authoritarian regimes of modern Europe at a Portland college — was taken to an emergency room for treatment. Meanwhile, NPR reported legislation has been introduced in Congress: Preventing Authoritarian Policing Tactics on America’s Streets Act. Trump said on July 23 that he was sending federal troops to Chicago and Albuquerque, per his Executive Order on Protecting American Monuments, Memorials, and Statues and Combating Recent Criminal Violence. The same day Tom Ridge, who was the first to serve as the director of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush, stated that the agency “was not

By Lorraine H. Marie Reader Columnist

established to be the president’s personal militia … It would be a cold day in hell before I would give consent to a unilateral, uninvited intervention in one of my cities.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, said “something” to aid the COVID-19 economy should work its way through Congress “by the end of the next few weeks.” Last week saw 1.4 million new unemployment claims, according to The Washington Post.

With new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. up 50% in recent weeks, William Hanage, professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said larger numbers of cases and deaths are now unavoidable. The U.S. had more than 75,000 new cases daily in mid-July, which The Guardian reported is five times the number in all of Europe.

The new postmaster general is backing away from speedy deliveries and has approved delaying mail processing to reduce overtime. According to analysts consulted

by The Washington Post, the changes shift the U.S. Postal Service from being a government service to that of a business.

Critics are indicating that’s intentional: lessening the USPS’ effectiveness will provide a competitive edge to private sector rivals and could create problems for mailin voting. Trump has said the USPS should quadruple its package rates if it wants federal financial help.

The USPS was authorized to get $10 billion from the Treasury Department as part of the first COVID-19 relief bill.

But the money has been withheld since Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said the loan would require a significant turnover of the USPS operations to the Treasury Department.

With 36.4 million people out of a paycheck, the Economic Policy Institute disagrees with plans to cut Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes as part of a COVID-19 aid package. “Payroll tax cuts deliver the most money to the wealthy and powerful while providing nothing to those who need it most,” commented Social Security Works President Michael Phelan.

Another bone of contention in the relief bill: Republicans want to grant “liability shields” for businesses whose workers or customers get COVID-19. Democrats don’t approve.

Blast from the past: Since Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014, at least 6,500 people in the U.S. have been killed by law enforcement. At the same time, at least 843 officers have died while on duty.

OPINION

Board of Ed-approved framework designed to safely reopen public schools

By Shawn Keough Special to the Reader

The first day of school for students in the Lake Pend Oreille School District is just about five weeks away.

Gov. Brad Little and the Idaho State Board of Education have a framework plan in place for local school officials statewide to use as guidance to reopen public schools in a safe manner that fits local circumstances.

The Idaho Back to School Framework sets expectations, establishes guidelines and best practices for school districts and charter schools to use this fall and to plan for actions, should they become necessary, based on local public health conditions.

The framework was developed by a team of school administrators, educators, public health officials and lawmakers. It is not a top-down approach.

Our public schools are governed locally and the State Board believes decisions about reopening schools should be made by elected school district and charter school trustees with input from parents and educators.

More than 300,000 students are educated in our public schools across the state. Their learning was severely disrupted last spring by the coronavirus pandemic and the State Board believes we must do everything possible to get students back on track and in-person instruction is the best way to do that.

Gov. Little supports this.

“Before coronavirus, too many Idaho students faced a significant achievement gap and ongoing risks to their mental and social well-being,” he said.

“It’s imperative that students return to the classrooms and interact directly with their teachers and classmates at the end of the summer.”

Northern Idaho is a long way from southern Idaho and the virus is more active in places like Ada County than it is in Bonner County. The folks who developed the framework took this into account while recognizing that circumstances can change — and quickly.

Shawn Keough. File photo.

Recommendations are organized into three categories based on the level of coronavirus transmission going on in various regions and communities at any given time. Take, for example, a school located in rural Idaho where no community spread is occurring.

School leaders there will use the framework guidance listed in Category 1 to open and operate their schools fairly normally.

In other places, where there is community spread (as determined by local public health officials), school leaders will look to the guidance listed under Category 3 and use that to help them make decisions about whether in-person instruction can occur, perhaps combined with virtual alternatives.

We’ve posted the Idaho Back to School framework on the State Board of Education website: boardofed.idaho. gov/resources/idaho-back-to-schoolframework-2020/ The framework is supported by a State Department of Education website with resources for parents, educators, school districts and charter schools.

New resources will be added regularly.

Here’s the link: sde.idaho.gov/re-opening/index.html#.

Take some time to look over both the framework and the State Depart-

ment of Education website. I also encourage you to visit with your local school board members and school administrators and let them know your thoughts and offer input on the district’s reopening plan.

2020 has been an incredibly difficult year for public education in Idaho and throughout the country. Our local school boards, administrators and teachers moved quickly to transform our system from in-person instruction to various distance learning options in a short period of time.

Many of our students handled the disruption just fine, but we also know that many did not. We have to do all we can to help our students make up for lost ground, but we have to do it safely.

That is at the heart of the guidance set forth in the framework. We want to open our schools responsibly and to be prepared to take proper actions should local public health conditions warrant a change in course.

mittee. She is currently executive director of the Associated Logging Contractors, an organization with which she has worked since 2000.

Shawn Keough is a member of the Idaho State Board of Education and served in the Idaho Senate representing District 1 from 1996 to 2018 — the longest-serving female legislator in state history. She served 18 years on the Legislature’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, including three years as co-chair. She also served five years on the Senate Education Com-

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On masks: ‘It’s not about you’…

Bouquets: • I’d like to give a Bouquet to the employees at the East Bonner County Library for their tact and professionalism in dealing with a planned anti-mask protest on July 28. When faced with more than a dozen individuals who staged a protest and an attempt to enter the library without face coverings (in violation of the library’s mask policy), library employees handled themselves with grace. It’s a shame that the employees had to deal with this at all. If the protestors were paying attention, they would bring their concerns to the board of trustees for the East Bonner County Library District instead of harassing employees who have no say in the matter.

If you are one of the anti-maskers out there, I have a message for you: I support the First Amendment and your right to peacefully assemble and speak your opinion.

What I don’t support is harassing employees who have no say in mask mandates. I don’t support the rudeness and intolerance, and I certainly don’t support such a blatant rejection of science. In the future, when staging these publicity stunts, please do your homework and bring the argument to those who make decisions, not the employees. Ignorance is no excuse for incivility.

GUEST SUBMISSION: • John “Doc” Ivy passed away on July 23, 2020. His mind was passionate and sharp at the end, but his body finally gave way to the wasting and painful effects of Agent Orange exposure.

Doc served five tours in Vietnam. His own words, accounting the day he earned a Purple Heart, were printed in the Reader on Dec. 12, 2019 [“Wounded in Vietnam, fifty years ago, Sandpoint vet shares his Purple Heart tale”].

Doc was active in Sandpoint as a food bank volunteer, spiritual teacher and generous neighbor. He is survived by his wonderful wife, adored pets and those he adopted as family.

His fire warms our hearts.

— Submitted by Jodi Rawson.

Barbs: None. Don’t worry though, there’s always next week.

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Dear editor, COVID-19 is raging in northern Idaho: 51 new cases in the Panhandle as of yesterday (July 24) and nine in Bonner County, bringing its total to 123 cases. A huge increase in cases since July 4. Yet people are protesting against wearing masks in public places where throngs of people congregate.

These obstinate tactics and negative behavior are shredding our democracy and fly squarely into the face of human decency. “What part of human decency don’t you understand?,” I ask these protesters. How hard is it to simply put a mask on in a grocery store — especially when they are handed to you for nothing? No one said wearing a mask is going to totally stop the COVID spread, but it may help.

There are three things health officials and local governments are asking you to do: wash your hands, social distance at least six feet and wear a mask.

Wearing a mask has been substantially validated by health officials in northern Idaho. At the Panhandle Health hearing on July 23, Kootenai hospital’s CEO and vice president of operations gave a very realistic presentation of the COVID spread. We are in danger of running out of ICU beds and space. Fortunately, PHD passed a motion making mask usage mandatory. However the Bonner County representatives voted against the motion, making fallacious and weak arguments against masks.

I feel that our City Council has abdicated its responsibility in not adopting a mask mandate. PHD did not include Bonner and other counties in their motion for mandatory masks.

We have no leadership so it is up to each individual to do the decent thing while in the public environment: social distance and wear a mask to protect those around you.

It’s not about you: It’s about human decency and caring about others.

Beth Allen Sandpoint

We need room for debate on ‘technocratic coup’...

Dear editor, As with other news sources, I see this newspaper is providing no meaningful dialog while the technocratic coup takes place both locally and internationally. All of mankind has been swiftly taken over by viral disease, pandemic, masks, social distancing, business shutdowns, restrictions on movement and assembly, and some might say a degree of government tyranny.

Outside of a few alternative news media sites, the establishment’s narratives are readily accepted and

promoted, leaving no room for debate.

Everywhere the message is the same: be good citizens, do as the authorities instruct, follow their precautions, wear a mask, stay home, stay safe, we’re all in this together and do not question. The few that do question are mocked and ridiculed.

Society feels oppressive, dystopian and contrived. Is no one else the least bit suspicious? And when did we do away with watchdog journalism?

Lynn Settle Cocolalla

Corruption is a bipartisan exercise…

Dear editor, The car’s back window was festooned with anti-Trump, anti-Republican stickers. One in particular struck me. It said something like, “If you want corruption and lies, vote Republican.”

Isn’t it amazing? There are people who feel, like this one, that the GOP has a monopoly on lying and corruption?

From my ideological perch, the only bipartisan exercises practiced by the 537 electeds in D.C. is lying and corruption.

God bless America, and God bless our military.

Steve Brixen Sandpoint

Put your ‘mask issues’ aside for the greater good…

Dear editor, I wish to express my appreciation to the East Bonner County Library District for its mandatory masking policy. It is such a simple act of kindness, helping to keep our neighbors stay safe. Library staff have been stellar examples of sacrificing a bit of discomfort in order to open library doors to all of us.

Our library is an integral part of our community life. For some folks, it is their internet connection.

For others it is a source of learning and information. For our youth, it has been a safe space for gathering after school. And I cannot count the number of meetings and events I have attended in library meeting spaces.

If a library staff person becomes ill with COVID-19, the doors will close, again, and we will all lose. Please put personal “mask issues” aside. Accept your responsibility as a resident of Bonner County and demonstrate kindness. Isn’t that one lesson worth sharing with our children, too, during these challenging times?

Mary Toland Sandpoint

To the library: ‘Keep up the good work’...

Dear editor, Thank you to the East Bonner

County Library staff. I have been so appreciative of the East Bonner County Library’s efforts to open, and to keep us safe during this COVID-­19 virus pandemic. It takes huge courage to open at all, and with the comings and goings of so many people each day, to continue to sanitize books, periodicals, etc. over and over, the effort must be Herculean! This is so that we — children, adults, seniors, etc. — have a chance to safely continue our reading, and enjoy the many services the library has to offer. Keep up the good work!

Lynn Pietz Sandpoint

Double standard?…

Dear editor, Wow, what a difference a week makes!

In the July 16 Reader, in an article from your Reader Columnist on page 22 [“Late Night Buddhist,”

by Scott Taylor], I was surprised and disappointed that you did not replace the use of the word “pus-y.” I doubt I was the only one who felt this way.

Regardless of the writer’s feelings, surely the writer, and the Reader editorial staff could have selected a different word or words to make her point.

But then, as if apologetically, a week later in the July 23 Reader, we have a couple of articles that address a more appropriate form of communication not used in the July 16 article.

First, on Page 3, Ben Olson’s “Dear Readers” column’s last paragraph says, “Bottom line: Please take a few deep breaths and read over what you write before posting to social media.” Secondly, Emily Erickson, in her “Emily Articulated” piece, appropriately suggests we rethink our messages before hitting the send button so we are comfortable with our message and are not embarrassing or insulting others — or worse, ourselves. Re-read 4 and 4a.

Even the “Sandpoint Reader Letter Policy” says “letters may not contain excessive profanity or libelous material.”

Do we have a double standard here? Or is it possible that in the proofreading of the article, the word “pus-y” was somehow overlooked? I don’t know. But I do know the Reader can do better and your readers deserve better.

Tony Cerato Sandpoint

Education funding during a pandemic...

Dear editor, Marianne Love, a retired Bonner County educator, recently had this to say, “We may be in a Pandemic, and there are many questions about how public education is going to look this fall, but there will always be a need for education.”

She wants everyone to sign the Reclaim Idaho petition to help fund Idaho schools. This initiative would increase education funding in Idaho by $170 million each year with no new taxes for anyone making less than $250,000 per year and no increases to property taxes.

This money would be distributed to local school districts who could then use it for specific items such as career-technical courses; classroom materials; and free, full-day kindergarten to name a few. LPOSD would see $2 million in additional funds every year and could choose to spend $150,000 of that to provide free all-day kindergarten district wide, for example. A career tech course such as “Exploring the Trades” class could be added for future carpenters, plumbers and electricians.

Let’s work together for our shared Idaho values of stronger communities and brighter futures for Idaho students.

I hope you’ll join me in adding your signature to Reclaim Idaho’s e-petition by visiting reclaimidaho.org.

Linda Larson Sandpoint

Education requires investments…

Dear editor, Here in Idaho we have a chance to provide sorely needed funding to K-12 education. While it’s a very sad commentary that Idaho ranks last or near last in state funding for K-12 education, there is currently a petition drive underway that would provide additional funding. This funding would be provided through a modest tax on large corporations and individuals earning over $250,000 per year (or couples earning over $500,000).

Future prosperity for any society depends on the quality of education that society provides to its young people, and quality education does in fact require investments. We need to pay our teachers salaries that are competitive with surrounding states, our schools need investments in programs such as vocational education and infrastructure that guarantees an environment conducive to learning.

I urge anyone reading this letter and who is concerned about the future of Idaho and the need for the highest quality education possible to go to reclaimidaho.org, learn about this initiative and hopefully join me in adding your signature to the e-petition to get the measure on the November ballot.

Daniel Sherrard Sagle

Send letters to letters@sandpointreader.com. Please keep under 300 words and avoid libelous statements and excessive profanity.

PERSPECTIVES

Is this the land of the free?

A Sandpoint native’s take on what’s happening in Portland

By Jenna Bowers Reader Contributor I am uniquely positioned to write this piece. I am a native of Sandpoint. I have deep roots and a strong connection to the people and place here. I am also a resident of Portland, Ore., so I have the perspective and experience of an activist from the city.

There have been ongoing protests in Portland, around the country and the world taking place since the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police on May 25. Floyd has become one of the faces of Black Lives Matter, a civil rights movement to end state-sanctioned violence, liberate Black people and end white supremacy.

While BLM has been active for six years, it has reached new levels of visibility amid a combination of COVID-19 quarantine and news of several violent police murders of innocent Black people, such as Breonna Taylor and Elijah Mclain.

Portland has taken center stage in the media, with nonstop protests happening over the course of 60 days and ongoing reports of police brutality. On July 4, President Donald Trump deployed secret federal police in an attempt to quell the demonstrations, and they have joined ranks with the Portland Police Bureau.

So far it has served to escalate the violence as well as the number of folks showing up to protest. Several people have been captured and held without warning or cause. The federal agents seem to be accountable to no one.

July 25 marked a nationwide day of solidarity with Portland. More than 30 cities and towns across the country organized protests to send a message to the president: “You have gone too far.”

Oregon government officials have repeatedly asked Trump to remove his violent soldiers, but he continues to refuse, preparing to send more to other cities where he says “liberal Democrats” hold leadership in local governments. This is an unwelcome overreach of his power and he is using violence against peaceful protestors — people who are fighting for social justice under their First Amendment rights.

As someone who has been protesting

regularly for the past two months, I am here to tell you that what you are seeing in the news isn’t the whole truth. The protests and those who attend them are varied, of course, but overall they are peaceful and nonviolent. We march, we listen, we cry, we chant, we sing and play instruments, we dance, but we do not harm people. Everyone wears masks and keeps a respectful distance. There are dozens of organizations and individuals providing food, water, clothing and medical attention for free.

Yes, the people are angry. We are confronting centuries of enslavement, oppression and violence. Yes, there has been minor property damage; mostly from a few outliers, mostly during the George Floyd riots, which were at the beginning of June, and mostly in the form of graffiti.

Trump justified sending his troops to protect federal property, but does bodily harm and brutality seem like a fair punishment for minor property damage?

The attacks aren’t targeted on those outliers. The police and the soldiers initiate the violence night after night.

They show up and start firing “non-lethal ammunition” and throwing tear gas — a chemical weapon that has long been outlawed for use in warfare under the Geneva Conventions — into the crowds indiscriminately.

As others have pointed out, the federal government is now using a chemical weapon that targets the lungs against its own citizens during a global pandemic of a virus that targets the lungs. Careless and dangerous at best.

This is blatant and unprovoked police brutality, occurring night after night.

Moms and dads have been showing up, doctors and nurses and teachers and veterans have been showing up. Several women have caught media attention for disrobing completely, in an attempt to demonstrate that they are unarmed and therefore not a danger. Even Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler has shown up. They are all getting gassed. None of

them are destroying property or inflicting bodily damage on anyone.

Many will ask, why keep protesting?

Why not go home and stay safe? To that we say, we are supposed to be the best country in the world — a representative democracy of and for the people. A place of liberty and justice for all. If we the people don’t stand up for human rights and don’t hold the systems of power accountable, who will?

Are we actually a great country as long as people are enslaved, silenced and murdered without cause? Take a look at our America and ask yourself, is this the land of the free?

Editor’s note: Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announced July 29 that agents with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security had agreed to withdraw from Portland beginning July 30 — provided that federal authorities believe no threat is posed to government property. As of press time, The New York Times reported that Oregon State Police will be handling security outside the federal courthouse while federal agents will continue to secure the interior of the facility, as they have in the past. Quoted by The Times, Brown said: “These federal officers have acted as an occupying force, refused accountability, and brought violence and strife to our community.”

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OUTDOORS

What’s happening with Pend Oreille Pedalers

By Jason Welker Reader Contributer There’s something happening in those hills on the edge of town. If you’ve been on a walk in the Syringa Trail Network or above the roundabout on Schweitzer Mountain Road lately, you may have noticed some interesting developments in our local trail networks.

At the Greta’s Segway trailhead on West Pine Street, you’ll have noticed a new trail map, showing for the first time the complete network of trails on three different properties: Pine Street Woods, Sherwood Forest and the newest property open for recreation to the public, VTT (which stands for vélo tout-terrain, French for “mountain bike”).

These properties, combined with an

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easement through the Pristine Heights and Westridge Estates developments down to West Pine, make up the 400acre Syringa Trail network, where the Pend Oreille Pedalers, Kaniksu Land Trust and Sandpoint Nordic Club have joined forces to establish new recreation opportunities right on the edge of town.

These include an expansion of the narrow trails that will see nearly five miles of new singletrack constructed this year alone, as well as the establishment of many new wide, “social” trails in Pine Street Woods, which allow for leisurely strolls in the woods and can be groomed for cross country skiing in the winter.

Beyond their work building and maintaining trails in the Syringa Network, the Pedalers are also undertaking an even more ambitious project high above the Little Sand Creek Watershed off the back of Schweitzer Mountain.

This year the club received a grant from the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation license plate fund to complete the first phase of the Watershed Crest Trail.

Phase 1 begins at the saddle below the top of Schweitzer’s Lake View Triple on Uleda Ridge, travels 1.5 miles out to Uleda Point, then turns and travels another two miles back to rejoin the existing High Point trail several hundred feet further down the ridge. In the future, the Pedalers plan to continue beyond Uleda Point towards Baldy Mountain; ultimately the planned Watershed Crest Trail would traverse 14 miles from the top of Schweitzer around the watershed, returning to Schweitzer Mountain Road above Switchback 3.

With the hiring of its first-ever executive director, Pend Oreille Pedalers is expanding its activities and offerings for the cycling community in Sandpoint. This week, the club launched its inaugural youth summer mountain biking camp. Forty-eight area youth are getting instruction from experienced coaches on local trails over two weeks.

There are still openings in the Advanced Camp, which will be hosted Monday, Aug. 3-Friday, Aug. 7. More information and registration details can be found on the club’s website: pendoreillepedalers.org.

In order to support POP’s efforts to

expand access to frontcountry recreation for area residents, the club has launched a business sponsorship program, and is seeking 30 local businesses interested in supporting its mission for 2021. There are three levels of sponsorship available, each with its own level of recognition for the businesses who sign on, including cool POP schwag and a “Proud Trail Supporter” POP sticker to put in your business’s window.

With enough support from its dedicated membership and from local businesses, POP should be able to complete the Watershed Crest Trail and vastly expand trail access in the Syringa network within a five year period.

For more information about the Pend Oreille Pedalers, including summer camps, new trail maps, group rides, trail work parties, club meetings and business sponsorship, check out the club’s website at pendoreillepedalers.org, or reach out to the new executive director at jason@ pendoreillepedalers.org.

For information about Pine Street Woods, along with how you can support Kaniksu’s Land Trust projects there, visit kaniksu.org. If you’re looking to get into cross country skiing, have a look at Sandpoint Nordic Club’s programs and membership options at sandpointnordic. com.

OUTDOORS

There’s dogs in them thar hills

Hiking with your furry best friend can be a lot of fun with a little preparation

By Lyndsie Kiebert Reader Staff The only thing more fun than jumping into a mountain lake at the end of a grueling North Idaho trail is doing so with your slobbery, happy best friend.

Hiking with a dog makes time outdoors easily twice as fun, but it takes some training, research and supplies to make the experience safe and successful for all involved.

The author’s dog, Mac, stops for a breather on the trail to Wellington Creek Falls in Clark Fork. Photo by Lyndsie Kiebert.

Know your dog More important than knowing the destination of a hike is knowing that your relationship with your dog is strong enough to safely reach it.

In an article for the Appalachian Mountain Club, author Lisa Demore Ballard writes that fitness, health, size and age are all factors to consider when choosing a hike for your dog. It’s essential that the dog has the stamina and basic physical ability to traverse varied terrain. Small dogs probably shouldn’t go on long hikes with large obstacles, and dogs that don’t get a lot of exercise on a regular basis need to ease into the adventurous life with short, shady hikes.

Behavior, Ballard writes, is also a major consideration.

Leash training and solid recall abilities are essential before going hiking with a dog, especially if you want to let your dog roam off leash. Local veterinary technician Amber Reimer, who often explores area trails with her dogs, said owners should seize every opportunity to practice these skills, especially in new or distracting environments where dogs are allowed, like pet or feed stores.

She said it’s also important that the dog listen when told to “leave it” — no matter how tempting a smell or running rabbit may be.

“The dog should become very relaxed in any environment because they’re looking to you for leadership, not just doing whatever they please,” Reimer said. “It makes for a much happier dog.”

Area resident Rebecca Sanchez has plenty of practice hiking with her family’s Great Pyrenees, Solo. She said it’s crucial to know how your dog will react in any situation, and to adjust to the animal’s needs.

“My dog’s breed is made for the moun-

tains, but the one downside is that they get hot easily,” Sanchez said of Solo. “I tend to stick to off-leash locations so that she can hike the way she likes to hike. On the way into the mountains, she will go ahead of us and wait for us in the shade. On the way back, she stays behind us and again hides in the shade until we get further down the trail.

Essentially, she herds us into and out of the mountains, but at her own pace.”

Know the trail There’s information about most local trails in guidebooks and online, so it’s fairly easy to research length and difficulty prior to taking your dog. Find out if there are water sources along the way where your dog can cool off, but bringing water from home to drink is always the best option to avoid waterborne illness. It’s also important to avoid trails with cliffs or major distractions — like mountain bikers — when the dog is just learning.

The reality of entering the backcountry with a dog is that they won’t be the only animal around. It’s best to hike in large, noisy groups to avoid any confrontation with bears or other large fauna, but animal encounters do happen — this is when a strong recall relationship with your dog comes in handy. If possible, contact the local ranger station prior to heading out to find out if there has been any recent animal activity in the area worthy of concern.

Though it rarely happens, dogs have been known to encounter traps, especially if they wander away from the main trail.

Idaho Fish and Game has videos explaining how to release a dog from a wild game trap, should that situation arise.

Collect the essentials Bring along a leash, collar or harness, dog tag, water, bowl and treats, as well as plastic bags for cleaning up after your pup.

There are plenty of resources online listing canine hiking gear for everyone from the beginner to the overnight backpacker.

It’s also good to remember that the terrain on a mountain trail is not the same as the average afternoon walk around the neighborhood, so there is a greater possibility of injury to your dog’s paw pads. To combat this, it’s important to bring along a First Aid kit with bandages, tape and ointment, or even to mitigate damage with soft booties. Sanchez said she uses Musher’s Secret Paw Protection cream on Solo.

“Some people use little booties, but I wanted something that would protect her paws without taking away from how they work,” Sanchez said.

Practice trail etiquette The National Park Service has a simple acronym denoting practices to which dog owners should adhere: B.A.R.K, meaning, “Bag your pet’s waste, Always leash your pet, Respect wildlife and Know where you can go.”

These are good rules of thumb for hiking anywhere, although depending on a dog’s abilities and specific trail guidelines, off-leash hiking is possible. Still, a leash

should never be far from reach.

If hiking off leash, your dog should always be within sight and within recall. Ballard suggests that if other hikers approach, leash your dog and give hikers without pets the right-of-way. Try to keep your dog from traipsing through vegetation as much as possible in an effort to follow “Leave No Trace” guidelines, and keep the number of people in your hiking group greater than the number of dogs for optimal control of any situation.

“You and your dog are both ambassadors for everyone else who hikes with dogs,” Ballard writes. “It only takes a few incidents, a couple of outspoken dog-haters, or several expensive dog rescues for a backcountry area to become more restricted to dogs.”

It’s a sentiment Sanchez keeps in mind while hiking in the mountains of the Idaho Panhandle with Solo.

“It is a more pleasant experience for everyone on the trail if hikers keep their dogs to themselves,” she said. “You never know if someone has a fear of other people’s dogs, or if the other hiker has a dog that does not appreciate being approached by another dog. Being respectful in this regard keeps both the pets and people safe and happy on the trail.”

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Mad about Science:

Brought to you by:

strange scientists

By Brenden Bobby Reader Columnist If you were to peruse a history book about famous scientists at the library, perhaps about a famous figure such as Benjamin Franklin, you may find many profound and often difficult to understand quotes such as this one: “Hide not your Talents, they for Use were made. What’s a Sun-dial in the shade!”

It may surprise you to know that Benjamin Franklin once penned a scholarly essay on the merits of — ahem — passing gas. Titled: “Fart Proudly,” or, “A Letter to a Royal Academy about farting,” it was a unique amalgam of scholarly pontification and a masterful show of trolling more than 200 years before internet forums were a consideration for anybody.

The face on everyone’s favorite form of cash was a major figure in European scientific circles, and it had come to his attention that the institutions had become quite stuffy and pretentious — spending most of their time and energy debating frivolous scientific ventures that weren’t bettering the lives of anyone. Franklin’s solution was to pen a paper about the benefits of consuming different herbs and other food items to alter the smell of human flatulence to make our passed gas less offensive and more perfumey.

Who cares if most of the population was dying of dysentery, how was 1700s Europe to tackle the problem of yesterday’s liver and onions making a surprise interjection in the English Parliament?

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and like many famous figures in history, has been held on a pedestal so the world may only see his greatest accomplishments, presented as some sort of prolific and infallible person. Historians of the time pioneered him as a proto-Instagram influencer, if you will. Alas, good old Benjamin was as human as any of us, and he had his fair share of scientific quirks.

Did you know that Franklin pioneered the electric stove?

Electricity was a curiosity that fascinated Franklin through much of his professional life, and he experimented with its effects and the benefits it could have for humanity beyond simply flying a kite in a thunderstorm.

At one point, he threw an early American cookout using electricity to cook a chicken for a group of curious onlookers (though it was reported he may have seriously electrocuted himself at one point in the process, he insisted most of the damage was done to his ego).

Speaking of electricity and eccentricity, it just wouldn’t be an article about that awkward marriage without talking about Nikola Tesla, who in recent years has returned to the public eye thanks to the efforts of modern eccentric, innovator, and possible crazy person Elon Musk.

Musk’s electric car company, Tesla, was named after the prolific inventor of the early 1900s. Tesla cars are a modern take on cars invented by Tesla in 1931 — a vehicle that could have completely changed history and prevented more than a century of damage to our planet from the burning of fossil fuels, if only industrial magnate Henry

Ford hadn’t made it so inexpensive to mass-produce combustion vehicles in 1908.

Tesla was an unusual but awesome guy for multiple reasons, mainly because he had a desire to help humanity, even at his own expense. Despite creating a multitude of electrical devices that we still use today, he died without a dime to his name. He was known to possess an eidetic memory, which means after viewing an object or an event, he could recall it in perfect detail from any moment onward. This helped him visualize his inventions before even hitting the drawing board.

One of the greatest curiosities of Tesla was his infatuation with pigeons. While we all enjoy our pets, he had a particular pigeon that he cared for as something far more than a mere pet. He had been quoted at one point stating about the pigeon: “I loved that pigeon as a man loves a woman, and she loves me. As long as I had her, there was a purpose to my life.”

If you find this to be odd, just remember that it came from a man who created what can only be described as a death ray in pursuit of world peace, which was later snatched up and deemed classified technology by the U.S. military.

If you’re looking for some of the most insane scientific behavior, look no further than Stubbins Ffirth, a medical doctor and man of science who, in the wake of the 1793 yellow fever epidemic, sought to prove that the disease was not as easily communicable as the general population believed. The man cut gashes into his arms, in which he poured bile from those infected

by yellow fever. In addition to this, he covered himself in vomit and urine, ate and drank these vile substances and even poured them into his eyes.

To his credit, he never caught yellow fever. Sixty years later, and well after he had died, the world discovered why he remained uninfected, thanks to the diligent studies of Cuban scientist Juan Carlos Finlay:

yellow fever was transmitted by mosquitoes.

Had the good doctor Ffirth known this, he may have been able to avoid going down in history as one of the nastiest mad scientists of the past millennia.

Such is the pursuit of science, I suppose. You can’t discover an omelette without bathing in a few eggs.

Stay curious, 7B.

Random Corner ion?

Don’t know much about pollut • 14 billion pounds of garbage are dumped into the ocean every year. Most of it is plastic.

• Americans make up 5% of the world’s population, yet produce 30% of the world’s waste and use 25% of the world’s resources.

We can help!

most polluted city is New Delhi.

• About one-third of male fish in British rivers are changing sex due to pollution — especially from contraceptive pills, researchers found.

• For every 1 million tons of oil shipped, about 1 ton is spilled.

• During London’s “Great Smog” of 1952, between 4,000 and 12,000 people died in a few days due to air pollution.

• Almost one-third of San Francisco’s air pollution comes from China.

• Pollution kills more than 1 million seabirds and 100 million mammals every year.

• Lake Karachay, in Russia, is the most radioactive and polluted lake in the world.

• Air pollution in China increases snowfall in California.

• Humans generated more than 49 million tons of electronic waste in 2012 alone.

• Americans throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles per hour.

Each one takes 500 years to decompose.

• While Beijing’s pollution problem is more famous, the world’s

• The five worst cities in the U.S. for air pollution are all in California.

• Scientists dip tampons in rivers to test for pollution.

• One-third of humanity — including 60% of Europeans and 80% of North Americans — live in such light polluted areas that the Milky Way is not visible at night.

HISTORY

Mysteries of the deep The ancient history of our lake — Part 1

By Hannah Combs Reader Contributor In this three-part series, we explore the formation of Lake Pend Oreille and the things that may lurk in its unknown depths.

In August 1866, Civil War General Thomas F. Meagher leaned over the rail of the Mary Moody steamboat on his way to a new military post in Montana, pondering in awe at the clear waters of Lake Pend Oreille and the things he saw in its depths.

As the general wrote: “The little harbor is over 60 feet in depth, cold, clear and of a golden brown, owing to the trees so densely crowding in upon it and the noble mountains overhanging it; but so clear that, close to the graveled beach, where the water is fully 20 feet in depth, the smallest trifles, from a fish head to a broken saucer, are shiningly discernible.”

However, the 20 foot depths that fascinated Meagher on the northern end of the lake were no match for the 1,150 feet of water that plunge to the deepest point of the lakebed at its southern end.

Employing seismic technology, the U.S. Navy confirmed the lake’s true depth in the 1950s.

Until then, the lake was estimated to be “half a mile” deep or even “bottomless.”

Though there was no way for residents to know how far down Lake Pend Oreille extended, many of them had lost a rope, a hat or even a loved one to its inky depths, never to be seen again. How was it possible that a lake could be so deep and dark?

Many of our country’s deepest lakes are formed in dormant volcanoes, but Lake Pend Oreille does not have the distinctive round shape, nor is it nestled in the middle of a single mountain. In the early 20th century, scientists began exploring

From a high point like Scotchman Peak, one could have witnessed the massive floods that rushed into Lake Pend Oreille at the end of the Ice Age. Photo from the Matt Schmitt collection. other possibilities.

A 1922 article in Northern Idaho News shared the theory that the lake was sculpted by the slow and formidable power of glacial activity. That same summer, a geologist named J. Harlen Bretz began conducting studies of basalt formations in the Columbia River Plateau that would ultimately blow the standing theories out of the water, so to speak.

While glacial force was certainly at play, Bretz’s work proposed that erosion on the scale of which he observed in the Channeled Scablands could only have been formed by a geological event of cataclysmic proportions.

He suspected they may have been the result of a massive flood.

Of course, like most brilliant scientific ideas, Bretz’s theory was immediately rejected by his peers as impossible. At the time, most people believed in uniformitarianism, the idea that the same physical laws that governed the present day had always operated

in the same way throughout the past. Bretz’s theory disrupted their tidy explanations.

A few years later, he met another geologist, J.T. Pardee.

While working for the U.S. Geological Survey in Montana, Pardee discovered evidence that there had once been an extensive lake that stretched throughout western Montana. He called it Lake Missoula. When the two geologists presented their ideas at a Washington, D.C. symposium in 1927, it kicked off a 40-year debate.

Could it be possible that ancient Lake Missoula and the ravaged formations of the Scablands — hundreds of miles apart — were somehow connected by a flood of epic proportions?

Scientists eventually proved that they were correct, and that the geological event was bigger than anyone had guessed.

“The outflows of Lake Missoula created the greatest floods known to have occurred on

Earth,” Roy Breckinridge wrote for the Idaho Geological Survey in 1997. And Lake Pend Oreille was at the heart of it.

The Purcell Trench, part of which we know as the valley between the Selkirk and Cabinet mountains, was formed during the Mesozoic Era through converging tectonic activity. These movements formed the mountains and valleys of North Idaho.

At the same time, floods of lava were forming the basalt foundation of eastern Washington.

From 2.6 million to about 14,000 years ago, Ice Age glaciers advanced into the area.

At the end of the Ice Age, the Cordilleran Ice Sheet crept south, blocking river drainages. One of those drainages was where the Clark Fork River now feeds into Lake Pend Oreille.

The ice built up and formed a massive dam that accommodated — and then held back — the waters of 200-mile-long Lake Missoula.

From around 15,000 to 13,000 years ago, the dam repeatedly experienced breaches that sent up to 530 cubic miles of water rushing into the Purcell Trench at speeds of up to 65 miles per hour. After about 25 years, the dam would reform, the lake would refill and eventually the dam would breach again.

Over the course of 2,000 years, scientists estimate that this happened as many as 100 times.

The ice scoured the bedrock of Lake Pend Oreille, an additional 1,500 feet below its current depths, and the repeated floods filled the trench with almost 400 feet of sediment. The flood waters would roar through Lake Pend Oreille and out the southern end of the trench into the Rathdrum Prairie. Effects of the floods can be seen in geological formations from Clark Fork all the way to the Pacific Coast.

Accounts of early travel on Lake Pend Oreille fascinate us, as we step back into the lives of those who lived hundreds of years before us. Looking to the future, General Meagher prophesied, “In a coming time, not yet remote, the repose of those waters will be broken by the shrill scream and paddles of the steamboat.”

If he had been able to see the past, his worries about steamboats would have been overshadowed by the screaming sound of billions of gallons of water.

Unfortunately, during the lake’s most exciting events, there may have been no humans to witness them at all, and there are certainly no surviving accounts.

Research provided by the Bonner County Historical Society. Hannah Combs is the museum administrator for the BCHS. To dig into the facts behind the Ice Age Floods, visit the museum (611 S. Ella Ave. in Sandpoint) to read studies written by scientists.

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OUTDOORS

A mountain of mountains Local Nordic skiers’ summer of peak-bagging

By Clara Cave Reader Contributor When people think about cross-country ski racing, they may assume that this sport only occurs when the snow flies, but serious Nordic athletes know this is not the case.

There is a common Nordic axiom: ski racers are made in the summer. For the members of the Sandpoint Nordic Club race team, the summer is when the longest and most challenging training hours are logged. While a person could choose to log hours upon hours on a treadmill for that high-volume base, the Idaho panhandle and surrounding areas brim with more scenic outdoor options.

The Sandpoint Nordic Race Team has set the ambitious goal of getting to the top of as many mountains as possible this summer — “bagging” as many peaks they can. Team members have been joined in their quest by a rotating roster of local trail heroes.

One such paragon, Jim Mellen, co-author of the Trails of the Wild Selkirks and Trails of the Wild Cabinets, guidebooks remarked, “I am impressed with the enthusiasm and dedication of these young athletes and with the willingness for the coaches and parents to take time out of their busy schedules to work with these kids. These students are learning firsthand about our local mountain ranges — the Cabinets and Selkirks. Hopefully, they will go on to be protectors of these gems.”

Added Ed Robinson, former Bonner County area manager at the Idaho Department of Lands and POAC artist of the year: “I’m excited to be hiking with the next generation of northern Idaho mountaineers.”

Robinson pointed out on-trail flora and fauna, while telling

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stories of his extreme en plein air painting expeditions in the surrounding mountains.

Not only have these hikes provided ski racers with exposure to the beauty of the surrounding wilderness, they have also served as a necessary element to the team’s ability to train for long distances and build endurance.

The apex of a Nordic athlete’s training is strategically staged to peak during race season, between December and March. April is often set aside for recovery and a bit of time off, then training starts up again in May with a gradual build that includes strength training, roller skiing (basically short skis on wheels) and running.

“The summer is a good time to lay down a high-volume, low-intensity cardiovascular fitness base,” said Ross Longhini, SNC race team head coach.

“As the calendar turns to fall, the team will focus more on technique and speed, logging several hours on roller skis.”

This schedule is commonly known in the Nordic skiing world as “training periodization.” Skiers from the junior levels to elite professionals train and prepare for competition using this method.

“There is this limited window of time where the high-up trails are clear of snow,” said Nordic Coach Katie Bradish. “All I want to do in the summer — well, all the other seasons too, but especially in the summer — I want to be in the mountains. So why not take these super-fit kids out for some trail time.

“For the average person, trails like Scotchman Peaks, Star Peak, Beetop and Chimney Rock are kind of tough, but these kids aren’t average,” she added. “The mountains provide distance and elevation gain that is perfect Zone 1 training.”

Zone 1 means that athletes

can carry on “a spirited conversation without gasping for breath while covering ground,” Bradish said.

“It’s amazing that a 10-mile hike with 3,500 feet of gain is the team’s easy training day,” she said. “My biggest challenge is helping our athletes build awareness around threshold training. I am a broken record about the value of training below aerobic threshold.”

Beyond the cardiovascular and training benefits, the race team — made up of athletes between the ages of 12 and 17 — are learning backcountry navigation, route research, proper gear organization, endurance nutrition and how to adapt a plan when the weather conditions make a certain route unwise to follow.

The Scotchman Peaks trail No. 65 hike was on the schedule three weeks in a row and had to be canceled each time due to inclimate weather. The concept of hiking to the highest point in Bonner County with lightning in the forecast gave ample opportunity for the group to discuss why that combination was not a safe choice. The team prevailed after

multiple reroutes to less exposed trails and made it to the top of Scotchman Peaks on July 9.

The club has also focused on nutrition, as it is vitally important while out on long hikes and runs to intake enough fuel for optimal training and health. The athletes have explored different types of food to bring along on the trail and there are frequent breaks throughout each expedition to make sure everyone is fueling enough.

“Endurance training is a pretty effective way to connect what’s on your plate to how it fuels your body,” said local nutritionist and ultrarunner Ammi Midstokke. “These types of efforts demand good nutrition practices, both on and off trail. Eating becomes a bit of a curious science experiment, where the kids are learning how their unique bodies have unique needs, from training to recovery.

That’s knowledge that will last them a lifetime.”

Before stepping tread to trail, the team met at Pine Street Woods for wilderness first aid and safety training with Cascade Rescue. During the training, the team and parents learned about

The members of the Peak-Bagging Club relax and pose for a photo at the end of the Scotchman trail on July 9, 2020. Top row, left to right: Fletcher Barrett, Kaitlyn Greenway, Grace Rookey, Clara Cave, Izzy Waters, Phoebe Grimm, Jerusalem Grimm. Bottom row, left to right: Katie Bradish, Kasten Grimm, Callahan Waters.

Photo by Nicole Grimm.

the necessary equipment and knowledge required for safe trips into the woods.

Another key health concern for the club is maintaining proper social distance. Fortunately, hiking provides an environment in which athletes can spread out over the trail.

Now, several weeks into the summer, the club is reaching new heights — literally. So far they have covered 55 miles and 16,900 feet of elevation gain.

Such a feat could only be accomplished by the many dedicated athletes, coaches, and volunteers who have worked to make a safe and enthusiastic environment.

The Peak-Bagging club is planning on continuing to explore the local mountains in the Selkirks and Cabinets throughout the summer and early fall as opportunity allows.

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FOOD

The Sandpoint Eater The beginning of time (and food)

By Marcia Pilgeram Reader Columnist

As much as I like to consider myself well versed in the gastronomic arts — dedicating a fair amount of time to answering food-related questions for family, friends and readers — I stumbled upon a story about a woman who puts my efforts to shame.

From 1997 until she passed away in 2015, Lynne Olver, a long-time librarian and foodie, compiled what is the most comprehensive timeline of food ever recorded. Her no-frills website, foodtimeline.org, chronicles food from the beginning of time through 2015.

I learned of Olver while indulging in one of my favorite quarantine pastimes: searching the internet for entertaining food and travel fodder. One of my favorite places to land is atlasobscura.com. Do yourself a favor: grab a coffee and settle in for some pretty esoteric reads.

According to Atlas Obscura, Olver passed away in 2015. Only 57 years old, she succumbed to a rare form of leukemia, leaving behind a husband, two children, several cats and the internet’s largest repository of food history.

The entries begin with prehistoric essentials — ice, water and salt — and end with cronuts and test-tube burgers. In her 16-year passion-filled project, Olver spent up to 30 hours each week amassing and organizing a voluminous library of food reference materials.

Her family is now looking to pass Olver’s torch, which includes the website domain and more than 2,000 cookbooks, to 16 /

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someone who will carry on with her labor of love and legacy.

Oldest daughter Ryanne and I have talked about utilizing our shared love of food and doing just that. That’s where our similarities end, though, and I imagine it wouldn’t be long before our dream turned into a nightmare. My shoot-from-thehip style (and short attention span) are no match for her professorial, researcher intellect.

I often recall our different styles, like when I took both of my girls on a trip to France.

While in Avignon, Ryanne was keen to take the comprehensive lecture tour of the Palace of the Popes. At the same time, Casey and I were quite content to circle the impressive plaza and find a delightful sidewalk café to savor the scenery, nibble

on triple cream cheese and sip bubbly champagne while waiting for Ryanne to complete her three-hour tour. Finally, she joined Casey and me, and we were quite content with the abbreviated Cliff Notes version of her experience.

Passion is one thing, but the dedication and discipline that went into Olver’s website is remarkable. I was amazed to learn from Atlas Obscura that, over the time period that she operated her website, Olver answered more than 25,000 questions. She maintained a strict turnaround time of 48 hours to answer questions sent to her — even taking her desktop computer on family vacations so she could respond within her self-imposed time frame.

Remarkably, even though she

often responded with a royal “we” because she wanted to give the impression that there was a team of volunteers working with her, she alone ran her site, doing the research and answering all the questions posted to the site. She received no money from advertisers and never charged for her services.

Though there are broken links and some misspellings, I marvel at the resource that is foodtimeline.org. Through the 12,000-word entry on pasta, I have learned many theories on its origin and specifically the theories explaining the origin of one of my favorite spaghetti dishes (and the recipe recently featured in my column), pasta alla carbonara.

Ryanne would have gotten along well with librarian

Garden spaghetti salad

Olver, whose entry about ice cream alone runs more than 32,000 words. Ryanne is also a professional researcher and writer (she recently completed a 300-page manuscript that took three years of research), while I am often hard-pressed to write a 700- to 800-word biweekly column). Ryanne studies the sociology of food and its origins, and I can see her pounding out an entire article on the migration of pasta. I’m just grateful that spaghetti made its way here and my family agrees.

Ryanne and I might not get around to collaborating on any written works, but we do love to cook together and we love this tasty recipe for a cool summer salad. We hope your family likes it as well.

Serves 12

Make this at least 3-4 hours in advance This recipe is a wonderful way to enjoy the bounty your garden is producing.

INGREDIENTS: • 1 pound spaghetti • 1 cup good olive oil • 1/2 cup pesto • 1 cup Parmesan cheese, grated • 2 cups small cherry tomatoes (or diced and seeded heirloom tomatoes) • 2 cups cucumbers, seeded, sliced and halved • 3/4 cup red onion, minced • 3/4 cup shredded carrots • 1 cup thinly sliced Brussels sprouts • 1 medium green pepper, diced • 1 medium red pepper, diced • 1 cup pitted Kalamata olives • 1/2 cup basil chiffonade • 2 tablespoons fresh oregano, minced • 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped

DIRECTIONS: Cook spaghetti pasta according to package directions.

Drain and rinse. In

a large bowl add spaghetti, toss with olive oil, pesto and Parmesan, until spaghetti is well coated. Add all remaining

ingredients and toss well.

Refrigerate and serve cold.

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events

July 30 - August 6, 2020

THURSDAY, JUly 30

Live Music w/ Benny Baker 6-8pm @ MickDuff’s Beer Hall

Live Music w/ Other White Meat 6:30-9:30pm @ MickDuff’s Beer Hall

Live Music w/ Kevin Dorin 8-10pm @ The Back Door

SATURDAY, August 1 Sandpoint Farmers’ Market 9am-1pm @ Farmin Park The Market is back at Farmin Park!

Live Music w/ Brian Jacobs and Chris Lynch 6:30-9:30pm @ MickDuff’s Beer Hall

Live Theater - Festival of the Bards 2:30 & 7:30pm @ Panida Theater Original one-act plays in film festival format by playwrights from the Inland NW

Live Music w/ Bright Moments Jazz 8-10pm @ The Back Door

Free First Saturday at the Museum 10am-2pm @ Bonner Co. History Museum Admission is free for all

Saturday Movie Night Dusk @ The Longshot Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure

SunDAY, August 2 monDAY, August 3 Monday Night Blues Jam w/ Truck Mills 7pm @ Eichardt’s Pub

LifeTree Cafe 2pm @ Jalepeño’s “Overcoming Life’s Obstacles: How a 10Story Fall Changed One Man’s Perspective.”

tuesDAY, August 4 wednesDAY, August 5 Sandpoint Farmers’ Market 3-5:30pm @ Farmin Park The Market is back at Farmin Park!

ThursDAY, August 6

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SHS grad Sage Saccomanno awarded Bruhjell scholarship

By Reader Staff

FriDAY, JUly 31

Live Music w/ Kevin Dorin 6-8pm @ MickDuff’s Beer Hall

COMMUNITY

The winner of the Erik Bruhjell Scholarship, 2020 Sandpoint High School graduate Sage Saccomanno, plans to attend Bard College in Annandale-on-the-Hudson, N.Y., with the hopes of becoming an environmental lawyer working internationally.

“Sage has a reputation for throwing herself into everything she does,” says Maggie Mjelde, scholarship chairperson for the Bonner County Democrats, which bestowed the award this spring.

“She is an outstanding young woman and we are proud to play even a small part in her future education.”

Saccomanno graduated first in her class with a 4.604 weighted GPA, but was unable to vie for valedictorian or salutatorian because she spent her junior year in Todi, Italy on a Rotary Club Youth Exchange. Upon her return to the U.S., she dedicated herself to school — half at SHS and half online at North Idaho College.

She served as class president her freshman and sophomore years, along with being photo and copy editor for the yearbook, Monticola. For the past four years, Saccomanno took part in the specially-selected team of student leaders trained throughout the year for the Count Me In Global Student Leadership Summit, hosted each year in Toronto, Ontario. Her roles at the summit — the world’s largest youth-led event of its kind — included “catalyst leader” and peer-to-peer mentor.

As Miss Teen and Miss Junior, Sage represented the community and Bonner County Fairgrounds and Rodeo throughout the Northwest. At 15, she competed at the state level against all 19-year-olds

Sage Soccomanno. Courtesy photo. for Miss Teen Rodeo Idaho, winning the speech category.

Saccomanno’s hobbies include kayaking, paddle boarding, back-country skiing and horseback riding.

The daughter of Kari and Clay Saccomanno and the sister of Kendall Saccomanno, all are SHS graduates.

The Bonner County Democrats’ scholarship is named in memory of local teen Erik Bruhjell, who was tragically killed in a vehicle crash on his way home from work on July 20, 2018.

A graduate of SHS and Gonzaga University, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in environmental science, Bruhjell was very involved with the Democrats and served as a board member of the Bonner County Human Rights Task Force.

“I remember how cheerful and happy he was. Erik would light up a room,” Mjelde said. “He was such an intelligent, accomplished young man; and a fun person to be around. Those of us who knew him are better because of him.”

STAGE & SCREEN

Wholesome Netflix for the heart

The anguish of 2020 can be stifled by the sweetness of these streaming platform originals

By Lyndsie Kiebert Reader Staff The story of my recent television consumption begins where most stories of 2020 begin: acknowledging that this year has, in many ways, not been good.

Between the pandemic and the political strife, I’ve made it a point to seek out lighthearted media. This has led me into the heart of wholesome Netflix originals, three of which are described and rated below.

The Baby-Sitters Club This book-series-turned-Netflix-series has millennials everywhere — that is to say, mostly women between their mid-20s and late-30s — reminiscing over days of reading the adventures of Kristy, Claudia, Mary Anne and Stacey in paperback library books.

The four core characters of the classic books also kick off The Baby-Sitters Club Netflix series, made great by its modernization of the challenges the girls overcome.

It’s the same struggles with image, family, schoolwork and babysitting, but now with cell phones.

The characters are realistically pre-teen — sometimes bratty, dimwitted and selfish; but also humble, brave and silly. This

series was wholesome to its core, making it a great quarantine screening option for people of all ages. However, it did tackle a few topics some parents might not be ready to talk about with their kids, like menstruation and gender identity.

In all, The Baby-Sitters Club was funny, clever and — for some of us — nostalgic as hell.

Rating: 7/10 Sweet Magnolias Many of the greatest feel-good stories revolve around a circle of longtime best friends, and those stories are made better when those friends are three strong and sassy ladies. This is where Sweet Magnolias begins.

As far as conflict content goes, Sweet Magnolias hits on it all in the first season: messy divorce, budding romance, opening a new business, raising children, running a restaurant and running from the past. If it can go wrong, it will, and main characters Maddie, Helen and Dana Sue will solve it over a pitcher of blended margaritas because this is South Carolina and every character has an incredible porch.

Sweet Magnolias is a good choice for when the weight of the

world gets to be a bit much. For every conflict, there’s an apology.

Fights between parents and children end in hugs, and misunderstandings between adults end with grace. Plus, maybe it’s just my shopping-deprived brain talking, but the clothes are amazing.

Rating: 8/10 Virgin River Nurse practitioner and midwife Mel Monroe moves from Los Angeles to the remote northern California town of Virgin River to join the local one-man medical

practice and leave her painful past behind. Supporting characters range from charming war veteran barkeep to eccentric female mayor, and conflicts typically revolve around romantic entanglements or medical emergencies. Imagine Grey’s Anatomy, but in the woods with fewer doctors and more suffocating reminders that “this is a small town, so nobody has secrets.” Spoiler: There are a lot of secrets.

Despite the seemingly wholesome premise and unrealistically sweet characters, Virgin River did

A still image from The Baby-Sitters Club. surprise me with some dark topics: PTSD, familial loss, abuse, illegal pot farming and the like. Still, the small-town setting, romantic intrigue and unrelenting neighborliness keep the show firmly in the feel-good category.

Part of me feels as though I watched Virgin River so that you don’t have to. Still, the loose-end relationships and small amount of mystery remaining at the end of the first season has me pretty certain I’ll watch Season 2.

Rating: 5/10

Amazon Prime series Tales from the Loop is a gorgeous sci-fi rumination on impermanence

By Zach Hagadone Reader Staff Science-fiction — at least good science-fiction — confounds our present understanding of ourselves. Far from laser battles and the wonky speculative theory of interstellar travel, the true masterpieces of the genre unsettle the structures of humdrum life by injecting them with the seeming-magic of high technology.

In the vein of Philip K. Dick, the Amazon Prime original series Tales from the Loop is an eight-episode rumination on damn near every human emotion and experience, tugging on the tattered existential strands of mortal life and reweaving their warp and weft into an achingly beautiful tapestry

of love, loss and yearning — all shot through with a side-eyed nostalgia for a past, and future, that has never existed. Or has it?

If all that sounds a little high-minded it’s because it is. It’s like Stranger Things for people who are old enough to spend a considerable chunk of their time contemplating their own ephemerality.

Every loosely connected episode presents a storyline in which individuals in the fictional town of Mercer, Ohio, confront the profundity of their individual existence as influenced by the mysterious work put out by a subterranean research facility called the Mercer Center for Experimental Physics, a.k.a. “The Loop.”

Based on an art book by

Swedish artist Simon Stålenhag, the series immediately transports viewers into a world where the commonplace exists — almost always uneasily — side by side with the fantastical. Yet the evocative, frequently painterly, visual world of Mercer is no futurist panacea.

Rather, it’s rundown and tired; rust-bucket robots and devices of mystical-seeming power moulder in the pine barrens like junkyard cast-offs. Meanwhile, the 30- and 40-something scientists, living in vaguely 1970s-ish suburban homes, dutifully disappear into the periwinkle-blue, weather-stained concrete facility that delivers them to the secret bowels of The Loop.

The kids in the town are the real focal points of the show, as they navigate adolescence while

knowing their parents and assorted elders are doing something underground. That said, there is very little malice in the show — it’s not as if The Loop is an Area 51; rather, the subtle insinuation is that the powers-that-be are working on something gorgeous yet, like life, inherently dangerous.

There’s a wise, weary, lonely-lovely sadness to everything in Mercer, perhaps best evoking the feeling of half-scared wonder that children have for the seemingly inscrutable existence of their parents, whose handle on the secrets of the universe seem equal parts inviting and repellant.

For the adults, coming to peace with the simultaneous impermanence and timelessness of life spins at the core of the show like

a certain object that watchers will come to understand as both a physical part of the story and its central metaphor.

As such, after the first couple of episodes, a viewer might wonder if the good intentions of the science happening in The Loop would be better left on the drawing board.

Fans of think-y sci-fi that tweaks conventions of narrative time — i.e., HBO’s WestWorld — and dig psychic furrows into the field of techno-existential philosophy will find themselves drawn fully into Tales from the Loop. If you’re looking for lasers and warp drives, look elsewhere.

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An art icon in the making

Alison Barrows-Young’s piece ‘The Promise of Humanity’ chosen for back cover of ArtTour International

By Ben Olson Reader Staff

Sandpoint artist Alison Barrows-Young is celebrating international recognition after the publication ArtTour International recently chose one of her pieces for its back cover.

Barrows-Young, also known as ALBY, said she was honored the publication selected her piece, “The Promise of Humanity,” which came with recognition as a “Top 60 Master,” with her work chosen from more than 1,200 submissions.

“I’ve had an entire career from when I first started in the arts, and it’s always been a male-dominated field,” ALBY told the Reader. “After having worked so many years on this, it’s fun to start getting some recognition.”

ALBY executed “The Promise of Humanity” in an icon art format — inspired by her Catholic upbringing — to help shed light on the global refugee crisis.

“I’ve been frustrated in a way by all the women and children who are refugees around the world and the conditions they’re living in,” she said. “I found that these mothers and their children started looking, to me, like the Virgin Mary. I was raised Catholic and don’t practice it, but the imagery of Catholicism has always been appealing to me.

The way they show suffering … the light-filled stained glass and small vignettes, lots of dark and light colors.”

ALBY decided she wanted to paint women from different countries with their children, featuring icon-inspired arched doors and windows, as well as halos. In “The Promise of Hu20 /

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Left: Alison Barrows-Young, (or ALBY as she is also known) sits before some of her paintings. Right: The back cover of ArtTour International with ALBY’s “Promise of Humanity.” Courtesy photos. manity,” ALBY also tapped into her love of mythology, utilizing a theme of “sacred water” to depict a mother and child.

“Our mythologies teach us right from wrong and many of them defer to nature where we see ourselves among the things in nature,” she said. “I started thinking about the tarot deck of temperance, where the woman is holding two jugs of water and pouring between the two back and forth. It’s a beautiful symbol of our ability to balance our spiritual or magical parts of ourselves to keep things flowing.”

ALBY decided to launch on that concept, depicting an African woman with a mermaid-like quality pouring a jug of water with her child beneath her.

“Children are the best of

us,” she said. “They start out without prejudices and hate, so I thought it would be neat to do a child who was also an explorer. In one hand he’s holding a spyglass telescope looking out, and then he’s also holding a compass and he has traditional African garb on.”

ArtTour International was founded by Viviana Puello as a publication that spotlights top talent from a variety of artistic forms. It is currently publishing its ninth edition.

“Viviana has a real sparkle and ability to generate interest,” ALBY said. “She and her husband are very lively, very creative, and they’ve generated a lot of interest in the arts.”

Like many artists, ALBY said she’s always experimenting with different media and inspirations. Her portfolio

is filled with a diversity of themes, media and styles, both touching on abstract, figurative and elemental work. At the core of her work is the mission to speak to social, environmental and personal concepts fusing naturalistic imagery with eccentric patterns. Her paintings shine with a kaleidoscope of bright tones and soft, earthy contrasts.

ALBY moved to North Idaho about 10 years ago after a long career based in different locales. Originally born in New York City, ALBY moved to Ontario, Canada, where she was raised until she returned to the U.S. to study art. She eventually attended Antioch College in Ohio, obtained a master’s degree in Florida, bounced around a bit from Newark,

N.J., then California, eventually settling in Boulder, Colo.

“Boulder is a great place, but there started to be kind of too many people there,” she said. “I used to go to a lot of mountain towns and I thought, ‘It would be really great to live in a small town in the mountains.’”

Thanks to her uncle, who lived in North Idaho but unfortunately passed away before she arrived, ALBY discovered Sandpoint and settled here to continue creating art. Art lovers in her adopted hometown can view her work in ArtTour International, at Eichardt’s Pub and Monarch Mountain Coffee or online at alisonbarrowsyoung.com.

MUSIC

This week’s RLW by Lyndsie Kiebert

Out of nowhere

READ

Taylor Swift’s folklore is the latest in a growing list of surprise albums that shook up the music scene

By Lyndsie Kiebert Reader Staff The average album runs a gamut of pre-release rituals.

There are promo appearances, strategically released singles and pre-sale hype. Artists share countdowns across platforms, gaining new listeners and teasing the most loyal fans as the anticipation grows.

But what happens when an artist throws the entire process out the window and, instead, drops an album without warning? It’s been happening more and more over the past decade, each surprise album creating a statement that goes beyond the production value and lyrics.

Radiohead’s In Rainbows (2007) Radiohead is often the first major band to come to mind when talking about surprise album releases, having announced on their website that they would be dropping In Rainbows in short order.

Not only did the band drop the album with little warning, but they offered it for whatever the listener could afford to pay.

As one critic put it, this style of release and payment went a long way in “cementing Radiohead’s reputation as a band compelled to look forward, not back.”

Looking forward, In Rainbows did mark a change in the album-release tide, as more artists took the surprise approach over the following decade.

Beyoncé’s self-titled album (2013) The music world heard not a single whisper of Beyoncé’s fifth studio release until it dropped overnight in late 2013. The hard-hitting self-titled collection showcased Beyoncé at her strongest, securing her place among the most influential female artists of the 21st century.

Not only did she release a compilation of all new songs, but also a series of short-film visuals to accompany each track. It’s a style she’s adopted for all subsequent albums, and something that takes her work to the next level.

I’ve always known The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan was a classic novel for its intricate plot, weaving together the lives of eight different women, but it wasn’t until reading it that I understood it’s also a masterpiece for the way it blends hard truths with tenderness to paint a compelling picture of mother-daughter relationships.

Tan’s detailed imagery pulls in the reader, and the multi-faceted plot keeps them turning the pages.

LISTEN

Frankly, Beyoncé could hit the world at any moment with a new set of songs and videos and it would be the best product her listeners never knew they needed. She’s just that good.

U2’s Songs of Innocence (2014) This U2 album came as a surprise in more than one way.

Not only did the band not promote the album ahead of time, but — in a deal with Apple — they had it automatically downloaded to every iTunes user’s device. Almost 500 million people woke up to find Songs of Innocence in their digital libraries and the unprecedented move received mixed reviews.

U2 frontman Bono ultimately issued an apology, blaming “a drop of megalomania, a twitch of generosity, a dash of self promotion — and deep fear that these songs that we poured our life into over the last few years mightn’t be heard” for the decision, according to the Independent.

This surprise release might get some style points for going where no band had gone before, but no artist will likely attempt the same thing again.

Taylor Swift’s folklore (2020) Taylor Swift broke the internet on July 23 when she announced her eighth studio album, folklore, would hit

Taylor Swift’s folklore surpassed more than 1.3 million sales in just 24 hours.

Courtesy photo. streaming platforms at midnight.

Before her tweet, no one had any clue. By July 24, we’d all been introduced to a woodsy, whimsical indie-folk Swift.

It’s a near 180 from her 2019 summer release Lover, which came chock full of throbbing pop beats and signature Swift sass. Ironically, Lover seemed to try so hard to sound like a Taylor Swift album that it fell short.

Somehow, folklore sounds more natural — a signal that Swift has again changed her style and is set to thrive in her new milieu.

The surprise release of the new album is also a statement about where Swift is in her career. The album boasts maybe one or two radio-worthy songs, but the largely subdued collection of acoustic-and-piano ballads won’t be conducive to sold-out stadium tours. Still, tracks like “cardigan,” “the 1” and “exile” — featuring indie-folk royalty Bon Iver — had amassed more than 20 million streams each on Spotify within four days of folklore’s release.

A surprise album from Swift makes complete sense. Her loyal fanbase, combined with the curiosity of people interested in hearing what she’s up to now, means guaranteed hype — even without the pre-release song and dance.

As a young female journalist covering the American West, I’ve adopted a new motto: WWLSD — what would Leah Sottile do? Sottile is the writer and host of podcast Bundyville, which chronicles the high-profile government stand-offs initiated by the Bundy family, and the lasting effects of the family’s ideologies on Western politics and culture. Sottile — an Inlander alum now based in Portland, Ore. — is tenacious and thoughtful, and Bundyville is an incredible piece of audio journalism.

WATCH

Everyone knows Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but what about RBG the unshakeable law student, professor, wife and mother? On The Basis of Sex, the 2018 film detailing the early years of Ginsburg’s fight against sexist laws, is a charming and academically stimulating creation starring Felicity Jones as RBG. Jones slays her role, and Armie Hammer — as Martin Ginsburg — is the supportive and adorable husband we all need.

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HUMOR

Catch and release Why Zach is a good-bad fisherman

From Northern Idaho News, March 24, 1905

HUMBIRD SAWMILL HAS NARROW ESCAPE FROM THE FIRE DEMON But for prompt work and the fact that the mill is well equipped to fight the fire demon the Humbird Lumber company’s immense sawmill in this city would have been destroyed by fire Monday, as it was the blaze was an ugly one for a few moments and the interior over one of the band mills was badly scorched.

The blaze was started by a candle falling from the hands of a workman who was at work over one of the bandsaws making some repairs. The lighted candle fell into some sawdust which was saturated with grease and an explosion followed nearly instantly and the flame shot upwards towards the ceiling of the huge structure.

Other workmen about the mill were wanred by the cry of fire from the workman and in a few moments a stream of water was playing on the blaze, and what threatened to be a disastrous fire was soon quelled.

The damage was only nominal and will not delay the starting of the mill on the first of the month, but the workmen about the mill were so frightened over the narrow escape that they will not soon forget it.

The management of the Humbird mill have always taken every precaution to protect themselves against fire and this one thing saved the entire plant from destruction on this occasion. The entire mill is piped throughout and at convenient places there is hose and nozzles, so that on a moments notice the entire mill is equal to a well organized city fire department.

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By Zach Hagadone Reader Staff We fish in my family. Sure, I can remember times when my dad, brother and I packed shotguns on our many trips into the mountains to gather firewood — keeping an eye out for grouse — but we usually ended up blasting the soda cans we’d emptied in the truck on the way there.

I am not a hunter, though in the spirit of self-sufficiency and amid a spate of early-coronavirus lockdown antsy-ness I got it in my head that I should go turkey hunting this past spring. I don’t own a .12 gauge, but I do have a bolt-action Mossberg .20 gauge that my wife’s grandpa purchased with Marlboro money sometime in the mid-1950s.

With idle dreams of springtime turkey shoots in mind, I pulled down the old Mossberg and took it apart — I hadn’t fired it in a long time, and then it had been for trap shooting. (One of the perks of attending a small liberal arts college is that they offer weird classes like trap shooting, which I took for two back-to-back semesters, so I’m a pretty dab hand at blasting clays.)

The more I looked at the gun, the less I trusted it in the field; and, having just received my portion of the “Trump stimulus,” I decided that it was time for me to buy a brand-new gun.

After much research, I settled on a Remington 870 Express pump-action and, since I’ve come to appreciate the versatility of a .20 gauge, that’s what I ended up buying.

License, turkey tag and shotgun in hand, the only thing I shot all season was — you guessed it — a couple of aluminum

cans at a trailhead out near Mineral Point.

I am not a hunter. I’m not much of an angler, either, despite the fact that the men in my family not only are, but are excellent fishers of fish. When my dad and brother were happily trolling Lake Pend Oreille back in the ’80s and early-’90s, I was the kid sitting in the bow of the boat scribbling in a sketchbook.

From 1995 to 2019, I don’t think I went fishing in earnest more than a dozen times, and the only fish of note that I caught were on a charter at Kootenay Lake, British Columbia, with my dad and brother. (One of the funnest dad-sons trips we’ve ever taken.)

Yet, as I have crept ever-closer to 40 — only two months to go! — my long-dormant fishing bug has awakened and started buzzing. With kids of my own to bring into the tradition, I’ve finally come to love it — the ritual of tying on a lure; of reading the current and water conditions; the salutary, meditative, even prayerful motion of casting. I suppose I had to grow into it.

Despite my new-found/rediscovered love of fishing, I remain a pretty crap fisherman. I catch them, but I can’t seem to kill them.

For one thing, the fish I catch are almost all from a dock, so they’re never that big. I’ll pull one up — ever careful to wet my hands before touching it — and feel the same pre-

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ternatural terror holding its body as I did when my kids were infants. I cringe as I prise the hook from its gasping mouth and, even if it’s an eater, I can never seem to bring myself to bash it over the head with the little club I always bring along.

Maybe I’d feel different if the fish I caught were big old bastards that have been eating other fish and lounging in the depths for years. But the fish I catch just end up reminding me of hapless kids, like I was. I see them zip around in the sunny nearshore, all lean muscle and mindless energy, and when they start going for my Mepp spinner at the end of the dock, most times I’ll reel up as fast as possible so they won’t bite it. “Plenty of time to get caught, but not by me,” I say to them in my mind.

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If Alien was my friend, I’d like to be with him when he went to the dentist. When they started drilling, he’d probably go nuts and start eating everybody. That Alien!

Solution on page 22

Solution on page 22

Laughing Matter

ACROSS

By Bill Borders

1. Slave 5. Pitcher 9. Hemp 14. Not under 15. An exchange involving money 16. Motherless calf 17. Expectation of failure 19. Antlered animal 20. Donkeys 21. Showings 23. Grandeurs 25. Dabbler 28. Anger 29. American Dental Association 32. Voice box 33. Petrol 34. Affaire d’honneur 35. A Freudian stage 36. Practical 38. Modify /KAW-ferz/ 39. Ripped 40. Regulation (abbrev.) [plural noun] 1. funds, especially of a government or corporation. 41. Beginner e h t f o 43. Historic period 44. Atmosphere 45. Polemicist “It’s best to have filled your coffers before starting a business.”

46. Overrules 48. Bruise Corrections: Nothing to see here, folks. Move along. -BO 50. Stave 54. Sheep sound 55. Eggwhisk 57. Busybody

coffers

Word Week

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CROSSWORD

Solution on page 22 58. Govern 59. Carry 60. Banana oil, e.g.

61. Sow 62. Type of sword

10. Blessings 11. Aquiver 12. To tax or access 13. Yes to a sailor 18. Type of poplar tree 22. Exasperated 24. Opulences DOWN 25. Winged 1. Fizzy drink 26. Country estate 2. Nights before 27. A kind of macaw 3. Umpires 29. A financial 4. A type of swimming examination race 30. Defrost 5. Eastern Standard Time 31. Fix 6. Exemption 33. Band booking 7. Shoemaker’s awl 34. Cause extensive 8. Curative destruction 9. Esteem

37. Short-bodied hunting dogs 42. Overweight 44. Personification 45. A small wooded hollow 46. Give a speech 47. Scoundrel 48. Beers 49. Not straight 51. At the peak of 52. Celebration 53. No charge 54. A farewell remark 56. What we sleep on

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