Tuesday, June 6, 2017
ON INLANDER.COM
MUSIC: The Shins are coming to Spokane in September to play at the Knitting Factory; tickets go on sale Friday.
IN OTHER NEWS
That's what police are for
The convicted felon who pointed an assault rifle at the Union Gospel Mission last week says he carries the firearm to "clean up the streets." Nicholas McRae made his first appearance in court Monday, charged with attempting to elude, vehicle hit-and-run and two counts of unlawful possession of a firearm. (KREM)
Dad news
You may have seen the Spokane Craigslist ad looking for a "generic father figure" for an upcoming BBQ. The Spokesman-Review talked to the group responsible for the post, which has gone viral; they say there's now one more requirement, other than being able to "talk about dad things, like lawnmowers, building your own deck, Jimmy Buffett." The generic father figure actually must be Bill Murray.
Murder trial set to begin
The trial of a suspected serial killer who allegedly murdered three women in 1990 starts Friday. The accused killer, Donna Perry, was Douglas Perry before undergoing gender reassignment surgery in 2000. (KXLY)
Punished for leaking
Yesterday, the Intercept broke a story on a top-secret NSA report detailing Russian hacking days before the election. Now the intelligence contractor who leaked the documents is being charged for sending classified material to a news website. (New York Times)
Tags: NSA , News , The Shins , Knitting Factory , Union Gospel Mission , Spokane Craigslist , Bill Murray , Donna Perry , Douglas Perry , Russian hacking , the Intercept , Image
Monday, June 5, 2017
A big week ahead, full of worthy entertainment you can find in our event listings and Staff Picks. Here are just some of the few highlights:
Monday, June 5
MUSIC | Spokane Falls Community College kicks off a series of concerts from its music programs with a show from its concert band tonight (catch the choir on Tuesday, jazz and world drumming on Thursday and the school orchestra June 12.
Tuesday, June 6
MUSIC | Mommy Long Legs, Phlegm Fatale and S1ugs combine to kick up a mighty Tuesday show at The Observatory.
FILM | The Garland Theater's summer camp film series hosts a classic — The Goonies! Tonight at 7.
MUSIC | Zakk Sabbath is the Black Sabbath-loving tribute led by longtime Ozzy Osbourne guitarist and Black Label Society leader Zakk Wylde. It's going to be heavy at The Pin!
Tags: What's Up? , Spokane Pride , parade , Elkfest , Surfer Blood , Zakk Sabbath , Def Leppard , David Blaine , Willow Springs , Fortune Feimster , Spokane Comedy Club , Terrain , Waiting for Godot , Image
The Shins have been circling the region on their tour since releasing their new album Heartworms in March, and now the pop-rock crew finally has a Spokane date on the calendar.
The Shins will play the Knitting Factory on Sunday, Sept. 24. Tickets are $39.50 and go on sale Friday at 10 am via the Knit's website and all TicketWeb outlets. Day Wave opens the show.
The band is led by James Mercer and a seemingly ever-evolving supporting cast, and Heartworms received positive reviews upon its release, with Pitchfork saying, "It's remarkable how little rust [Mercer's] showing," while praising its consistency and familiar Shins sound.
Here's one of the new tunes, "Name For You:"
Tags: Music , Shins , James Mercer , Spokane , Knitting Factory , Image
ON INLANDER.COM
NEWS: The Spokane College of English Language closed its doors for good last week, partly due to a decline in students from Saudi Arabia.
NEWS: How can scientists more reliably predict how much sea level could rise as glaciers melt? A University of Idaho researcher and an international team are figuring it out, and it turns out it has a lot to do with the shape of the glacier.
IN OTHER NEWS
Better than a battery
Power companies have had to come up with some fairly ingenious plans to store energy so it can be used when demand is high, and most of the techniques are far different from a traditional battery — think molten salt and caverns full of compressed air, among other things. (New York Times)
Evergreen cancels classes due to another threat
Another threat received this weekend led The Evergreen State College to cancel classes Monday, the latest closure after threats of violence led administrators to cancel classes late last week, the Seattle Times reports.
Shield from harm
Spokane Transit Authority bus drivers are requesting more protection, which could include some sort of shield, after recent assaults, including one that knocked a driver unconscious, the Spokesman-Review reports.
Tags: morning headlines , Spokane College of English Language , STA , Evergreen , bus driver , assault , glaciers , research , sea level , climate change , English class , News , Image
Friday, June 2, 2017
The Spokane College of English Language, a for-profit college that taught refugees and international students, closed its doors for good on May 31.
"The drop in student numbers over the last 12 months, especially the last 6 months, has made it impossible to maintain the college as a viable operation," says a note on the college's website from Jim Clark, SCEL president.
Two years ago, enrollment was over 150 students. By the last day of class on Friday, May 26, only six students remained at the school, says Joshua Porter, SCEL director.
Porter says several factors contributed to the dip in enrollment, but perhaps most notably is a decline in scholarships from the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission, which many students relied on to attend SCEL. This is a trend not only in Spokane, but across the nation. Colleges that had high numbers of Saudi Arabian students have been seeing those numbers drop, as the Saudi government has tightened its requirements for its foreign scholarship program.
"The Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission was a big player in the international student game," Porter says.
The college, which was located in downtown Spokane, used online curricula that hundreds of other institutions across the world use as well. Some of it was developed right here in Spokane, Porter says. But Porter says the other institutions using the curricula are not shutting down. The Inlander wrote more in-depth about SCEL in this story last year.
The students in Spokane won't be left without a place to learn, Porter says. Students who were green-card holders have been given options of other English as a Second Language programs in the area, including the program at Spokane Community College and at Gonzaga University. Other international students, who had a visa contingent upon being enrolled in a program, have already been enrolled in other programs with the help of SCEL. At least one student, however, elected to go back home to Saudi Arabia, Porter says.
"We're doing our best to guide them to smoothly transition to other academic programs in the area," Porter says.
Tags: Spokane College of English Language , SCEL , ESL , international students , Saudi Arabia , News , Image
ON INLANDER.COM
Cranking up Volume
To prepare for tonight's Volume show, listen to some of the bands playing the Red Room Lounge and the Big Dipper.
Inlandia
Portlandia and Documentary Now's Fred Armisen is coming to Spokane, but why? What would a nice boy like him do in a town like this?
Wait for it... wait for it... OK Go!
OK Go, which is playing Spokane in September, gives a TED Talk about their crazy music videos.
Is that why that one nun from The Sound of Music was so peppy?
One study suggests that listening to music can actually make you nicer.
IN OTHER NEWS
Bored of the
Black flies are plaguing Spokane and it's totally bogus, man. (Spokesman-Review)
Mob of Geoducks
Tension mounted on the Evergreen State College campus in Olympia, as students demanded that a professor be fired for suggesting that advocating for a day without white students on campus wasn't the best idea. The campus was shut down following a threat yesterday. (Seattle Times)
Whether the weather will weather or not
The Weather Channel goes full troll on President Trump after he announces his intention to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord. (Washington Post)
DeVirsity
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who critics charged was an out-of-touch billionaire, has actually appointed a number of diverse and progressive voices to her administration. (New York Times)
Tags: Morning headlines , News , Volume , Fred Armisen , OK Go , black flies , Evergreen State College , Weather Channel , Trump , Paris climate accord , Betsy DeVos , Image
Thursday, June 1, 2017
We hunted through Spotify and found some samples of bands playing Red Room Lounge this weekend as part of the Volume Music Festival. You can find playlists for all the venues right here. Enjoy!
Perhaps taking inspiration from the old "Hit & Run" tours of Prince, one of the people he gloriously lampooned during his years on Saturday Night Live, comedian/musician Fred Armisen is coming to Spokane, and he's coming soon.
Armisen will perform on July 7 at the Bing Crosby Theater, joined by writer/comedian Jacqueline Novak. Tickets go on sale Friday morning at 10 am via the box office at TicketsWest outlets, and they will be $36, $56, $76 and $101.
What, exactly, will Armisen be doing at his show? The press release we received gave no hints, and neither does his website. But the funnyman is an accomplished actor and writer, as well as performer on shows like Portlandia and Documentary Now, and a musician as well. So perhaps a combination of stand-up and songs?
You'll have to go to find out.
Tags: For Fun! , Fred Armisen , Jacqueline Novak , Bing Crosby Theater , Image
We hunted through Spotify and found some samples of bands playing The Big Dipper this weekend as part of the Volume Music Festival. You can find playlists for all the venues right here. Enjoy!
It's Volume weekend!
Need an evidence-based excuse to invest in a wristband and attend the Inlander’s jam-packed Volume Music Fest this weekend? Try this one: Listening to music you like lights up areas of the brain involved in “internally focused thought, empathy and self-awareness.” That’s right: Music that you enjoy — whether rock or Bach — may just make you a nicer person to be around.
Meanwhile, New York magazine reports on research that shows sex, drugs and music all activate the same brain circuits, suggesting an “evolutionary origin for music.” What more do you want?
Medication malfeasance?
"This pain population with no abuse history is literally at no risk for addiction,” stated a letter from a respected Boston physician that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine almost 40 years ago. That reassurance, cited in more than 600 subsequent papers, gave skeptical doctors the confidence to begin prescribing opioids for all varieties of aches and pains. According to an NBC News story, "It's difficult to overstate the role of this letter," said the University of Toronto's Dr. David Juurlink, who led the analysis. "It was the key bit of literature that helped the opiate manufacturers convince front-line doctors that addiction is not a concern.”
On Wednesday, Ohio’s attorney general announced that the state is suing opiate manufacturers because they "helped unleash a health care crisis that has had far-reaching financial, social, and deadly consequences in the State of Ohio.”
Learning from history
As Congress grapples with repeal of the Affordable Care Act, the Los Angeles Times offers a cautionary tale from our own state. Washington was a pioneer in health care reform in the early 1990s; those efforts culminated in the Health Services Act, signed into law by Governor Mike Lowry in May 1993. It guaranteed coverage for everyone and required employers to offer health insurance. By 1995, problems enforcing the law’s requirements led to a hasty GOP-led repeal, which sent the insurance market into a downward spiral that lasted five years. “Many state leaders, including former insurance executives, caution that congressional Republicans rushing to roll back Obamacare risk sowing the same kind of chaos that crippled Washington state’s insurance market two decades ago.”
Tags: InHealth , sex , drugs , music , opiates , health care , Affordable Care Act , Obamacare , Image
