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- Issue of
- Mar 4-10, 2004
- Vol. 11, No. 21
News & Comment
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- News
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A Kid, a Cop and a Gun
The morning of Sept. 22, 2003, was shaping up like another slow day for the 13-year veteran of the force, but then a call came over his radio: Disturbance at a local high school.
- News
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Opening Films
**** City of God -- An adaptation of the novel by Paulo Lins, which is a fictionalization of the author's youth in the favelas (slums) outside of Rio de Janeiro. Indelibly fun to watch -- and recently recognized with Oscar nominations -- C
- News
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Punishment Enough?
Sean Fitzpatrick, 16, who brought a gun to school in an apparent attempt to provoke police to kill him, could face criminal charges that carry up to 30 years in prison, says Spokane County Prosecutor Steve Tucker. Tucker adds that he will
- News
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Wise-Use Wedges
If it is rough to be a rancher, miner or logger in the West today, neither is it a picnic to be an environmentalist. Individuals who want to leave the next generation a legacy of clean air and water, of old-growth trees and essential hab
- News
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Jake's Take
Driving through downtown Spokane, I often pass a large mural of the Clock Tower. It's an accurate reproduction, no cubist rearrangement or modern representin' -- just a painting of, well, the Riverfront Park Clock Tower. I found myself both
- News
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Book Review
One day a curious little white man calls on Charles Blakey at the house that Blakey's family has owned for seven generations, back to when they were freed slaves. Blakey has no job and no prospects, so when Anniston Bennet offers nearly $
- News
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Now Playing
50 First Dates -- Remember Groundhog Day, where Bill Murray's insufferably smug TV reporter is doomed to repeat the same day over and over until he gets Andie MacDowell to fall for his unpleasant self? 50 First Dates is a variation on th
- News
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Quotes & amp;amp; Notes
Famous for Fraud -- A few years back, little old Spokane made the front page of the Wall Street Journal, but it wasn't for reopening the Davenport Hotel or for being a figure skating hotbed in the making. No, the city landed on the front
- News
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In Between Days
Liz Phair is well acquainted with controversy. It's there waiting to punch her in the eye every time she pops her head up. Last year, after nearly a five-year absence from the new releases bin, she unleashed Liz Phair (Capitol) on an unsu
- News
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Recently Reviewed
S.S. Beryl -- This place has been around since the late '70s and has built up a devoted regular clientele. The kitschy-cool d & eacute;cor works. Brass navigation aids are embedded in the wood and polyurethane tabletops while nautical lanterns fl
- News
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Back From The Brink
Despite losing their last two games of the regular season, Ray Giacoletti's EWU Eagles will host the Big Sky Conference Tournament in Cheney this week, March 9-10. To get there, the team had to win 13 of its last 16 games. If successful,
- News
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DVD Review
It's hard to watch a film like Capturing the Friedmans and remember that it's a work of art. The story that this intensely compelling documentary tells us is about a real family caught up in allegations of sexual abuse. The gravity of th
- News
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Letters to the Editor
Film History Lesson -- I have a bone to pick with Marty Demarest's review of The Triplets of Belleville (2/19/04). While the review was predominantly positive (of which I approve -- the movie is a great one), I have to wonder about his
- News
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GibSon Of God
Both sides need to calm down. Commentators have lined up for and against Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ even without seeing it, usually in accordance with their opinions about Gibson's traditionalist Catholic beliefs -- and indeed
- News
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Concession Stand Confidential
If you work in the food service industry, or know somebody who does, you probably know what "secret shoppers" are. They're those seemingly ordinary people who come into the place you work and order innocuous things. They ask a few questi
- Comment
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Apocalypse Soon?
If he's smart enough to use it, the Democratic nominee may have just been handed the perfect cudgel with which to pummel President Bush -- and cripple Karl Rove's attempts to position his man as America's go-to guy on national
- Comment
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Grow-Your-Own-Meds
Cliff Chadwell didn't think he was doing anything wrong. The Spokane Valley resident has been suffering from multiple sclerosis, and since 2000 he's been smoking marijuana to alleviate the pain and the muscles spasms that tear through his
- Comment
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Voice Of America
In a society in which everyone seems to have chosen sides -- even the Supreme Court got dragged into the political scrum back in 2000 -- perhaps our historians are the only ones left who we can trust as authority figures. If that's th
Music & Film
- Music
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Black Is The Color
How does a legend stay current in the ever-changing world of music? That's been the challenge for Joan Baez, the undisputed diva of folk music-with-a-conscience, but it's a challenge she has embraced. Baez and her four-
- Film
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Full Gallop
It's a funny thing about horse movies. Sometimes you know exactly what you'll get just by looking at the title. Everyone knew what Seabiscuit was going to be about. The same thing went for The Black Stallion and The Red Pony. But I'd wager th