Bloglander

Which Washington State team will show up in Tucson?

The one that rolled undefeated through the season's first six games, five at home (though wins over Boise State and USC in Pullman were close calls) and bounced back from its first loss with a dominant performance last Saturday against Colorado?

Or the one that was outplayed, outcoached, outschemed and outclassed in its one real test away from home, a 37-3 humbling at Cal two weeks ago? Last Saturday in Berkeley, Arizona hung 45 points on that Bears team in a one-point overtime win, the Wildcats' third straight in the Pac-12, with two on the road (Colorado, Cal) and one at home (UCLA).

It may not matter on Saturday night at Arizona Stadium (6:30 pm; Pac-12 Network, KXLY 920 AM) if Khalil Tate keeps playing at a superhuman level.

Arizona's surprising resurgence — the Wildcats, thought to be Pac-12 South cellar-dwellers, are 5-2, 3-1 in conference play — has been led by Tate, who's emerged in his sophomore season as the nation's top dual-threat quarterback, and it's not particularly close.

Arguably the closest thing that college football has seen to Michael Vick since his glory days at Virginia Tech almost two decades ago, Tate has gone through conference defenses like a hot knife through butter in October, racking up three consecutive Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Week awards. That hadn't happened in nearly 30 years, since 1988 when the player was USC quarterback Rodney Peete and the conference was the Pac-10.

The 6-foot-2, 215-pound Tate's numbers are eye-popping: since taking over midway through the first quarter for injured starter Brandon Dawkins in Boulder three weeks ago, he's struck for 1,162 yards in less than three full games; 694 of those have come on the ground, including video-game numbers against the Buffaloes — 14 carries for 327 yards (23.4 yards per), a Football Bowl Subdivision record for a quarterback, and four touchdowns, on runs of 58, 28, 47 and 75 yards. He threw 13 passes, completing 12.

If you're a horror fan like I am, October tends to offer a wealth of creepy film and television options — some quality, most skippable. Here are a handful of new titles that are not only pretty good, but currently available on various streaming services. Add these to your watch lists for when you've finished bingeing that second season of Stranger Things.


1922 and GERALD'S GAME (Netflix)

It's been an eventful but wildly uneven year for Stephen King adaptations — just a month after The Dark Tower belly-flopped, It began a box office reign that made it the highest-grossing horror film ever — and now two films inspired by some of the prolific author's lesser-known works have hit Netflix weeks apart.

First is Gerald's Game, based on King's 1992 novel, for years considered unfilmable and yet made into a properly nerve-shredding chamber piece by director Mike Flanagan (Ouija: Origin of Evil, Hush). It's not a great film — the sheer insularity of the material is something of a built-in limitation — but it's horrifying as a study of men wielding sex like a blunt weapon.

The premise is simple. During a let's-save-our-marriage weekend in a remote vacation house, Jess (Carla Gugino) is handcuffed to a headboard by her husband Gerald (Bruce Greenwood), who promptly croaks. As she realizes she won't be found for days, and as a feral dog wanders in to gnaw on Gerald's corpse, her own delusions start to kick in as the sun goes down.

1922, meanwhile, is a feature-length adaptation of a 2010 novella, returning Thomas Jane to King country after starring in 2007's The Mist. Here he plays Nebraska farmer Wilfred James, who's trying to convince his wife (Molly Parker) to relinquish control of the neighboring land that rightfully belongs to her family. When she refuses, Wilfred and his teenage son (Dylan Schmid) kill her, throw the body down a dry well and make it look like she skipped town.

In a riff on Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart, the crime haunts them, and Wilfred's nagging guilt begins manifesting itself as flesh-eating rats that always seem to be scuttling behind the walls. Like Gerald's Game, the movie burrows into its protagonist's troubled mind, and while it doesn't have enough substance to entirely justify its 100-minute runtime, it's still a stylish and effectively morbid morality play.

When Scotty Keller went to Union Gospel Mission looking for a place to sleep this year, he was told he would need to pay $3 for a drug test.

"I said, 'I'm just trying to get a place to stay,'" Keller says.

On the morning of Oct. 8, just after dawn, Keller was under a blanket on a North Spokane sidewalk when he and two other people were hit by a car. The driver, Brittney Moen, has been charged with vehicular assault and homicide. Julius Bradley Cooper and Sheera Cunningham died as a result of the crash, and Keller suffered a broken hip and broken hand. This week, the Inlander wrote about the tragic circumstances that brought the three of them together in that moment.

But their story also reveals the difficulty some people have getting into shelters that are full or have barriers to entry. Keller isn't the only one who ran into issues when he tried to stay at a shelter sometime in the last year. Sheera Cunningham's husband, Damian, told the Inlander that he and his wife tried to get into a shelter, but couldn't, either because the shelters were at capacity or because Damian and Sheera had lost their IDs.

"She actually tried to stay in shelters right before she died." Damian tells the Inlander. "But they were all full and she couldn't get into one. And she didn't have ID and some places you need ID."

It's a growing problem in Spokane. Shelters are filling up and sometimes have to turn people away. Ryan Oelrich, chair of the Spokane Homeless Coalition, says he's heard twice already this week that families with children in need of shelter were sent back to the street because Open Doors, an emergency family shelter run by Family Promise of Spokane, was at capacity. And Spokane's other overnight family shelter, Union Gospel Mission, takes a much different approach when it comes to allowing people in.

There's this scary thing about reality TV: even those of us who make jabs at how dumb and manufactured it is can find ourselves sitting there hours later, hanging on every word of the cheap drama.

Sure, it starts out ironically. We don't really like The Bachelor, or the Real Housewives. We're just watching to make fun.

Until we're not. It's a guilty pleasure, and we're hooked.

That's kind of what happened when writers at a certain weekly newspaper started watching The Fratchelor, the Washington State University student-produced version of the popular dating show with a college spin. It features a dozen single sorority girls hoping to make a connection with eligible frat guy Jake, who's looking for a serious girlfriend.

Initially, it makes for an easy low-blow target, riddled with weird editing, annoyingly repetitive introductions (LITERALLY ARE WE EVER GOING TO SEE INSIDE THE FRAT HOUSE AFTER ONE OF THESE LADIES MEET HIM???), and cringeworthy joking labels like this one (you guys... just... no. Just... no.)


You see, at first, we're better than the show.

Like its edgy, Episode 1 scene-setting intro:

A "One Way" sign points to the top of the screen for an awkward amount of time.

A dude points at his wenis while standing on a porch.

Zoom out from a frat house.

Zoom out from a building.

Zoom out from a single red solo cup sitting on a plywood table. A 2-liter bottle of ginger ale and can of Rolling Rock stand behind it, vying for attention, while a devastated Coors Light leans on Blue Moon for support in a lawn chair in the distance.

It's nice that some things in life never change too much, and so it goes with the Jesus and Mary Chain and the band's Scottish brothers out front, Jim and William Reid.

Actually, "out front" is exactly accurate, as guitarist William prefers to lurk in back, surrounded by his amps, while he churns out buzzing parts that touch on everything from surf-rock riffs to garage-rock feedback to the droning, Wall of Sound, shoegaze-y noise this band helped pioneer in the '80s.

Out front is brother Jim, handling lead vocals on songs new and old while contorting his body into various states of what looks like painful Pilates poses while singing about being "a rock and roll amputation" (show-opener "Amputation" from the band's 2017 release Damage and Joy) or letting the audience know he wants to die like Jesus Christ and JFK ("Reverence," the last song of the main set before the band returned for two encores).

INLANDER.COM

Jeremy Hansen's Puerto Rico adventure
Want to help Puerto Rico and try some great food? Click this link to find out more.

OooOOOOooooOOOooooo!
Check out Inlander readers' own ghost stories here.

County: box banned
Spokane County joins the city of Spokane in "banning the box," declining to ask about criminal history in initial stages of an interview process.


IN OTHER NEWS

¡Rehén!
A Spokane woman claims she was held hostage in a Mexican hospital. (Spokesman-Review)

Honest government, huh?
The Spokane firefighter-funder PAC that backed Karen Stratton and Candace Mumm is being fined the maximum $7,000 for failing to report its donations until after the 2015 election. (Spokesman-Review)

Divided Spain
Spain responds to Catalonian lawmakers declaring their independence by taking further control of Catalonia. (New York Times)

Deep state dish
On JFK files, Trump is puppet of CIA! Sad! (Washington Post)

Help send Spokane chef Jeremy Hansen to Puerto Rico.

This Friday, the chef-owner of several Spokane restaurants — Santé Restaurant & Charcuterie, Inland Pacific Kitchen, Hogwash Whiskey Den, Common Crumb Bakery and two forthcoming spots in the Ridpath — and his team are hosting a fundraiser dinner (see more details and how to make reservations below) to support continuing, widespread efforts to support residents of the U.S. territory, many whom are still severely suffering after being devastated by Hurricane Maria last month.

Specifically, Hansen and a small team of professionals in the local restaurant industry are traveling to do what they do best: cook. For most of next month, the team will join efforts led by internationally known chef José Andrés, whose World Central Kitchen has been cooking meals for the thousands of Puerto Ricans still lacking critical aid — including food and water — all across the island. Read more about World Central Kitchen’s ongoing aid efforts over the past month here.

“We decided to support this cause because feeding people is what we do for a living,” Hansen says. “I don’t think the government is giving the help it needs, so I will. …We have always been people to help those in need if possible, and it is something I’d do for the rest of my life if given the opportunity. And now that I do, I’m taking it. We are busy, but not busy enough to sit back and just watch a whole island of people suffer.”

Money raised from the dinner and any other donations will mostly be used to help World Central Kitchen purchase needed supplies, Hansen says, and to distribute meals across the island. Flights and lodging for Hansen and his team have already been covered; once there, they’ll all donate their time and skills in the kitchen.

“They are feeding tens of thousands a day, so our funds will be minuscule compared to what they need, but it will help,” he says.

From the outside looking in
Opioid addiction is now officially an American public health emergency. There's no doubt the issue is mind-boggling, and there's plenty of blame to go around. But how does the rest of the world perceive our problem? The BBC offers an interesting look at the problem.

An excerpt:

Some Americans, says Professor Keith Humphreys from Stanford University, believe that life is "fixable."

"I'm 51," he says. "If I go to an American doctor and say, 'Hey — I ran the marathon I used to run when I was 30, now I'm all sore, fix me', my doctor will probably try to fix me.

"If you do that in France, the doctor would say 'It's life, have a glass of wine — what do you want from me?'"


On the move!
The Early Life Speech and Language clinic celebrates the grand opening of its new Spokane location, at 506 W. Second, today from 5:30 to 7:30 pm.

Formerly known as the RiteCare Center, the new clinic is still supported by the Scottish Rite Masons and provides evaluation and individualized therapy with experienced speech pathologists for kids aged 2 to 7, at no cost to families.

Also announcing a new location is the Vanessa Behan Crisis Nursery. The new home will be on a 1.6-acre lot at 2230 E. Sprague. Roughly 30,000 square feet of space will allow the nursery to care for more children who are currently turned away due to lack of space, and children with more complex medical needs. The free nursery, aimed at preventing child abuse and neglect, is privately funded.

More InHealth
All the latest and most relevant health-related news and features in the current (October/November) issue of InHealth, out now!

In light of this week's cover story on ghosts and why we want to believe, we asked for your ghost stories, and you delivered. Here are a few hair-raising tales:

A VISIT IN THE NIGHT

On her way back to the car after watching a movie at NorthTown Mall, the woman sees a girl with long, dark hair in a red hoodie and Converse sneakers, standing oddly still in the parking garage.

When she glances back, the girl is gone.

This isn't so surprising. She's seen spirits since she was a child.

But then on the way home, she notices an old man standing by a mailbox, staring as her car passes. Again, she glances back. The man is gone.

"I thought something was wrong, because I usually don't see two spirits like this," says the Spokane woman, who asks that her name not be used with her story.

This is early December 2006, and about a week before, a longtime friend had called her from across the country after getting out of the military. They'd been close while growing up, but one or the other always seemed to have a boyfriend or girlfriend, and things hadn't worked out. But now, they were both single, and he'd wanted to know if she'd take a chance. She was excited, but couldn't come see him right away.

Now, arriving home, she checks her MySpace to see a message from his brother: her friend died.

Distraught, she tries calling, but no one is picking up their phone. Eventually, she falls asleep, and in the middle of the night, she's woken up and sees him standing there next to her.

"He was standing next to my bed, looking down, and he just kept saying, 'I’m so sorry, I didn't mean for this to happen. It was the road,'" she says. "He just kept repeating that."

She tells him it's okay, and stands up, then he touches her shoulder. Suddenly, she sees through his eyes.

"I saw him in the passenger seat, I saw somebody’s hands turning a steering wheel, saw it going towards a tree, and then there was a big white light," she says. "Then I was back in my room."

She tells him she loves him, and will miss him, and shortly after, he vanishes.

The next day, his brother calls her back and gives the details of the crash, which match what she'd seen the night before.

"It's heartbreaking, but I was glad that I got to see him one last time," she says.

Spokane County, with some exceptions, will no longer ask job applicants about their criminal record, joining a national push to "ban the box" and give candidates with convictions a fair chance.

Spokane County Commissioners Al French, Josh Kerns and Mary Kuney adopted the policy change Tuesday. From now on, employment applications no longer will ask if a candidate has been convicted by a court of law within the past 10 years. The county will not run a criminal background check on candidates until after the county has determined the applicant is otherwise qualified for the position.

"We wouldn't want to disqualify a good candidate because of something that happened back in their past," Kerns tells the Inlander. "That was our thought on it."

The policy change has been in the works for four or five months, says Tim Hansen, Spokane County Human Resources Director. Hansen says French approached HR then wanting the department to look into how it could change its policy. Nationwide, 150 cities and counties have adopted ban-the-box policies, according to the National Employment Law Project. The county's policy, Hansen says, is similar to city of Spokane's policy, changed in 2014.

"We actually modeled ours pretty heavily after the city's," Hansen says.

In 2016, out of 14,000 applications processed by county HR, only four percent were eliminated due to a conviction occurring in the last 10 years, according to the county.

Departments dealing with public safety — such as the Spokane County Sheriff's Office, detention services, and court systems — are excluded from the policy.