Leap of Faith

by Ann M. Colford & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & L & lt;/span & abels can be so limiting. Look for Kathy Mattea's music in most record shops and you'll find it filed under Country, thanks to her long association with Nashville-based Mercury Records and her many ho

The Player

& & by Marty Demarest & & & r & & r & & & Kingdom Hearts II & & , & & & & Rated Everyone, Playstation 2, & & 3 out of 5 Stars & & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & M & lt;/span & ickey Mouse first appears in Kingdom Hearts II wearing a long black coat dripping with straps, zippers

Cork Or Caps?

Only in

Take Two

by Scott Renshaw & r & & r & Ice Age: The Meltdown & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & I & lt;/span & n Ice Age: The Meltdown -- as in its hit 2002 predecessor -- the opening and closing sequences are devoted to the misadventures of the twitchy, acorn-obsessed rodent known as

Dining Out - Three Men and a Taco

by Luke Baumgarten, Joel Smith and Josh Smith & r & & r & CORONA VILLAGE & r & 1810 Second St., Cheney * 559-5422 & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & W & lt;/span & e like long, slender food joints where the food's cooked right in front of us, assembled right in front of us, nothi

Idaho to Interior

President Bush nominated Kempthorne for the po

Put on the Brakes

by John Covert & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & O & lt;/span & ver the past decade, cities all across the country have recognized that freeways routed through the heart of their urban centers have extracted a terrible toll on the livability and sustainability of the

Get Lit! - The Law Professor's Writing Club

by Suzanne Schreiner & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & I & lt;/span & n his impeccable British diction (with no trace of a Scottish burr), Zimbabwe-born Scotsman Alexander McCall Smith sounds utterly sincere when he claims he is looking forward to his first visit to

The Player

by Marty Demarest & r & & r & Metroid Prime Hunters, Rated Teen, Nintendo DS & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & M & lt;/span & etroid Prime Hunters is going to be awesome," videogame store clerks have been assuring me for more than a year, their chests and necks rattling with

DVD Review

by Curt Holman & r & & r & No Way Out & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & F & lt;/span & reshly refurbished on DVD, 1950's No Way Out features ominous shadows and hard-boiled behavior, but it chafes under the label "film noir." Though released as part of the Fox Film Noir serie

Dining Out - Kobe Wan the Beef

Following the wise, if inside-out, wisdom of Yoda the carnivore, a handful of Inland Northwest restaurants are begin

Strikin' Gold

by Susan Hamilton & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & P & lt;/span & rospectors of the mid-1800s dreamed big dreams -- of finding gold and striking it rich in the untamed West. And you can bet that when they left the backbreaking work of panning, they wanted to trade in

Fresh & amp;amp; Tasty

by Susan Hamilton & r & & r & Prepping and Partying CLUB & r & Supper clubs have become a popular way to get together with friends and meet new people. They also offer an opportunity to sample different foods, wine and recipes. Members meet to create a menu, plan

Game On!

by Ben Cater & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & W & lt;/span & hen I was about 8 years old, my game of choice was Pitfall on the Atari home system. One afternoon, I entered into a freakish Zen-like state where I am not sure I blinked in more than two hours. I was a ch

Buzz Bin

by Inlander Staff & r & & r & Oh, Joy(stick)! & r & Video game reviews are back. Marty Demarest's new weekly column, "The Player," makes its worldwide debut right here (on page 33). Demarest, who wrote regularly for The Inlander while he worked for KPBX two years

Mad Cowboy

by Chef Boy Ari & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & W & lt;/span & hen a Washington cow tested positive for mad cow disease -- aka bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) -- in 2003, you could almost smell the collective burger breath as the nation gasped in horror. But w

Take Two

by Ed Symkus & r & & r & Lucky Number Slevin & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & J & lt;/span & ust this one time, you might want to take a page from a professional film reviewer's handbook and bring along a pen and some paper. You'll need to jot down hash marks to keep tra

Opening Films

by Inlander Staff & r & & r & Slither -- Few films have successfully married high comedy and full-out horror -- Evil Dead 2 and Eight Legged Freaks come to mind. This one does it perfectly, and with a vengeance. When an icky thing from space lands on Earth, Gran

Dining Out - Spawning Flavor

by Luke Baumgarten & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & C & lt;/span & opper River salmon is the Chateau Lafite Rothschild of fish, coveted for its unimpeachable quality. It's the migration of the sparrows of Capistrano, both rare and highly localized. The way people ta

The Borowitz Report

by Andy Borowitz & r & & r & CHENEY TELLS BUSH TO TELL CHENEY TO AUTHORIZE LEAK & r & Days after it was revealed that President George W. Bush authorized Vice President Dick Cheney to authorize a leak of prewar intelligence, new documents have surfaced indicating

Get Lit! - Lust For Lit

by Sheri Boggs & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & N & lt;/span & ancy Pearl consumes books with the kind of rapacious appetite the rest of us might reserve for a box of donuts. But rather than take her lust to the nearest 12-step meeting, she's let it take her through

Off-the-Wall Football

by Howie Stalwick & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & N & lt;/span & early a decade has passed since Nian Taylor was hauling in passes from Ryan Leaf against Charles Woodson and the Michigan Wolverines before 100,000 fans and millions of television viewers in the Rose

Whittled by Zittel

by Carie Scozarro & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & A & lt;/span & ndrea Zittel doesn't like to clean house. (Who does?) "You spend all of your time doing something that will eventually just go back to its previous state," she says in an undated BOMB magazine intervi

Dining Out - Bread For All

by Joel Smith & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & T & lt;/span & he Inland Northwest uses its huckleberries the way that Georgia uses its peaches -- they're in everything. Huckleberry crepes, huckleberry smoothies, huckleberry beer. But huckleberries account for only a

Recently Reviewed

by Inlander Staff & r & & r & Prospector's Bar and Grill -- Everything about Prospector's is big -- the bold dining room, diversified menu and large portions of American-style food. Like its older sibling on the West Plains, the Wandermere location of Prospector

Dining Out - Where the Bottle Begins

A Cabernet Sauvignon grape grown in Walla Walla will not taste t

Buzz Bin

by Inlander Staff & r & & r & Making a Deep Run & r & The Zags went to the Sweet 16 in basketball? Don't know anything about that. But they certainly made it to the Big Dance of Forensics. In the Cross Examination Debate Association's national tournament, held re

Book Review

by John Dicker & r & & r & Organic Inc. by Samuel Fromartz & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & W & lt;/span & hen Wal-Mart's charisma-challenged CEO touts his interest in organic food, you know the stuff is no longer the domain of back-to-the-land hippies. What's not clear

Lewis & amp;amp; Clark - April 13-19, 1806

by Robert Carriker & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & T & lt;/span & he loss of a canoe at the Cascades of the Columbia on April 12, 1806, forced Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to redistribute the expedition crew and supplies into four remaining watercraft. This,

Opening Films

by Inlander Staff & r & & r & Mozart and the Whale & r & Containing the seeds of a good film but lacking the contextual soil within which such things sprout, here's a tale of a little-understood form of autism and the interpersonal strife it can cause. If you kno

Now Playing

by Inlander Staff & r & & r & 16 Blocks -- Bruce Willis is a worn-out city cop, Mos Def is the chatty special witness he must escort to a court house and David Morse heads up a group of dirty cops who don't want him to get there. All three are excellent in thei

Dining Out - Peace Dividend

by Ann McGregor & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & Y & lt;/span & ou can feel extra good when you sip a cup of Doma Coffee's organic Guatemalan coffee. Not only is it free of chemicals, this coffee is also helping a group of people battered by circumstances beyond their c

Campus Conversion

& & by Robin Moody & & & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & G & lt;/span & onzaga's heartbreaking loss to UCLA last month isn't half as depressing as the raw deal gay students get at Gonzaga. For a proud alum, two recent scandals -- both of which made national headlines --

Get Lit! - Critical Thinker

by Michael Bowen & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & Y & lt;/span & ou think bell hooks is just out to bash rich old white men? You're being simplistic. In fact, over-simplifying others and their ideas like that -- reducing them to caricature -- is the core of the kind o

Lewis & amp;amp; Clark - March 30-April 5, 1806

byRobert Carriker & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & P & lt;/span & addling five canoes against the relentless current of the unrestrained Columbia River exhausted the men of the Corps of Discovery. Their fatigue can partly be explained by the failure of the expeditio

Voter Revamped

by Michael Bowen & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & W & lt;/span & ith the season's deepest ensemble, most energetic direction, most loathsome crook, best inspiration in a tight skirt and most delight taken in skewering corporate sleaze, the current revival of Garson

Dining Out - Blessed Be The Cheesemakers

by Ann M. Colford & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & A & lt;/span & t the foot of Huckleberry Mountain, just up from the eastern shore of Lake Roosevelt, sits the home of Rick and Lora Lea Misterly and their goats -- and the bucolic setting for the Quillisascut Cheese

Fresh & amp;amp; Tasty

& & by Susan Hamilton and Ann M. Colford & & & r & & r & & & The Real Deal & & FAST FOOD & r & Authentic -- it's a word that's tossed around lightly, especially in the food world. So how do you know if something is the real deal? Your sense of smell and taste buds w

Dining Out - Three Women and a Cup of Tea

& & by Ann M. Colford, Jessica Moll, Suzanne Schreiner & & & r & & r & & & THE EMPYREAN & & & r & 154 S. Madison St. * 456-3676 & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & T & lt;/span & ea arrived in the English-speaking world around 1600, when the British first sampled Camellia Sinensis f

Book Review

by Terri Schlichenmeyer & r & & r & One Small Boat by Kathy Harrison & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & Y & lt;/span & our kids are your life. You spend so many hours ferrying them from play date to school event that you almost feel like you live in your vehicle. You step

How Green Is Your Portfolio?

by Paul K. Haeder & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & "P & lt;/span & utting your money where your mouth is" goes back to the British abolitionist movement of the 1760s, when hundreds of thousands of Brits boycotted sugar from the West Indies sugar plantations where sl

Get Lit! - War Vet's Verse

& lockquote & I am five, & r & & amp;nbsp

They Said It

by Howie Stalwick & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & B & lt;/span & aseball is a funny game, and the people in baseball wouldn't have it any other way. Historically, baseball players, managers and coaches have provided some of the best quips, zingers and gags in the s

Now Playing

by Inlander Staff & r & & r & ATL -- Four teenagers from the wrong side of Atlanta follow their bliss straight toward the ultimate distinction of ... achievement in hip-hop and roller-skating. Lots of switchblades, fast cars and fron' teef wif inset bling altern

DVD Review

by Ted S. McGregor Jr. & r & & r & Justice League, Season One & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & S & lt;/span & uperheroes have come a long way since the days of Action Comics, circa 1938, when Superman was introduced. In the '70s, I bought comic books for a quarter: Thor was

Dining Out - Local Lagering

by Joel Smith & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & I & lt;/span & t's one thing to get eager chefs expounding on all the fresh and local and ingenious ingredients they put into their every dish; it's another to get brewers to give you a peek at their beer-making log books.

Spawning Flavor

by Luke Baumgarten & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & C & lt;/span & opper River salmon is the Chateau Lafite Rothschild of fish, coveted for its unimpeachable quality. It's the migration of the sparrows of Capistrano, both rare and highly localized. The way people ta

Get Lit! - Balm of Giliead

by Michael Bowen & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & G & lt;/span & ilead is a long goodbye. Marilynne Robinson's novel is a theological meditation, too, in which Rev. John Ames writes long journal entries to his uncomprehending son. The boy is 7; Ames himself is 74, l

CD Reviews

by Carey Murphy and Luke Baumgarten & r & & r & The Flaming Lips & lt;a href= & quot;http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=rQy1MLe70wI & amp;offerid=78941 & amp;type=3 & amp;subid=0 & amp;tmpid=1826 & amp;RD_PARM1=http%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZStore.woa%252Fwa%252Fvie

Square Roots

by Luke Baumgarten & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & I & lt;/span & t's like this: Stage names exude power. Slash, for example, was the perfect nom de rock for an axe-wielder who was responsible for navigating Guns N' Roses' seemingly oxymoronic truce between punk an

Spokane on Film

by Joel Smith & r & & r & Home of the Brave 2007 & r & After three days of filming in Greenwood Memorial Terrace and Browne's Addition, the production -- which is slated to star Samuel L. Jackson, 50 Cent and Jessica Biel, among others -- packed up the trucks and m

Trials and Era

by Carey Murphy & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & F & lt;/span & or all of our music-snob tendencies here, we really love bubble-gummy pop songs, the immediately hummable tracks that make the perfect companion for walking downtown; the kind that just play on repeat 1

Cure For Sore Eyes?

by Kevin Taylor & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & T & lt;/span & he purported potential sale of the county's much maligned and soooo-'70s health building seems to OD on short-sightedness. And while it makes for some great gossip, the director of the Regional Health D

Willful Ignorance

From the

Sound Advice

by Inlander Staff & r & & r & Watching the Watchmen & r & Finally, somebody's taking the snobs at Pitchfork to task. Tuning Fork's handful of contributors critique the Web's undisputed indie king-makers, calling Pitchfork's writers out on their hauteur, fanboydom

Legislating Celluloid

by Luke Baumgarten & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & T & lt;/span & he local economy didn't just lose out on $2 million of California money and "100 high-wage jobs," we missed out of a wicked photo op, too. Monday, while the crew at NxNW mulled over the future of its

Sound Advice

by Inlander Staff & r & & r & Hip-Hop You Don't Stop... & r & ...for roughly two weeks at least. In addition to those groups featured this week (Blackalicious; Mo-Dill and Longshot) we have a slew of crews coming. This includes the return of Tre Hardson and the comin

Bush v. Idaho

by Kevin Taylor & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & T & lt;/span & he drumbeat to avert a Bush administration proposal to sell off 300,000 acres of national forests reached a crescendo Saturday afternoon in Coeur d'Alene. With a hard rain drumming steadily against the

Parties Crashing

& lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & T & lt;/span & hose words, uttered earlier this month to describe our cur

Chi-over-dos

by Carey Murphy & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & C & lt;/span & onfession time: It's getting really hard to tell where one emo band stops and another starts. With so many of the same instrumental sounds and influences, the multitude of musicians competing for the tr

Ghandi Meets Adam Smith

"In my mind, the question is 'What is a g

Gift of Grab

by Courtney Harding & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & P & lt;/span & retty soon, there will only be two genres that matter: music that music writers and bloggers like, and music that everyone else likes. It is very easy, when you get all your music news from Web sit

Final Act?

by Luke Baumgarten & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & R & lt;/span & oughly four hours after this article went to print, IATSE re-entered negotiations with Home of the Brave Inc., the film's L.A.-based production company. As a result of those negotiations, Home of the

Sheriff Q & A

Sheriff Mark Sterk's decision to retire on March 31, nine months before the end of his second term, has touched off a rarity in Spokane -- some bare-knuckle fisticuffs over who'll become the next leader o

CD Reviews

by Joel Smith and Ted S. McGregor Jr. & r & & r & The Avett Brothers & lt;a href= & quot;http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=rQy1MLe70wI & amp;offerid=78941 & amp;type=3 & amp;subid=0 & amp;tmpid=1826 & amp;RD_PARM1=http%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZStore.woa%252Fwa%252

Eleven Months and a World Away

by James Robbins Jewell & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & F & lt;/span & ebruary 28, 2005, was a special day. That's when the personnel of the U.S. Navy's Mobile Inshore Undersea Warfare Unit 102, based in Spokane, began a journey that eventually found them serving w

Illin' Noise

by Andrew Matson & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & W & lt;/span & hat Swisha House did for Houston, what E-40 is doing for the Bay: This is what people hope will happen in Chicago. But even with the best producer in the world (Kanye) and the MC Jay-Z wishes he was (C

Soul Searching

The accessibility of music in this country has steadily progressed over the y

Spokane Opus

by Luke Baumgarten & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & M & lt;/span & any people won't be surprised that Josh Hartnett is pretty good at playing a person who has an inability to emote. And it won't surprise those familiar with filmmakers Ronald Bas (who wrote Rain Man)

Snakes in a Bathtub

by Ed Symkus & r & & r & & lt;span class= & quot;dropcap & quot; & T & lt;/span & he poster is a lie: There aren't dozens of dreadful little red squirmy creatures parading into a bathtub in the film. There's only one. The preview trailer is very misleading: Those same creatures, which s

Best of the Inland Northwest Reader's Choice - Food

Best of the Inland Northwest Reader's Choice - Booze

Best of the Inland Northwest Reader's Choice - The Arts

Best of the Inland Northwest Reader's Choice - People

Best of the Inland Northwest Reader's Choice - Urban Living

Best of the Inland Northwest Reader's Choice - The Media