Bloglander

Spokane's flourishing food scene is grabbing some deserved national attention again.

This time, Inland Northwest chef and restaurant owner Adam Hegsted — chef-owner of The Wandering Table and The Gilded Unicorn in Spokane, and The Cellar in Coeur d'Alene — has been named a semifinalist for the prestigious James Beard Best Chef Award.

Hegsted is a semifinalist for the Northwest region, which lists a total of 20 chefs mostly from Seattle and Portland.

James Beard Awards are a big deal for those in the food and hospitality industry. Semifinalists are chosen from a pool of more than 20,000 nominees from across the country — landing a James Beard Award means you're one of the best chefs in the nation. 

Spokane's culinary creatives are no stranger to this accolade, as last year we also saw Sante Restaurant & Charcuterie and Common Crumb Chef Jeremy Hansen named a semifinalist.

This year's awards are to be presented during the 2016 James Beard Awards Gala in Chicago, on May 2. But first, we'll be rooting for Hegsted to be named a finalist in an announcement about a month from now, on March 15.

ON INLANDER.COM 

Gun! 
• Was Jeb Bush's Twitter account the worst thing on the Internet yesterday? No, obviously not when we live in a world of Infowars commenters and Kanye West whining about billionaires building schools in Africa instead of giving him money. But tweeting a photo of a gun with your name on it, with the caption "America"? Just plain cheesy, and won't stop Donald Trump from making fun of your attempts to be cool.   

"We shall fight on the bike sharrows, we shall fight on the pedestrian bridges, we shall fight on the landscaped arterial gateways"
• Mayor Condon quoted Winston Churchill in his State of the City address. Except Churchill never actually said what Condon said he said. 

It was the best of Best Of times, it was the worst of Best Of times
• Only two days left to get in your Best Of ballots, BestOf-ateers!
 
In Care of the State 
• In a fact that's not surprising, but still pretty sad, the kids in juvie are often also the kids in the child welfare system. 

HERE
Saved By The Delayed Bell
• The longer elementary school day is already having a positive impact. (Spokesman-Review)

Joe a No Go 
• Former City Councilman Joe Shogan has withdrawn his ethics complaint against the mayor. Not because he thinks the mayor is ethical — but because he thinks the city is so unethical he won't be able to get the information he needs to prove the city unethical. He might be back though. (Spokesman-Review)

Chief Priorities
• By July 1, Mayor David Condon says, Spokane should have its new police chief. (Spokesman-Review) 

Let There Be Lights
• Avista's new LED streetlights have some neighbors complaining, as some neighbors are wont to do. (KXLY)

THERE 
Welcome Home 
• Citizens in Bowe Bergdahl's hometown of Hailey, Idaho, are still receiving threats over their show of support for the former Taliban captive. I blame Sarah Koenig. (New York Times)

Reeling Them In 
• One tiny island nation is being flooded with illegal poachers. Their response will inspire you. (New York Times)

Would Void the Warranty
• Apple is pushing back against the FBI's demand to crack the San Bernardino terror suspect's phone. (Washington Post)

Where Wallace At? 
• There is, in fact, a difference between segregationist George Wallace and Donald Trump, columnist writes. George Wallace was more subtle. (Roll Call)

Kneel Before The Trump Phone
• Stephen Colbert has gone from Speaking Truth to Power(TM) at the White House Correspondents Dinner to being so desperate for a Trump interview he does it by phone. (Washington Post)

As misquotes go, this is a comparatively minor one. Spokane Mayor David Condon wasn't trying to push an agenda with an inaccurate quote or put a fake quote in the law like Rep. Matt Shea did recently. 

So when Condon said during his State of the City speech on Friday that "Winston Churchill famously said, 'Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it,'" it's an understandable error. It's a mistake that plenty of others have made before. 

But as the Inlander's Senior Historical Misquote Correspondent, I couldn't just let this slide. 

Churchill didn't say that. 

Instead, that's a common paraphrase of a very famous quote from philosopher George Santayana (or "Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás," if you prefer that moniker) in his 1905 series, The Life of Reason: the Phases of Human Progress.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," Santayana wrote. 

But maybe Churchill ended up quoting or paraphrasing Santayana? Not so, say the blokes at the National Churchill Museum.

In 2012, the museum answered a question from a New York librarian on whether Churchill ever said that quote. Probably not, the museum said. Instead, Churchill seemed more focused on criticizing hot-take culture. 

"Churchill worried not so much that those who forget the past are condemned to relive it, but that the loss of the past would mean 'the most thoughtless of ages. Every day headlines and short views,'" the museum's answer says, quoting a 1948 Churchhill speech.

Similarly, in a 1935 House of Commons speech after the Stresa Conference, he suggests that failure to act quickly in considering the future, not necessarily a failure to adequately ruminate upon the past, will result in history repeating itself. 

Probably. 

In case you missed it, Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, brother of one ex-president and son of another, and current Republican candidate for president — at least for a few more days — tweeted a picture of a personalized gun with the simple one-word description "America." Here's the image in question: 

Naturally, Bush's tweet led to much mockery on the Internet, from USA Today to political outlet The Hill to staid old TIME magazine to national security pariah and current Russia resident Edward Snowden, who tweeted "Delete your account" to Bush.  

While clearly a ploy to suck up to gun advocates in advance of the South Carolina GOP primary, it seems a little out of character for a guy who was considered the kinder, gentler (and smarter) little brother of so-called "compassionate conservative" George W. Bush. But then, unnatural and clunky grasps for relevance in this campaign are kind of a specialty for Jeb: 

The November presidential election is still months away (even though it sure doesn't seem like it), but your voice can still be heard, like, right now! At least when it comes to sharing your opinion on the best places in the Inland Northwest to grab a coffee, treat yo' self to an ice cream cone or savor a tasty burrito. We all have local favorites, which is why we want all Inlander readers to share theirs for the 23rd annual Best of the Inland Northwest Readers Poll. 

Your Facebook and Twitter feeds have no doubt been filled lately with pleas from local businesses to give them a nod in 2016's poll, but not for much longer. Voting wraps up later this week, so don't delay! (Remember, if you didn't vote, you can't complain when your favorite doesn't win, just like in real politics!)

It's really easy to vote online — you can even spend a few minutes right now on your lunch break to fill out a few categories. Then save and come back, but don't forget to finish and submit, filling in at least 40 questions on the ballot for it to count — by this Thursday, Feb. 18, at midnight. 

We'll be busy the next few weeks tallying the votes and prepping our big Best Of issue announcing all the winners, out on March 24. 

No, be off and vote!

Nearly half of the kids in Spokane County who have had contact with the juvenile justice system have also run into the state child welfare system, according to a report released last month by the Washington State Center for Court Research.

“Being involved with Child Protective Services, for example, is an indicator of risk for the child and the family,” says Carl McCurley, manager of the WSCCR. “The more risks the kid has, and in particular family-related risks, the less likely they will have prosocial behavior, and they’re more likely to contact law enforcement.”

Using data from 2010, the researchers also found that the percentage of kids with a foot in both systems varies widely from county to county, from a low of 17.5 percent of multi-system youth in Adams County to a high of 60.4 percent in Skamania. In Spokane, 47.5 percent of youth who touch the juvenile justice system have a past experience with the child welfare system. 

The reasons for the county-to-county discrepancy are not immediately clear, the report states. Some possible explanations include: 

• This research only counts youth in the juvenile justice system who had prior contact with the child welfare system. "A future analysis of youth with the trajectory of juvenile justice contact prior to child welfare system involvement could demonstrate variations in jurisdictional prevalence for multi-system youth," the report states.

• Local policies can impact the likelihood a court files a truancy or at-risk youth petition. 

ON INLANDER.COM

• How bad is Macklemore's new song? 
  
• We tried the Beast Mode-affiliated Zipfizz energy drink so you don't have to. 
  

Murder mistrial?
Attorneys for James Henrikson, the alleged mastermind in a murder-for-hire plot, are asking for a mistrial after prosecutors revealed text messages that the defense says are a late disclosure of evidence. (KREM)

Man who rammed cars had sexual assault order
Jason Hoy, who is accused of ramming several cars in downtown Spokane on Saturday, had a sexual assault protection order filed against him several days prior to the incident. (KHQ) 

Former U.N. Secretary General dies
The United Nations security council has announced the death of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, an Egyptian diplomat who caused friction with the U.S. during the Clinton administration. (Washington Post)

Russia denies airstrikes 
Russia says it did not carry out strikes on a Syrian hospital that killed at least nine people. (AP)

Grammys
Kendrick Lamar won five Grammys last night, including Rap Album of the Year, but it was Taylor Swift who walked away with Album of the Year for 1989. See the complete list of winners here. And watch Lady Gaga perform an unforgettable tribute to David Bowie:  

Today the Inlander break room was the recipient of an unexplained and unexpected gift: A batch of the Marshawn Lynch-endorsed "Healty Energy Mix" from Zipfizz, a powdered concoction that promises "energy unleashed" from its Vitamin B12, "hydration" and some "multi-vitamin" properties. 

I don't know about all that, but the stuff does contain 833% of your daily recommended Vitamin C and 41,667% of your Vitamin B12, among other nutrients, in each tube of the powder designed to be dissolved in a bottle of 16-to-20 ounces of water. Beast Mode made the deal to endorse Zipfizz back in 2012, but this box of product showing up today raises some questions: 

• Who left the Beast Mode beverage here? (We don't know)
• Is it showing up now because Lynch is retiring from the NFL and leaving the Seahawks? (Probably)
• Is getting hopped up on Zipfizz what Marshawn was really doing to help comeback from his injury this season? (Probably not)
• Does it work?

There is no more football, OK? None. So get over it. It's basketball season, son. Start acting like it.

Sorry. Just had to get that out of the way after a weekend in which it seemed that not enough folks were obsessing over basketball, as they should be this deep into February. And wowee-zowie there was a lot of hoops going on over the course of the last few days. Hold onto your butts, and let's begin.

WILTJER GOES INVISIBLE, ZAGS LOSE
One man does not make a basketball team, sure. But when that man is Kyle Wiltjer and the team is a really unsteady Gonzaga that's lacking in reliable scoring threats other than Wiltjer and Domantas Sabonis, then the adage is kind of true.

And the Zags, for all intents and purposes, were without Wiltjer when they headed down to SMU for a prime-time matchup with Larry Brown's Mustangs on Saturday night. Oh, Wiltjer was there all right. He just didn't score much...and it was bad. He made just two of 17 shots (that's less than 12%) and missed all eight of his three-point attempts for just four points in the game and the Zags lost 69-60. Near the end of the contest, Wiltjer was even giving up semi-open looks, seemingly resigned to the fact that it just wasn't his night.

Sabonis, on the other hand, was a monster near the basket. He hauled down 16 boards and scored 20 points. It wasn't enough for the Zags, though, who continued to run their offense through Wiltjer well into the second half, even though that wasn't working.

In all fairness, the No. 21-ranked Mustangs are very good and given that they are ineligible to make either their conference tournament or the NCAA tournament because of a number of NCAA violations, including academic fraud, they were putting a lot of energy into this big-stage game.

While fans of Macklemore and Ryan Lewis anxiously await the release of the duo's new album, This Unruly Mess I've Made, on Feb. 26, the Valentine's Day arrival of a new single dedicated to spooning — yes, spooning — caused a bit of an uproar in some circles of the Internet. 

This guy writing on the Stereogum website calls "Spoons" the "blandest, safest, most self-consciously twee piece of rap music I have ever heard," while another writer at Uproxx.com calls the track "corny" and cites its references to Netflix queues, Shel Silverstein and pooping with the bathroom door open as examples why. Esquire showcases the song with the headline: "Cancel the Grammys: Macklemore Just Dropped the Worst Song in Music History."

So, is it as bad as the haters say? You be the judge: 

My opinion: Yes, it's pretty bad. I don't know about worst song ever, though, as long as this song exists. And this one. But Macklemore's tune will probably sell a gazillion copies no matter what the Internet says. 

What do you think? Are the Internet haters just doing what they do, or did Seattle's hip-hop hero (all due respect to Sir Mix-A-Lot) seriously misfire with "Spoons"? Let us know what you think in the comments.