Inlander 09/07/2023

ESCAPE

SALMON

The Coeur d’Alene Tribe plans a hatchery in Spokane

PAGE 8

STOUT

A Valley brewery is serving the dark stuff

PAGE 30

Since the U.S. pulled out of Afghanistan two years ago, a family with an unlikely friend in the Inland Northwest has been fighting for freedom PAGE

BY SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL

SEPTEMBER 7-13, 2023 | NEWS FROM NEAR AND FAR FOR 30 YEARS

EDITOR’S NOTE

For those of us at a certain age, we remember exactly where we were when we heard about the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. I was in line at a coffee shop in Portland, staring at a TV someone had set up when I saw the first plane strike the tower. The sound was down and I watched the clip, hours old by this time, repeat and repeat. Later that day, I was riding my bike around town, struck by the silent, dusky skies and candles in what seemed like every window.

I remember, also, the days and years that came after. The appearance of National Guardsmen and their canines at airport security. The swift march to war in Afghanistan, then Iraq. The equally quick attack on our civil liberties with the Patriot Act. Surveillance and distrust. The protests against war and President Bush. Flag lapel pins and other weak demonstrations of love of country, like the demand for “freedom fries.”

It’s a time I wouldn’t want to repeat, but it pales in comparison to the terror that the people of Afghanistan have gone through these past 22 years. If I ever find myself confused or ambivalent about the American presence in Afghanistan, I’ll think about this week’s cover story, OUT OF AFGHANISTAN, and how one local man befriended an Afghan family and helped them escape to safety and a better future. Something we can all hope for.

— NICHOLAS DESHAIS, editor

Entertainment for all!

September 30

first interstate center

OCTOBER 5

first interstate center

OCTOBER 6

first interstate center

october 15 the podium

November 3 the podium

November 25

first interstate center

january 30

first interstate center

COMMENT

STAFF DIRECTORY

PHONE: 509-325-0634

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

PUBLISHER

Jer McGregor (x224)

GENERAL MANAGER

EDITORIAL

Nicholas Deshais (x239) EDITOR

Chey Scott (x225)

ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR

Derek Harrison (x248)

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Seth Sommerfeld (x250)

MUSIC & SCREEN EDITOR

Samantha Wohlfeil (x234)

BREAKING NEWS EDITOR

Madison Pearson (x218)

LISTINGS EDITOR

Eliza Billingham (x222) Colton Rasanen (x263) Nate Sanford (x282), Summer Sandstrom (x232)

STAFF WRITERS

Chris Frisella

COPY CHIEF

Young Kwak, Erick Doxey

PHOTOGRAPHERS

Sylvia Davidow INTERN

Josh Bell, CMarie Fuhrman, Aaron Hedge, Chase Hutchinson, Will Maupin, Taylor Waring

CONTRIBUTORS

ADVERTISING

Skip Mitchell (x247)

ADVERTISING & BUSINESS

DEVELOPMENT MANAGER

Carolyn Padgham (x214), Kristi Gotzian (x215), Autumn Potts (x251), Claire Price (x217)

SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES

Tracy Menasco (x260), Stephanie Grinols (x216), Meghan Fitzgerald (x241)

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES

Tamara McGregor (x233)

ADVERTISING OPERATIONS MANAGER

PRODUCTION

Ali Blackwood (x228)

PRODUCTION TEAM MANAGER,

CREATIVE, DIGITAL & MARKETING

Tom Stover (x265)

PRINT PRODUCTION & IT MANAGER

Derrick King (x238)

SENIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Leslie Douglas (x231)

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

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

ADVERTISING ASSISTANTS

OPERATIONS

Dee Ann Cook (x211)

BUSINESS MANAGER

Kristin Wagner (x210)

ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE

CIRCULATION

Frank DeCaro (x226)

CIRCULATION MANAGER

Travis Beck (x237)

CIRCULATION SUPERVISOR

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE GENRE TO READ?

MEL TOTH

Way too many of them, but I’m really enjoying queer history lately.

What’s your favorite part about reading queer history?

It’s silenced a lot in the past so finding books that are either firsthand accounts or are digging up that hidden history is really exciting.

TRICIA KIEHN

Lately I’ve been into really thin fantasy books and speculative fiction, kinda moving into science fiction.

What do you recommend?

I just read The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo.

ABBIE NEUENSCHWANDER

I like historical fiction.

What do you like about the genre? I like that it’s something that actually hap pened, but the story is more detailed.

Do you have any recommendations?

All the Light We Cannot See and Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr.

REY NEUENSCHWANDER

Horror and weird biographies.

What’s the weirdest biography you’ve read? Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard is a really weird one. It has a lot to do with the failure of medicine in the early 1900s and how that killed [U.S. President James A. Garfield].

LAUREN PEARCE

I don’t even know, I feel like lately I’ve just been reading to my kids. However, I just read Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë for a book club and loved it.

Do you have a favorite book to read to your kids?

We read all the normal stuff, like the Dragon Masters series by Tracey West.

Bier. Brats. Bands.

The Flag in 13 Acts

Through the nation’s perilously divided plight, our flag is still there and steeped in meaning

BY CMARIE FUHRMAN

== I ==

Third grade. Mrs. Lovitt’s class. She tells us to stand and face the flag. The principal’s voice comes over the intercom, I pledge allegiance…

== II ==

Draped over my grandpa’s casket. “He was in the service,” my mother whispers, “During the war.” I will never see a war like the war he survived, nor understand that kind of sacrifice. Years later, my mother passed her father’s flag to me. She showed me the spent casings in the folds. I rattle them in my hand like change.

== III ==

My hometown, in the 1980s, there was an unspoken competition over whose flag was bigger, the Toyota dealerships or Perkins. Perkins had a spotlight on their roof that backlit the blue sky and white stars.

== IV ==

United States of America written on the miniature Space Shuttle Challenger that Christa McCauliffe holds in a photo. Then Christa McCauliffe raises her right arm to wave, the one with the flag patch on the shoulder, as she boards the real Challenger. My teacher screams. Someone rolls the AV cart from the room.

== V ==

September 11, 2001. Three firefighters, covered in ash and dust, standing in a valley of destruction, raise a found American flag up a bent silver flagpole from what would eventually be called Ground Zero.

== VI ==

The soft thunder of horses’ hooves. My husband stands and removes his hat. His father stands next to him. The posture of a soldier so quickly returns. This same posture is echoed in the officer who, a year later, presents my husband’s flag and says, “He made his country proud.”

== VII ==

I sew a flag patch to a Quilt of Valor I made for a Marine who served three tours in Afghanistan. He once said, “It would be easier for me to kill a man than a deer. I am thus programmed.” Inside the quilt, I have sewn a stanza from his favorite poem, “He prayeth best, who loveth best / All things both great and small; / For the dear God who loveth us, / He made and loveth all.”

== VIII ==

Fourth of July weekend. Payette National Forest. My partner and I set up camp and then go for a walk. It’s dusk, and the tips of trees are bathed in gold. “Seriously?” my partner says, and I follow his eyes to the top of an old and tall Lodgepole Pine. There, someone has tethered an American flag. Beneath it is a MAGA flag. Both are wind-worn, tattered, entangled in the tree limbs. Later, a U.S. Forest Service forester and his wife will spend their day off climbing the pine, cutting the ties.

== IX ==

We continued to walk, picking up the pieces of both flags. I bend to untangle a string from the brush and think of Kelly, a Picuris elder whom I met at Nambe Feast Days. We sat beside each other as dancers in traditional regalia brought in the American flag. After he put his Native Veteran cap back on, he pointed to the flag and said, “I may be only one thin string in the flag, but I am one string.” A breeze pulled the flag to attention, and Kelly nudged me with his elbow and said, “Definitely a red one.”

== X ==

Don, a former Marine and Vietnam veteran, replaces the flag on his house before a months-long trip. He then replaces both floodlights. Says they will turn on at dusk. Says that if anything happens to the flag, I should call his friend, another Marine. In the afternoon light, as the colors unfurl above his cement driveway, Don raises his right hand to his forehead.

== XI ==

In a Fourth of July Facebook post from Utah’s Black Lives Matter Chapter: “When we Black Americans see this flag we know the person flying it is not safe to be around,” the post reads. “When we see this flag we know the person flying it is a racist. When we see this flag we know that the person flying it lives in a different America than we do. When we see this flag, we question your intelligence. We know to avoid you. It is a symbol of hatred.”

== XII ==

Mickey is 8 and a Native Idahoan. From the passenger seat in his dad’s car, he flips off anyone who flies a distorted version of the American flag.

== XIII ==

My friend Sara and I stare at the idling truck, then watch as it pulls away. The tattered and wind-whipped American flag lifts from its rest as an old dog might to loyally follow his master. We have been talking about a divided nation and state politics. We have been talking about what it means to us to be an American. We were in town to teach hope. She thumps her chest with her forefinger, “Goddamn it,” she says, her pounding like a distant thunder. “It’s my flag, too.” n

CMarie Fuhrman is the author of the collection of poems, Camped Beneath the Dam, and co-editor of two anthologies, Cascadia Field Guide and Native Voices: Indigenous Poetry, Craft, and Conversations Fuhrman is the associate director of the graduate program in creative writing at Western Colorado University. She resides in West Central Idaho.

‘A WAY OF LIFE’

The Coeur d’Alene Tribe wants to bring salmon back to the entire Inland Northwest — and it’s starting with Hangman Creek

Last year, a chinook salmon completed a journey her immediate ancestors could not.

Raised in a Coeur d’Alene Tribe hatchery and fitted with a pit tag to track her movements, she was released into Hangman Creek about 60 miles south of Spokane near Tensed, Idaho, in 2020. She swam to the Spokane River, down its hydroelectric dams, entered the Columbia, and navigated dozens of miles of warm reservoir and 11 more dams, some of them hundreds of feet high.

Finally, she spilled into the Pacific Ocean.

“It’s a huge journey for those fish,” says Vince Peone, a Coeur d’Alene tribal member who tracks and harvests salmon for the tribe and surrounding community. “They just come out of the Columbia and head directly north to the Aleutians. They follow the Aleutians around to Japan and across.”

When it was time to return, she came home. Or at least, tried to. Her pit tag pinged at fish-ladder-equipped Bonneville Dam, alerting salmon biologists with the Coeur d’Alene Tribe that she was on her way. As she passed Wells Dam — the final upstream-bound blockage salmon can navigate — the Coeur d’Alenes asked the

BY AARON HEDGE

Colville Tribes, who operate the nearby Chief Joseph Hatchery, to watch for her.

“They scanned every fish,” says Tom Biladeau, the leading salmon biologist for the Coeur d’Alene Tribe. “And they found her.”

It was July 2022. She was assessed for pathogens and appeared free of malady. Peone slipped her into a tank. He drove her in a pickup truck to a riverbank on Hangman Creek, just off U.S. Route 195 in Vinegar Flats. The Tribe had bought the site in 2021 with the idea of building another salmon hatchery, foiling developers’ plans for housing on it.

There at Hangman Creek, which is also known as Latah Creek, an assembly of Indigenous and white people awaited the fish’s arrival. The fish was placed inside a water-filled tube, which the people passed from one to the next down the bank. At last, the tube reached Peone, who stood waist-deep in the current. Peone pulled the chinook from the tube, held her momentarily toward the sky and slipped her into the creek.

“It was the highlight of my life,” says Peone, who claims a spiritual kinship with salmon and fishes for them all over the Pacific Northwest.

The release was a familiar scene of salmon reintroduction in an ongoing partnership between state and federal entities and Inland Northwest Tribes who want salmon to return to the region.

But this event held additional significance as the Coeur d’Alene Tribe hopes to use the site’s future hatchery as a research hub to help determine whether salmon can still survive here. That research would be a critical part of a constellation of efforts to return salmon to the Inland Northwest.

The Tribe has drilled two water wells on the property and is contracting with Stantec, an Edmonton-based engineering firm with offices in Spokane, to design the salmon research facility.

But Hangman Creek already contains high levels of phosphorus, Biladeau says. Standing on the site where the facility is planned, he gestures toward algae visible in the water. And fish can add to the phosphorus load, which the Tribe wants to mitigate.

“Water that goes through fish — fish food and fish excrement — has high levels of phosphorus in it,” Biladeau says.

...continued on page 10

Coeur d’Alene Tribal Member Cheffrey Sailto, second from the left, sings a Hangman song during a Summer Chinook salmon release into Hangman Creek in April.

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

“‘A WAY OF LIFE’,” CONTINUED...

Standing on the creek bank near the proposed hatchery site on a clear August day not long after thick wildfire smoke had abated from Spokane skies, Biladeau says the parcel was historically used for agriculture, but could be returned to a wetland, allowing for natural filtration of water. But it also could accommodate more high-tech options like membrane bioreactor treatment similar to what’s used at the Spokane Wastewater Treatment Plant in Riverside State Park. Both techniques are options for cleaning the water, but the Tribe is still in the earliest stages of developing the facility and doesn’t know which method it will pick. Regardless, it’s possible that with treatment, water could reenter the stream healthier than it came out.

“We have to be able to treat that water effectively before it goes back into the system, so it doesn’t add to the problem,” Biladeau says.

If everything goes well, Biladeau says the hatchery could be operating within four years. But a lot has to happen, including changes in the zoning code that would explicitly allow this sort of aquaculture at the site. The Spokane City Council will discuss the proposed changes three times this month, including at a public hearing on Sept. 25, before deciding whether to allow them.

Marc Gauthier, the wildlife program manager at Upper Columbia United Tribes who personally opposed the housing developments proposed for the site before the Tribe bought it, says the land is important — geographically and geologically — because it was one of only two entries for salmon into what is now Idaho.

“With the natural blockage that Spokane Falls provided, the fish basically had to spawn either at or below the falls or continue up Hangman Creek,” Gauthier said. “It’s just an extremely important piece of the puzzle.”

DEVASTATING DAMS

Before white people arrived in the Inland Northwest, the Spokane and Coeur d’Alene tribes had established gathering places near the property, called “fish camps,” to receive the salmon runs. Peone had an older neighbor who had fished in such camps as a child.

“Her grandparents would come from Montana on horse and buggy, and wherever she was staying, if she was staying in Plummer, they would pick her up there,” Peone said in a phone interview. “And they would venture clear to Kettle Falls.”

They would fish for no less than three or four months, he says. “It was a way of life.”

Things changed when white people showed up. They reor-

KEEP THE DAMS?

Upper Columbia salmon restoration is in Phase 2 of a three-phase plan to study technology that would allow fish to scale the dams, including fish ladders and “salmon cannons,” identify viable salmon habitat (researchers have discovered hundreds of river miles), and continue monitoring salmon populations as they trickle back into Inland Northwest watersheds.

Unlike salmon restoration on the Snake and Klamath rivers, these efforts do not seek to demolish dams, which is sensitive political territory. Dams represent cheap, clean, reliable and domestic energy production and are therefore popular. Proposals to demolish them on other heavily regulated rivers face strong opposition that has kept those dams intact.

“One of the challenges that we’ve had over the years is being able to help individuals understand that we’re not talking about removing dams,” Matheson told the Spokane Plan Commission in July, when it approved its recommending the zoning amendment to Spokane City Council in July. “Let’s get our best scientific minds together and figure out a solution that allows us to have the good energy that the dams provide while at the same time being able to get our fish back, too.”

— AARON HEDGE

Young salmon being released into Hangman Creek in April. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

ganized the ecology, channeled streams, logged forests, mined mountains and, perhaps most devastatingly, built the world’s biggest dams at the time.

The first dam, Long Lake Dam on the Spokane River, began operating in 1915. Since then, more dams snaked seaward, and salmon have been (mostly) kept out. The dams, and the ensuing loss of the salmon, constituted a monumental tragedy for Interior Salish Tribes, who’d built entire cultures and trade economies around the fish.

“This loss wounded our region, the Columbia Basin, and even the Pacific Ocean, changing the lands, water, and people, altering ecologies and economies,” according to a statement from the Upper Columbia United Tribes.

The importance of salmon is illustrated by the high price the Coeur d’Alene Tribe paid for the 48-acre parcel of stream bank. Located east of the intersection of U.S. Highway 195 and Cheney Spokane Road, it was a “spendy” investment for the Tribe, says Caj Matheson, director of natural resources for the Coeur d’Alene Tribe.

“We’re not accustomed to spending $3.2 million on 48 acres,” he says, adding “there’s no limit to what we will do to make [salmon reintroduction] happen.”

AN IRONY

The Hangman Creek acreage was previously owned by John Pilcher, a former Spokane city administrator who bought it in 2004 for $290,000 and sat on it for 15 years. In 2019, the city’s hearing examiner approved a plan that sought to build 96 homes on the site.

Community activists formed a new organization, the Latah Environment, Agriculture and Fisheries Heritage Project (LEAF), to fight the plan for residential development.

“It felt like they were wedging way too many houses down into that area,” said Trevor Finchamp, former president of Friends of the Bluff, a nonprofit that advocates to preserve High Drive Bluff Park, just east of the Hangman Creek property. Finchamp helped to spearhead LEAF.

Local governments had for years explored options to conserve the land, which had been used for farming. Spokane County had prioritized it for its Conservation Futures program, but it could not afford the market value. The city of Spokane also lacked the cash.

LEAF was looking for allies in preventing development on the land and knew it had historically been used by the Coeur d’Alene and Spokane tribes as a gathering place to harvest and celebrate salmon. So members of LEAF contacted both tribes to see if they had interest in helping to prevent single-family homes from being built there. The Coeur d’Alene Tribe decided to buy the property itself and negotiated the multimillion-dollar deal directly with Pilcher.

Still, it seems a bitter historical note that a tribe whose land had been shrewdly whittled away by the U.S. government was now paying market value to buy it back.

“It is an irony,” Matheson says.

Finchamp agrees. “I think we all felt a little sheepish about having the tribe pay a cent,” he says.

Parcel by parcel, the tribe is reacquiring its land. Much of that land is being purchased, like on Hangman Creek, but the Tribe is also litigating for land and water rights. In 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the tribe’s favor, granting it ownership of the southern third of Lake Coeur d’Alene.

For many decades, the Tribe’s land shrank. That trend is now, slowly, reversing. n

“This loss wounded our region, the Columbia Basin, and even the Pacific Ocean, changing the lands, water, and people, altering ecologies and economies.”

2011 - 2012

As one decade ends, another begins. The Harry Potter franchise wrapped up with what Inlander film critic Ed Symkus called a “totally satisfying conclusion.” We reflected on 9/11 on its 10-year anniversary. President Obama won a second term as president. More locally, Inland Northwest residents had two things on their minds throughout 2011 and 2012: marijuana and gay marriage. The 2012 election season was a big one. Initiative 502 made possession of 1 ounce of cannabis legal in Washington state for people 21 and older. And Referendum 74 legalized gay marriage statewide. Can I get a SLAYYYY!?

IN THE NEWS

Nobody likes BUDGET CUTS, especially when not everyone is paying their fair share. On April 14, 2011, then-News Editor (now Editor) Nick Deshais wrote “Bludgeoning the Budget,” all about the billions of dollars, partisan bickering and corporate sponsors that fueled state government. The article was spurred by 7,000 protesters gathering at the Capitol in Olympia and storming the governor’s office, resulting in the building being put on lockdown. (If this perhaps sounds familiar nowadays, keep in mind those protesters were there to protest corporate tax breaks and wanted the state to spend more on social services.) Regardless, this peeved Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown (now a Spokane mayoral candidate) so much that she canceled the Senate session that day. And, the next day, the House slashed $4.4 billion from state spending when it passed the budget. The lesson: Storming the capitol isn’t always the best option.

CULTURE BEAT

Some small businesses cannot keep up with the modernization of society, and as a result, they go bankrupt. Not in the Roxy Theater’s case. On July 26, 2012, staffer Jordy Byrd’s story “Do or Die” reported on the Newport, Washington, theater’s struggle to SWITCH FROM 35MM FILM TO DIGITAL FILM. The Roxy had just retired its 1934 Simplex 35mm film projector — “an archaic mass of reels, bulbs and metal” — and gone through renovations that allowed for it to stay open. But it took a financial burden and serious support from the public to do that. The vintage theater is still open, with 200 seats, a single screen and new movies — played on a digital projector.

ON THE COVER

As Referendum 74 and Election Day drew closer, staffer Heidi Groover talked to local LGBTQ+ couples from around the area in our Oct. 18, 2012 cover, “HAPPILY EVER AFTER?” In her piece, they discussed why legalizing gay marriage would be important to them and their relationships. Groover wrote about a gay couple who married. “But after the couple’s first dance and after their friends lit sparklers to send them off, they soon found themselves back in the real world, filling out taxes and insurance forms as if the other person didn’t exist.” Now, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision, we’re happy to report that public support for same-sex marriage has reached an all-time high of 71 percent, according to recent polling.

LOCAL FOLKS

The secret tactic to winning the position of state senator? A signature smile. ANDY BILLIG was the talk of the town throughout the 2011 to 2012 issues. He was interviewed as a freshman legislator in the House in 2011, saying a medical school would be great not just for Eastern Washington but the whole state. During his 2012 campaign season, we followed him door to door as he got to know voters and sold them his pitch. He talked up his 19 years as manager and president of the Spokane Indians (yup, you heard that right, the baseball team), and the importance of funding education throughout the state. But, we think it was that persuasive smile that won him the state Senate seat representing Spokane in 2012. Today, Billig is Senate majority leader.

— SYLVIA DAVIDOW

Drinking from a Firehose

As Spokane’s newest, potentially shortterm council member, Ryan Oelrich faces three months of tough decisions

BY NATE SANFORD

There’s a fresh, potentially short-tenured face on Spokane City Council.

Last week, council members voted 5-1 to appoint Ryan Oelrich to fill a vacant council seat representing south Spokane’s District 2. In November, voters will choose Paul Dillon or Katey Treloar to fill the seat, which was vacated after Council member Lori Kinnear was appointed to temporarily serve as council president after Breean Beggs left early for a judicial appointment.

Oelrich says he never really saw himself in government, and that the first few days on the job have been like “drinking from a firehose.”

“He’s got some really intense days in the next three months,” Kinnear said while voting to appoint Oelrich. “I hope he takes his vitamins, let’s just say that.”

Though he’s new to the council, he’s not so new to Spokane. He’s spent years working with various local groups, and in 2017, Inlander readers voted him “Best Philanthropist.” Oelrich previously led the Spokane Homeless Coalition, and currently works as executive director of Priority Spokane, which analyzes community needs in Spokane.

We sat down with Oelrich last week to talk about his hopes and fears for the next three months, the city’s budget problem and whether or not he would seek a longer, two-year council appointment if Betsy Wilkerson wins the council president race in November.

The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

INLANDER: This is a hard job. Why did you want it?

OELRICH: It is a hard job, and I think that’s part of why I was interested in serving in this way. I think we have some tough decisions to make, and I want to make sure that we are trying to do our best to be data-driven in that process. And I have a lot of experience around that. I want to make sure with tough decisions we are also compassionate and wise.

What are you most nervous about?

Well, f—ing up, obviously. Our communications director said not to use swear words, here I go breaking the first rule. But that’s OK. I don’t want to mess up. I want to do my best, I want to make sure I’m a careful steward of the resources that we have in Spokane.

You’ve been here for three days now, have you solved the estimated $20 million budget deficit crisis yet?

I might need one more day.

More seriously — what’s your first impression of the city budget? Some people have been saying it’s a bad situation, how serious is it?

I’m very new. I’m just getting my feet wet. One of the things that I did in preparation for this job is painfully

look through all 366 pages. And I can’t say that I understand all of them. But when I look at our values that we have decided we need to follow — especially when it comes to not using one-time funds for ongoing expenses — yeah, we have some problems we need to solve. We have to make some tough decisions.

What do you think is the main cause of the current budget deficit?

I think a number of things. I have more to learn. So ask me in a few weeks.

During your interview with City Council members, you said you see public safety and housing as budget priorities. What does that look like to you?

Public safety includes safety from wildfires. It includes substance abuse. It includes folks who can’t afford housing. Those are all public safety concerns. So I tend to look at public safety with a more expansive lens.

There was speculation that you might run for Lori Kinnear’s open District 2 Council seat this year. Why didn’t you?

I definitely considered it. The timing wasn’t great. I really had to wrestle with where I can do the most good. I love my work at Priority Spokane. We were right in the middle of a community assessment that I think is so important for our region. So I just decided that is so valuable. I want to make sure that’s finished.

Did Paul Dillon ask you not to run?

[Laughs] No.

If Betsy Wilkerson wins the council president race in November, there’s going to be another vacancy. Council is going to have to make another interim appointment, but that will be a two-year position. Have you thought about that at all? Was that on your mind when you applied for this position? No, I’m aware of that, and that’s something that — I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. But I’m just bound and determined to get through these three months to do the best I can and learn as many lessons as I can along the way.

So you haven’t made up your mind? Nope.

When council members asked about a time you had to mediate conflict, you talked about talking with West Hills neighbors about the Catholic Charities supportive housing project there. What was that like?

It was eye-opening. And both encouraging and discouraging. I really feel for my neighbors that are just trying to make it and just trying to keep a roof over their own heads… I understand the worries and the fears there. So I was really encouraged that even though there were some very strong disagreements — and even though some of the conversations on my porch started with some really strong, hateful words already having been spoken — two out of three times, we were still able to find common ground.

You live in that neighborhood right?

I do, not too far from the Catalyst Project. Our neighborhood faces all sorts of unique challenges, like others. But I think especially for our neighborhood, there’s issues that are often much more visible. Every day I drive by multiple camps, I see human beings who are camping in our forests, on the side of the street, who have a variety of different struggles they’re facing. So that’s something I see every day. My husband and I received evacuation notices twice from the recent fires.

Some people have been calling for a development moratorium in Latah Valley, partially because of a lack of fire infrastructure. Is that a good idea?

I received communication from one of the community leaders there. And I look forward to meeting with that group soon and learning more so I could have an informed opinion and make sure I’ve listened first.

Council members have legislative aides, do you get one as an interim member?

Yes, but to save money Council President Kinnear and I are sharing.

Do you have a favorite place in District 2?

Have you ever been to Mystic Falls? It’s a delightful little waterfall. n

Ryan Oelrich. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

Recalling the Far Right

Two North Idaho school board members on the ideological fringe lose their jobs. Plus, some ideas for Second and Division; and transportation dollars rain.

By overwhelming majorities, voters in North Idaho’s West Bonner School District have overwhelmingly told their school board that enough is enough. Two trustees, Chair Keith Rutledge and Vice Chair Susan Brown, were recalled in a Aug. 29 special election. After hiring a superintendent with no K-12 experience and canceling previously approved curriculum — costing the district money to return materials — the district’s constituents no longer believe the two have the students’ best interest in mind. With their removal, the board has lost its far-right majority. Bonner County Clerk Michael Rosedale says this is the first successful recall he’s seen after nearly a decade on the job. Close to two-thirds of voters voted to oust the pair. And nearly three times more voters turned out for the recall than for the 2021 election in which either candidate came to office. The results will be canvassed and made official on Sept. 7. The remaining board members have four months to appoint new members, or else Bonner County commissioners will step in to complete the job.

(COLTON RASANEN)

PREACHING AWAY CRIME

Last week, Spokane City Council members met with police and leadership from Catholic Charities to discuss ideas for improving safety and fentanyl-related issues near the intersection of Second Avenue and Division Street, a long-troubled intersection in downtown Spokane and the subject of an Inlander cover story last month (“Second and Division,” Aug. 16, 2023).

“Over the past month or so it’s gotten to be in full-on crisis mode,” said police Lt. Dan Waters. Council members and police floated various ideas to stop people from congregating and causing trouble in the area, including lights, music, cutting down trees, fencing and even closing off part of the street to make the area around Catholic Charities’ housing units a “closed campus.” Perhaps the wildest suggestion was to move people along with street preachers. “It sounds crazy, it absolutely works,” said Catholic Charities Eastern Washington CEO Rob McCann. “You get somebody with a megaphone reading the Bible, it’ll clear out any space in downtown Spokane.” (NATE

SANFORD)

COMMUTING DOLLARS

The Spokane Regional Transportation Commission, which doles government transportation spending, has released its top projects for the next few years and, unsurprisingly, a lot of it is going to complete the north-south freeway. Nearly half of the more than $1 billion being spent before 2027 is heading to the North Spokane Corridor — $502,397,895 to be exact. To put that in context, spending on all regional transit projects, including a major project to convert North Division Street to a bus rapid transit corridor, comes to about $200 million, or about 20 percent of the total. And spending on bicycle and pedestrian projects comes to $28 million, an unprecedented 13 percent of the total. That includes work to connect the Centennial and Fish Lake trails, constructing the Millwood Trail between Spokane Community College and Felts Field, building the Pacific Avenue Greenway in downtown Spokane, “pedestrian enhancements” in Airway Heights, and work on Medical Lake’s Lake Street to make it accessible to people with disabilities. For more information, visit www.srtc.org/tip. (NICHOLAS DESHAIS)

Get the latest on Inlander.com

Live Lounge Entertainment

Free Live Music at Coeur d’Alene C asino!

Every weekend, you’ll find live music at the Nighthawk Lounge with local bands playing past midnight. For a more relaxed vibe earlier in the evening, choose the option of live acoustic music in the Chinook Lounge.

Echo Elysium

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8 TH & SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 9 TH 6 PM - 9:30 PM

CHINOOK LOUNGE

Echo Elysium, a nuanced and dynamic electric and acoustic guitarist, has been “transporting audiences to alternate dimensions” for over ten years in the Pacific Northwest.

Rock Candy

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8 TH & SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 9 TH 8:30 PM - 12:30 AM

N IGHTHAWK L OUNGE

Sing along to your favorite 70s, 80s, and 90s rock tunes with the talented group, Rock Candy. Join us in the Nighthawk Lounge for a night you’ll never forget.

ERICK DOXEY PHOTO

Trapped in their repressive homeland for two years after the U.S. troop withdrawal, a family attempts to reach safety with help from an unlikely friend in the Inland Northwest

BY SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL

Hundreds were killed as they tried to escape Afghanistan through Kabul, a city of 4.5 million people.

For much of the last two years, the first thing Trent Reedy did when he woke up and the last thing he did before bedtime was message his friend Jawad Arash. More than 6,700 miles and an 11 1/2-hour time difference separated the friends as they communicated between Cheney and Afghanistan.

Often, he’d start with, “You there?”

Every minute that passed without a response sent Reedy’s imagination to dark places.

When the U.S. pulled out of Afghanistan starting in July 2021, chaos erupted as the Afghan army collapsed and the president fled. The Taliban seized control of major cities, airports and, by Aug. 15, 2021, the government.

Reedy knew that Arash, who taught English at a university there, was especially at risk.

The two had met in 2004, when Reedy was an American soldier and Arash was a teenager. They wrote a young adult novel together called Enduring Freedom, which was released in May 2021, a month after President Joe Biden announced the U.S. would remove its remaining troops before the 20th anniversary of 9/11.

The slightly fictionalized story offers a message of hope for education and freedom for girls, despite also describing a violent Taliban attack on a school. Perhaps more importantly, the book tells of an unlikely friendship between a young U.S. soldier and an Afghan school kid who drops by to practice his English — a thinly veiled retelling of how the two men met and became close.

Even though Arash hadn’t shared the fact that he worked on the book with anyone outside his family, the young man with a wife and three kids — including a newborn — could be found out. For daring to encourage the freedom of expression, Arash could be kidnapped, tortured, killed.

Just months after releasing their book, Reedy was starting to worry that the project had put his friend’s life at risk. How could Arash’s family leave Afghanistan? And when? How could he help?

On Aug. 18, 2021, Reedy messaged Arash, “We both know when I say ‘You there?’ I mean, ‘Are you alive?’”

“Please don’t feel so,” Arash replied. “Things will get better.”

“I am not in danger. You are in danger.”

“I know.”

EDITOR’S NOTE

Trent Reedy and Jawad Arash shared many of their private messages from the last two years with the Inlander. Though we know his real name, for the safety of his relatives who remain in Afghanistan we’re using the pseudonym, Jawad Arash.

It was one of many daily exchanges the two would have over the next weeks, months and ultimately years as they tried to find a route to safety.

Since 2021, more than 1.6 million Afghan refugees have fled the country, and today more than 8 million are displaced from their homes or the country, according to the U.N.’s refugee agency. That makes them the third-largest group of refugees globally, behind those from Syria and Ukraine.

As Arash and his family would learn time and time again, simply being from Afghanistan can be a disqualifying factor on visa applications. And even with a team of people from around the world calling in favors and raising money to help, the process of finally getting to safety often takes far too long, wreaking havoc on your emotions. One moment there’s hope you finally have a solution. The next, those hopes are dashed.

‘NO FREEDOM’

In the early days of the withdrawal, Reedy managed to get some money to Arash. But another attempt to send cash was foiled after Western Union temporarily closed in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, as government officials abandoned their posts, Arash struggled to find anyone to legally issue his newborn a passport so his family could leave. The Taliban blocked the roads to the airports, and bribes didn’t seem to be getting them anywhere.

...continued on next page

Over the course of two days in late August 2021, Arash told Reedy that his friend’s wife and his former female student were both trampled to death as they tried to escape on a flight out of Kabul. Another friend with a visa to go to Europe had decided to stay rather than risk having his children crushed by the crowds.

Despite the risks, on Aug. 28, 2021, Arash told Reedy he and his family made it to Kabul by bus.

7:13 am, Pacific Time, REEDY: How was the trip?

7:14 am, ARASH: It was tough… Very tiring…

7:14 am, REEDY: Taliban f— with you?

They had. In an interview with the Inlander this summer, Arash said that Taliban fighters had boarded their bus on the daylong journey from Herat and asked where he was going.

Revealing that they were heading to Kabul could raise suspicions. Although the important documents they’d gathered before fleeing their home were tucked in his wife’s clothing (she was less likely to be searched), Arash was nervous.

“In that moment when he asked — it’s just God’s help — my little one, he started crying, and something struck my mind. I said, ‘Oh, the baby is sick,’” Arash said.

There’s a well-regarded pediatric facility in Kabul known as the “French Hospital,” so he said they were taking their child there.

The Talib looked at the baby crying on Arash’s wife’s lap, a few rows away. He stared hard at Arash. Then, he got off the bus.

“The babies saved us,” Arash said.

The family spent several days in the capital city, hop-

ing to get on an evacuation flight.

9:34 am, Sept. 3, 2021, ARASH: There is very bad firing going on around the Kabul city.

9:35 am, REEDY: Gunshots? Or fires?

9:38 am, REEDY: Are you OK? Are you there?

9:40 am, ARASH: Gunshots. We are OK. We are in a room without windows. Good so far. Very heavy gunshots.

By Sept. 5, it was clear they wouldn’t be able to fly out. Arash and Reedy exchanged messages criticizing U.S. politicians for their out-of-touch rhetoric, and discussing how the Taliban was already changing the rules.

10:18 am, Sept. 5, 2021, REEDY: So you’re back to no books, no music, no TV, nothing?

10:18:11 am, ARASH: Yes buddy.

10:18:13 am: Nothing.

10:18:19 am: No girls

10:18:24 am: No students

10:18:33 am: No shaving

10:18:37 am: No pants

10:18:41 am: No freedom

10:18:53 am: No innovation

The 40-second burst of messages described a dramatic shift in public life.

So, Arash’s family returned to their home in Herat — a house Arash had barely finished building with the proceeds from their book before everything changed.

7:43 am, Sept 22, 2021, REEDY: Are you alive?

7:45 am, ARASH: Only alive man.

He’d spent three days waiting in line trying to get money out of his account. He also heard the passport

office might reopen, but he wasn’t sure.

8:20 am, REEDY: I do not understand why they won’t let people leave.

8:21 am, ARASH: They want to take revenge, man. The messages weighed heavily on Reedy. Two days later, Reedy shared that he’d been telling his Facebook friends he was having nightmares about Afghanistan and couldn’t sleep well. He couldn’t imagine what his friend was going through.

When Reedy was 20, his father was killed in a gas pipeline explosion. Someone was digging where they weren’t supposed to and hit the line.

“I would have dreams after this, dreams where I’m like, back in time, and I’m on the site, and I’m trying to run, like, ‘Hey, you guys gotta get out of here, it’s going to go,’” Reedy said. “I never made it on time in the dream.”

But after what he calls “the Betrayal of Afghanistan,” Reedy started having nightmares about saving Arash.

“This was different. Like you know this thing is out there, this nightmare,” Reedy says. “Failure of this mission is death and torture for a wonderful family. All of them, kids included.”

5:23 am, Sept. 26, 2021, ARASH: There you go. Music is banned from public places. And we cannot shave or shorten our beards anymore. Things are starting.

...continued on page 20

“OUT OF AFGHANISTAN,” CONTINUED...

Trent Reedy served in Afghanistan beginning in 2004. COURTESY PHOTO

“OUT OF AFGHANISTAN,” CONTINUED...

Reedy said he’s surprised it took so long.

“They were afraid of the world. They are starting slowly,” Arash said. “These motherf—ers are never going to change.”

“You should write about it,” Reedy said. “Tell America about it.”

“I can’t risk it while I am trapped here man. They hanged 4 people yesterday.”

UNLIKELY FRIENDSHIP

Sitting on a couch in the corner of West Plains Roasters coffee shop in Cheney last month, Reedy explained that he never really struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in Afghanistan. But after “the betrayal,” he started to have anger issues. He was drinking more. It started to feel like the last 20 years meant nothing. His time became consumed with helping Arash and fielding messages from others like him who were trying to get out.

“I was far better after the war physically, attitude, mentally,” Reedy said. “But after the betrayal, it was nightmares. That was the beginning of like two years of never making it through the whole night.”

His wife would ask why he kept his iPad by the bed. He insisted he needed it in case Arash reached out. After waking in the middle of the night, he’d often head to their spare bedroom where he’d put on old episodes of Doctor Who to try to fall back to sleep.

Looking back on it, Reedy’s not proud of the mindset he had when he first went to Afghanistan. He’d signed up as an Iowa Army national guardsman in 1999 for the college money, but when he learned he’d be deployed a few years after 9/11 he was angry, ready to fight.

“I was terrified. … I’d never gone further west than Colorado,” Reedy said. “I made this naive mistake that they make, blaming all the Afghans, really probably all Muslims. I was that guy. I’m really ashamed about this.”

But instead of fighting, when he got to Farah in 2004 he learned that his assignment was to help the people of Afghanistan rebuild their cities, construct schools and establish a stable system of government. By the end of his

1978

time there, Reedy said he had a great respect for Afghans and their struggles.

One of the people he met was Arash, who was still in high school. A classmate had told Arash about a soldier on a tower nearby who was willing to converse in English. Arash learned English during elementary school, when his family was in Pakistan as refugees of yet another conflict. So he’d drop by a couple days a week to chat. Realistically, the two only spent several months

1984-1988

together before Reedy went home and was replaced with other soldiers. Within a few years, Arash’s family had built a business contracting with the U.S. military to make deliveries and complete odd jobs.

As Arash worked to go to university, he created his first email account. But no one he knew had one. That’s when he remembered Reedy had left his address on a scrap of paper.

“My first ever email went to Trent,” Arash said.

1998

1838-1921

Britain wages three wars in Afghanistan in an attempt to rule Central Asia.

1950s

Afghanistan’s prime minister befriends the Soviet Union and introduces more freedoms for women.

Khan is killed in a military coup by other communists. Islamic religious leaders opposed to modern reforms create a mujahedeen guerrilla group.

A TIMELINE OF AFGHANISTAN

1920s

Afghanistan gains its independence and forms a constitutional monarchy with a king and prime minister.

Osama bin Laden, a Saudi Arabian, goes to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. AntiSoviet fighters receive weapons from the U.S., Britain and China. Bin Laden forms al-Qaida.

1973

Pro-Soviet Gen. Mohammed Daoud Khan takes control in a coup, exiling his cousin, the king. The Republic of Afghanistan forms.

1992

The mujahedeen take over in a coup and form an Islamic government.

1979

An American ambassador is killed. Afghanistan’s president is executed by supporters of the deputy prime minister. The USSR invades and kills the deputy prime minister and his supporters. The mujahedeen fight the Soviets. Millions start to flee.

1989

The Soviets withdraw.

Al-Qaida bombs two U.S. embassies in Africa, killing 224 people and injuring thousands. President Bill Clinton attacks bin Laden’s training camps in Afghanistan with missiles.

1992-1996

Afghan Civil War. The Taliban forms, restricting rights for women and girls.

SEPT. 9, 2001

Ahmad Shah Massoud, an anti-Taliban leader, is assassinated by al-Qaida.

2000

The U.S. demands bin Laden’s extradition to face trial for the bombings. The Taliban refuses. The U.N. sanctions Afghanistan.

OCT. 7, 2001

The U.S. and Britain launch airstrikes on Afghanistan, starting Operation Enduring Freedom.

SEPT. 11, 2001

Terrorists hijack four commercial planes, crashing them into the World Trade Center towers in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and a field in Pennsylvania (thanks to passengers who fought the hijackers). An estimated 2,600 people are killed in the twin towers, 125 are killed at the Pentagon, and 265 passengers and crew are killed. (Hundreds more have since died from dust/chemical exposure.)

The attacks on 9/11 have had a lasting impact, both in the U.S. and Afghanistan. FEMA PHOTO

The two ended up staying in touch.

Arash, who speaks Pashto, Persian and Urdu, kept studying English. He got a Fulbright scholarship to come study in the U.S. in 2013. After he returned at the end of 2014, he taught English for a while before going to India in 2017 to work on a doctorate. Before he was able to finish that degree, the pandemic forced his return to Afghanistan.

It was around that time that Reedy and Arash started working on their book.

Reedy had already written about his experiences in Afghanistan, including about a girl with a cleft lip who he helped get surgery. He encouraged Arash to share his own stories.

Arash said he wasn’t sure he had anything to share. But then Reedy asked where he was when he learned about 9/11.

At that time, Arash’s family had been living next door to a Taliban family. Arash’s grandfather — a “very, very brave person” who’d stood up to their neighbor’s threats — was fine with them having a television, but the family hid its existence by hanging thick blankets over their windows to block the bright reflections. The volume had to be turned down low.

About a week before the antiTaliban leader Ahmad Shah Massoud was assassinated on Sept. 9, 2001, Arash says there was suddenly a moving truck next door. The Taliban family left. It seemed like they knew something was going to happen, Arash says.

The day after 9/11, Arash’s uncle heard people in the city talking about something in the U.S. and the family got ahold of a VHS news recording from a friend who had satellite TV. Even though the neighbors were gone, they blocked the windows and turned down the sound before learning what had happened.

“My grandfather said, ‘I’m not going to escape to Pakistan again, man. Because I’m sure that war starts the way the Russians did. They’ll come and kill, and then we will start fighting among ourselves,’” Arash said. “Al-

2003-2004

NATO provides security in Kabul, the capital. Afghanistan adopts a new constitution. Karzai wins the presidential election.

NOV.-DEC. 2001

Afghans push the Taliban out, and Hamid Karzai becomes the leader of the interim government.

though what he said didn’t apply in those 20 years, after 20 years we started destroying ourselves again.”

FIRST STEP: PAKISTAN

After “the betrayal,” Arash’s family remained in Afghanistan for several months. Arash continued teaching, keeping a low profile. He declined a promotion. He didn’t tell his relatives he was trying to leave.

In March 2022, Reedy told Arash to keep an eye out for a message from a group associated with Glenn Beck, a conservative American talk show host with millions of listeners. The group was working to get people out, and Reedy’s contacts in the U.S. had asked them to help Arash. Arash was still hoping to return to India to finish his Ph.D., but suddenly a man reached out, saying he was working on getting Arash’s family visas for Pakistan.

It felt sketchy, at best. On March 28, 2022, Arash told Reedy he thought the man who contacted him was fake. Arash didn’t ask to go to Pakistan. The man didn’t introduce himself as someone from the organization.

Reedy confirmed that the guy was legitimate, but Arash said it was going to be difficult to make a move soon. Ramadan was about to start, and traveling without eating all day wouldn’t work. Reedy insisted that Arash would be good with God if he had to break the fast to get his family to safety.

Two more months passed before the family returned to Kabul, ready to leave. They’d been coordinating with the American group, and this time they’d brought many of their things.

Out of fear that someone might let a detail slip to the wrong person, they didn’t tell their family goodbye until they were just about to board the plane.

“Ten minutes to boarding, I called my uncle and father and everybody and said that we are leaving,” Arash said. “My father and uncle got really angry and sad that ‘You are letting us know now?’ But I really didn’t know what to do.”

2019

On June 2, 2022, Arash told Reedy his family had landed in Pakistan.

“Thanks be to GOD!!!!!!!!” Reedy said. “You’re OUT!!!”

“YES,” Arash said. “We got out.”

Reedy jokingly told Arash to go find some of the “horrible” music he likes, and they bantered back and forth.

6:08:12 am, REEDY: you could even dance

6:08:19 am: Maybe get yourself a shave

6:08:36 am: but do not dance and shave at the same time

6:08:40 am, ARASH: I am going to get a French cut right away.

6:08:42 am: Hahahah

By June 8, 2022, Arash had rented an apartment for the equivalent of $99, and spent $800 to file online applications to try to get to the U.S.

But over the next several months, the family would end up searching for any available option to get to safety.

WHO WILL TAKE US?

After a few months in Pakistan, the family’s visas expired, leaving them in hiding. They had to find the right people to pay an “administrative fee,” buying them a few more months. Until they were cleared, Reedy sent crowdfunded money via friends of friends to help the family survive. Reedy and Arash considered getting the family to Mexico, where it might be easier to cross the U.S. border and seek asylum. But getting approval to fly there proved too difficult.

Arash applied to teach English in Vietnam, only to be told he’d have to mail his paperwork to Kabul for approval before he could get the final OK. In other words, he’d have to get permission from the Taliban to leave. That plan was out.

Reedy asked his thousands of Facebook friends for other options, and he started learning about immigration policies for countries he didn’t even know existed.

...continued on next page

2011 President Barack Obama orders U.S. SEAL Team Six to kill bin Laden in Pakistan.

2006-2010

NATO and the U.S. expand their presence as the Taliban and al-Qaida continue fighting.

2013

The Afghan army takes over military operations from NATO.

MARCH 11, 2012

A U.S. soldier slaughters 16 civilians (including nine children) in the Kandahar massacre.

U.S. and Taliban start peace negotiations, which President Donald Trump calls off after the Taliban kill a U.S. soldier.

2014

Obama announces plans to significantly reduce troops by 2016. NATO ends its mission.

JULY 2021

The U.S. leaves Bagram airfield.

APRIL 2021

President Joe Biden announces the U.S. will completely withdraw before the 20th anniversary of 9/11.

AUG. 26, 2021

Two ISIS-affiliated suicide bombers at the Kabul airport kill 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops.

AUG. 15, 2021

The Taliban take over Kabul and the Afghani government collapses as President Ashraf Ghani flees.

2022

The Taliban restricts virtually all rights for women and girls. The U.S. kills the new alQaida leader.

AUG. 30, 2021

The final U.S. troops leave Kabul airport.

MARCH 9, 2023

The U.N. says Afghanistan is the most repressive country in the world for women and girls.

“OUT OF AFGHANISTAN,” CONTINUED...

“There’s no place on Earth. We were seriously looking at places like Rwanda, Haiti,” Reedy said. “Often it would be like ‘It’s easy to come to this country, you’ll love it here.’ And then there’s a little thing at the bottom, ‘Oh wait, are you Afghan? No, no, no, no, no. Not a chance.’”

By the end of 2022, an American couple that had never met Arash offered to put up $28,000 for his family to apply to live in Canada, and Reedy found a resident to sponsor them.

Just as they were about to start the formal paperwork for that process early this year, Arash heard from the U.S. State Department.

On Feb. 13, he learned that his student visa was coming together, and he turned over his passport. He’d be getting his doctorate at Indiana State University.

Reedy was ecstatic, promising to bring gifts for Arash’s wife and kids and meet them when they landed.

But just a day later, Arash learned that the program he’d gotten into had been eliminated by the university.

8:56 am, Feb. 14, REEDY: There’s gotta be something else you can study in Indiana.

9:00:02 am, ARASH: The problem is that all my documents are processed for a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction at ISU. [I’m] afraid if anything changes that [it] will take another 6 months to process the visa. You know that.

9:00:27 am: I guess I should forget all about it.

9:00:43 am: It’s just so disappointing.

Within a few hours, Reedy said he’d ask ISU to let Arash into another program, and he offered to reach out to Eastern Washington University. Then, Arash said his former professor at ISU wrote back to him, saying they might be able to figure out another program.

The next day, Reedy learned that an Afghan who worked with his military unit had been taken by the Taliban.

6:53 am, Feb. 15, ARASH: This is what awaits us if we go back. Man.

Arash knows others who were taken.

At a public speaking event, a former colleague of Arash’s had been asked to weigh in on the economic situation under the Taliban. He’d been honest, saying they didn’t have the expertise, Arash says. The man disappeared for 10 or 12 days before being released. Since his abduction, he hasn’t spoken to anyone.

He hadn’t thought about the incident for years until his brother contacted him in Pakistan to say that Arash had been issued a court summons.

“There was nothing stated, but I’m assuming that he might have claimed that ‘This guy intentionally failed me because he knew that I was working for you,’” Arash said, referring to the Taliban. “‘And now I want him to come and repent.’”

ZERO HOUR

With help from people at Indiana State University, Arash was able to rapidly apply for a new academic program, in educational administration, and by early this summer, it finally looked like Arash and his family would be able to make their way to the U.S.

Just two weeks before the family was set to fly out, Arash got yet another call that seemed like it could ruin their plans. Someone from Pakistan’s Ministry of Interior wanted to know why they extended their medical visa stay.

“I thought that might just be a scam,” Arash said.

But then he talked to some friends who said the same thing happened to other Afghans in Pakistan. In some cases, officials showed up and confiscated a family’s passports, demanding money to get them back.

Arash considered moving up their departure date, but he worried that if the officials dropped by and saw he’d changed his plans, he would get flagged.

8:19:55 am: Good luck.

12:34 pm, ARASH: We just got down to Abu Dhabi.

The next day, Reedy donned a chapan — or, as he calls it, a “Karzai coat” — that he hadn’t worn in 18 years, and waited in the baggage claim area for the international arrivals.

As their plane taxied, Arash told his wife to get ready for what could be an hourslong security check. But since they’d already sat through a long check in Abu Dhabi, they were able to walk right through to the baggage area in Chicago, where they found their friend.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Arash said. “We greeted each other, and still when I was greeting, I was thinking, ‘Where are the police officers? They need to search us first.’ And Trent told me that, ‘Man, this is the exit, I guess we are done.’”

“It was glorious,” Reedy said. “I spent two years imagining this moment, when I’d finally be able to see him, and they’d be safe. The reality couldn’t possibly live up to the anticipation and the fantasy.”

“I didn’t have any words,” Arash said.

Over the next few days, they helped the family shop for beds and basic necessities. Reedy gave Arash a set of crystal bookends he bought at Wonders of the World in the Flour Mill in Spokane. It felt like a fitting way to stick it to the Taliban.

“No one’s going to tell you what you can and can’t read anymore,” Reedy said. “So build up your library and enjoy the freedom.”

“They torture you and then they tell you that ‘Now, you dare talk to someone about it,’” Arash said. “They just silence you forever.”

Five years ago, Arash remembers getting harassing phone calls insisting that he not fail a student in his class. Arash explained that the student hadn’t met the standards. One of the callers said, “I’m from the people of the mountain … pass this kid, or we have people everywhere.”

He failed the student. “So then I got a bit scared,” Arash said, though nothing seemed to come of the threats.

Instead, Reedy helped them pay about $150 for an “exit pass,” which granted them a 15-day legal stay on their way out of the country.

Finally, by July 24, Reedy was on his way to Chicago with a friend from high school — she was there to help Arash’s wife feel more comfortable when they arrived — and Arash and his family finally got on their first plane to freedom.

8:19:06 am, July 24, ARASH: Rolling.

8:19:09 am: Just started.

8:19:30 am: Phones off.

8:19:47 am, REEDY: Got it.

Now safe and settled in Indiana, Arash is working toward his degree. The solution isn’t perfect — he can’t work enough to pay their rent because of the restrictions on his student visa. And, truthfully, he still has mixed feelings about being forced to leave his home country. In some ways, it feels like a collective failure.

“I sometimes blame myself as a teacher,” Arash says. “I think teachers failed.”

After 20 years of opportunity, they weren’t able to change the minds of “people who were against humanity,” Arash says.

But he’s hopeful that this chance to start again is the best thing, especially for his children.

“I have to get them a brighter future.” n

Cheney author Trent Reedy rests easier now, knowing his co-author and friend is safe. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

BLOOM AS YOU ARE

Spokane author Stephanie Oakes’ spellbinding third novel, The Meadows, imagines a dystopian future in which queerness is outlawed

While living in the U.S. as a queer person today is, thankfully, far from the dystopian world envisioned in Stephanie Oakes’ newest young adult novel, The Meadows, there are some precarious similarities.

Set in a not-too-distant future, climate change has decimated Earth, fracturing society to the extent that the government’s been taken over by an oppressive surveillance state called the Quorum. Citizens’ actions are recorded by “eyes” and “ears,” every past move analyzed and future move predicted by the all-knowing algorithm. Protagonist Eleanor and other youths find hope, however, in dreams of being invited to attend one of the country’s most esteemed educational institutions, the Meadows among them.

Yet as readers can predict from the book’s onset, something sinister lurks in the shadows of these eerily serene settings.

After arriving at the Meadows — a beautiful yet sterile facility surrounded by fields of ever-blooming, lavender

flowers — Eleanor and the other girls begin a multiyear curriculum on “ladylike” skills: painting, needlework, personal hygiene, socialization and comportment. The Meadows’ teachers, called matrons, promise the girls bright futures as dutiful wives and mothers. Over time, though, Eleanor and her peers begin to piece together the real reason they’re there: The Quorum wants to completely suppress, reprogram and erase their sexual orientation.

Oakes recalls when the seed of The Meadows began to take root in her mind, sometime in 2019. She’d heard a news report about then-Vice President Mike Pence’s ties to ultraconservative organizations and hate groups that support conversion therapy.

“I kind of thought that conversion therapy wasn’t a thing anymore, and I knew it was banned in Washington,” Oakes says. “So it was this subject that I sort of mentally filed away as, we don’t have to worry about this anymore. But then I learned that it’s actually still very prevalent, and even in Washington, the ban only prohib-

BY CHEY SCOTT

its licensed mental health therapists from doing conversion therapy, and they were never the people doing it in the first place. [The ban] doesn’t do anything to prevent the majority of conversion therapy to happen, which is inside religious institutions or associated with churches. ...Dystopian stories, when they’re most effective, are like a mirror to our current society.”

She was writing the novel when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also began pushing for what’s now a state law banning teachers from talking about sexual orientation or gender identity in the classroom. Advocates for LGBTQ+ rights dubbed the bill “Don’t Say Gay.”

Oakes, who is queer, intentionally didn’t include any words used to identify gender or sexuality in the novel as a direct nod to real-world queer erasures. The Meadows’ matrons only allude to queerness as a “violation of nature” because the Quorum blames all noncisgender, nonhetero people for causing the world’s climate disaster.

...continued on page 26

Oakes’ third book was directly inspired by current events in the U.S. YOUNG

 MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL

 THURSDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL

 SATURDAY COLLEGE FOOTBALL

 SEAHAWKS SUNDAYS

CULTURE | LITERATURE

“BLOOM AS YOU ARE,” CONTINUED...

“Taking away the word, taking away the ability to even name queer people, that’s so insidious and that is here,” Oakes says. “So I thought, ‘What would that actually look like?’ taking it all the way to the extreme of these kids growing up in a world where they don’t even know the word gay. In itself, that is a form of abuse — taking away people’s terms for themselves.”

The Meadows clearly examines some pretty heavy subject matter, but does so realistically and respectfully under Oakes’ deft hand. Weaving together moments from Eleanor’s past and present, starting when she leaves her rural coastal home to attend the Meadows, the novel takes a page-turning pace toward its climax and conclusion. In the present setting, Eleanor works for the Quorum as an adjudicator, a job checking in on “reformed” girls from the Meadows and other facilities to see if their conversion has “stuck” after being placed in state-arranged, male-female marriages. She fabricates her reports to protect them.

Unlike the headstrong heroes in much of young adult dystopian literature, Oakes crafted Eleanor as more of a simmering rebel — she wavers between seeking acceptance from and wanting to destroy her oppressors.

“I wanted to have a main character who sort of wrestles with how do you stand up when that’s not necessarily the natural way you would go about it,” Oakes says, adding that some of Eleanor’s personal ity traits were inspired by her spouse, Jerilynn, while Eleanor’s tenacious best friend, Sheila, is a little more like Oakes.

While parts of The Meadows’ were inspired by Oakes’, her spouse’s and their friends’ firsthand experiences, the story’s cast represents the broader queer spectrum while also being racially diverse.

“Any accurate depiction of a queer story has all of the different varieties of expression and self-doubt and different things that we wrestle with,” she says. “I didn’t come out until I was an adult, and so even just imagining what it would be like as a teen to be dealing with all of this was a mental exercise.”

One of Oakes’ greatest strengths as a storyteller is her knack for writing imagery- and emotion-filled descriptions of her character’s reactions and internal monologues. Eleanor’s longings for acceptance, memories of a lost love and even what she feels during a panic attack are visceral and vivid. Readers can feel this pain as deeply as she does.

In the beginning of The Meadows, Oakes describes how Eleanor finds a human anatomy book and studies pages on facial muscle structure so she can mask all her emotions from the everwatching Quorum.

“But also that can be a queer experience — I have to present the world one thing, but on the inside I’m something completely different,” she says. “Even if you take away the dystopian setting, a lot of queer people get really good at having the front-facing version of yourself and the inside version, and they’re not often the same.”

The Meadows follows Oakes’ 2017 Washington State Book Award winner, The Arsonist, and 2015’s Morris Award finalist The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly, the latter of which was adapted into a TV series. To celebrate her latest release, Oakes is featured as part of the Spokesman-Review’s Northwest Passages series in conversation with fellow Spokane author Sharma Shields.

Oakes, who’s now 36 and until recently worked as a youth librarian, feels privileged to contribute a much-needed entry of queer representation to youth literature, especially as tensions remain high, locally and nationally, over book banning battles in public libraries and schools.

“Six or seven years ago, I was at a meeting of the school librarians in Spokane Public Schools, and I was saying ‘We need to be more proactive about buying LGBTQ books, we have these kids in our schools.’” she recalls. “And one librarian said, ‘Well we don’t have any of those kids at our school.’ And I was like, ‘Are you serious? Yes, you do.’ You think you don’t have queer kids at your school so you’re not going to buy queer books? It’s that kind of thing that scares me because that’s so quiet. Nobody’s hearing about that on the news.” n

Stephanie Oakes: The Meadows Book Launch

• $7 general, $30 VIP • Bing Crosby Theater • 901 W. Sprague Ave. • spokesman.com/northwest-passages

• Tue, Sept. 12 at 7 pm

The Meadows releases on Sept. 12. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

OVER 50 TV’S FULL BAR  27 TAPS FOOTBALL SPECIALS!

THE BUZZ BIN

THE MURKY APPEAL OF MARS

BY SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL

Iremember gazing up at the sky as a kid and realizing that some of those bright specks of light were especially meaningful. That red one, there, see? That’s our alluring neighbor blinking hello in the darkness. Or is it sending a warning?

Humankind has looked to that siren’s light for thousands of years, drawn to what may be a lifeless rock by fantastic daydreams of what fate might await there. The Greeks called it Ares, after their god of war and courage. In India it’s Mangal, after a Hindu deity of anger and aggression. The Arabic and Chinese names evoke fire or “fire star.” In a nod to the Roman god of war, we call it Mars.

If our calendar doesn’t show how enthralled we are — “March” and “Tuesday” both originate from names for Mars — all you have to do is look to popular culture to see the planet’s enduring ability to capture our imaginations.

While the first thing that comes to mind may be the Mars missions being planned by “Mr. X” and other billionaires who seem fixated on abandoning our human-spoiled planet, the most imaginative minds in science fiction have long offered hope for the red planet, and warnings to heed.

In the 1870s, telescopes revealed what people theorized could be canals built by intelligent life. By 1898, H.G. Wells imagined a Martian invasion of Earth in The War of the Worlds. Orson Welles’ Mercury Theatre performed the story via radio in 1938, leading some (though probably nowhere near as many as initially reported) to believe the world was under attack.

In The Martian Chronicles (1950), Ray Bradbury imagined the American colonization of the planet, with indigenous martians succumbing to disease, and mankind self-destructing through nuclear war on Earth. In 1953, Nazi-turned-American rocket scientist Wernher von Braun published The Mars Project in English, detailing how people could get to Mars. His ideas were explored in “Mars and Beyond,” a 1957 episode of

Disneyland. In 1958, Marvin the Martian’s plot to blow up Earth was thwarted onscreen by Bugs Bunny. The sci-fi fascination exploded even more after man made it to space in the 1960s, spurring a wealth of movies, music and more.

It’s hard to pinpoint when my infatuation with space began. Maybe it was in 1997, when we saw the Comet Hale-Bopp burning 1,000 times brighter than Halley’s Comet. It had last graced Earth’s skies more than 4,000 years ago, and will take thousands more to return.

In elementary school I watched movies like Men in Black, Space Jam, Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century, October Sky, Contact (I even wrote a school report on SETI), The Iron Giant, Armageddon, Muppets from Space, Independence Day — OK, come to think of it, was everyone in the ’90s *obsessed* with space?

In recent years, I’ve devoured space books, including The Expanse series, Andy Weir’s The Martian, Artemis and Project Hail Mary, and Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. Then, last week, I realized just how much of my summer pop culture menu has been flavored by Mars.

I watched Apple TV+’s For All Mankind, which imagines the space race getting us to Mars sooner, at the cost of an enduring Cold War. Audible is reading me Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars (1992), which explores the likely political arguments we’ll have about terraforming the planet and sharing its resources. I’m also reading Light Bringer (July 2023), the latest book in Pierce Brown’s Red Rising series, which details the violent struggles to overthrow an oppressive power structure, with the abused “reds” of Mars leading the fight for solar-system-wide equality.

While Mars has always enticed us, and sometimes scared us, maybe it can teach us. Otherwise, somebody on Mars might just look to the sky someday and wonder if the moons of Jupiter actually hold the answer. n

STRIKING SPRAGUE MURAL

The next time you’re cruising by New Moon Art Gallery, located on the west side of the Sprague Union District, you may notice a vivid display of local fauna and flora painted along a fence paralleling Sprague Avenue. This mural, which the gallery commissioned and named Gateway to the Sprague Union District, was painted by Spokane artist Kim Long and features animals and insects with mechanical, steampunk-esque components integrated into their figures, such as a bee with robotic wings or a turkey with a gear as a tail. Long incorporates bold colors and nature-inspired forms into much of her art. This recently completed project showcases eye-catching depictions of the world around us while serving as a cheerful welcome to the thriving and historic business district. (SUMMER SANDSTROM)

KEWU SIGNING OFF

Eastern Washington University’s longtime, on-campus, noncommercial jazz radio station 89.5 KEWU-FM is going silent at the end of this year. The station formed in 1950 and has since served as a local staple for jazz enthusiasts and those seeking melodic, commercial-free tunes to play on their daily drive to work or as relaxing background music. An announcement from EWU about the station’s end mentions that the school is looking into other options for student-focused broadcasting, like podcasting. KEWU plans to continue airing with preloaded programming for the next four months, concluding its 74 years on-air with a grand finale set to include a performance by EWU’s Jazz Ensemble. (SUMMER SANDSTROM)

THIS WEEK’S PLAYLIST

Noteworthy new music arriving in stores and online on Sept. 8.

OLIVIA RODRIGO, GUTS. The pop star readies her sophomore album. Maybe this time around, all her songs won’t be blatant plagiarisms! Alleged, we mean.

COURTNEY BARNETT, END OF THE DAY. The Aussie indie rocker known for her cheeky lyricism goes in the completely opposite direction with a free-flowing, ambient instrumental album.

ANJIMILE, THE KING. Foreboding electronic layers of dark pop underscore Anjimile’s emotionally brutal exploration of the Black trans experience in America. (SETH SOMMERFELD)

My slow realization that I might be obsessed with Mars (and space), and you may be, too

For All Mankind imagines the political strife of life on Mars.

Active Listening

As

BY ELIZA BILLINGHAM

What’s the point of a symphony, anyway? What is an orchestra’s job?

Jeff vom Saal races around his office all day asking these questions. An energetic trumpet player from upstate New York, he’s been the executive director for the Spokane Symphony for seven years, with plenty of previous experience in Massachusetts, North Dakota, Iowa and California. But for all his years around orchestras, his questions don’t seem to be getting any easier.

The Spokane Symphony launched an emergency fundraising campaign last spring to try to close the gap between funding and operational costs before the end of the fiscal year in June. That’s actually pretty common for any orchestra across the country, vom Saal says. Spokane isn’t particularly in danger of losing its symphony, and the volatility of COVID is waning, knock on wood. But costs are high (about $1 million over income), and it’s not clear where more money could come from. It’s an old problem. It’s vom Saal’s (tough) job to find new solutions.

It doesn’t help that the age-old dance between artist and audience is changing.

At certain cultural moments, an orchestra might have been the leader, with musicians deciding what was excellent and expecting an obedient audience to listen. Today, the audience usually leads, often expecting to be given an experience they already know they enjoy, like The Nutcracker or Handel’s Messiah in December and John

Philip Sousa in July.

Plus, with today’s infinite entertainment opportunities, orchestras must provide an experience that the audience not only wants, but can’t get anywhere else.

“Our job is to listen actively and to adapt,” vom Saal says. “To learn and to stay vulnerable and modest, and continue evolving.

James Lowe grew up in the UK listening to ABBA and Motown. His mother was a typist, and his father was a health inspector. One day, a teacher played Rossini’s William Tell Overture (otherwise known as the Lone Ranger’s theme song) in class. Lowe loved it. He got the record for Christmas and wore it out. He had no idea there was a whole genre of music to which the overture belonged.

Today, Lowe is the music director of the Spokane Symphony. His job is to conduct major performances and guide the artistic direction of the orchestra.

“The most important thing is that we as artists have to make the greatest art we can,” Lowe says, noting that the group is “punching above its weight” as a symphony in a midsize city. How many orchestras get to play with Yo-Yo Ma, much less one in a metro area of half a million? (Read our review of the sold-out season opener on Inlander. com.) It reminds Lowe of another, more famous team.

“I want to have the orchestra spoken in the same breath as the Zags,” he says.

To Lowe, great art is art and entertainment that everyone in the community needs. It’s a “universal tool” that can benefit everyone from dementia patients to kindergarteners.

American orchestras are now on the offensive, needing to prove to their communities that their jobs are valuable and helpful. In a midsize city like Spokane, the symphony has unique access to audience input and can react more quickly to community needs.

Take, for example, its collaboration with speech pathologist Heidi Farr of the Central Valley School District. Together, Farr and the symphony organized a special sensory-friendly evening of music for people easily overstimulated by lights, noise or crowds. The house lights stayed on and audience members were encouraged to get up and move.

The energy was amazing, says Shira Samuels-Shragg, who conducted the performance. It was such a hit that

the symphony hopes to offer sensory-friendly Nutcracker performances to include more people this December.

This is Samuels-Shragg’s first season as an assistant conductor for the Spokane Symphony. Her job includes conducting some orchestra performances while being Lowe’s eyes and ears for others. She’s also involved in educational outreach to students, which she loves.

“So many of them love orchestral music. They just don’t necessarily know it yet, right?” she says. “It’s in their video games. It’s in their movies. But nothing beats hearing a live orchestra.”

Video games? Movies? What do they have to do with classical music?

Andrew Angelos puts John Williams in the same progression as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Mahler and Strauss. Angelos is the symphony’s operations and personnel manager, plus its third French horn player. His job is to coordinate outreach events and guest artists coming to Spokane, and then to play in the concerts he helped organize behind the scenes.

Angelos is just as excited about “popular” concerts like Symphonic-Con (Oct. 28-29) or Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (May 4-5, 2024) as he is about more traditional “Masterworks” programs, because he himself is a pop concert success story — he got hooked on classical music through film scores.

“I think anybody and everybody can relate to that,” he says. “You hear Star Wars, and you’re like, ‘I love that.’ That’s technically classical music. Indiana Jones. E.T I went to Yellowstone a couple of weeks ago, and my friends and I were all listening to the How To Train Your Dragon soundtrack. It’s just pretty epic.”

The symphony’s job, at the end of the day, is to be there for you, the community, its leaders agree.

“I have a strong belief that the symphony is for everyone,” Lowe says. “Music still speaks no matter who you are.”

Vom Saal and his team are betting that as long as the orchestra holds a meaningful place in the city, the money will come. When they’re performing, they’re listening for a response, ready to follow the city’s lead. n

Check out the 2023-24 season schedule and get tickets for the Spokane Symphony at spokanesymphony.org.

it kicks off its 2023-24 season, the Spokane Symphony is ready to hear what the community needs

James Lowe and the Spokane Symphony began a new season on Sept. 6. SPOKANE SYMPHONY PHOTO

DRINK LOCAL

Short und Stout

No Drought Brewing Co., a Spokane Valley brewery focused on German beer, releases a series of limited edition stouts

BY ELIZA BILLINGHAM

Call him a heretic. A heathen. A dishonor to the Inland Northwest. But Damon Netz doesn’t like IPAs.

The Seattle native just had too many hoppy beers and got sick of them, OK? So when Netz opened No Drought Brewing Company in Spokane Valley in 2021, he decided to focus on serving his favorite beers — lager, doppelbock, Kölsch and all kinds of other German brews, made from malts straight out of Heidelberg.

Judging by his full taproom, he isn’t the only one getting sick of pale ales.

This year, Netz is offering another underloved libation. In August, Netz kicked off his 12-month project called the Small Batch Stout Chronicles. Every month for the next year, Netz will release an extremely limited edition stout beer. Emphasis on extremely — only a pony keg, which is less than 8 gallons total.

Each month’s stout features a different seasonal additive, from pumpkin to peppermint to peanut butter. The first installment in August was “Just a Stout,” which will serve as the base recipe for all stouts to come. It was dark, smooth, chocolatey and gone in just three days. But on Sept. 23, Netz plans to release his second exclusive stout, probably with blackberry or blueberry, for a new kind of tribute to the Northwest.

Netz made stamp cards to help customers keep track of how many stouts they’ve tried. Twelve stamps means a prize at the end. If you already missed Just a Stout, don’t fret: 10 or 11 stamps might still win you something, too.

Aber Damon, Stout ist nicht Deutsch! True, stouts aren’t German. But if Netz is committed to anything, it’s to doing whatever he wants. And despite the lack of hops, his unorthodox tastes are catching on.

“Great feedback. People loved it,” Netz says. “I think it’s a really good step.”

Stouts are dark, heavy beers once preferred by the working class of England’s 18th-century industrial revolution. “Stout” is another term for “strong,” reflecting both the beer and the men who drank it.

Stouts went out of style in England pretty quickly, but they stayed relevant in Ireland and the U.S. American stouts tend to be sweet, while Irish stouts, like Guinness, are more dry — a sophisticated palate might even pick up hints of fiddle and melancholy.

Netz’s base stout is dark and roasty without being too heavy, like perfectly brewed espresso. The beer gets its dark color from “chocolate” malt, sprouted barley that’s been roasted to the color of Lindt or Ghirardelli. There’s no actual chocolate in the malt, but toasting brings out notes of cocoa.

Netz has a little “malt wall” behind the bar, a small shelf of spice jars in which he displays the different malts he uses. He knows what malts are used for which beers, but he’s not a guy to geek out over the scientific process of brewing — he has a brewmaster named Marcus Jackson for that. He’s just a dude with an MBA and an insurance job who likes good beer, side hustles and Oktoberfest.

Netz homebrewed for about six months while he befriended Peter McArthur and Logan Cook of Genus Brewing, which was right on his way home from work.

“I literally stopped in there two, three days a week,” Netz says. “I just picked their brains nonstop.”

Throughout his MBA studies, Netz was warned that business owners were secretive and competitive. But McArthur and Cook were open, welcoming and willing to teach him anything ...continued on page 32

FOOD | DRINK LOCAL

they could.

“Instantly their responses were, ‘Oh yeah, come in the back and let me show you what I got,’” Netz says. “They gave me a tour, they showed me everything, they gave me a bunch of tips of what they would have done differently. The industry is insane. The industry is amazing.”

Owning No Drought is a second job for Netz, and he makes sure to keep it fun. He loved the Lester Cup, an annual, themed friendly competition between six breweries in downtown Spokane. Netz now organizes a similar brew-off in Spokane Valley, aptly called the Valley Cup. The Valley Cup trophy travels to each winning brewery, just like pro hockey’s Stanley Cup. It currently sits behind No Drought’s till — they won last year’s competition for best colorful beer with a purple ube stout.

Next to the Valley Cup trophy is Das Boot, a beer glass shaped like a boot that holds 2 liters. Anyone who orders it gets their Polaroid picture up on the wall. Netz just bought another glass boot so two friends can face off and prove ultimate drinking prowess.

Netz still supports the homebrew scene, too. This year, he partnered with a homebrew competition held by Joseph’s Grainery in Colfax. Homebrewers used the barley grown by the grainery in original, creative styles. The winner got the chance to scale up their recipe at No Drought and sell it in Netz’s taproom.

This is great news for drinkers who don’t want an IPA, Schwarzbier or stout, if there is such a person. The winner of this

PROST!

Oktoberfest: Thu, Sept. 28-Sat, Sept. 30

Small Batch Stout Chronicles, Chapter 2: Sat, Sept. 23 10604 E. 16th Ave, Spokane Valley nodroughtbrewing.com, 509-241-3294

year’s homebrew competition was Lisa Wagner and her “Just Peachy” Gose. Coincidentally, Gose is a sour, fermented beer that originated in Goslar, Germany. Sour beers don’t get much love around here, either, but you can get a glass of Just Peachy at No Drought during the last few months of this year.

In true German fashion, No Drought is hosting a three-day Oktoberfest at the end of September. The celebration includes an oompah band, a stein-holding contest, and some of Netz’s favorite beers, like Märzenbier and Festbier.

“I love Oktoberfest,” Netz says, blissfully remembering his first trip to Leavenworth, Washington. “It’s probably what helped lead me to German beers.”

A few days before polkas and lederhosen descend on Spokane Valley’s newest hofbräuhaus, Netz releases the second chapter of his Small Batch Stout Chronicles. So get your autumn on, ditch the hazy crazy for one night and sip on something big bold, and berry delicious while you can. n

“SHORT

COMING OUT AND COMING OF AGE

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe is a sensitive, understated YA drama

Given the portentous way that teenager Aristotle Mendoza (Max Pelayo) talks during the opening voiceover, it would make sense to expect Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe to be a stark, grim account of life for a closeted gay teenager in 1987 El Paso, Texas. The movie based on Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s popular 2012 young adult novel has its share of dark moments, but overall it’s much sweeter and more hopeful than that downbeat introduction would suggest.

Immediately after that initial expression of despair, Aristotle, who goes by Ari, has his first encounter with Dante Quintana (Reese Gonzales), a fellow MexicanAmerican teen who doesn’t quite fit in. The taciturn, brooding Ari generally keeps to himself, but Dante breaks through that gruff exterior, first by offering to teach Ari to swim and later by inviting Ari into his home, declaring their friendship before Ari could even think to object.

There’s clearly something more than friendship going on between the two, at least on Dante’s part, and Pelayo and Gonzales have natural chemistry that makes even small, brief gestures of affection feel more meaning-

ALSO OPENING

JAWAN

Legendary Indian actor Shah Rukh Khan stars in this over-the-top Hindi action film about a complicated hero who looks to right societal wrongs and take down an evil outlaw with the help of a team of badass women. Not rated

MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING 3

Somehow it took three movies for this rom-com franchise to actually get to Greece. When the Portokalos clan heads to their homeland for a family reunion, adventure, love and plenty of hijinks ensue. Rated PG-13

THE NUN 2

Set at a boarding school in 1956 France, Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) must once again face her fears and try to banish the demon Valak, who takes the form of a horrific nun. Rated R

BY JOSH BELL

ful. Sexuality isn’t the only aspect of identity that the characters struggle with, and writer-director Aitch Alberto sensitively engages with all of Ari’s and Dante’s internal turmoil. Although the teens share Mexican heritage, Dante comes from a more affluent family and feels disconnected from his roots, while Ari resents his parents’ reluctance to open up, especially about his imprisoned older brother. The bond between Ari and Dante helps them process all of these feelings, which is why it’s disappointing when Dante essentially disappears for the entire middle of the movie, as his family temporarily moves to Chicago for his dad’s job. Dante and Ari continue their connection via written letters, with voiceover narration from Gonzales, but a device that might succeed in a novel proves limiting on screen, depriving the audience of the interaction between the main characters.

Still, those letters strengthen the emotional ties between Ari and Dante, and they allow Dante

a safe space to admit his true feelings toward his friend. The movie’s tone turns heavier once Dante returns to El Paso, and the characters come up against some harsh truths about life for gay people in 1987. Alberto includes some news footage related to the AIDS epidemic, but Aristotle and Dante isn’t a history lesson or a lecture about social issues. It’s primarily a romance, even as the characters face obstacles that other love-struck teens of the same time and place wouldn’t have to worry about.

Sáenz and Alberto allow for plenty of joy amid the difficulties, and Ari and Dante are luckier than many young people in similar positions, with parents who offer them unconditional love. Alberto recruits famous faces Eugenio Derbez and Eva Longoria to bolster the supporting cast as Ari’s dad and Dante’s mom, although they never overshadow the central duo. Comedic actor Derbez seems slightly miscast as Ari’s stoic, stern father, whose arc of acceptance doesn’t quite land. Mostly, though, the adult actors simply provide quiet support, just as their characters do.

ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE

Rated PG-13

Directed by Aitch Alberto Starring Max Pelayo, Reese Gonzales, Eugenio Derbez

Alberto provides the same kind of support, with an understated visual style that only hints at the grandiosity of the title in the final few shots. There are a few clumsy instances of overdubbing that probably exist to bring the rating down to PG-13, but overall Aristotle and Dante is remarkably clear-eyed and honest. Sometimes it seems a little too subdued, and the romance could stand to be a little swoonier, to match up to its mainstream YA counterparts. Ari and Dante obviously deserve everything their genre has to offer.

Tenderness works in Aristotle and Dante’s favor.

As the Crow Flies…

Exploring Counting Crows frontman Adam Duritz’s career-long battle with mental health, love and idealization

Ispent last week cosplaying as a DJ at the Kootenai County Fair — a haze of golden dust and nostalgia where families gathered daily to eat, drink and be merry. As a sober-ish, depressive-disordered dude fearfully courting his Henry Rollins era, I felt a bit out of place at times. It called to mind my childhood in the Midwest: watching reruns of sitcoms in the summer, attempting to understand Carl Jung while getting sunburned, and listening to Garth Brooks. Lots of Garth Brooks.

On my way home, in the safe space of my 2000 Dodge Ram Van, I would listen to a copy of Counting Crows’ 2002 album Hard Candy that I’d picked up from Pirate Traders in the Valley a few weeks earlier. My relationship with the band has largely been determined by whatever used CDs worked their way into my collection over the years. Copies of August and Everything After and Recovering the Satellites have been criminally available in thrift stores for the better part of two decades, so I’ve always had a copy of those on hand.

I was already familiar with the album’s singles, but they never really clicked with me. When I thought of Hard Candy, I always thought of the track “Good Time”

BY TAYLOR WARING

— a track that frequently found its way onto whatever MP3 player I had on hand in my late teens. The track is a bit of a standout in the band’s discography. With a heavy Pink Floyd influence, the track is driven by bass and keys, with psychedelic eruptions of electric guitars. It would make more sense on an album with guest vocals by Portishead’s Beth Gibbons rather than the actual guestspot by Sheryl Crow.

But, as it often is with Counting Crows, my real interest is in the story songwriter Adam Duritz is telling in “Good Time.” A romantic poet at heart — with the hope of Whitman and the melancholy of Poe — Duritz’s work often has characters that mirror his speaker. We learn a lot about Duritz and his sense of isolation through his relation to his doubles.

For instance, the titular character of their first smash hit “Mr. Jones” is an idealized double — a cool-speaking guy who can talk to any girl in the bar. Even the blackhaired flamenco dancer. Duritz’s speaker wants to be like that — he wants to believe in himself, he wants to be loved, he doesn’t want to feel alone in a crowded room.

But, in “Good Time” the foil is an oddly dressed

“gentleman caller.” Unlike the charismatic Mr. Jones, he “stutters over what to say.” Also, unlike Mr. Jones, Duritz’s speaker empathizes with, rather than idolizes, this unnamed character. Even though, by the time of writing the song, Duritz had achieved the stardom he wished for in “Mr. Jones,” simple conversations are “no easier for [him] some days.”

In 2008, Duritz disclosed a long-standing battle with a dissociative disorder in an essay with Men’s Health magazine. A defense mechanism at heart, dissociation is a learned response to trauma — the mind distances itself from reality in order to protect itself. Sometimes this occurs as a shift in identity, as with the often misunderstood disassociative personality disorder, or as memory loss.

Duritz deals with derealization: When the world becomes too much, the mind cushions itself in clouds of disbelief, softening the harsh blows of the world by making them appear unreal. Although diagnosed sometime between the release of Hard Candy and the 2008 follow-up Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings, the Sisyphean wrestling match with one’s own mind has been at the heart of Duritz’s lyricism throughout his career.

POP ROCK

Duritz’s poetic pop rock still resonates with an honest radiance.

Creating art as a means of understanding the peculiarities of one’s own mind is nothing new, especially for artists whose creative gifts are so often paired with mental illnesses. As we’ve seen with countless masters — Poe, Goya, Cobain — a nascent, monstrous mental illness will bubble up from the murky waters of the unconscious and confront the artist. The artist wrestles with the beast. Results may vary.

The internal battle is only half of the equation for the “rock star” — whatever that word means these days — who is also flanked by the ruthless reality of rigorous touring schedules. In the aforementioned Men’s Health article, Duritz recounts momentarily choosing to hop on the flight to his next gig instead of booking it back to the states to attend his grandmother’s funeral. The reality of the “show” seemed more real than the reality of a loved one’s death.

How does one continue living like that for decades? Where does one go when — head and world alike filled with demons — there is no safe haven? It’s no wonder so many, as Duritz himself admits, turn into self-involved assholes. If you run away long enough from the world, from yourself, there’s little, if anything, left to salvage.

While Duritz places little faith in notions of redemption, Counting Crows’s most recent release Butter Miracle: Suite One, shows that, given enough time and self-work, things do get better. Calling to mind the work of graphic designer Storm Thorgerson’s surrealism, the cover features a woman with a piece of buttered toast for a head. She’s colossal — bigger than mountains — and holds a knife in her hand. Buttery flowers bloom in the background.

On the surface, the collage by artist Beth Hoeckel might seem absurd, but it also demonstrates a new sense of self-awareness. Perhaps more common than the “double” archetype in Duritz’s lyrics is what one might call “the Radiant Maiden.” Another vestige of romanticism, the love interests in much of Duritz’s work have felt impossibly idealized and totally anathema. Even when they have different names — Maria, Anna, Elisabeth — they all seem to represent the same fantasy. They’re all more “idea” than “reality.” The cover for Butter Miracle: Suite One inflates this idea ad absurdum.

This newfound self-awareness permeates Butter Miracle: Suite One. Drawing on the sort of semi-autobiographical storytelling Phil Lynott explored in Thin Lizzy’s vaguely conceptual Johnny the Fox, Counting Crows’ newest record features a cast of larger than life characters. Both Johnny the Fox and Butter Miracle: Suite One share another commonality: They are both bands’, for want of a better word, “coolest” records, in the Mr. Jones sort of way.

Counting Crows returns to the Spokane area on Sept. 13, playing at Northern Quest Casino with 2000s emo band Dashboard Confessional. If you were lucky enough to catch Counting Crows a couple years back at the Spokane Pavilion, you got to see the band just returning to the stage after its longest break from touring. One would imagine Duritz and company are back in full swing.

The name Counting Crows comes from an old nursery rhyme that deals with fate. “One for sorrow / two for joy,” the song goes, as it, rather melancholically, links one’s emotional fate — whether you’ll end up a Mr. Jones or a Gentleman Caller — to the number of black birds they can count. Of course, mental health, belonging and love aren’t as simple as the nursery rhyme would suggest — but, just in case, you should catch Adam Duritz and his murder when they fly into town. You might even have a good time. n

Rain and Revival

Thoughts from a weekend at Seattle’s relaunched Bumbershoot festival

BY SETH SOMMERFELD

Despite what Frankenstein, every zombie show ever and the rancid script of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker would suggest, reviving the dead doesn’t always end in abject disaster.

Case in point: Bumbershoot.

The Seattle music and arts festival rose from the grave last weekend after a three-year hiatus. The 50th edition of the Emerald City’s biggest Labor Day tradition packed in crowds for two days of cultural overload.

Even before COVID killed concerts there for a bit, Bumbershoot’s future was rather bleak. Longtime promoter One Reel crashed financially in the mid-2010s, and entertainment giant AEG stepped in but somehow couldn’t figure out how to make the festival profitable enough. (How an org can run Coachella but not figure out a fest in the heart of Seattle over a holiday weekend is beyond me.) But earlier this year, Third Stone and New Rising Sun took over and announced a festival relaunch.

It was clear as soon as the music lineup was announced in March that things were shifting course. Bumbershoot was going to be a slightly smaller scale fest. Gone were the top-end headliners of past years like Lorde, Kendrick Lamar and the Weeknd. Instead, the organizers clearly were aiming for the burnout alt-rock dad demographic: SleaterKinney, Sunny Day Real Estate, Jawbreaker, Band of Horses, Fatboy Slim. Not exactly chumming the waters to bring in the young’uns there.

But when it came time for festivalgoers to descend on Seattle Center last weekend, lineup hesitations mostly melted away. People turned out in droves, yet the vibe around the festival grounds was extremely chill. Organizers were clearly striving for more of a community fest rather than juggernaut, and that seemed to jive with the folks who showed up. While Saturday was toasty at times and Sunday had spurts of being a typically raining and cool fall day, the warm aura of the people seemed unaffected.

While the festival experience can often be a blur, there were plenty of highlights that spring to top of mind. Seattle acts like the silly adult punk of Wimps, the party-starting dance music of Chong the Nomad, the Afro hip-hop of Chimurenga Renaissance and the

family blues punk of the Black Tones showcased the city’s different musical niches. Northwest rock legends Sleater-Kinney and Sunny Day Real Estate both demonstrated why audiences still show up well after both bands burst onto the scene in the ’90s. It also wouldn’t be a proper Seattle festival without Reignwolf shredding and Thunderpussy writhing around on stage. Pussy Riot was a blast, as the hyper, pop-art punk act brought protest, provocation, guttural scream and sex positivity to a large crowd (some of whom looked on with amusing befuddlement). On the nonmusical side, additions like the style-focused Fashion District and the pro wrestling of Bumbermania were fun new cultural additions, though adding back in more performing arts, comedy and conversations would be a good touch.

Of course, not everything about Bumbershoot’s return was flawless. If anything, it seemed like organizers might’ve oversold tickets considering how overstuffed some of the crowds felt. The indoor Vera Project stage was nigh impossible to get into in the evenings, and finding a passable view for the Mural and KEXP stages at night was a losing proposition for many. That’s all the sillier considering organizers didn’t use Memorial Stadium for a stage, instead opting to use the massive space as an barely-attended oversized drum circle. The overcrowding might’ve been OK if spots like the Mural stage had screens showing the performers, but only the main stage — the one that needed it the least — got video.

The lineup could also use an injection of some youth and diversity in future auditions. Apart from being dragged by their parents, Gen Z audiences were largely left out in the metaphorical cold. Certain genres seemed underrepresented (hip-hop, EDM), but more crucially there needs to be more diversity — while some of the locals helped in this respect, the vast majority of headliners were older, white guitar dudes. It’s hard to build a true community fest when most folks on the stage look the same.

Still, it seems like Bumbershoot is at least back to being a viable going concern for any Inland Northwest music fans seeking a Labor Day getaway. As Fatboy Slim closed the festivities on Sunday night with throngs of people blissing out and dancing under the spiritual shadow of the Space Needle, you could feel any issues fading away into the pulse of the music.

There will be growing pains for Bumbershoot going forward, but growing pains are at least an indication that you’re still alive. n

AFI got the Bumbershoot main stage crowd fired up at the Seattle Center. SETH SOMMERFELD PHOTO

ROCK RICK SPRINGFIELD

RICK SPRINGFIELD ENTERS THE CONFESSIONAL. “Forgive me father for I have sinned.” / “All sheep stray from the flock sometimes, my son. Confess your sins.” / “Well it’s hard for me to be pure since I’m an incredibly handsome actor.” / “Be humble, my son.” / “I’m also a rock star.” / “OK, now you’re just bragging” / “Anyway, I have this friend named Jessie. He’s been a good friend of mine. But lately something’s changed that ain’t hard to define, Jessie’s got himself a girl and I want to make her mine.” / “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife! It’s one of the Ten Commandments, my son! You must repent!” / “Oh, well they’re just dating.” / “Then what are we even talking about? You’re clearly Rick frickin’ Springfield! Go in peace to steal your pal’s gal!” / “Amen, Father!”

— SETH SOMMERFELD

Rick Springfield, The Hooters, Paul Young, Tommy Tutone • Fri, Sept. 8 at 7:30 pm

• $30-$35 • All ages • Northern Quest Resort & Casino • 100 N. Hayford Rd., Airway Heights • northernquest.com

COUNTRY ERIC CHURCH

Thursday, 9/7

ARBOR CREST WINE CELLARS, Spare Parts Combo

J BING CROSBY THEATER, Daughtry, Ayron Jones

J BRICK WEST BREWING CO., Kyle Richard and Friends

CHECKERBOARD TAPROOM, Weathered Shepherds

CHINOOK LOUNGE, Kosh

J MAGNOLIA BRASSERIE, B

PEND D’OREILLE WINERY, Rachel Cole

J PINE STREET PLAZA, Music on Main: Jon and Rand Band

J QQ SUSHI & KITCHEN, Just Plain Darin

STEAM PLANT RESTAURANT, Rusty Jackson

ZOLA, Mister Sister

Friday, 9/8

J THE BIG DIPPER, Sölicitör, Xingaia, CHAN’S RED DRAGON ON THIRD, Bay 7

J KNITTING FACTORY, Josh Ward

J LAKE CITY CENTER, Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes

J J NORTHERN QUESTCASINO, Rick Springfield, The Hooters

PEND D’OREILLE WINERY, Oak Street Connection

THE RIDLER PIANO BAR, Just Plain Darin

SPOKANE EAGLES LODGE, Stagecoach West

VANTAGE POINT BREWING CO., Son of Brad

ZOLA, Brittany’s House

Saturday, 9/9

J BECK’S HARVEST HOUSE, Dallas Kay

J THE BIG DIPPER, Not For Nothing, Fate Defined

CHAN’S RED DRAGON ON THIRD, The Longnecks

THE DISTRICT BAR, Bumpin Uglies

J J THE GORGE, Eric Church

KNITTING FACTORY, Shrek Rave

LIVE AT ANDRE’S, Shawn Mullins, Chuck Cannon

PEND D’OREILLE WINERY, Wiebe Jammin

J REPUBLIC BREWING CO., The Cruz Contreras Band ROCKET MARKET, Mark Ward SPOKANE VALLEY EAGLES, Ben Klein

STEAMBOAT GRILL, Flipside ZOLA, Blake Braley

Sunday, 9/10

ARBOR CREST WINE CELLARS, The Moops

J BECK’S HARVEST HOUSE, Jonathan Arthur

J BING CROSBY THEATER, Dave Mason

While many country fans have conservative ideologies, they also tend to be conservative toward the music itself. Case in point: The backlash against Eric Church after his set at CMA Fest earlier this year. The chart-topping superstar had the gall to rearrange a few of his hits and play some deep cuts (gasp!). Expect more of that when his Outsiders Revival Tour heads to the Gorge. Church intends to skip some of his bigger hits and try reinterpretations of others to stretch his artistic boundaries (he’s even bringing a horn section). In addition to a fresh feeling headliner, the concerts will also feature rising country rap star Jelly Roll and the stellar sweetheart country of Hailey Whitters. But if you’re looking for a greatest hits show, remember: Just like the Sunday tradition, Church isn’t for everyone.

— SETH SOMMERFELD

Eric Church, Jelly Roll, Hailey Whitters • Sat, Sept. 9 and Sun, Sept. 10 at 7 pm •

$50-$160 • All ages • Gorge Amphitheatre • 754 Silica Road NW, George • livenation.com

CHAN’S RED DRAGON ON THIRD, Too Slim and the Taildraggers, The Longnecks.

J COEUR D’ALENE PARK, The Rising

J J THE GORGE, Eric Church

J JIMMY’S DOWN THE STREET, The Black Jack Band

J KNITTING FACTORY, Iya Terra, Surfer Girl, E.N Young

J SOUTH HILL GRILL, Just Plain Darin

Monday, 9/11

RIVERSIDE PLACE, Terror Reid

Tuesday, 9/12

LITZ’S PUB & EATERY, Shuffle Dawgs LUCKY YOU LOUNGE, Decent Criminal ZOLA, Jerry Lee and the Groove

Wednesday, 9/13

J THE BIG DIPPER, Absent Cardinal

J D-MAC’S, Chuck Wasileski THE DISTRICT BAR, Tropidelic

J J NORTHERN CASINO, Counting Crows, Dashboard Confessional

PEND D’OREILLE WINERY, Bob Beadling

RED ROOM LOUNGE, The Roomates

ZOLA, Brittany’s House

J = THE INLANDER RECOMMENDS THIS SHOW

J = ALL AGES SHOW

WELCOME TO THE

VISIT

COMMUNITY YOU’RE SO CLASSIC

Mustangs and Malbecs. Corvettes and Cabernets. What pairs better than wheels and wine? Spend your Sunday morning cruising around Arbor Crest’s classic car show, where it’s totally cool to have a drink in your hand. Take a spin around the historic Cliff House Estate to see your favorite collectibles, from American muscle cars and JDM models to exotic imports and antique restorations. Park yourself on the ridge for a moment to drink in stunning views of the city with your ride or die. No matter if you’ve got someone riding shotgun or not, it’s worth it to take a victory lap around one of Spokane’s favorite wine cellars before the weather cools down. So get yourself into first gear and get up there — just make sure to drive home safe!

— ELIZA BILLINGHAM

VISUAL ART ABSTRACT EXPRESSION

BENEFIT EYES ON HOPE

Annual Car Show • Sun, Sep. 10 from 11 am-2 pm

• Free • 21+ • Arbor Crest Wine Cellars • 4705 N. Fruit Hill Rd. • arborcrest.com • 509-927-9463

GET

Submit events online at Inlander.com/getlisted or email relevant details to getlisted@inlander.com. We need the details one week prior to our publication date.

Art allows us to be present in human existence. It makes us curious, creates new memories and brings us together. Spokane artist Eric Sanchez recently premiered a new collection that grants viewers these experiences and more. Through the month of September, downtown Spokane record shop Entropy is hosting Sanchez’s solo exhibition “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere” in its circular, mezzanine gallery. Sanchez is known to experiment with different artistic content, with a style that’s often evocative of cubists like Pablo Picasso, as well as the geometric tessellations of M.C. Escher. Get out there and see this local artist’s array of brightly colored acrylic paintings, handmade clay figures and other forms of abstract expression.

— SYLVIA DAVIDOW

Eric Sanchez: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere • Open daily from 11 am-6 pm through Oct. 2 • Free • Entropy • 101 N. Stevens St. • Instagram: @givemeahifive

Next week, local artists are once again joining together for a good cause, supporting Volunteers of America Eastern Washington and North Idaho’s annual Eye Contact fundraiser. Displayed alongside the creations of these professionals are images just as powerful, created by homeless women and youths who’ve relied on VOA’s services during a difficult time. For guests of the one-night event, artists Freddy Throne and Katey Mandley entertain with live artmaking, alongside performance art, music, silent and live art auctions, and, of course, food and drink. Volunteers of America operates the Hope House for women in downtown Spokane, along with Crosswalk Youth Shelter, transitional housing for veterans, and many other lowbarrier programs to support those who are homeless.

— CHEY SCOTT

FESTIVAL MANGA-NIFICENT

When I was in middle school, I actively hid the fact that I watched anime from my friends for fear of being made fun of. Now, it’s cool to watch anime and read manga. Where was this acceptance when I needed it?! Well, fellow Crunchyroll subscribers, you’re gonna love this one. The University of Idaho’s Habib Institute for Asian Studies is hosting a weeklong celebration of all things manga and anime starting Monday, Sept. 11. Activities kick off with a manga drawing workshop and continue into the week with lectures about the history of Yuri (a queer female genre) and how to start a career in anime or video games, plus screenings of classic Japanese anime films like Sailor Moon R and The First Slam Dunk. The event also features an art exhibit titled “Manga and War” exploring the role manga has played in helping humans understand war. See the AsiaPOP! Symposium website for a full schedule of events.

— MADISON PEARSON

AsiaPOP! Symposium • Mon, Sep. 11-Sun, Fri, Sept. 15; times vary • Free • University of Idaho, locations vary • uidaho.edu/class/hias/asiapop

COMMUNITY IT’S SHOWTIME!

People near and far, young and old — the time is nigh! The 72nd annual Spokane County Interstate Fair & Rodeo kicks off this Friday for its 10-day run. Beyond the usual attractions and activities — tasty concessions, carnival rides, animals, agriculture and domestic arts exhibits — this year’s fair boasts grandstand entertainment from Craig Morgan, Clint Black, Martina McBride and X Ambassadors. For the liveliest action, head to the rodeo events, tractor rally and demolition derby. Throughout the fairgrounds, local groups also perform and share their talents with the community, ranging from illusionists to princess story time, dancing, hypnotists and more. (Find the complete schedule for the North Stage, rodeo and other events online.) Among the fair’s many animal highlights, don’t miss the kids’ Mutton Bustin’ or pig races! And, if you go on the weekend (Fri-Sun), meet this year’s live mascot, Cedar, an adorable, 7-month-old Highland cow.

— CHEY SCOTT

I SAW YOU

MAYOR YOU, like any citizen in this free-est country in the world, have the right to attend any gathering you choose to attend. That you attend, amongst those with radically differing views than yours, is a testament to your support of that precious right. To the bullies that are throwing stones from their glass houses, including council people, they also have the right to attend or not. NO one knows your heart, nor your reasons for attending any event other than you. Do NOT be discouraged in exercising this right, nor believe you must defend your actions. NOBODY but you knows why you were there. Thank you for respecting ALL who attended. You have always exhibited grace and kindness to all around you... the essence of a Christian walk: LOVE one Another. You are a kind, strong, courageous example of that. We see You. We support you. MOST importantly, God knows your heart. Thank you for your diligent leadership of this city, and your kindness toward all of us, whatever our walk. You are a light. No one can dim that. Shine.

BILLY IDOL CONCERT Your name was April. You were accidentally in my seat. I chickened out on asking for your number. I’d love to see you again.

YOU SAW ME

YOUNG LADY IN A PORSCHE MACAN You were in a Silver Porsche Macan going south on Freya the 26th. I was in a loud Silver Chevy. You said, “I like your car.” I

responded, “I like yours too.” It doesn’t take much to get an old car guy to smile, but you did. We always appreciate an attractive young lady’s smile and comment about our cars. I smiled all the way home. Thanks.

CHEERS

TIME AND PLACE TBA FREE! “How to Tie Your Panties in a Knot” class. Topics to be covered include: “The Art of the Whine,” “From Mole Hills to Mountains,” “What’s Succinct Got to Do With It?” Cheers!

CITIZEN SALUTE Cheers and blessings to the kindly older gentleman who stopped on the Aug. 29 to check on me, stranded along the northbound lane of Addison. I saw you the first time, as you were one of the few who slowed down and moved over as you passed me. Despite being in a large truck with my hazard lights on in the no parking bike lane, most drivers were zooming over the speed limit, passing within inches of my side window, including trash and city utility trucks. You took your wife home and came back, genuinely concerned if I had my cellphone and was expecting help. To him and the few that did slow down and move over, I thank you! To the others, you have a long way to go, maybe a few more lifetimes, before you learn how to be Human Beings.

INLANDER ROCKS! Thank you editor, staff, contributors and distributors for this continuing insightful, informative, educational, topical, and entertaining publication. Your critics could not possibly provide an articulate paragraph fit to print with as much worthy content. It’s amazing and admirable that you gather and create this fine local treasure once a week — and for FREE! Thank you for keeping print journalism and intelligent content alive! You are all a gift to our local region.

WANT TO MEET MY LIFESAVERS I’m looking for two women who on Aug. 21, 2022, were doing trail maintenance past the gate at Selkirk Lodge on Mount Spokane. They used a Subaru to get me off the trail to a Life Flight helicopter after I suffered a major heart attack while mountain biking. It’s been almost a year since that happened, and I want to thank them both, share how well I’m doing, and let them know that their actions literally saved my life. One was a nurse, named Lynn. Can anyone help me get in contact with these women?

TO THE BUS RIDERS OF SPOKANE This isn’t for the people for the road diet on Division Street, but rather for the people against it.There are radio ads accusing the city of “forcing” people to take the bus. That is not what it’s about. It’s about reducing traffic to make the street better for people who

on wheels. Undaunted by panic after a bag theft, they embraced the role of relentless detective. Zipping around the rink and beyond, they tirelessly scoured for the thief and even explored nearby gas stations. Their unyielding dedication provided hope and comfort to the victim amid distress. In a world where kindness can be rare, this

don’t drive. All the bus-hating is going to do is make more people drive, which will make buses even more inefficient than they already are, which will then hurt poor people, you know, the ones who need buses the most. Contrary to popular belief, not everybody wants to drive. Spokane doesn’t need a six-lane street, we need better public transit. With that and the new freeway, traffic on Division will calm down.

THE WORLD IS A BETTER PLACE WITH YOU

To. Mr. Jason c/o City Code, Ms. Dani c/o The Woman’s Hearth, and Ms. Delaney c/o Northwest Justice Project...Thank you

RE: DOGS OFF LEASH This is actually a cheers to the person who posted the “Dogs Off Leash” comment a few weeks ago. I really appreciated reading it! Yes, there is a county leash law, and yes, there are plenty of dog owners who think that they and their dogs are special and don’t need to follow the law. I’m so sick of off-leash dogs heading for me while their owners say things like “Oh, don’t worry — he’s friendly!” I’ve been attacked by off-leash dogs, bitten once, so I don’t care about your totally lame reasons for having your dog off leash. I don’t want your dog approaching me, sniffing at me, jumping on me, or trying to interact with me in any way, “friendly” or not. You aren’t special, your dog isn’t special — follow the law and keep your dog leashed!

SKATE RIBBON HERO At Numerica Skating Ribbon, a heartwarming act of heroism unfolded as the sun set and skates glided. A willing helper, donning a stylish HYPLAND shirt, became a real-life superhero when disaster struck. With smooth moves and exceptional kindness, this roller-skating dynamo swiftly transformed into a guardian

SOUND OFF 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

roller-skating savior illuminated the spirit of selflessness and courage. Here’s to the roller-skating hero in the black HYPLAND shirt — your actions resonate. Your hand of help, commitment to what’s right, and unwavering support for the community are truly remarkable. Last night, you embodied a guardian angel on wheels, igniting hope in our community. May your kindness ignite collective goodwill. Your actions remind us that in a world on wheels, lending a helping hand truly enriches the journey.

FOR THE NEWCOMERS TO SPOKANE Welcome! Drive slow. Or better yet, not at all. Take the bus or ride a bike.

JEERS

HEY COUNCIL NEWS FLASH: Your job is to serve ALL citizens of this city, not just those who are on your Agenda Band Wagons. SHOCKER!! We know!!! WHAT?? Do you know your rights to assemble, speak freely, worship how you choose, amongst other rights are protected by the U.S. Constitution?!?! No joke!! For reals!! So are mine!..and others. Why are you loudmouth blasting the Mayor for exercising her rights?? Do you even know?? Do you even know her intentions? No. You don’t. Check this: My Vegan friends attended a Country Music Concert. NO KIDDING!! I never once “decided” that I KNOW that those friends are now in support of Cowboy Cattle Ranchers who raise beef... and eat it!! What?? Surely given your unreasonable reasoning process, they MUST be. Why else would they attend a Country Concert?? They must surely also believe in gas guzzling pickup trucks and semis that deliver our foods to market, instead of their electric cars they drive. I should dump them as friends, right???

RESTAURANT RIP-OFFS

I’m tired of restaurants replacing main courses with tiny appetizers but charging main course prices. $60 meal shouldn’t have me hitting up Taco Time on the way home. Not sure how you stay in business, but I sure as hell won’t return.

CLASSLESS SPOKANE

Over Labor Day weekend I decided to enjoy a run along the Centennial Trail. It was pretty nice for the most part until someone in a garbage car drove by me and screamed purposefully toward me something about a witch in the north woods. Later, I was driving along Upriver Drive going 34 mph in a 30 mph zone, and another junk car passed me with oncoming traffic over double lines around the Boulder Beach area. Several miles down the road, two other garbage cars were driving the opposite direction about 30 mph over the speed limit. I wish law enforcement would arrest these people. They don’t deserve to have a license. Spokane used to be a nice city. It’s too bad there are so many classless scumbags like this living in it now. Spokane law enforcement: Please post officers on Upriver Drive between Avista and Argonne and arrest drivers who are purposefully driving carelessly. Also, Spokane please raise the fines to make it really hurt when they’re passing cars at excessive speeds. I beg you.

PAC-12, 11, 10, 9..... Big full jeers to the NCAA for allowing the break up of the last real conference. It’s a cluster led by the M&M’s (Mo Money, Mo Money, Mo Money,) Greed in America is totally out of hand. They just extinguished WSU and OSU resources for recruitment. Just change the name from PAC-12 to PAC-UP. n

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

BENEFIT

MARCH FOR THE FALLEN Walk, run or ruck to remember post 9/11 fallen military members from the Pacific Northwest. Proceeds benefit the WA State Fallen Heroes Project and local organizations supporting veterans. Sep. 9, 8:45 am-2 pm. $30. Riverside State Park, Spokane. marchforthefallen.org

SHARE OUR DREAM, NURTURE OUR NATURE A fundraiser and auction benefitting Camp Fire Inland Northwest. Sep. 9, 4-7 pm. $75. Camp Dart-Lo, 14000 N. Dartford Dr. campfireinc.org/ share-our-dream (509-747-6191)

BRICK WEST TRIVIA FEST Twelve teams battle against each other in trivia competition for the title of champion. Qualifying rounds take place at PRESS Public House, Backyard Public House and Brick West. See website for schedule. Proceeds benefit the Salvation Army’s Burst-A-Bus Fundraiser. Qualifing rounds Mon-Wed through Sep. 27. Brick West Brewing Co., 1318 W. First Ave. brickwestbrewingco.com/trivia

SIP & SHOP A silent auction and raffle benefitting the Sandpoint Strikers soccer team. Sep. 12, 4-8 pm. By donation. Pend d’Oreille Winery, 301 Cedar St. powine.com (877-452-9011)

EYE CONTACT A one-night event, aiming to bring visibility to the community members experiencing homelessness, features local artists, live music and a silent auction. Sep. 14, 5-8 pm. $20. Washington Cracker Co. Building, 304 W. Pacific. event.gives/eyecontact2023

SEQUINS AND VELVET A benefit for Mujeres in Action celebrating the resiliency of domestic abuse survivors. Includes salsa dancing, local chefs’ Latinx food and games. Sep. 15, 5:30-10 pm. $100-$135. Overbluff Cellars, 304 W. Pacific. miaspokane.org

COMEDY

COVER TO COVER An improvised comedy show inspired by interviews with local authors. This month features Michael B. Koep, author of Gigmentia Sep. 7, 6 pm. Free. Coeur d’Alene Public Library, 702 E. Front Ave. levitytheatre. com (208-769-2315)

FUNNY FUNNY FUNNY JOKE JOKE

JOKE A night of comedy featuring comedians from across the U.S., hosted by Josiah Carlson. First Thursdays from 7:30-10 pm. $15. Garland Theater, 924 W. Garland Ave. garlandtheater.com

IMPROV: CHARACTERS & NARRATIVES The eight-week improv course explores character development and storytelling. Sept. 7-Oct. 26, meets Thursdays from 7-9 pm. $200. Blue Door Theatre, 815 W. Garland Ave. spokaneschoolofimprov.org

ART MEETS COMEDY Five comedians use their wit to comment on the art work by 10 artists offering reactions and stories. Sep. 8, 6-9 pm. $5. Shotgun Studios, 1625 W. Water Ave. shotgunstudiosspokane.com (509-688-3757)

JAY MOHR Mohr is an actor, comedian, writer and radio host most well-known for his time on Saturday Night Live. Sep. 8 and Sep. 9 at 7 and 9:45 pm. $25-$40. Spokane Comedy Club, 315 W. Sprague. spokanecomedyclub.com

QUEERPROV This performance showcases LGBTQ+ improvisers who come together to create scenes using audience suggestions. Sep. 8, 9:30 pm. $9. Blue Door Theatre, 815 W. Garland Ave. bluedoortheatre.com (509-747-7045)

IMPROV: KIDS MONTHLY WORKSHOP

Learn the building blocks of improvisational theater. Each workshop focuses on a different aspect of improv. Preregistration required. Sep. 9, 10 amnoon. $25. Blue Door Theatre, 815 W. Garland. spokaneschoolofimprov.org

SAFARI The Blue Door Theatre’s version of Whose Line is it Anyway? Saturdays from 7:30-9 pm through Sept. 30. $9. Blue Door Theatre, 815 W. Garland Ave. bluedoortheatre.com

COMMUNITY

WAREHOUSE BOOK SALE The annual book sale hosted by the Deer Park Library features thousands of gentlyused books of all genres. Proceeds support the Deer Park library and community. Sept. 10 from 9 am-4 pm. Free. Deer Park Auto Freight, 2405 E. Crawford St. scld.org (509-893-8300)

HISTORIC SEVENTH AVENUE TOUR

Walk along Seventh Avenue and learn about the influential families of early Spokane who lived there. Sep. 9, 1011 am. Free. Corbin Art Center, 507 W. Seventh Ave. heritagegardens.org

HOT ROD BLUES A classic car show featuring live music and a beer garden with food trucks on Cannon Street. Sep. 9, 12-5 pm. Free. Browne’s Addition, West Spokane. (509-844-2187)

MURDER ON BAKER STREET Sherlock and Watson are hosting a dinner party with an intriguing group of guests Solve this murder mystery with the

other guests. Sep. 9, 6-9 pm. $29-$39. Crime Scene Entertainment, 2775 N. Howard St., Coeur d’Alene. crimesceneentertainment.com (208-369-3695)

MAKE COLD-PRESSED SOAP Learn the science and art of making bar soap using the cold-processed method. Sep. 9, 2-4 pm. Free. North Spokane Library, 44 E. Hawthorne. scld.org

SILVERWOOD COMMUNITY APPRECIATION WEEKENDS Enter the park at a discounted rate. A portion of proceeds benefit local food banks. Sept. 9-24, Sat-Sun from 11 am-7 pm. $27-$44. Silverwood Theme Park, 27843 U.S. 95. silverwoodthemepark.com

SOIL HEALTH FIELD DAY Learn how to determine the state of your soils without equipment or expensive testing. Sep. 9, 10 am-noon. Free. Vetter Farm, 5281 Hattery-Owns Rd., Deer Park. stevenscountywa.gov (509-684-7579)

SPOKANE NORDIC SKI TRAIL DAYS

Help prepare Mt. Spokane State Park’s Nordic Area for grooming by clearing branches, brush and other obstructions. Sep. 9, 8:30 am. Free. Mt. Spokane State Park, 26107 N. Mt. Spokane Park Dr. spokanenordic.org

VINTAGE HARVEST 2023 The 22nd annual community event is a benefit for the Lincoln County Historical Society/ Lincoln County Museum and features a BBQ lunch, a car show and live harvest. Sep. 9, 9:30 am-7:30 pm and Sep. 10, 9:30 am-3:30 pm. Free. The Big Red Barn, 40801 SR 2, Davenport. lincolncountymuseums.org (509-721-1898)

CACTI & SUCCULENTS 101 Learn about taking care of succulents and cacti. Sep. 10, 11 am-noon. $10. Ritters Garden & Gift, 10120 N. Division St. 4ritter.com

CLASSIC CAR SHOW The show features classic American muscle cars, supercars, JDM models, imports, kit cars, restorations and more. Sep. 10, 11 am-2 pm. Free. Arbor Crest Wine Cellars, 4705 N. Fruit Hill Rd. arborcrest.com

SHARING THE DHARMA DAY An opportunity for newcomers to explore the Buddha’s teachings and share in community fellowship. The topic for September is “Compassion as an Antidote to Low Esteem.” Registration required. Sep. 10, 9:45 am-3:30 pm. By donation. Sravasti Abbey, 692 Country Lane Rd., Newport. sravastiabbey.org

ODESSA DEUTCHESFEST The annual festival celebrates all things German and includes traditional German food and beer, live music and dancing. Sept. 14-17. $5-$20. deutschesfest.net

FILM

MONARCH GRIND MOVIE NIGHT A screening of a short film by Scott Rulander and the classic feature film, Breaking Away. Sep. 8, 7 pm. Panida Theater, 300 N. First Ave. panida.org (208-263-9191)

OPPENHEIMER The story of the American scientist and his role in the development of the atomic bomb. Sep. 8-10 at 7 pm, Sep. 9-10 at 3 pm $8. The Kenworthy, 508 S. Main St. kenworthy.org

MOVIES IN THE PARK: TOP GUN MAVERICK Pete “Maverick” Mitchell pushes the envelope as a test pilot. Sep. 9, 6 pm. Free. Olmsted Brothers Green, Nettleton & Summit. kendallyards.com

SAILOR MOON R: THE MOVIE A screening of the 1993 magical girl anime as a part of the University of Idaho’s AsiaPOP! series. Sep. 12, 7-9:15 pm. Free. The Kenworthy, 508 S. Main St. uidaho.edu/class/ hias/asiapop (208-885-7110)

THE FIRST SLAM DUNK The Inland Northwest premier screening of the sports anime feature film. Sep. 13, 7-9 pm. Free. The Kenworthy, 508 S. Main St. uidaho.edu/class/hias (208-885-7110)

FOOD

NORTH IDAHO WINE SOCIETY SEPTEMBER KICKOFF PARTY Sample several wines along with light appetizers, plus enjoy a raffle and games. Sep. 9, 2-5 pm. $30. Lake City Center, 1916 N. Lakewood Dr. northidahowinesociety.org

ORGANICS: THE ULTIMATE FOOD

FIGHT This nutrition class discusses organic foods, their impact on health, the

environment and the economy. Sep. 9, 1-2 pm. Free. Natural Grocers: South Hill, 2512 E. 29th Ave. naturalgrocers.com

SOUL FOOD SUNDAY Soul food featuring live music by Nu Jack City. Sep. 10, 5:30-7:30 pm. $35. The Daniels Resort, 8125 N. Pine Meadows. (424-355-3878)

OKTOBERFEST BEER CRUISE Ticket includes access to the 2-hour cruise, a German buffet and beer for purchase. Sep. 14, 4:30 & 7:30 pm. $50. Coeur d’Alene Resort, 115 S. Second. cdacruises.com

OKTOBERFEST Walk through downtown Coeur d’Alene and sample Oktoberfest style beers and ciders at participating businesses. Sept. 15-16. $28-$35. cdadowntown.com (208-415-0116)

MUSIC

FRIDAYS AT THE CLOCK Family-friendly concerts featuring live music from WSUmusic students, activities for children and more. Sep. 8, 6:30-8 pm. Free. Bryan Hall Theatre (WSU), 605 Veterans Way. events.wsu.edu (509-335-7696)

THE IMAGINE COLLECTIVE Brendan McMurphy and Rachel Bade-McMurphy are joined by local and regional musicians. Sept. 11 from 7-10 pm. $5-$10. The Bad Seed, 2936 E. Olympic. imaginejazz.org

SPORTS & OUTDOORS

SCENIC CHAIRLIFT RIDES Ride the chairlift up and down the mountain. FriSun from 10 am-3:30 pm through Sept. 30. $9-$13. Lookout Pass Ski & Recreation

Area, I-90 Exit 0. skilookout.com

SLAMMA JAMMA PICKLEBALL TOURNAMENT Grab a teammate and compete for the championship title. Sep. 9-10, 8 am-5 pm. $50. HUB Sports Center, 19619 E. Cataldo Ave. hubsportscenter.org

MT. SPOKANE TRAIL RUN Choose from three courses starting and finishing at Ski Mountain Lodge 2. Sep. 10. $50-$95. Mt. Spokane State Park, 26107 N. Mt. Spokane Park Dr. nsplit.com

MUSIC, MOVEMENT & WINE Guided yoga with live music by Danny McCullum and Chris Kohut. Registration required. Sep. 12, 5-7:30 pm. $50. Arbor Crest, 4705 N. Fruit Hill Rd. arborcrest.com

FALL GARDEN CLEANUP Discuss the importance of clean-up in the garden and easy steps to get it all done. Presented by the Master Gardeners. Sep. 13, 6-7 pm. Free. Cheney Library, 610 First St. scld.org

SPOKANE AUDUBON SOCIETY: CITIZEN SCIENTISTS An online presentation about collecting backyard bird data for the National Phenology Network by Erin Posthumus. Sep. 13, 7-8:30 pm. Free. Online: audubonspokane.org

KING OF THE CAGE Watch multiple rounds of mixed martial arts fights. Sep. 14, 7-10 pm. $50-$70. Coeur d’Alene Casino, 37914 S. Nukwalqw. cdacasino.com

THEATER

SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK: Performances of Hamlet and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead in rep. Thu-Sun at 6:30 pm and Sat-Sun at 2 pm through Sept. 17. See website for location info.

spokaneshakespearesociety.org

MULLETS, MAYHEM & MURDER Solve a mystery with other participants. Sep. 15, 6-10 pm. $49. Happy Trails to Brews, 9025 N. Indian Trail Rd. crimesceneentertainment.com (208-369-3695)

THE ADDAMS FAMILY Wednesday invites her boyfriend over; chaos ensues. Sept. 15-Oct. 15; Wed-Sat at 7:30 pm, Sun at 2 pm. $15-$38. Spokane Civic Theatre, 1020 N. Howard. spokanecivictheatre.com

VISUAL ARTS

COZETTE PHILLIPS: EXERCISES IN FUTILITY A mixed-media exhibition in response to the affects of the climate crisis and the ongoing battle against climate change. Wed-Fri from 11 am-5 pm through Sept. 29. Free. Trackside Studio, 115 S. Adams St. tracksidestudio.net

THE ELVIRA ART SHOW An art show comprised of drawings of Giant Nerd Books’ store dog, Elvira. Mon-Sat 11 am-6 pm, Sun 12-5 pm through Sept. 30. Free. Giant Nerd Books, 607 W. Garland Ave. instagram.com/giantnerdbooks

ERIC SANCHEZ: EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS IS NOWHERE A collection of cubiststyle paintings. Through Oct. 2, daily from 11-6 pm. Free. Entropy, 101 N. Stevens St. explodingstars.com (509-414-3226)

DON HAMILTON: EVERYTHING WAS BEAUTIFUL AT THE BALLET A collection of photographs by Don Hamilton featuring dancers from local ballet schools. Viewings by appointment through Sept. 30. Free. Hamilton Studio, 1427 W. Dean Ave. hamiltonstudio.com (509-327-9501)

IO PALMER & ANN CHRISTENSON: ENTANGLE Mixed media art consisting of fabric, ceramics and wire. Sept. 1-30, appt. only. Free. Kolva-Sullivan Gallery, 115 S. Adams St. kolva.comcastbiz.net

JUN OH: JAEMI The local artist uses nontraditional painting materials to create experimental paintings to represent certain emotions. Thu-Sat from 4-7 pm through Sep. 30. Free. Terrain Gallery, 628 N. Monroe St. terrainspokane.com

MANGA & WAR This exhibit explores the role of manga in helping humans think about war, with particular attention to post-war Japan. Mon-Fri, 8 am-5 pm through Sep. 15. Free. University of Idaho Student Union Building (ISUB), 875 S. Line St. uidaho.edu/class/hias/asiapop

PEACE OF IT ALL Work exploring the theme of peace in the natural world and the artists’ life experiences. Wed-Sun from 11 am-6 pm through Sep. 30. Free. The Art Spirit Gallery, 415 Sherman Ave., Coeur d’Alene. theartspiritgallery.com

FIVE CRITICAL DECADES OF ART: THE STEPHENS COLLECTION Selections collected by Les and Carolyn Stephens include ’60s pop art, sculpture, abstraction, photorealism and more. Sept. 9-Jan. 6, Mon-Sat from 10 am-4 pm. Free. Jundt Art Museum, 200 E. Desmet Ave. gonzaga.edu/jundt (509-313-6843)

POSIE KALIN: I AM WHO I AM BECOMING Kalin explores memory and identity through the use of found objects and installation art. Sept. 8-29, Fri-Sat from 12-8 pm. Free. Saranac Art Projects, 25 W. Main Ave. sapgallery.com

#WEDORECOVER ART SHOW This show highlights Spokane-area artists who are committed to recovery and artistic growth. 50% of sales are donated to local recovery-focused organizations. Sep. 9, 12-5 pm. Free. Chrysalis Gallery, 911 S. Monroe St. theartchrysalis.com

ARTISTS IN THE GARDEN Regional artists fill the garden with a variety of items for sale. Refreshments and live music by John Wayne Williams. Sep. 10, 1-4 pm. Free. Create Arts Center, 900 Fourth St., Newport. createarts.org (509-447-9277)

WORDS

DANIEL JAMES BROWN: FACING THE MOUNTAIN Brown delivers the 18th annual North Idaho Distinguished Humanities Lecture. Sep. 8, 7-9 pm. $75. The Coeur d’Alene Resort, 115 S. Second. idahohumanitiescouncil-bloom.kindful.com

THE WRITER’S MYTHIC QUEST Local writer Kim Morgan discusses strategies for writing in any genre. Sept. 9, from 2-3:30 pm. Free. Coeur d’Alene Public Library, 702 E. Front Ave. cdalibrary.com

FROM UKRAINE TO SPOKANE: STORIES OF DISPLACEMENT & RESILIENCE A panel featuring individuals from Ukraine. Hear firsthand accounts of refugees. Sep. 12, 6:30-8 pm. Free. Central Library, 906 W. Main. spokanelibrary.org

STEPHANIE OAKES: THE MEADOWS Oakes discusses her new YA novel, The Meadows. Sep. 12, 7 pm. $7-$30. Bing Crosby Theater, 901 W. Sprague Ave. spokesman.com/northwest-passages

WILLIAM KENT KRUEGER: THE RIVER

WE REMEMBER The author discusses his third novel, The River We Remember. Sep. 14, 7 pm. $25. Coeur d’Alene Public Library, 702 E. Front Ave. wellreadmoose.com

ANDREA LANKFORD: TRAIL OF THE LOST This female-driven true crime adventure follows the author’s quest to find missing hikers along the Pacific Crest Trail. Sep. 15, 7 pm. Free. Auntie’s, 402 W. Main. auntiesbooks.com n

(Not So) High School

Kids these days aren’t smoking weed like they used to

BY WILL MAUPIN

With summer vacation and Labor Day in the rearview mirror, students around the Inland Northwest are returning to the classroom, which makes it a good time to check in on the statistics of cannabis consumption among minors.

In Washington, cannabis use remains illegal for those under 21, with the exception of a few situations in which cannabis use becomes classified as medical marijuana. Broadly speaking, cannabis and alcohol are treated the same way, and to use either substance legally, one must be 21 years or older.

School’s in, and is cannabis out for today’s teens?

That doesn’t mean it’s impossible to use cannabis before turning 21. In fact, you’d have to be willfully ignorant to believe that at least some minors aren’t consuming cannabis in Washington. They certainly are.

The question is: Is cannabis use a problem among minors? And has cannabis use among minors increased or decreased in the years since legalization of recreational cannabis has occurred in various states, beginning in

2012 with Washington and Colorado?

The most recent research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that recent cannabis use — specifically use once or more in the 30 days before the survey — among teens is at its lowest point nationally since at least 1991.

The 2021 numbers from the CDC show that 2.8 percent of eighth graders and 15.9 percent of 12th graders used cannabis within the past 30 days, compared with 9.5 percent of eighth graders and 26.3 percent of 12th graders in 2010.

As the CDC reports, numerous studies from both Colorado and Washington show an overall average decrease year-over-year in underage cannabis consumption in the years since both states legalized cannabis.

Nationwide, the numbers may not seem as dramatic, but they do show a decrease in underage cannabis use as well. Among high schoolers nationwide in 2011, 23.1 percent reported using cannabis within the past 30 days. In 2019, the number fell to 21.7 percent.

That is despite the country going from zero states where cannabis was legal in 2011 to more than a dozen by the start of 2019 — and now nearly half in 2023.

Early returns do not show a causal relationship between cannabis legalization and underage cannabis use. If anything, they show that it creates the opposite.

Cannabis is more available to adults than ever, but as far as minors are concerned, that doesn’t seem to matter. n

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

ANNIVERSARY SALE

EDIBLES

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

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

NOTE TO READERS

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

DAILY SPECIALS

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

1. Kawasaki rival

7. Attila, notably

10. “America’s Got Talent” judge Heidi

14. Widely recognized

15. Wrath

16. Nevada city that aptly rhymes with “casino”

17. For example, to Juan

19. Egyptian goddess who married her brother Osiris

20. Flatten, as a fly

21. Destiny

22. Stubborn sorts

23. Transportation alternatives to gondolas

26. Health insurance giant

30. They’re issued by the Bureau of Consular Affairs

33. Tumult

35. “Super Mario Galaxy” console

36. Dallas hoopster, briefly

PHONE:(509)444-7355

E-MAIL:BulletinBoard@Inlander.com

INPERSON: 1227WestSummitParkway Spokane,WA 99201

37. 1940 Crosby/Lamour/Hope comedy

41. “Sorry, am ____ your way?”

42. Google Maps marker

43. Wrinkle-resistant, as a shirt

44. Young person with uncommon wisdom, say

47. Loudly laments

48. Local or regional Boy Scout gatherings

52. Fort ____ (military post in North Carolina)

54. Sch. founded by Thomas Jefferson

55. Grander than grand

59. Highway division

60. Bioré products (or what can be seen in 17-, 23-, 37- and 48-Across)

63. 401(k) alternatives

64. “Not ____ million years!”

65. Singer Sheena

66. Hit with snowballs

67. Goo for a mohawk

68. Like cocktail attire

DOWN

1. Puppy’s barks

2. “Don’t have ____, man!”

3. Last name of father-and-son NFL coaches

4. Working without ____ (taking risks)

5. Alphabet trio

6. D.C.-to-Boston train

7. Aware of

8. Clickable address

9. “The Matrix” hero

10. Skating great Yamaguchi

11. Minimalist’s maxim

12. Close-knit, in French

13. What might surround a trunk

18. Janitorial tool

22. Off-road wheels, for short 23. Like a trivia expert’s knowledge

24. Downfall

25. Complete, as a PDF contract

26. Knickknack

27. How sardines may be packed

28. The Rialto Bridge spans it in Venice

29. ____ Ryerson, insurance salesman in “Groundhog Day”

31. First name, alphabetically, among

all Baseball Hall of Fame inductees

32. Winter Olympics gold medalists Utterstrom and Gustafson

34. Freshen, as a drink

35. Victory

38. Grain-storing structure

39. Thumbs-up responses

40. Rhubarb dessert

45. Most wise

46. “Srsly?!”

49. Full of dirt roads, say 50. Night before

51. Gradually slid (into)

52. Radar screen spot

53. Uncommon

55. Gaelic language

56. Inconveniences for olive eaters

57. NASDAQ debuts

58. “Teach Your Children” group, familiarly 60. County fair animal

20 Players Will Win Gas For a Year

AUGUST 11 TH , AUGUST 25 TH , SEPTEMBER 8 TH & SEPTEMBER 22 ND | 8 PM

We’re pumping up the rewards at Coeur d’Alene Casino. Play for your chance to win gas for a year—a $5,200 value!

On each drawing date, five lucky winners will receive $100 in gas vouchers per week for a year!

Play your favorite video gaming machines with your Coeur Rewards card to earn entries. Receive one entry for every 500 points.

30 Winners of $2,400 Cash or Extra Play Cash & One Winner of a New 2023 Pleasure-Way Tofino Van!

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 30 TH | 7 PM

This is one groovy giveaway! You could be road trippin’ to the max in a brand-new 2023 Pleasure-Way Tofino Van this summer.

30 winners will receive $2,400 Cash or Extra Play Cash. Plus, one of the 30 winners will also win a 2023 Pleasure-Way Tofino Van Grand Prize Package, bringing their total winnings to $110,660 (Grand Prize Package is the van + $7,000 cash).

Play your favorite video gaming machines with your Coeur Rewards card to earn entries. Receive one entry for every 750 points.

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

Football Sunday Bingo

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 10 TH

ADMISSIONS OPENS AT 11 AM

SESSION BEGINS AT 1 PM

10 winners of $200 cash!

See Bingo venue for full details.