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EDITOR’S NOTE

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ou might have thought Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Eastern Washington’s representative in Congress, would feel compelled to explain herself and to talk with the press, her line to constituents, about EVERYTHING — about why she supported President Trump’s attempts to overturn the election, why she lent credence to the big lie of rigged voting and why, after marauders stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, she reversed course and voted to certify the Electoral College results showing Joe Biden’s decisive victory.

The congresswoman, however, did not respond to our request for an interview, but her supporters and critics did (page 8). Meanwhile, we have a look at Washington state’s two other Republican congresspeople who voted, unlike McMorris Rodgers, to impeach Trump last week, despite the political costs they may face as a result (page 12).

— JACOB H. FRIES, editor

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What can you give this week?

VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES VOLUNTEERS WANTED - THE SALVATION ARMY The Salvation Army of Spokane seeks volunteers to help sort food, stock shelves, pack food boxes and more at its food bank. The Salvation Army’s food bank is the largest in the county, as it distributed close to 4 million pounds of food last year. To volunteer, please go to makingspokanebetter.org and click on “Volunteer with Us,” or contact volunteer and event coordinator Joshua Schulz at Joshua.schulz@usw.salvationarmy.org or 509-329-2721. Makingspokanebetter.org

HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS NEEDED MEDICAL RESERVE CORP

The Medical Reserve Corp (MRC) is seeking community volunteers with health care experience to assist in the COVID-19 pandemic recovery efforts. Nurses, CNAs, physicians and others with health care experience who are not currently employed or have personal time are needed to assist with the region’s vaccination efforts, and in the event of a significant virus surge.

The MRC is looking for professionals from various disciplines including: • Registered nurses and nurse practitioners • CNAs and NACs • Physicians and physician assistants • Medical assistants • Mental health professionals To learn more or apply, visit the Medical Reserve Corps of Eastern Washington’s website. srhd.org/programs-and-services/medical-reserve-corps-of-easternwashington

DRIVERS WANTED - MEALS ON WHEELS Meals on Wheels is in need of route drivers to deliver meals to seniors in your neighborhood. Greater Spokane Meals on Wheels would love to have volunteers who are willing to take on dedicated routes in specific areas, but are also happy to accept volunteers who can dedicate just a few hours a week. Volunteers must be 18 or older and have a valid driver’s license.

A background check will be conducted for all volunteers.

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Can you help the Spokane Humane Society by picking up an item from its wish list? Donations can be dropped off in person, or you can shop the organization’s Amazon wish list online. Here’s what’s needed right now:

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KEVIN EGAN: Grilled cheese with tomato soup. I don’t know why dipping a crispy grilled cheese into a tomato soup that is usually too hot to eat is so wonderful and satisfying.

Definitely because the flavors go well together. I also think it’s an interactive experience that just makes it a bit fun.

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Where do we go from here?

BY INGA LAURENT “Rain on us, Saint Honesty. Salvation is coming in the morning, but now what we need. Is a little rain on our face from you, sweet Saint Honesty.”

— Sara Bareilles

I

have broken my own heart a few times.

Mostly, this happened in moments when I was not honest with myself.

There were times I ignored facts in front of me, preferring my own projection over other available proof. Times when I was willfully blind, presuming plausible deniability would shield me from the consequences of knowing. Times of immaturity, when I audaciously assumed a limited, cursory understanding would be sufficient, instead of investing in and honoring another’s perspective. And times I failed to be brave — too afraid of admitting what I already knew — wellaware that revelation can result in rejection or increased responsibility that abides within connection.

Veracity is demanding, often requiring restructuring — new agreements, accountability, power distributions, resource allocations and

6 INLANDER JANUARY 21, 2021

vulnerability.

Though demanding, inevitably truth has always been the better choice. The times I ignored intuition, blamed the other, took comfort in contrived conspiracies, or deluded and denied remain the most unflattering, the cause of many deep regrets. Inauthenticity severs connection — between the self and others. What-ifs, disassociation, shame, unavailability, misplaced aggression, abdication and avoidance are harmful tools and byproducts of dishonesty.

An awful lot of heartbreak happens when we are silent about what really matters.

S

o, America I can empathize about our recalcitrance, the reluctance to face who we have become. While I comprehend continued attempts to gussy-up those unattractive parts of our history, take heed from my litany of confession.

There’s an importance to being earnest, and it’s

high time for a reckoning with the unsightly.

Fania Davis, “healer and warrior,” restorative justice practitioner and civil rights attorney, summarizes exquisitely: “Our nation was born in the horrific traumas of genocide and slavery. Because we have neither fully acknowledged nor reckoned with these twin traumas, much less worked to heal them, they perpetually re-enact themselves transgenerationally.”

Our genesis, our roots, our foundation — from which the present most-assuredly does spring — lies within these truths.

They made Jan. 6 possible. They made de facto and de jure segregation possible. Erasure, mass incarceration, blood quantums, lynching, the 3/5th Compromise, redlining, family separation, internment camps and disenfranchisement are all fruit of those poisonous trees, individual and state-sanctioned stains on this nation.

But please do not misunderstand or misalign my purpose.

My call for attention to the unappealing should not be seen as a means to disparage but as an invitation to love and acceptance of ourselves more fully. By inertia and by design, we have arrived at this moment, but it is the choices we make moving forward, informed by our levels of accurate accounting, that will determine our future and the response to Dr. King’s question, “Where do we go from here?”

America, I believe that one day you’ll be stunning. You should know that there’s nothing unbecoming about being a work in progress.

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W

e always have a choice. After WWII and a period dubbed “the big silence” — when people were not yet ready to address the collective grief and shame for the Holocaust — Germans united to grapple with their role in the genocide. Wiedergutmachung, which means “to make good again,” was a movement that created museums and memorials, sites of memory to preserve a harsh but shared reality. Atrocities were publicly acknowledged and confronted ubiquitously. The government pays reparations, and history classes on National Socialism and the Holocaust are mandated in all public schools.

In South Africa, post-apartheid, the country staged public hearings where people testified to violence both perpetrated and received. Some requested amnesty — others forgiveness. Some demanded accountability, wanting those who had done wrong to acknowledge the harm and provide restitution.

These processes, though imperfect, provided pathways. We could make the choice to learn from and improve them. We could recognize that “telling the truth is a beautiful act even if the truth itself is ugly.”

America, I believe that one day you’ll be stunning. You should know that there’s nothing unbecoming about being a work in progress. There’s absolutely no shame in being unfinished. The travesty is in never trying. The “magnificent struggle” to be something better is one that I swear will make you sparkle and shine.

Girl, you’ve got some good bones on you — those “unalienable rights” “with liberty and justice for all” where “all … are created equal” sure are somethin’ to behold. I can just tell you’ll be a sight for sore eyes. My oh my, how will you glow — radiating such warmth and light — when those laudable tenets of this land are lived, brought into alignment with collaborative action. Simply gorgeous.

America, your beauty does not reside in your past but in your promise. n Inga N. Laurent is a local legal educator and a Fulbright scholar. She is deeply curious about the world and its constructs and delights in uncovering common points of connection that unite our shared but unique human experiences.

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JANUARY 21, 2021 INLANDER 7

Cathy McMorris Rodgers’ office didn’t respond to an interview request from the Inlander.

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POLITICS

The Last Trumptation of McMorris Rodgers After the Capitol riot and another impeachment, U.S. Rep. McMorris Rodgers calls for turning down the heat of political rhetoric while critics say she stoked the flames

BY DANIEL WALTERS

T

he congresswoman, considered a rock-ribbed Republican, comes from a reliably conservative district while serving as the party’s third-ranking leader in the House.

But despite all that, in the wake of a siege on the Capitol by Trump supporters trying to overturn the election, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming, voted to impeach the president last week.

So there were brief moments when some political observers speculated that the person who previously held Cheney’s duties as the House Republican Conference chair — Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers — might follow suit. The two other Republican members of Washington state had voted to impeach, including Jaime Herrera Beutler, McMorris Rodgers’ former legislative aide and senior adviser.

But not McMorris Rodgers.

8 INLANDER JANUARY 21, 2021

While she wrote in a statement that “President Trump showed a complete lack of leadership in the face of an attack on the U.S. government,” she concluded that his words were still constitutionally protected speech and questioned whether the swift impeachment process was motivated by “nothing more than politics.”

Yet unlike most defenses of Donald Trump issued by Republicans last week, it included something unique: a personal confession. McMorris Rodgers suggested that she had played some part in the “crisis of contempt in America” that led to “the destruction and violence we saw last week and throughout the last year.”

While she accused the left of trying to “silence” conservatives, she acknowledged that Republicans like her had “excused and defended” Trump’s behavior.

“For Trump supporters like me, it meant turning a blind eye to arrogant, prideful, and bullying behavior,”

McMorris Rodgers wrote. “We all need to take some responsibility, tone down the rhetoric, stop silencing anyone and everyone who might disagree with us, and do better.”

McMorris Rodgers’ office didn’t respond to an interview request from the Inlander. But to her supporters like former Spokane County GOP state committeewoman Beva Miles, the statement was a testament to the congresswoman’s humility and introspection.

“I see her acknowledging that she stands with the rest of us,” Miles says. “She’s standing equal and taking equal blame.”

To Democrats, like Washington state House Majority Whip Marcus Riccelli, however, McMorris Rodgers’ halfapology rang hollow set against her record of supporting Trump. ...continued on page 10

JANUARY 21, 2021 INLANDER 9

NEWS | POLITICS “THE LAST TRUMPTATION OF McMORRIS RODGERS,” CONTINUED...

“She’s not on the side of democracy,” Riccelli says “And future generations will judge her harshly.”

Either way, her statement is an artifact representing the contradiction that McMorris Rodgers has been trapped in during the Trump years. She kept calling for politics to be more civil. But the rhetoric of the president she supported was calling for something closer to civil war.

THE TEARS AFTER TEAR GAS

In her own impeachment comments, meanwhile, Herrera Beutler detailed how the president had thrown a match onto a tinderbox, inflaming a mob that beat police officers, shattered Capitol windows and raided congressional offices.

“During the president’s rally on January 6, he repeated phrases like ‘fight like hell,’ and ‘we’re going to have to fight much harder,’” she tweeted. “Many coming to the rally did intend to fight, with physical violence. Leading up to the rally, specific threats were numerous. Hundreds of TikTok videos promoted violence. Thousands... used hashtags promoting a second civil war.”

The morning after the riot, the sun was shining down on a nearly empty National Mall. The tear gas had dissipated. The gallows and noose had been dismantled. The rioters were gone — four of them dead — and the chants of “Hang Mike Pence” were no longer echoing through the halls of Congress.

And McMorris Rodgers, says Miles, “was alone in the Capitol.”

“No one on the mall; no one out there at all,” says Miles, who exchanged texts with McMorris Rodgers that day. “Totally beautiful, totally peaceful. And she sat down

and cried.”

“Today, I find myself weeping for my country,” McMorris Rodgers wrote in a text message, according to Miles.

Miles describes McMorris Rodgers as someone with a deep, “almost palpable” sense of empathy. So when the country is wounded, Miles says, she feels that wound as well.

“She’s brokenhearted,” Miles says, “about the corruption she sees, about the brokenness of our government, about the distance between the two parties.”

From the very beginning of the Trump administration, McMorris Rodgers had touted values like “civility” and “unity,” and spoke of bridging that divide.

In a profile with Christianity Today last October, she proudly recounted how, after she was booed at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event in 2017, she moved to hold “Unity Dinners” where a diverse group would share “struggles and heartache and loss in their lives.”

But Trump, meanwhile, kept speaking in terms of “losers,” “suckers,” “enemies of the people” and “shithole countries.”

At times, McMorris Rodgers did critique Trump. She objected to Trump’s family separation policy and slashing of refugee numbers, and she decried his mockery of disabled people and the video where he bragged about grabbing women “by the pussy.” She voted against Trump’s emergency declaration to fund the border wall and, like most Republicans, defied his demand for Congress to approve $2,000 COVID-19 stimulus checks.

Yet for the most part, McMorris Rodgers was a loyal

Trump defender to the end. In the same impeachment statement in which she decried Trump’s behavior during the riot, she praised the president for having “supported the rule of law.”

“It’s not like she just stood by. She fanned the flames of the fire. She poured gasoline on it.”

“That’s quintessential McMorris Rodgers,” says Democrat Dave Wilson, who was handily defeated by McMorris Rodgers in last year’s election. “She’s walking both sides of the fence.”

The mob at the Capitol had been united around a single incendiary claim, a lie that had penetrated deep within the rank and file of the Republican Party: that the election had been stolen through a vast and sweeping conspiracy of fraud.

It was a claim that had been extensively debunked, decried and dismissed by Republican election officials, Trump-appointed judges and even Trump’s own attorney general, Bill Barr. But McMorris Rodgers didn’t try to debunk the conspiracy theory.

Instead, like many Republicans, she signed on to support a futile Texas lawsuit that attempted to overturn the election, arguing that “President Trump has every right to pursue legal recourse in response to claims of voter fraud and election impropriety.”

“It’s not like she just stood by,” Riccelli says. “She fanned the flames of the fire. She poured gasoline on it.”

The day before the Capitol riot, McMorris Rodgers had told the Spokesman-Review, she planned to object to

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the Electoral College count as an explicit opportunity to “amplify the voices of millions of Americans who do not have trust and confidence in our election process.”

She cited a debunked claim from some Pennsylvania state Republicans that there had been over 200,000 more votes than voters, calling the alleged disparity “extremely concerning” and that voters “deserve answers on this discrepancy.”

Yet voters — or anyone with access to Google — already had answers. A week before McMorris Rodgers’ comments, the Pennsylvania Department of State had explained in an exasperated response that the “so-called analysis” had apparently been relying on an incomplete database that was missing data from several major counties.

The day of the Capitol siege, Trump used the myth from Pennsylvania as one of many ways to whip up the crowd into a fury before the riot.

“Pennsylvania was defrauded!” he shouted.

For her part, McMorris Rodgers was outraged by the riot, calling it “disgraceful and un-American,” and she was one of the few members of Congress to change her mind about the Electoral College vote as a result.

“I have decided I will vote to uphold the Electoral College results, and I encourage Donald Trump to condemn and put an end to this madness,” she wrote in a statement.

THE REBUILDING YEARS

McMorris Rodgers’ last-minute reversal, however, was the sort of half measure that satisfied few constituents.

“I didn’t agree with her vote. I thought she should have stood and voted against [the certification],” says Miles. “But I understand that she was placed in a horrible position.”

According to a Washington Post/ABC News poll, over half of Republicans think the Republican leaders who tried to overturn the election didn’t go far enough.

Meanwhile, her reversal didn’t stop Evan McMullin, McMorris Rodgers’ former chief policy director in the House Republican Conference, from accusing the congresswoman of being “one of Trump’s earliest enablers in Congress.”

The congresswoman, he charged in a Twitter message to the Seattle Times, had aggressively pressured “Republican leaders to support [Trump] even after the danger he posed was clear,” and “pursued political opportunity for herself in his rise despite that danger.”

Haley Byrd Wilt, a congressional reporter for The Dispatch, a conservative online magazine, says that while McMorris Rodgers’ reversal “goes to show how phony the whole effort was to begin with,” it could put McMorris Rodgers in a slightly better position to reach across the aisle than many of her colleagues.

Still, Byrd Wilt says, with trust within Congress nearly at rock-bottom levels, it would take a lot of work to rebuild those relationships, with some Democrats blaming Republicans for putting their lives in danger.

“A lot of Democrats genuinely fear some of their Republicans colleagues,” Byrd Wilt says.

Two and a half years ago, McMorris Rodgers was celebrating a new sense of hope she credited to Republican leadership, saying at a press conference that “people are dreaming again and they are optimistic about the future.”

But during this season, in the aftermath of the siege on the Capitol, after Republicans lost control of the House, the Senate and the presidency, that sort of optimism has been replaced by something closer to despair.

“The undergirding structures of our country are crumbling — FBI, Department of Justice, intelligence community, courts, Congress, etc.,” McMorris Rodgers wrote in a text message to Miles the day after the riot.

“John Adams said that our government was for ‘a moral and righteous’ people,” she continued. “We have lost our way, with corruption, abuse of power and position, and lawlessness.”

It’s one of those comments that, depending on how you squint, could be read as echoing Trump’s incendiary rhetoric — or condemning it. n danielw@inlander.com

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JANUARY 21, 2021 INLANDER 11

NEWS | POLITICS

The vast majority of Republicans in the U.S. House — 197 of them — voted against impeaching President Trump last week.

The Dividing Line What’s next for the two Washington state Republicans who voted to impeach Trump?

T

wo days after U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler voted to impeach President Donald Trump, local Republicans in her southwest Washington district were busy planning her ouster.

“It’s already underway,” says Brandon Svenson, the chair of the Lewis County Republican Party, who said dozens of people had contacted him between Wednesday and Friday upset with Herrera Beutler’s vote.

Elsewhere in the state, Republican leaders in Central Washington were similarly fuming over U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse’s decision to support impeachment of the outgoing president.

Debra Manjarrez, the chair of the Yakima County Republican Central Committee, says Newhouse’s vote on impeachment would “absolutely” fuel a primary challenge to the Republican incumbent congressman in 2022.

“Our members are very upset about it — they are

12 INLANDER JANUARY 21, 2021

president in which he encouraged his supporters to fight the certification of the November election, which he lost.

When speaking in favor of impeachment on the House floor last Wednesday, Herrera Beutler said, “I am not afraid of losing my job, but I am afraid that my country will fail.”

F

BY MELISSA SANTOS, CROSSCUT very upset, and they are very angry,” Manjarrez says by phone last Friday.

Newhouse, R-Sunnyside, and Herrera Beutler, R-Battle Ground, were among only 10 GOP House members to vote for impeaching Trump on Jan. 13. Both said they saw ample evidence that the president helped incite the riot that overtook the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Shortly beforehand, Trump had encouraged his supporters to march to the Capitol, where members of Congress were certifying Joe Biden’s electoral college victory, telling the crowd at a rally, “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

Last Friday, Herrera Beutler posted a thread on Twitter outlining all of the president’s actions that she thought made him culpable for the violent insurrection at the Capitol. “Here are the indisputable and publicly available facts,” she tweeted, listing multiple statements from the

OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE PHOTO

or many Republicans in Herrera Beutler’s district, however, that wasn’t a good enough explanation for voting to impeach a sitting Republican president. The vast majority of Republicans in the U.S. House — 197 of them — voted against impeachment last week.

“People are calling her a turncoat, a RINO,” says Christy Tseu, the chairwoman of the Cowlitz County Republican Party, referring to the label: Republican in name only. “She has divided the party, and I think she committed political suicide — unless she announced she is going to be a Democrat.”

On Saturday, the Washington State Republican Party approved a resolution condemning Trump’s impeachment, calling it “rushed” and a “political spectacle.” Party officials expressed “particular disappointment” in the actions of Newhouse and Herrera Beutler.

Others believe history will judge Herrera Beutler and Newhouse’s votes much differently.

Cornell Clayton, the director of the Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service, says it’s easier for politicians to defend a vote they made based on principle, as opposed to one where they changed their

position to match the political winds.

“I do think this was one of those where you see these representatives taking clear, principled positions that are heartfelt,” Clayton says.

He contrasted their actions with those of U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the Republican from Spokane, who voted against impeachment based on what Clayton called “a technicality.”

In a written statement, McMorris Rodgers said she did not believe the president’s words “constitute an incitement of violence as laid out in Supreme Court precedent.”

“To split legal hairs misses the point,” says Clayton, who said the definition of impeachable “high crimes and misdemeanors” is different than the standard for criminal incitement.

Before voting for impeachment, Newhouse gave a speech on the House floor in which he characterized Trump’s behavior as a violation of his oath of office and abdication of duty. When confronted with a domestic threat in the form of a mob that invaded the Capitol, Newhouse said, the president “did nothing to stop it.”

Clayton says he suspects that, in the long run, Newhouse and Herrera Beutler’s votes on impeachment are “going to work out well for them.”

“They’re going to look like they behaved like statespeople, as leaders,” he says.

“And in that population, impeachment will be popular,” says Hays, noting that the top-two primary lets voters pick “whoever they want,” regardless of party, and can serve as a moderating force in politics.

For instance, in Newhouse’s district, where the top-two primary has yielded Republican versus Republican matchups in the past, the roughly 40 percent of voters who are Democrats are more likely to choose Newhouse over a challenger further to the right, Hays says.

“It’s not courageous to stand up for the Constitution when you have taken an oath to support the Constitution. It’s what we expect our representatives to do.”

Jaime Herrera Beutler, left, and Dan Newhouse

S

ome experts think Washington’s top-two primary system made it easier for Herrera Beutler and Newhouse to vote their conscience, potentially blunting some of the political repercussions they might face in next year’s election. In Washington state, the top two votegetters in the primary move on to the general election, no matter their party affiliation.

Dave Wasserman, the House editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, wrote on Twitter shortly before the impeachment vote that if more states had top-two primary systems, he suspects “the tally of pro-impeachment R’s would be double whatever it ends up being today.”

“WA’s top-two primary system could shield them somewhat from pro-Trump backlash,” Wasserman wrote.

Alex Hays, a Republican political consultant from Tacoma, says because the top-two primary doesn’t require voters to register as part of one party or another, it effectively “lets less partisan and nonpartisan voters vote.”

“If you are the minority party in a single party district, your consolation prize is you get to moderate your elected official,” Hays says.

That doesn’t erase the furor that Herrera Beutler and Newhouse are facing now, however.

“That anger is part of why these votes were courageous,” Hays says.

Tina Podlodowski, the chair of the Washington State Democrats, says that may give the two Republican lawmakers too much credit.

She called Herrera Beutler and Newhouse’s votes “the bare minimum they needed to do for decency and democracy.”

“It’s not courageous to stand up for the Constitution when you have taken an oath to support the Constitution,” Podlodowski says. “It’s what we expect our representatives to do.”

Still, a split is evident in the Republican Party, with impeachment just the latest example of the competing factions. Clayton, the WSU professor, went as far as to call it a “civil war.”

“The main dividing lines seem to be between insurgents and institutionalists,” says Eric McGhee, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. He sees the 10 Republicans who voted for impeachment as part of the “institutionalist” wing, who want to preserve “the norms and traditions of governing,” as opposed to embracing the populism of Trump and many of his supporters.

He says that dynamic was likely the bigger influence on Herrera Beutler and Newhouse’s vote, rather than the top-two primary. California similarly has a top-two primary system, and only one Republican from the state voted to impeach Trump.

Randy Pepple, a Republican political consultant based in King County, says how Herrera Beutler and Newhouse perform in their next election will most likely depend on how Trump’s legacy fares over the coming years.

His prediction? “I think in two years time it will be clear that Donald Trump was unfit for office,” Pepple says.

Because of that, Pepple predicted, Herrera Beutler and Newhouse’s votes “will look better and better as time goes on.” n The article first appeared on Crosscut.com.

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THE RAMEN ISSUE YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

14 INLANDER JANUARY 21, 2021

RAMEN RULES Warm up from the inside out with these five tasty and take-out friendly noodle bowls

A

lthough it sounds like the epitome of bad manners at the dinner table, it’s totally acceptable — encouraged, actually — to noisily slurp up those long, starchy noodles from a steaming bowl of ramen.

Moreover, it’s also OK to pick up the entire soup bowl to tip that savory, slow-cooked broth right into your mouth. For confirmation we’re not making this all up, ask any chef familiar with Japanese cuisine, or consult the distinguished Michelin Guide.

Another gesture of courtesy to ramen chefs is not lingering over your bowl, as the longer those toothy, al dente noodles sit in the broth, the more liquid is ab-

sorbed, which alters the entire dish’s flavor and texture.

With origins as a street food, ramen was designed to nourish diners on the go, and many ramen stalls in Japan feature quick-service bar counters where diners are otherwise silent save for the sound of slurping. While there are many more nuances of ramen culture, such as regional differences in ingredients and preparation across Japan, those of us stateside can get away with these three basics: slurp, sip and speed.

Let the ramen eating commence.

— CHEY SCOTT, Inlander food editor

MONARCH RAMEN

1401 N. Fourth St., Coeur d’Alene, 208-966-4230 What we got: Monarch ramen ($15) Steamy windows always remind of that hide-away restaurant tucked into an urban side street, with pungent aromas hitting as you enter — the promise of something warm and hearty on the plate. At Midtown Monarch, that something is in a bowl, and having tried nearly all five of their standard ramen noodle soup offerings since the place opened in October 2019, it’s tough to choose a fave. The signature Monarch ramen hits all the right notes with a spicy pork broth, savory and very tender braised pork, crunchy vegetable toppings like bean sprouts and bamboo, and the creaminess of a fried egg.

The pickled mustard greens on top of the soup cuts through the richness and balances the other flavors, making you wonder why pickled goodies aren’t part of every soup offering. Even better, you can build your own ramen ($13), which allows you to explore the various broths, noodles (try kale noodles), proteins and toppings to create the perfect bowl. (CARRIE SCOZZARO)

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

KOKORO RAMEN

509 N. Sullivan Rd. E, Spokane Valley, 309-2992 What we got: Tonkotsu ramen ($12) You might be skeptical about how well ramen can travel, but Kokoro Ramen and Boba Tea Time gives you a userfriendly setup. You’ll find all those tasty noodles, a sheet of nori, sliced pork, green onion, red ginger, bamboo shoots, a soft-boiled egg and other veggies, depending on your ramen choice, perfectly arranged in a travel bowl with a lid. The unctuous, fatty broth is in another container ready to be poured right into the bowl. Many Kokoro fans swear by the black garlic ramen, but their tonkotsu — made with their unique recipe for pork bone broth — is perfectly

delicious, too. Hitting all the savory notes you can only get from slow-boiled broth, this dish warms you from the inside out, perfect for winter time and that classic ramen craving. For 50 cents more, you can make it spicy. The servings are hefty — you might even get two meals out of it like I did. Plus, if you want some sweet with that savory, Kokoro offers extensive boba tea options (seriously, almost 40 tea options, and that’s not even counting the smoothies) with add-ons like tapioca boba, popping passion fruit boba, lychee jelly and more. (SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL) ...continued on next page

GLOSSARY BROTH Miso — A soy-based broth blended with chicken and/or fish stock Tonkotsu — A creamy pork-bone broth; cloudy and tan

Shoyu — A soy-based chicken or veggie broth; clear and dark Shio — A salty chicken, veggie or fishbased broth; clear and light

TOPPINGS Chashu — Pork Ajitsuke tamago seasoned boiled egg Kikurage — wood ear mushroom Moyashi — bean sprouts Menma/shinachiku — bamboo shoots

Nori — dried seaweed Naruto/narutomaki/kamaboko — processed fish “cakes” Negi — Green onion Ninniku — garlic

OTHER TERMS Ramyun — Korean-style ramen Ramenya — ramen shop/house Renge — ramen spoon Tsukemen — noodles served separately to dip in soup

JANUARY 21, 2021 INLANDER 15

THE

RAMEN ISSUE

PHO VS. RAMEN How to tell the difference between these two delicious Asian soups

B

oth are slurp-worthy soups. Both are brothy and noodly. But there’s a difference, as every soup Nazi worth his stock knows, between pho and ramen.

Pho (pronounced “fuh” to the delight of profane wordplay aficionados everywhere) is a Vietnamese invention, while ramen is a Japanese transformation of a Chinese import.

The difference starts with the noodles. Classic ramen relies on egg or wheat noodles, where pho uses flat rice noodles.

But the major distinction between both dishes — and the factor that determines a great pho or ramen dish — comes from the broth.

Pho takes a beefy broth and seasons it with the aromatic trifecta of clove, cinnamon and star anise. Ramen broth can vary depending on the type, but you’ll start with the foundation of chicken or pork bone stock, complexified with seasoning like ginger,

garlic, green onions and miso — a fermented soybean paste.

To pho, add bean sprouts, thin strips of beef, and herbs like cilantro, and — in America at least — lime wedges and jalapeño slices. To ramen, classic toppings include pork strips, seaweed, bamboo shoots and a soft-boiled egg.

And, of course, instant ramen is that beloved staple of bachelor pantries everywhere. Take your Top Ramen to even higher heights by dropping in a raw egg directly after it’s cooked and swirling it around as fast as possible with a fork to give the broth a deliciously eggy froth, almost like a savory dessert. Then top it with a dash of cayenne — or, if you have it, Korean gochugaru powder for a bit of heat.

— DANIEL WALTERS

16 INLANDER JANUARY 21, 2021

Spicy minced pork ramen from King of Ramen YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

LITTLE NOODLE

713 W. Garland Ave., 598-8635 What we got: Miso ramen with smoked pork belly ($15) Run, don’t walk, to Little Noodle, the Garland District’s new, seasonal noodle shop that debuted in October inside a space occupied the rest of the year by Honey Pig Barbecue. A project of local chef Kadra Evans (formerly of North Hill on Garland) and her brotherin-law Ryan Stretch, Little Noodle was born of creative necessity after both were laid off from previous jobs due to the pandemic, and to spotlight Evans’ carefully perfected pho recipe. The shop’s take on ramen is just as worthy of your taste buds. Thankfully, ramen noodles, their toppings and broth travel well to combine at home into the largest bowl you’ve got. Evans and Stretch’s take on ramen features an ultra unctuous miso-based broth that’s well seasoned with traditional Japanese togarashi spices (red chili pepper, hemp seed, roasted orange peel, sesame, ginger, nori and poppy seed) for rich, warm flavors. All the protein options for both pho and ramen are smoked prime meats (plus tofu), including tri tip, pork and pork belly (our favorite), as well as shrimp. Bonus: The kitchen doesn’t skimp (unlike many ramen houses, which only serve a single slice of pork) on these savory, smoky, salty meats. Joining the hearty protein portion are a few usual suspects: baby corn, a soft egg, green onion and dried seaweed. (CHEY SCOTT)

KING OF RAMEN

1601 N. Division St., 321-7050 What we got: Spicy minced pork ramen ($11) I was an early advocate of King of Ramen when Nick Weng and Terry Pan opened the unassuming spot in a Division Street strip mall in 2016. The broths used in steaming bowls of tonkotsu ramen or their Spicy King ramen were so heavenly it took me several visits before trying the spicy minced pork ramen. Ever since I did, I rarely let my attention travel to other parts of King of Ramen’s menu except for the occasional gyoza or spring roll appetizer. Resisting the broths of the traditional house ramens isn’t easy, but this dish is worth it. Visually, it almost resembles an Italian pasta dish.

The minced pork, piled high and topped with a jolt of electric-pink ginger, delivers incredible flavor through its spices that leave your tongue tingling, and the meaty mixture sits on a bed of ramen noo-

dles that help you sop up every last bit of piggy, peppery goodness.

If spicy or pork-based dishes aren’t your thing, King of Ramen has plenty of options, from those dreamy traditional ramens to a couple of curry and teriyaki dishes. And best of all, all their dishes proved just as tasty taken to-go for at-home dining. (DAN NAILEN)

NUDO RAMEN HOUSE

9602 N. Newport Hwy., 467-0292; 818 W. Sprague Ave., 290-5763 What we got: Tantanmen ($12) With its eye-catching pop-art aesthetic and unorthodox menu options — ramen burgers, anyone? — Nudo Ramen House has become a go-to spot for getting your ramen on, and both their downtown Spokane and Newport Highway locations are as bright and inviting as the food they serve up. As far as I’m concerned, any combination of savory broth and chewy noodles is likely to MORE TASTY be a slam dunk, especially on a drab January evening. But RAMEN this time around, I opted for BEET AND BASIL the tantanmen, a dish that was 105 S. First Ave., Sandpoint new to me and might now be a future favorite. It’s a Japanese FUSION KOREAN variation on a popular sichuan 13112 W. Sunset Hwy., Airway noodle meal, with chicken, Heights veggies and peanuts swimming in a sesame paste broth.

KAIJU SUSHI & SPIRITS Nudo’s menu specifies that 424 E. Sherman Ave., Coeur d’Alene the dish is spicy, which often gives me pause (you never KINJA know just how volcanic it’s 7458 N. Division St. going to be). But it turned out to have just the right level of MADLO’S RAMEN HOUSE heat for my tastes, and that 5919 Hwy. 291, Nine Mile Falls extra kick meshes nicely with the earthiness of the sauce, the O-RAMEN tenderness of the chicken and 131 N. Grand Ave., Pullman the crunch of the carrots and peanuts. (NATHAN RED BENTO WEINBENDER) n 1896 W. Pullman Rd., Moscow

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JANUARY 21, 2021 INLANDER 17

SPORTS

DYNAMIC

DUO

With senior Corey Kispert and freshman Jalen Suggs leading the way, Gonzaga has arguably the best men’s hoops team in its history

BY WILL MAUPIN

O

ne of them is old school and the other is new, but together on the court they’ve proven to be a perfect combination.

Jalen Suggs, a freshman phenom choosing to spend his required season between high school and the NBA here in Spokane, is the new. He’s a one-and-done talent generating buzz as a potential No. 1 draft pick. Corey Kispert represents the old school. A player whose development over four seasons as a Zag has transformed him from role player into an all-America performer and potential Top 10 pick.

Teams like Duke and Kentucky, the traditional powerhouses of the sport, load up year after year on the elite freshman talents like Suggs. Successful mid-majors, a group that once upon a time included Gonzaga, tend to follow the developmental route.

They operate as college teams always have, with players who stay for four years, improving their game with each passing season.

Gonzaga’s successful balancing act between those two approaches has the undefeated Zags sitting atop the college basketball world.

“A lot of guys who are at his talent level come into a college program and expect things to be handed to them,” Kispert says of Suggs. “There’s this big culture shock when the older guys are pushing back against you and things aren’t quite easy as they used to be. Every person goes through that sort of phase.

“The thing with Jalen is that when we went at him and put the pressure on him, he responded, he fought back, and he knew from day one he had to earn everything that came his way.” ...continued on page 23

18 INLANDER JANUARY 21, 2021

Corey Kispert (left) and Jalen Suggs ERICK DOXEY PHOTOS

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22 INLANDER JANUARY 21, 2021

CULTURE | SPORTS

These two former high school quarterbacks could be key to Gonzaga winning its first national championship.

ERICK DOXEY PHOTO

“DYNAMIC DUO,” CONTINUED...

Suggs is the highest-rated recruit in Gonzaga history, having been ranked by ESPN as the sixth best prospect in the class of 2020. As a high school senior, he won Minnesota’s Mr. Basketball award as the state’s best boys basketball player. The Zags’ competition on the recruiting trail included teams like Baylor and Iowa, both of which have spent this season in the top five of the AP Poll, and Ohio State. Not the Ohio State basketball team, though.

The Buckeyes, who just last week played in college football’s national championship game, offered Suggs a scholarship to play on the gridiron. He wasn’t just Mr. Basketball in Minnesota — he won Mr. Football as well.

That background led to a team-building exercise that pitted Suggs against another former high school quarterback now playing basketball at Gonzaga.

“It was a Friday night in the summer, and we were all sitting around bored. Joel [Ayayi] suggested we go play football,” Kispert says. “We played some seven on seven until it was too dark to see. It got really intense. It was super, super fun, and it was a good ice breaker for the new guys on the team.”

In postgame interviews and on Twitter, the two have enjoyed hinting at their battle without necessarily giving away too much about the result.

“Me and Corey were obviously the two quarterbacks,” Suggs says. “He showed me a lot of good things. I think that QB1 battle was definitely a close one. Corey’s a great guy, a great teammate. I love being around him; I love learning from him.”

O

n court and off, there’s no better teacher on this Gonzaga roster than Kispert. Aside from Aaron Cook, who transferred from Southern Illinois, Kispert is the team’s lone senior. That alone puts him in a leadership role, but it’s his background that makes him the perfect guy to lead by example.

When he arrived at Gonzaga in fall 2017, the Zags were coming off a trip to the national championship game. The program was operating at as high a level as it ever had. But Kispert wasn’t a newfangled, fancy recruit.

He fit the traditional Gonzaga mold. An in-state kid from the west side good enough to start from day one but who spent most of his freshman year coming off the bench as a role player. Every season that followed saw Kispert’s game take a step forward.

“Every summer since I’ve been here I’ve picked one thing, two things, that I really hone in on and work hard at,” Kispert says. “Last summer it was defense and ball handling. This year I wanted to shoot close to 50 percent from three and be more versatile in my scoring.”

While working on his offensive game, Kispert was also considering his future. He was projected to be a late second round pick in last year’s NBA draft, but he ultimately chose to return for his senior season. It was an opportunity to bet on himself and improve his draft stock.

“I knew I was either going to play in the NBA or come back for my senior season, so I knew I had to make a jump no matter what I decided to do,” Kispert says.

“That was the rhetoric after I decided to come back here.

Every game I get a chance to prove that the bet came out in my favor. I’m really relishing every single game that I get to play.”

those that came before it.

“That’s the great thing about this program — enough is never good enough,” Kispert says. “A Final Four isn’t good enough. All the years we’ve made the tournament isn’t enough. We’re always pushing for more, and we’re not satisfied with where we’re at. I think that’s what made the continued success and the Cinderella story that is Gonzaga so great.”

T

he Zags have had a senior leader for what feels like forever now. They’ve had talented rosters for 20-plus years. They’ve had a handful of players who were talented enough to leave early for the NBA, too. This year though, they have all of that at the same time. And the pieces comprising Gonzaga’s puzzle are better than normal.

Suggs would be playing in the NBA this season if the league’s rules allowed for players to do so straight out of high school. He made that very clear just 30 seconds into his first collegiate game by slamming down an alley-oop dunk against then No. 6-ranked Kansas and has shown it all season long with an ever-growing list of jaw-dropping passes. He’s a pro in a college uniform.

Even after he committed to Gonzaga last January, in a ceremony aired live on ESPN2, there was a real possibility he could be lured overseas by a lucrative one-year professional contract. Instead of taking the money, he stayed true to his word and came to Gonzaga. Every year a handful of elite recruits choose to play overseas or in the NBA’s developmental league, which allows players who are coming straight out of high school. A ton more choose to leave college early to play for a paycheck. Gonzaga’s got two who did the opposite.

Much like Kispert’s bet on himself this past offseason, Suggs’ decision to come to Gonzaga has paid off.

Despite taking incredibly different paths to get here, these two players have become among the biggest names in all of college basketball. There’s a very good chance they’ll both have their names listed among the first 10 picks in the next NBA draft.

Until then, though, this one-and-done freshman and fourth-year senior will continue to help push Gonzaga to new heights. n

“A Final Four isn’t good enough. We’re always pushing for more, and we’re not satisfied with where we’re at.”

This season Kispert is the team’s leading scorer (20.9 points per game) and has achieved his goal of shooting close to 50 percent from three. He’s surpassed 1,000 points scored for his career and climbed into the top 10 in Gonzaga history in three-pointers made and games won.

On the most talented roster Gonzaga’s ever assembled, Kispert is arguably the best player and without question the team’s leader.

That’s business as usual, though. The Zags almost always have at least one senior starter who has spent his entire career at Gonzaga. Last year it was Killian Tillie, and before him guys like Przemek Karnowski, Kevin Pangos, Robert Sacre and Jeremy Pargo held that position. This year, it’s Kispert. The last time the team didn’t have a guy who fit that criteria was 2006, when a mustachioed junior named Adam Morrison took college basketball by storm.

Somehow though, this season feels different than all

JANUARY 21, 2021 INLANDER 23

CULTURE | BOOKS

Thug Life My first time… reading Bill Buford’s soccer hooliganism classic Among the Thugs

BY DAN NAILEN

T

he best sports books are about far more than whatever game is the focus and can appeal to readers with absolutely no interest in athletics as much as they appeal to hardcore fans and historians.

The Boys of Summer is ostensibly about the Brooklyn Dodgers of the mid-1950s, but it’s really about community, fame and aging. Friday Night Lights is purportedly about high school football, but it’s really about class and small-town America. Levels of the Game is professedly about one Arthur Ashe tennis match, but it’s really about race, politics and the divisions in the country in the late 1960s.

Bill Buford’s Among the Thugs is, at face value, about one American becoming a fan of English Premiere League soccer (“football” across the pond, of course) in the 1980s. But it’s really about racism, class warfare and group psychosis in the name of rooting for your favorite club, and the 313 pages of the paperback version I recently read alternate between mesmerizing and horrifying.

All of it is incredibly enlightening in terms of the dangers of a riled-up, dangerous crowd — a point that became

24 INLANDER JANUARY 21, 2021

more emphatically clear with the events at the U.S. Capitol a full 30 years after the riot Buford experienced at the 1990 World Cup. That event was the culmination of a decade in which violence regularly marred the English Premiere League as well as international matches played

by England’s national team. Clashes between different teams’ fans, and between British fans and their international rivals, led to a lot of death, destruction, even an effort to ban England from international play for a spell.

B

uford was in the midst of that mayhem throughout, researching organizations and fans, attending games, even joining some of the most fanatic instigators as they planned their tactics for avoiding police, inflicting damage on their foes’ supporters and still making it inside the stadium for kickoff. The only thing more shocking than scenes of children being kicked by drunk hooligans or the regular stabbings as part of the fans’ hand-to-hand combat might be Buford’s willingness to put himself in the middle of situations any sane person would avoid. Case in point: spending an evening at a party and initiation ritual of violent British white supremacy group the National Front.

What makes Buford’s work more than a read about violence is the humor he infuses throughout, often in describing his own naivete about the events he was getting involved in, or in describing characters like Mick, a Manchester United fan with no noticeable employment, but a voracious appetite: “In addition to a newspaper full of fish ’n’ chips, his two cheeseburgers, his two meat pies, his four bags of bacon-flavored crisps, and the Indian takeout order he was about to purchase on his way to the station.” He washed all that down with the better part of a bottle of vodka and 18 pints of beer. Plus a few cans in his pockets for later.

Meeting the occasional charming lout, though, does nothing to blunt the horrors to come as Buford explores the sociology and psychology of the violent crews who marauded through the streets of various European cities while Buford was working on Among the Thugs. This is where the comparisons come in to modern American groups like the Proud Boys, Boogaloo Boys and various other MAGA supporters on hand in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6 and at other violent clashes and Trump rallies the past few years.

T

he football fanatics Buford writes about are just a small percentage of the teams’ fans, but they have an oversized influence on the culture of the game, and in the media’s coverage of the sport. And they share some characteristics no matter which club Buford is hanging out with; they’re invariably white, often overtly racist, generally considered “working class.”

As individuals, they can come off as attractive rascals, scamming the airlines for free flights to away matches, drinking too much and coming up with creative ways to ditch work on game days. When those individuals come together, though, things almost invariably take an ugly turn. There are racist chants at Black players and physical attacks on police and innocent bystanders. They have a sense of belonging and community thanks to the group, sure, but the group in turn encourages a mob mentality that results in horrific violence against anyone the group considers the “other side.”

Buford’s analysis of the dynamics of a crowd is what makes Among the Thugs transcend simply being another sports book. How those crowds form and gain power, and make individuals act in ways unimaginable when you meet them over a beer or fish ’n’ chips, makes for an excellent read. And a timely one, too. n

CULTURE | DIGEST

THE TALENTED MR. LING In their podcast Finding Drago, Australian comedians Alexei Toliopoulos and Cameron James played internet detectives searching for the enigmatic author behind some bizarre Rocky IV fan-fiction. It was a funny, surprising dive into internet ephemera, and they’re back with another baffling audio mystery called Finding Desperado. This time, they’re on the hunt for one Sidney Ling, who was listed in an old edition of the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s youngest movie director, but scant evidence of Ling’s career and his supposed trailblazing film (1973’s Lex, the Wonder Dog) exists. Their hunt includes diversions into the arts community of Ibiza, a woman who believes she is Marilyn Monroe’s secret daughter, and a man who claims to be a centuries-old mystic. (NATHAN WEINBENDER)

Turn the Page

T

BY NATHAN WEINBENDER

he chaos and weirdness of the last 10 months have required us to adapt, to get used to being more alone, to adjust our previously steadfast habits.

And last month, I did something I never thought I’d do: I bought a Kindle. I’m now living in the high-tech, Jetsons-like world of 2011.

This is unbelievably minor in the grand scheme of things, I know, but I’ve long been a book purist. The very idea of e-readers was anathema to me. When I read a novel, I want to be able to hold a physical copy of it, to feel the pages between my fingers, to visualize how much progress I’ve made and how much I’ve left to go.

THE BUZZ BIN

THIS WEEK’S PLAYLIST There’s noteworthy new music arriving in stores and online Jan. 22. To wit: MOON TAXI, Silver Dream. The Nashville indiepoppers deliver some breezy new tunes.

STEVE HACKETT, Under a Mediterranean Sky. He’s a prog-rock god, so I can only assume this album is one long boring song.

VARIOUS ARTISTS, Cuba: Music & Revolution Culture Clash in Havana Cuba - Experiments in Latin Music 1975-85 Vol. 1. With a title that long, there’s no space to describe how excellent it should be. (DAN NAILEN)

There’s also a sense of accomplishment in turning the last page and finally closing that back cover. Reading a book on a screen, meanwhile, doesn’t feel all that different from scrolling to the end of a long internet article.

There’s a reason people don’t log those on Goodreads.

If I can, I prefer to own the books I read. When Seinfeld derided people for keeping books in their house like trophies, I wanted to respond, “Yeah, exactly!”

I’ve been reading more than usual because of the lockdown, ordering new titles from Auntie’s and Portland mainstay Powell’s. But it was after my fourth or fifth shipment that I came to the conclusion that my bookworm/packrat proclivities are becoming untenable. I cling to just about every form of physical media — books, yes, but also records, BluRays and even VHS tapes — but there’s one major downside to owning a lot of this stuff: Eventually, you run out of space.

A recent assessment of our household bookshelf inventory revealed that, even after casting off armfuls to a free library, they were fit to bust. So I gave in, and threw some money at a Kindle Paperwhite, which is about the size of an old dime-store paperback.

And I have to admit — it’s pretty awesome. I can read in bed without a lamp or book light. I can read magazines and newspapers on it. I can download e-books from the public library — which has been an absolute godsend during the pandemic — and they pop up instantly on my device. They’re just as easy to return when I’m done.

I realize this makes me sound like the hundredth caveman to think he discovered fire, but the stigma against e-books was merely self applied. It’s a big step for a Luddite like me. Come 2026, maybe I’ll finally buy that PS5. n

SURVIVE AT ALL COSTS By the fifth season of The 100, I started to worry things were getting a little too crazy. Teenagers cast to Earth from a space station to see how survivable it is a century after nuclear destruction? Sure. Surviving fights with murderous survivors? Totally. (SPOILERS AHEAD) But fighting a biotoxin that makes people want to kill each other and only gets released when binary stars eclipse each other on the Earth-like moon of a Saturn-like planet? Inside a compound maintained by a cult? You’re starting to lose me. Still, I love when a series wraps up in any meaningful way, and those who stick through the seventh season on Netflix will not walk away wondering what could have come next. (SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL)

READ THIS NOW A new piece by Spokane author Sharma Shields (The Cassandra) is always reason to rejoice, and Humanities Washington is hosting the celebration.

It took me a minute to catch up with Good Steak on the state arts organization’s blog, and the tale is one you should read right now, featuring Little Boy Blue, Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater and, in a starring role, the Man in the Moon. Find it at humanities.org/blog/ good-steak. (DAN NAILEN)

SECRETS & LIES True crime miniseries are a dime a dozen, and while HBO’s Murder on Middle Beach has a lot of the genre hallmarks, it’s unusual in that it’s as much a mystery as a memoir. Director Madison Hamburg details his relationship with his mother, Barbara, and the circumstances surrounding her 2010 murder, a heartbreaking odyssey that involves a multilevel marketing scam, his estranged father’s shady business dealings and his relatives’ outlandish theories about the crime. There’s no clear-cut solution by the end of the four-episode arc, but it’s still an engrossing study of grief and family secrets. (NATHAN WEINBENDER)

JANUARY 21, 2021 INLANDER 25

The Pints burger YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

OPENING

BURGER BASE Pint House Burgers & Brews brings casual pub menu and vibe to Spokane’s Indian Trail neighborhood

BY CHEY SCOTT

A

new pub in Spokane’s south Indian Trail neighborhood was just getting a feel for the ebb and flow of service when its staff had to quickly pivot to takeout-only.

Washington state’s second lockdown came just three weeks after Pint House Burgers & Brews’ grand opening in late October, says owner Josh Blair.

While the restaurant, with a focus on burgers and

26 INLANDER JANUARY 21, 2021

broad selection of regional beer, could only debut at half capacity back then, Blair says it easily hit or came close to that 50 percent mark each night those first few weeks.

Support from customers in the northwest Spokane neighborhood hasn’t wavered even as the restaurant had to close its large dining room, which normally seats about 150 people. ...continued on page 28

STCU COMMERCIAL AND BUSINESS SERVICES

“It’s important for people to have ownership.”

- Brett and Susan Sommer, owners, Figpickels Toy Emporium in Coeur d’Alene.

A family-owned toy store. A member-owned credit union. A partnership built on spreading joy, encouraging imagination, and serving the community.

STCU Commercial and Business Services provides support at every step, with the tools you need to manage your business, and the loans you need to help it grow.

Call STCU at (509) 344-2200 or explore stcu.org/business.

All loans subject to approval. Insured by NCUA.

JANUARY 21, 2021 INLANDER 27

FOOD | OPENINGS “BURGER BASE,” CONTINUED...

“The community has been so supportive of us,” Blair says. “This is such an underserviced area for familyowned restaurants and local restaurants, so the support has been great.”

Proof of that came just weeks into the on-site dining shutdown when Pint House upped the nights it’s open for takeout each week from five to six. The restaurant currently operates for dinner service every day but Tuesday, from 3 to 8 pm. Blair says so far the restaurant has been seeing upward of 125 takeout orders each night.

“We had to add a second phone line because running a takeout restaurant, if you don’t have a second line, you can’t click over and answer another call,” he says.

Pint House is located in what formerly was a multitenant commercial building, and it expanded into all four of the previously separate spaces. It’s a couple blocks from the Indian Trail Road and Francis Avenue intersection, near a Yoke’s Fresh Market grocery store.

Blair is a former owner of the downtown pub 24 Taps Burgers & Brews, which he and a business partner sold a couple years ago.

The menu for Pint House was developed by Blair and centers on 10 gourmet burgers. While the menu options have been temporarily abbreviated to better adapt to takeout service, there also are salads, sandwiches, wings, chicken strips, nachos and several pub-style appetizers. Blair says among the latter, its handmade fresh mozzarella sticks ($13) and fried breaded pickles ($10) are top sellers.

Among the pub’s 10 burger combinations ($14.50$16), one topped with avocado and bacon is an early standout. Other burgers include mushroom and swiss, black and blue, classic cheese and a bacon cheeseburger.

The house Pints burger is called out on the menu for being “amazingly messy,” coming topped with a runny egg.

The taco burger also stands tall, literally, with housemade tortilla chips stacked on a taco-seasoned beef patty alongside other traditional taco toppings.

Pint House owner Josh Blair

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

Each burger contains two hand-pressed patties on a brioche bun and comes with one of several side choices.

In the bar, Pint House lives up to its name with 24 tap handles of regional craft and domestic beers, plus seasonal varieties and some non-beer options like hard cider and seltzer. While the restaurant has a full bar license, for now just beer is available to-go in growlers, Blair says.

Customers stopping in lately to pick up takeout may notice the dining room filled with big screen TVs, but Blair says his goal isn’t for Pint House to be a typical sports bar, although it’ll certainly tune in to big games on some of those screens.

“We want to be your local, neighborhood family-style restaurant — that is really what we’re going for,” he says.

“We want to focus on hearty portions of fresh burgers and pub-style food.” n Pint House Burgers & Brews • 3325 W. Indian Trail Rd. • Open (takeout only) Wed-Mon 3-8 pm • pinthousepub.com • 290-6937

28 INLANDER JANUARY 21, 2021

Near and Dear

The Parma pizza

CARRIE SCOZZARO PHOTO

Riverstone’s Vine & Olive adds sister restaurant nearby with Vicino Neapolitan Style Pizza

BY CARRIE SCOZZARO

P

izza has returned to Coeur d’Alene’s Riverstone complex in an unintended pandemic expansion.

Vicino, which means “nearby” in Italian, is the sister restaurant to Vine & Olive, also in Riverstone. Vine & Olive’s dining room was closed due to Idaho’s stay-home order, says owner Naomi Boutz, who opened the restaurant in January 2018.

“I was beyond mentally drained,” says Boutz, who adds she had been open to someday starting a second restaurant, yet not during a pandemic. She blanched when Vine & Olive executive chef Josh Pebbles suggested she look into the former Bullman’s Pizza location.

But the seed, once planted, took root as Boutz researched the idea. Pizza has fared better than most restaurant concepts during the pandemic as takeout continues to gain market share, she realized. Riverstone gets good foot traffic, she posited, and Vicino’s could echo Vine & Olive’s soulful approach, including a stellar wine list.

“When I found myself getting up at 6 am to research potential names for the new restaurant, I knew it would be a go,” says Boutz.

Her ace-in-the-hole: Vine & Olive’s chef Pebbles, who once worked in Italy, as well as in a bona fide Italian kitchen stateside, where he learned “the importance of the protein, hydration, ash levels and fermenting time to come up with a truly perfect dough for Neapolita-style pizza,” he says.

The dough is the blank canvas for Pebbles’ creations, from the Margherita ($15) with San Marzano tomatoes to the Bianco ($16) with white sauce, Castelvetrano olives, potato and two cheeses to the Parma ($17) with prosciutto, mascarpone crème, arugula, balsamic reduction and pecorino. The Speck and

Peach ($18) features house-made pork belly, popular in northeastern Italy, where Pebbles apprenticed at the Michelin-starred, 300-year-old restaurant Hosteria Giusti.

Pebbles added a few appetizers, from his housemade meatballs ($9) and fried calamari ($11) to several salads, like the radicchio with shaved celery, pears and candied nuts ($7/$12) and the Caesar made piquant with the addition of capers ($7/$11).

Sommelier Krista French built Vicino’s wine collection to pair well with the food, of course, but also to introduce diners to new producers and grapes, she says. French focused on southern Italian wines, eventually representing all of Italy, from Sicily to Tuscany and Piedmont. She recently added the rustic Aquila del Torre Refosco ($32/bottle), for example, from an ancient grape variety indigenous to Friuli, Italy.

“My hope is that our guests will find wines that are intriguing and at the same time won’t break the bank,” says French, who plans to add Northwest wines featuring Italian grapes.

Stylistically, Vicino is yin to Vine & Olive’s yang, with a bright farmhouse feel — white walls and ceilings accented by an older wood floor and flat black seating — compared with Vine & Olive’s gray and earth tones.

On the walls are assorted pizza peels, the oversized wooden spatulas that allow the pizza to be slid into and, more importantly, retrieved from a scorching hot oven, as well as photos from Boutz’s travels in Italy. n Vicino Neapolitan Style Pizza • 2385 N. Old Mill Loop, Coeur d’Alene • Open Sun-Thu 11 am-9 pm, Fri-Sat 11 am-10 pm • vicinopizza.com • 208-7587997

Locked Down

STREAMING

UNCLASSIFIABLE Two new films — Locked Down and Shadow in the Cloud — blend unlikely genres with mixed results

BY NATHAN WEINBENDER

LOCKED DOWN Rated R | Directed by Doug Liman | Starring Anne Hathaway, Chiwetel Ejiofor | Streaming on HBO Max Considering we’re still deep in a pandemic with no obvious end in sight, I’m not sure when (or if) I’ll ever be clamoring for narratives about the pandemic. There have been a few features inspired by our current reality, including the Zoom-set supernatural horror film Host and the Michael Bay production Songbird, which imagined a COVID-fueled dystopia. And now there’s Locked Down, shot quickly during the pandemic in the abandoned

streets of London.

But if my desire for pandemic stories is minimal, then my desire for pandemic stories centered on rich people is pretty much nonexistent, and Locked Down sort of hedges its bets by trapping us in a beautiful, spacious townhouse with a well-off couple who are miserable together.

Linda (Anne Hathaway) works for a high-end fashion company, while her partner, Paxton (Chiwetel Ejiofor),

relies on under-the-table driving jobs because a crime in his past has made him unemployable. The film is set in mid-March, right as the U.K. is preparing to shut down for a couple weeks, and right as Linda and Paxton’s relationship is beginning to fizzle. They’re living under the same roof now, but once everything is back to normal, they’ll go their separate ways. ...continued on next page

JANUARY 21, 2021 INLANDER 29

FILM | STREAMING “UNCLASSIFIABLE,” CONTINUED...

Of course, the lockdown goes on longer than anyone expects, and that’s when the movie reveals its true intentions. Paxton has been hired to transport millions of dollars worth of valuables from the upscale department store Harrods, and Linda, suddenly jaded by the corporate world, realizes that she not only has an in with the store’s security team but knows the location of a diamond that’s worth enough to keep her and Paxton financially comfortable.

This actually isn’t a bad concept for a film, but it’s pulled off all wrong. The heist plot (which isn’t nearly as

watertight as the movie seems to think it is) doesn’t kick in until the film is at least half over, and by that time we’ve been stuck with two characters who are uninteresting at best and straight-up irritating at worst. It’s hard to feel any kind of sympathy toward them, particularly Linda, whose biggest moral dilemma involves firing some of her employees and deciding whether or not to accept a promotion. This seems more than a bit callous, particularly when frontline workers and hospital staff have actual problems.

Locked Down was directed by Doug Liman, best

known for action spectacles like The Bourne Identity, Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Edge of Tomorrow, and written by Steven Knight (Dirty Pretty Things, Locke). I have to give them credit for a pretty gutsy idea — a bittersweet relationship drama that morphs into a heist comedy, with a real-life health crisis as a backdrop — but this movie needed to be either way breezier or way grittier if it was going to work.

Even if you have a lot of time on your hands these days, you don’t need to spend it with two annoying people in a mediocre movie.

Shadow in the Cloud

SHADOW IN THE CLOUD Rated R | Directed by Roseanne Liang | Starring Chloë Grace Moretz | Available for digital rental I didn’t quite know what to expect of Roseanne Liang’s Shadow in the Cloud. It’s a truly weird cross between Gremlins, the “Terror at 20,000 Feet” episode of Twilight Zone and such plane-bound, ticking-clock mysteries like Flightplan or Red Eye, and though it’s not as good as any of those, it’s trying something unusual.

The film opens on an air base in New Zealand in 1943, as a female flight officer named Garrett (Chloë Grace Moretz) waltzes onto a departing bomber with her arm in a sling and a mysterious carry-on bag that must be stored in an upright position. The all-male crew is par-

30 INLANDER JANUARY 21, 2021

ticularly hostile to her, hurling sexist insults and making derogatory comments, and locking her in a gunner turret underneath the plane.

As they’re heading through a cloud front, Garrett sees something scurrying about on one of the wings — it looks like the mythical gremlins that are introduced in a fake animated PSA at the top of the film — but she can’t convince the men above that she’s telling the truth.

Shadow in the Cloud is predicated on an interestingenough idea, and zips by in about 75 minutes. But it ultimately doesn’t really work, and I think it’s because it

never quite settles on what it’s really about. We get some bloody monster violence (because, of course, the gremlins turn out to be quite real), some physics-defying stunts and one or two tear-streaked confessions, but those disparate parts never quite click together in a satisfying way.

At the same time, I have to give credit to Liang for making some bold choices. This isn’t a predictable action movie by any means, and it’s got so many potentially great ideas that it’s all the more frustrating when they don’t pay off. I admired what it was trying to do without ever really buying into it. n

VIDEOS

From left: Tyler Poole, Nik Michaels, Ryan Stocks, Adam Darling and Jon Kuritz of Live From Somewhere.

Spokane Sounds The music video series Live from Somewhere showcases local artists and the beauty of the Inland Northwest

BY NATHAN WEINBENDER

J

ust about everything in this pandemic age has inspired a sense of displacement, particularly in the realm of the arts, where most venues are closed and in-person gatherings are discouraged. The local music video series Live from Somewhere is something of a remedy to that displacement, and the name says it all: It’s not only giving Spokane performers a spotlight, but it’s also showcasing unorthodox locales around the city.

Founded by friends Jon Kuritz, Tyler Poole and Ryan Stocks, Live from Somewhere features slickly produced performances from a variety of artists, and each video finds those artists in a location that you wouldn’t normally associate with live music. The trio started the project last year, shooting the first video in July, and it was inspired by the sheer dearth of live music caused by the spread of COVID-19.

“There are so many restrictions on what you can and can’t do now. You can’t have live music at venues. You can’t have a crowd, and the list goes on,” Kuritz explains.

“We live in the Pacific Northwest — we can put a camera anywhere and get a cool vibe.”

Kuritz has made music videos for several local artists, and so he directs the video shoots, while Stocks, who is also a member of the popular local band the Broken Thumbs, manages the artists. Kuritz and Stocks later brought in their friend Poole, who’s an audio engineer.

Looking back on their first Live from Somewhere production, which featured Spokane rappers Exzac Change and Matisse performing on stools in the middle of a gravel lot, they instantly knew they were onto something.

“We were all sitting there watching this hip-hop duo just crush it,” Stocks recalls. “It was definitely pretty special. I think we all felt it in that moment. That first episode went better than I think we all expected it to. Not that we were expecting a train wreck, but we were like, ‘Wow, we pulled it off — let’s keep doing it.’”

The Live from Somewhere clips that have been uploaded to YouTube so far boast a roster of artists from all over the genre spectrum. You can see the pop-rock trio Light in Mirrors performing on a stage in the middle of a Deer Park field. Rockers Uh Oh and the Oh Wells, meanwhile, are next to the Spokane River in a clip that was shot in the middle of summertime smoke season. Hip-hop fusion artist Brotha Nature spins his unique blend of samples and loops beneath the colorful Pavilion lights.

“Genre is not something that we’re taking into consideration, really,” Stocks says. “It’s mostly just artists that are hungry for it, that want to perform, that are willing to put in the work and who want to collaborate with us on the idea.”

The founders hope that kind of stylistic diversity will eventually benefit the Spokane scene itself, and they’re

ADAM DARLING PHOTO

encouraging the participating artists to work together outside the constraints of the Live from Somewhere series.

“When we come out of this, we can use this to build a better music community,” Kuritz says. “[Uh Oh and the Oh Wells] probably would never have crossed paths with Brotha Nature, and now they have a collaborative single on Spotify. So now they can do a show together because of that collab and maybe work together more. Who knows what kind of lineups we’re going to see when we get back?”

Beyond the main series of videos, the guys behind Live from Somewhere have also produced what they call the “winter acoustic series,” as well as an accompanying podcast that features interviews with the performers. They’ve been using their own equipment and editing the videos on their own time, and they have since partnered with a handful of local businesses and nabbed a few sponsorships. They’re currently in the process of applying for nonprofit status.

But it’s really all about the artists, they say: Most local musicians don’t get to star in their own set-length concert film, complete with hi-def footage and elaborate drone shots.

“I think it’s important that they get recognized, and what’s better than to give them this great production that they can share with people,” Kuritz says. “It’s important not only when we’re in a pandemic, but just in general, building a platform for local artists to showcase their live shows. And that’s kind of what we’ve been pushing since day one.”

There’s also a benefit to the creators behind Live from Somewhere: Poole jokes that they sometimes feel a bit selfish, because they get to see concerts in ways that other people don’t.

“We’re all huge fans of local music, and seeing our friends do what they love to do,” Poole says. “Now we get to do it twice a month.” n The Live from Somewhere videos are available on YouTube, and at lfsnw.com.

JANUARY 21, 2021 INLANDER 31

Takuichi Fujii’s Self Portrait, 1935

VISUAL ARTS THE MAC IS BACK

The MAC recently reopened for private visits (50 minutes for groups of six or fewer from the same household) under revised guidelines for Washington’s coronavirus reopening plan.

The news comes at a good time, as the museum is getting ready to bid farewell to this winter’s POP Power: From Warhol to Koons exhibit and two World War II retrospectives. Both close Jan. 24, and several new exhibits are on the way. The first new show of 2021 is Witness to Wartime, featuring work by Japanese American artist Takuichi Fujii, who was 50 when war broke out between the U.S. and Japan. Fujii was among more than 120,000 Japanese Americans forcibly removed to remote incarceration camps during the war. There, the artist documented camp life in deep detail in his visual diary. Some of his more than 250 ink drawings and 130 watercolors produced during imprisonment are now part of this traveling exhibit.

— CHEY SCOTT Witness to Wartime: The Painted Diary of Takuichi Fujii • Jan. 23-May 16; visits currently by reservation only • $7-$12 • Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture • 2316 W. First Ave. • northwestmuseum.org • 456-3931

WORDS TRUTHFUL TALK

Spokane Community College’s Diversity Dialogues: Conversations About Race and Equity series continues Wednesday with Daudi Abe, a Seattle-based writer and professor who’s researched the racial achievement gap in schools for Black students and how it’s tied to a “discipline gap.” Abe is also the author of Emerald Street: Race, Class, Culture and the History of Hip-Hop in the Northwest, and I can’t imagine his virtual discussion will be complete without him delivering some of that knowledge. In addition to a session for students in the morning, Abe delivers a public talk via the SCC YouTube channel in the evening.

— DAN NAILEN Diversity Dialogues: Daudi Abe • Wed, Jan. 27 at 6:30 pm • Online at youtube.com/c/CommunityCollegesofSpokane/

32 INLANDER JANUARY 21, 2021

MUSIC TOUCH OF GREY

The Baby Bar’s virtual concert series has been a salve for local music fans missing live shows, and the downtown hangout has been broadcasting performances from some of Spokane’s favorite artists out into the world. This weekend offers a performance from the local band Greying, whose sound exists simultaneously in the realms of guttural metal and more melodic prog- and post-rock.

Their sophomore album, A Harp Lie, is streaming online, and for purchase on cassette through the band’s Bandcamp. The series continues next month with Missoula-based pop-punk band Western States on Feb. 6, and a Valentine’s-themed stream of local artists covering romantic songs on Feb. 19. E-tickets grant access to the live shows and a 48-hour rewatch window.

— NATHAN WEINBENDER Greying • Sat, Jan. 23 at 8 pm • $5 • Streaming at babybarneatoburrito.veeps.com

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WORDS JOIN THE CLUB

Eastern Washington University’s ongoing Visiting Writers series welcomes a big name in its next virtual symposium, as bestselling author Amy Tan discusses her life and work. Tan is best known for her 1989 debut novel The Joy Luck Club, which explored the relationships between a group of Chinese women and their American-born daughters and was adapted into a hit 1993 film by Wayne Wang. Her other novels include The Kitchen God’s Wife, The Valley of Amazement and The Hundred Secret Senses, and she has also dabbled in children’s literature and in nonfiction, including The Opposite of Fate: A Collection of Musings and her memoir Where the Past Begins. Tan’s talk streams on the YouTube page for Eastern’s MFA program.

— NATHAN WEINBENDER

+

EWU Visiting Writers Series: Amy Tan • Fri, Jan. 22 at 7:30 pm • Free • Streaming on YouTube; details at facebook.com/EWUMFA

COMMUNITY THE FUTURE IS FEMALE

Womxn’s marches across the country this year unfortunately won’t take to the streets due to the pandemic’s limitations on public gatherings. Instead, rallies are moving to the virtual sphere, including Idaho’s statewide celebration. The inclusive, nonpartisan online gathering invites womxn and anyone who supports empowering female voices through activism, engagement and leadership. The 2021 march also has a special focus on lifting up young future leaders of women’s advocacy. “It’s important to amplify the voices of young people who are playing a crucial role in determining the future of our communities, our democracy and our planet,” says event co-organizer Sam Sandmire. “Idaho’s first Women’s March was organized by two high school students, so we’re going back to our roots in focusing on youth.”

— CHEY SCOTT

Find National and International News on inlander.com every day, now powered by The New York Times

Virtual Idaho Womxn’s March • Sat, Jan. 23 at 2:30 pm • Online at facebook. com/Idahowomxnsmarch2021; also streaming on Instagram and YouTube

JANUARY 21, 2021 INLANDER 33

be universally stellar. Certainly. Enjoy the view!!!

ROSAUERS ON 14TH I talked to you, Rosauers on 14th. Saturday January 16.

Girl with pink hair, would love to talk more with funny old (LOL) man!

CHEERS DOG TRICKS I don’t care wtf is going on in the world... watching my dog make a bed is the world to me

I SAW YOU DON’T HELP ME, I’M DROWNING When I look into your beautiful blue-green eyes, I see so many things. I see the pain caused by the one who was supposed to love you but has hurt and neglected you.

How could anyone know you, supposedly love you and slowly crush the light within you? Most of all, I see the love and tenderness that radiates from within. It is undeniable. My lovely, lovely woman, I drown in your eyes.

I WALK THE LINE I love to see you dance, smile and sing. But nothing is better than when you belly laugh. I know it can be a tough road to walk, but if we keep dancing, smiling and belly laughing, we’ll be just fine as we walk the line.

YOU SAW ME SEEING YOU Hey there, you with the stars in your eyes. She knows about Arizona. We “told” her. Not everything.

You can tell her the rest!! She’ll still be surprised!! No question there. Good luck with that. Sounds SO fun. Your 6 degrees of separation are closer than 2. So very many mutual acquaintances, keep surfacing on her end. You never really know who and what you don’t know... yet.

Most won’t reveal the secret, so it’ll still

SOUND OFF

PAY IT FORWARD AT D’LISH To the person or persons who paid for the meals for the car behind them tonight Friday Jan 15th around 6:00 PM, at the D’Lish drivethru window: Thank you so much! We have been dealing with two insurance claims for what seems to be an eternity, one for an auto accident (totaled car plus injuries) and the second for a flooded home. Needless to say the stress has been overwhelming. Your kind gesture has given us a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.

JEERS TO ALL TRUMP NON-BELIEVERS To the Trump supporters that still believe the election was “stolen,” I really can understand your perspective. After all it is clear based on actual observations that: (i) the Earth is flat (I look out my window and don’t see any curvature, so it must be flat); (2) the sun revolves around the Earth (it arises from the east every morning, moves across the sky, and then disappears every evening in the west); and (3) despite confirmation by every governor and secretary of state, ratification by every states’ election official, and verification by the Election Security Council, the FBI, the Justice Department, and the presidents former lawyer (whoops, I mean former Attorney General) Bill Barr that there was none, the 2020 presidential election must be a fraud (but only in the battleground states that Joe Biden won — in all states that Trump carried and all races that Republicans won, the election was beyond reproach). And I also believe that the Easter bunny and

Great Pumpkin are real, the moon is made of cheese, and the cow actually did jump over the moon. But keep repeating the lie that has no basis in data or facts, and eventually you too will lose your sanity and grip on reality — just like Trump.

PATHOLOGICAL ALTRUISM Big ’ol jeers to any employer still enforcing a ‘notipping’ policy in these trying times. *mic

“

TRUMPEY AT THE BAT - A (CONDENSED) POEM IN PARAPHRASE And now the air is shattered by the farce of Trumpey’s blow. Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright, The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere

UNITED MY ASS Been a heck of a week, huh? Covid continues to spread like wildfire. We, the people of the United States of America, are number one, numero uno, top dog, in cases and deaths around the World. Way to go. We are sooo smart and pompous. Oh yeah... then there’s the domestic terrorists who call themselves Law and Order people, among other things, who stormed the Capitol

”

Even your forefathers had brains enough to wear HOODS!

drop

WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY As of January 13, 2021 your website says you have “excused and defended President Trump.” No other congresswoman of congressman from Washington state has seen it fit to excuse President Trump for his insurrection and seditious behavior.

You are on the wrong side of history by supporting the Madman’s attempted coup and not calling him out. You should show honor and courage by calling out the evil and taking a stand against this blight instead of supporting and nurturing the demise of our democracy.

JEERS TO ALL YOU CRYBABIES Yes, I too first read jeers. It used to be entertaining. Now all you political nutz are venting here when you should get on your Twitter and bloviate/rant Your Opinion on some political BS that’s never gonna change. So let’s again start jeering about all the local buttheads that make life a hassle here in this wonderful city.

CAPITOL TERRORISTS To all the MAGA MORONS that felt the need to attack the Capitol building I have a little advice. I know you are too simple minded to wear masks because it is some kind of a statement supporting your glorious leader and defying science and logic. However it might have covered your face so everyone that saw you couldn’t have identified

1. Visit Inlander.com/isawyou by 3 pm Monday. 2. Pick a category (I Saw You, You Saw Me, Cheers or Jeers). 3.

Provide basic info: your name and email (so we know you’re real). 4. To connect via I Saw You, provide a non-identifying email to be included with your submission — like “petals327@yahoo.com,” not “j.smith@comcast.net.”

34 INLANDER JANUARY 21, 2021

you so easily. Another thing you might consider MORONS... even your forefathers had brains enough to wear HOODS!

hearts are light; And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout, But there is no joy in Crudville—Loser Trumpey has struck out.

REFLECTIONS ON 2020 WHINERS 2020 whiners seems to think that the only kind of meal we should buy should be at a drive-up window, or at least priced like it. A meal at a eat-in restaurant is going to cost more because you get a different kind of service and the food is generally better. The customer has the choice of where to go. Or at least they used to. Owners of small restaurants that can’t easily convert to takeout (Who wants fish that has to wait 20 minutes for you to get home, for example) are well and truly screwed under our current mandates. As far as large gatherings not making sense, Rolling Stone writer P.J. O’Rourke famously said, “America wasn’t founded so we could all be better. America was founded so we could be anything we damn well please” That spirit seems to be increasingly rare.

WHO DO YOU REPRESENT? You really support the mobsters trying to stop our election process. When did you decide to leave the Republican Party to join this attempted coup group (also known as Trumpsters)? Will you return to your sensibilities and represent conservatives again?

and caused the deaths of five people.

Egged on by a president who thinks grabbing a woman’s genitals is OK, gave up on the pandemic and fomented a riot. Apparently Republican pimp CMR believes that Twitter’s decision to block Trump for life is censorship. You cannot shout FIRE in a theatre because (Supreme Court, Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1918) “The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.” By the way CMR, where were you when your Republican Brothers and Sisters stormed the House? These United States. Beacon to the world. Being tornapart by politics led by a maniacal president. United we stand, divided we fall.

United? My ass. n

THIS WEEK'S ANSWERS S A L M A I H E A R B A D L I G A R B U R N I T E N A N T E A S Y A A S U P S J T S T A A I R D A T F I R I N R U N E A L G H E R E I L L S K N Y Y

C O H E N

I D T A G

L I A E O N I N G

D E G A V R S O I L E E G O F R E A T E S O D I N S

L I B E R A L A R T S

S O O N E R S T A T E

D U D S

L E S I D O U D E L U N B E B O T S E N O F E N P R D C R I M E A K R O N N O L I E

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

POLITICS

Back Burner Even with a Democrat in the White House, federal legalization is no guarantee

BY WILL MAUPIN

J Will a Biden administration take a different approach to cannabis than Obama’s? GAGE SKIDMORE PHOTO

an. 20 brought a new president into the White House. What does that mean for cannabis policy?

President Joe Biden was once upon a time reelected as vice president in 2012, on the same ballot that saw Washington and Colorado become the first states to legalize recreational marijuana. That was eight years ago now, and 13 states and the District of Columbia have since joined the ranks of Washington and Colorado in opening legal cannabis markets. ...continued on next page

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Has Biden’s platform changed with the times? The answer is not really.

The Obama administration took a mostly hands-off approach during its final four years, and the Trump administration followed suit. States were largely given the green light to make their own decisions on cannabis policy in the eight years since 2012. As a result, more and more states found themselves open to the idea of a legal, regulated market for recreational cannabis. Eventually, as we’ve seen in the past couple of years, that more liberal view of cannabis regulation worked its way into the federal government.

Last year, for the first time, a vote was taken on the floor of the House on the question of legalizing the drug nationally.

There’s a pandemic, our economy is in big trouble, and ideological divides run as deep as they have in recent memory. Cannabis policy reform is, understandably, on the back burner at the moment.

It passed the House, but Democrats didn’t control the Senate at the time, and that is where the bill died. The Dems control both now as well as the executive branch, but that doesn’t mean much considering the state of our country.

There’s a pandemic, our economy is in big trouble, and ideological divides run as deep as they have in recent memory.

Cannabis policy reform is, understandably, on the back burner at the moment. Even if things were relatively normal, there’s little reason to believe the new administration would bring about substantive change.

Biden himself has come out strongly in favor of decriminalizing cannabis. “I don’t believe anybody should be going to jail for drug use,” he said at a town hall in October. That jibes with the message he put out during the Democratic primary process when he and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg were the only candidates unwilling to support full, federal legalization.

As has been the case for two election cycles, it seems irrelevant who sits in the Oval Office. Cannabis policy will continue to be dictated on a state-by-state basis. The federal government will keep playing catch-up as individual states forge the path forward for our country’s approach to cannabis. n

36 INLANDER JANUARY 21, 2021

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AMY ALKON

I’m a woman in my early 20s. My friends say I have “daddy issues,” because I tend to date men in their 30s. (I do have a decent relationship with my dad).

I find men in their 20s generally immature, slobby, and inconsiderate, with limited communication skills (and no desire to improve them). I can’t see how being frustrated with that means there’s something wrong with me, but I hear “daddy issues” so much I’m starting to wonder. —Annoyed

Live with a 20-something manchild and you get the idea that guppies are on to something in how they sometimes eat their young — long before their guppettes start spending their days smoking weed, playing Mortal Kombat 11, and waiting for the trash to grow legs, waddle out back, and throw itself in the dumpster.

Your friends join countless people with zero background in the therapy game who are quick to “diagnose” others with various insulting psychological issues.

Luckily, few have the medical hubris to give your forehead a squint across the hors d’oeuvres and announce, “Excuse me, but I think you have a small tumor named Max pressing on your frontal lobe.”

Clinical psychologist Darren Fowler and his student, Sara Skentelbery, investigated the rather common belief that a woman who dates older men (by 10 or more years) has “daddy issues”: an unhealthy relationship with her father. Comparing elder-dating women with women dating more age-matched men, they found no support for the notion that they were using these men as psychological grout, a la, “I love how you fill the void from my pops never coming to my violin recitals.”

Evolutionary psychology research on female mate preferences suggests you might not be drawn to older men, per se, but men who are more mature, more willing to commit, and more able to support any children you might have together.

In a few years, as guys closer to your age meet these benchmarks better, you might start dating men just slightly older (as research finds women tend to do). This only changes when women hit their 70s, when many become willing to give (somewhat younger) young bucks a shot. At this point, their friends in assisted living probably tell them they have “cradle issues,” but probably just because they’re jealous from eavesdropping on them through the walls: “Shout dirty to me, Chad!”

TENDER MERCENARIES

I’m a 30-year-old woman. My ex is an extremely wealthy and successful Wall Streeter I found to be a charming sociopath: lying, manipulative, and willing to do anything to win. I was curious about the woman he was with before me, so I Googled her. Like him, she’s in her 40s and very good-looking. She’s really accomplished: an Ivy grad and founder and CEO of a successful company. I was surprised to see she’s dating a guy who’s a construction manager. With all she has going for her, why would she move from my ex to this man? —Curious Dating a sociopath lets you experience what it’s like to go temporarily insane.

You scratch their back; they’ll stab yours and then somehow get you apologizing for how rude you were to leave those big blood stains all over their rug.

It’s not surprising that you and this other woman were drawn to Darth Trader.

Research finds that women (from the Amazon to the, uh, Amazon.com) are driven to try to land high-status, high-earning men. But evolutionary psychologist Norman Li observed that, in some studies, this priority sometimes ranked surprisingly low on research participants’ wish lists. Li attributed this to how a good deal of mating research gave participants “sky’s the limit” options that don’t reflect the real-world constraints on people’s choices; for example, the “trade-offs normally made when people select mates, whose traits come in bundles.” (“Good earner” is packaged with “looks vaguely Neanderthal.”) Context also matters, like whether a person’s own mate value, on a scale from 1 to 10, is “Little Engine That Could”-ing its way to 6.

Research by sociologist Yue Qian, among others, does find that high-earning, highly educated women tend to go for higher-earning, more highly educated men. However, it’s possible that, for this woman, feeling burned by a “great on paper” guy who treats others as vending machines for his needs provided powerful “context,” motivating her subsequent choice of boyfriend. I see that women in their 30s and 40s who previously snubbed men who weren’t power brokers often start putting more weight on finding a loving man with good character. For this particular woman, a manly-man urban cowboy on a bucking earth mover might be just the change she needs — even temporarily — from a selfish, sociopathic Wall Street pretty boy. Ideally, if a woman describes the man she’s with as “amazing,” it shouldn’t be because he’s living proof that a human being can survive for decades without a heart. n ©2020, Amy Alkon, all rights reserved. • Got a problem? Write Amy Alkon, 171 Pier Ave, #280, Santa Monica, CA 90405 or email AdviceAmy@aol.com (www.advicegoddess.com)

38 INLANDER JANUARY 21, 2021

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47 1. Member of the fam 2. Puzzle solver’s cry 49 50 51 3. Played the first card 4. Daughter in the “Descendants” 58 57 movies 5. Huffington of The Huffington Post 60 61 6. Ben of Ben & Jerry’s 7. Canine collar dangler 8. Floral wreath by a coral reef 9. ____ beam from settlers who were early to 10. He directed Heath and Jake in stake claims “Brokeback Mountain” 13. Clothing 11. Kind of education 18. Annoyance for an oyster eater 12. Oklahoma nickname derived 21. First Asian-American woman to

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25. R&B’s Bell Biv ___ 26. Adam’s apple location?

27. Costa del ____ 28. Thompson of “Thor: 37 Ragnarok” 30. On account of 40 32. “Peer Gynt” composer 43 33. Syst. with hand signals 36. Abbr. on an office memo 45 46 37. Beethoven’s birthplace 39. ____ alai 48 40. Tailgate party recyclable 42. Dr. with Grammys 52 53 54 55 56 43. Bay Area force: Abbr.

45. “What the Butler Saw” 59 playwright Joe 62 46. Puts money in, as a meter 47. Drops in a forecast “ARSON” 50. Yr.’s 8,760 51. “I see a cockroach!” host “SNL” 52. “Just ____ suspected!”

22. In a lovely way 53. MGM rival of the ‘30s 23. In a merciless way 54. Like offline interaction, initially 24. Losers to the Dodgers in the 2020 55. Miss Piggy’s coy question World Series 56. Opposite of WSW

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60. The Bronx Bombers, on scoreboards 61. Potato ____ 62. “I’m telling the truth!”

THIS W ANSWE EEK’S I SAW RS ON YOUS

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36. Answer to the clues given in 17-, 22-, 44- and 50-Across 37. Diminish 38. Depot: Abbr.

39. It’s worth 8 points in Scrabble 40. “____ Subsequent Moviefilm” (2020 mockumentary) 41. TV Guide info 43. Mailed 44. Stealing from a coworker, e.g. ... or a good clue for 36-Across 47. Bit of ancient script 48. Not an orig.

49. “Solve for x” subj.

50. Result of a jealous rage, say ... or a good clue for 36-Across 57. Fighting a fever, say 58. Fill in, as a lawn bare spot 59. City where LeBron James opened the I Promise School

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ACROSS 1. Hollywood’s Hayek 6. Tiny hairs 11. Inspiration for Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” 14. “Rumor has it ...”

15. Literally, “singing place” 16. Debtor’s note 17. Photographer’s bane ... or a good clue for 36-Across 19. Dad ____ 20. Surveyor’s calculation 21. Microscope part 22. Passion ... or a good clue for 36-Across 28. One trading dollars for quarters 29. Manet who painted “Olympia” 31. 2010 Emma Stone comedy set in high school 32. “The People’s Court” prop 34. Sch. whose sports fans shout “Geaux Tigers!”

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