Bloglander

FROM INLANDER.COM
• A local legend, Tambourine Man, is leaving town
• MOD Pizza opens in downtown Spokane
• Another inmate escapes from the county fair

• The murder-for-hire trial moved to Richland
A Spokane judge agreed to move James Henrikson's trial to the Tri-Cities after his attorneys argued that the volume of media coverage had tainted potential jurors. Henrikson is accused of masterminding two murders over business deals; three men pleaded guilty earlier this week and are expected to testify against him. (KXLY)

• Restrictions lifted on business and travel to Cuba
The new rules will enable Americans to open businesses in Cuba. Pope Francis is visiting the island nation tomorrow. 

• Washington's wildfires gave a sea otter asthma
That's the thinking anyway.


• It's National Cheeseburger Day.
Enough said.

Thursday at noon, MOD Pizza downtown opened its doors to a crowd of hungry customers, eagerly awaiting their promised free pizza.

The opening event for Spokane's third MOD location boasted a line of customers snaking out the door and down the street for an event complete with music and free pizza for the first 52 MODsters. For those of you who haven't yet visited the other locations, MOD is a artisan-style pizza parlor where customers can create their own pizzas, choosing from over 30 different toppings or selecting from a set menu of classics. The Seattle-based chain also offers local craft beer and wine, house-made lemonades, ice teas, and milkshakes.

If you missed your chance for free pizza, there's still reason to check out the new location today — MOD will be donating the rest of the day's profits to local organization Big Brothers, Big Sisters, so you can feel good about treating yourself to some pizza. 

To keep up with all the restaurant openings, closings and news, be sure to sign up for Entree, our food newsletter delivered right to your email box. 

Daniel F. Murinko, an inmate at Geiger Corrections Center, walked away from his first day of work detail at the Spokane County Fair and Expo Center, according to corrections Lieutenant Joanne Lake. 

"When you're dealing with people, you do everything you can with respect to putting them in the least restrictive environment and trying to promote community service, but you do take a certain amount of risk," Lake says.

Murinko, 26, had been held since Sept. 9 on two counts of DUI and two counts of driving with a suspended license and was held on a combined bail of $20,500.

He was assigned to pick up trash at the fairgrounds as a part of the inmate work release program, which includes a total of 44 inmates. He drove away in a golf kart to perform a task and never returned, Lake says. 

Murinko is the third inmate to escape from Geiger's work crew program in 2015. Riley Smith escaped while picking up litter in February, Lake says. Devin Johnson stole a Spokane County Fairgrounds truck in his escape two months ago. Spokane police arrested Johnson days later at a hotel.

There were three escapes from work crew in 2014, Lake says, including Robert Reed, and Courtney Cate. 

Work crew is a program in which qualified inmates are allowed to perform tasks in the community while serving their sentence. Judges can authorize work crew, but it is up to corrections staff at Geiger to make the final decision based on an inmate's risk. 

A risk assessment that factored in Murinko's criminal history indicated that he was at a low risk to reoffend, Lake says. 

"These are low-risk offenders," she says. "It's a tragedy when they decide to do this because it adds another layer of charges. Anytime we put people on these programs there's risk because people are messy. I don't think that means we shouldn't pursue jail alternatives." 

Murinko is described as 5'9, 185 pounds with brown hair and hazel eyes. He has numerous tattoos on his arms. Anyone with information about his whereabouts is encouraged to call Crime Check at 509-456-2233.

In case you hadn’t heard, the U.S. is going to elect a president next year and there are many people campaigning for the position. Part of campaigning requires convincing people and corporations (same thing) to part with their money. The Hill newspaper reported in January that election could cost $5 billion.

In the Inland Northwest, people are giving money to presidential candidates. Here’s who they’re giving it to and who they are not.

The Colvilles like Clinton

Early in her campaign, former Secretary of State and presidential contender Hillary Clinton made outreach efforts to Native Americans. She might have done something right because earlier this year, the Confederated Tribes Of The Colville Reservation, an Eastern Washington tribe, gave $2,700 to Hillary Clinton, a drop in the campaign bucket, but still.

Spokane likes Bernie more than Hillary
To date, Spokanites have given $1,300 to Clinton. They’ve given $3,979 to independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is challenging Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Most contributors list “not employed” or “retired” as their occupation.

From late-night dive bar shows to huge community festivals, the Spokane music scene will soon be missing one of its biggest characters. Michael Ransford, commonly referred to as Tambourine Man as he’s often wielding the clanging instrument, is leaving Spokane.

He’s not going too far away, just far enough to make it tough to shake his buns at local shows nearly every night of the week. Ransford is moving back to Moses Lake, his hometown. He’s moving back to rest his aching body and clear his mind. Pushing 60, he wants to be comfortable as he ages, he says. He should be all moved by the end of the week.

“If I put the tamb down for a while, it’s whatever,” says Ransford, mid-move from the road earlier this week. “The dance floor is beating me up. People don’t understand that it’s getting to be harder out there for me.”

Since this year’s Volume, Ransford’s already notable 6-foot-3 frame was made more noticeable with a new bleached blonde hair look. This summer, he attended all the important shows around town, large and small — his strutting rooster-like moves and incredibly tight clothing on full display. Wherever he goes, excited whispers of “there’s Tambourine Man” follow. He is a curiosity as well as a scene mascot of sorts. He knows this.

“People want to touch me, they want to talk to me and take pictures with me. I know I’m kind of out there.” Ransford says. “Just today a band wanted to collaborate with me. I’ve collaborated with so many bands.”

Ransford says he should still be around for some of the bigger Spokane events in the future, but for now, he’s taking a much-needed breather.

In the meantime, does Ransford believe someone else should take up his tambourine torch?

“Whoever wants to do it, they can do whatever they want,” Ransford says. “I never cornered the market on what I do and I never will and if someone wants to go out there and match what I’ve done… like I’ve said, you need skills and talent."

But Ransford’s reticent to say someone could truly be the next him. “I don’t know anyone who can play the tambourine as well as me. I have that metronome, that inner tick-tock.”

Just for a little nostalgia, check out this 2014 “Hey Mr. Spokane Tambourine Man!” song made by a Gonzaga University student filmmaker.

After Donald Trump was done arguing with Carly Fiorina on CNN last night, he called Hillary Clinton with some advice for her campaign. 

OK, no he didn't. But Jimmy Fallon's impression was pretty good. After the Fallon-as-Trump skit, Clinton did her own Trump impression:

Last night’s marathon GOP political debate had a few highs, and a lot of snoozer lows.

But at the very end, Jake Tapper asked Donald Trump about vaccines and autism. It was a relevant question. Just last year, Trump tweeted: “Healthy young child goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot of many vaccines, doesn't feel good and changes - AUTISM. Many such cases!”

Yet, to the horror of doctors, Trump didn’t budge from that position on the debate stage, sharing a story of an employee with a child who was diagnosed with autism after receiving vaccinations. While he didn't preach against all vaccinations this time, he pushed for spacing out vaccines longer, despite the lack of evidence for doing so.

Rand Paul and Ben Carson, both doctors, both shrugged off the opportunity to lay down the law and tried to strike a middle ground, suggesting spreading out the vaccines longer than doctors recommend. At the Upshot, a doctor explains why they’re all so wrong. We’ve written about this issue quite a few times ourselves.

This week, we wrote about Vy Thang, who was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for a murder he committed at 17 years old. Since Thang was originally sentenced in 1999, the United States Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional for juveniles to die in prison. The Washington state Legislature responded in 2014 by changing state law to reflect the court's decision. 

The new law says juveniles given a mandatory sentence of life without parole and those given a determinate sentence (meaning a specific number of years) of more than 20 years will get new sentencing hearings. That means Daniel Paul Delgado, the then-17-year-old who shot and killed a Domino's delivery driver with a shotgun in 1992 could also get out early. Delgado has served 22 of his 37-year sentence. He appeared before the Indeterminate Sentence Review Board in June and was denied release but can resubmit a petition next year. 

The family of his victim, Michael Maykowskyj, has spoken out against his early release.

Thang will get a new sentencing hearing next week. Judge Gregory Sypolt could decide to maintain the life sentence or he could give Thang a shot at parole. A pre-sentence investigation report by the Washington State Department of Corrections recommends a new sentence of 25 years — the minimum for his crime of aggravated murder in the first degree. 

There are 29 people in Washington state who could get new sentences. As of September 10, eight have gotten new hearings: two were resentenced to life without parole, five were given 25 to life, which means they have a chance of release after a hearing in front of a parole board and one was given 40 years.  

Just in case you needed another reason to hate Tom Brady beyond Deflategate, his beautiful Brazilian supermodel wife, the Patriots win over the Seahawks in the Super Bowl and his being really, really ridiculously good-looking, there's this: 

Tom Brady wants to see Donald Trump in the White House. And not just as entertainment, he means actually residing there as president, according to The Guardian. 

Asked about the potential for The Donald to survive the rigors of the campaign and win next November during his weekly locker-room press conference, Brady said (as one of Trump's patented "Make America Great Again" hats was on full display in his locker for the media to see): 

“I hope so, that would be great,” Brady said. “There’d be a putting green on the White House lawn. I'm sure of that.”

Apparently brainiac Brady is unaware that that is already the case, and has been since 1954. Nice University of Michigan education, Tom!

Our new Miss America knows what's up with Brady: 

Tap dancer Gaby Diaz was crowned America’s favorite dancer on Monday night’s So You Think You Can Dance season 12 finale. And as the reality program hasn’t been renewed for another season, she could potentially be the reigning champion indefinitely. Luckily, for local fans of the show, because yes, people still do watch this show, we can see the Top 10 perform on tour at the INB Performing Arts Center Dec. 28 — a late Christmas present, for sure.

As one of the loyal fans of SYTYCD — a program that’s consistently popular among teens (my age group when the show started in 2005), mothers and grandmothers — I've stuck with the show since day one. Throughout the seasons, the format has changed considerably, but the dancing has always dazzled. Not everything was perfect in season 12. This year’s street vs. stage format was certainly a big experiment, one that more or less paid off, although Team Street was burdened with a few weak links in dancers who never would have made the seasons previously. 

Many were shocked that ballet dancer Jim wasn’t among this season's Top 4 dancers, but he had trouble with hip-hop and even some contemporary pieces while his fellow Team Stage dancers Gaby and Hailee just went out and nailed everything they were given. Yes, he was the best technical dancer of the year, hands down, but that doesn’t equate to playing the game.

And our Top 4 certainly played the game. Virgil and Jaja are both working dancers who’ve trained in other styles besides their own, while Hailee and Gaby have clearly trained in lots of hip-hop as well. Gaby especially came in with an edge because she had a different skill than everyone else AND she was highly trained in everything else as well. Here's to hoping the program will make it back for yet another slightly-tweaked season. This time one with rotating judges, Jason Derulo shouldn't have to be there every week.