go to mobile version »

Spokane

Crosscut most recent

Shot down in Shanghai?

Posted Fri, Dec 12, 6 a.m.

Another task Obama inherits is trying to bail out America's botched effort to have a pavilion at Shanghai's Expo 2010, the largest world's fair in history. There are reasons to hope that "yes, he can."

READ MORE 3 COMMENTS

Up yours, Virginia

Posted Tue, Dec 2, 6 a.m.

Dispatch from the War on Christmas: Atheists make fools of themselves in Olympia while violence breaks out at Wal-Mart. The sacred season is now a very, very sick season.

READ MORE 18 COMMENTS

Spokane: what Seattle used to be

Posted Fri, Sep 19, 4 a.m.

Mossback becomes enamored with a city he once regarded with disdain and considers what it would be like to move there. It reminds him of pre-1970s Seattle, before the yuppies ruined it.

READ MORE 19 COMMENTS

On the fire line

Posted Tue, Aug 26, 4 a.m.

The U.S. Forest Service considers changing its firefighting protocol in the wake of sentencing over handling of the Thirtymile Fire, which claimed the lives of four firefighters.

READ MORE 2 COMMENTS

After a late start, MSM blogs are everywhere

Posted Wed, Aug 13, 5 a.m.

The Northwest's mainstream newspapers are reporting political news on the Web first. Part 3 of 3

READ MORE COMMENT NOW

More fun than Deliverance!

Posted Fri, Jul 18, 5 a.m.

Spend your summer vacation in Eastern Washington, an exotic locale where lakes are slippery, the Scablands surprising, and wheat farmers are smashing stuff for fun.

READ MORE 7 COMMENTS

Shooting for money

Posted Wed, Jul 9, 7 p.m.

Our Yakima correspondent tries out the Ljutic Mono Gun — and checks out the trap shooting tournament scene. Part 2

READ MORE COMMENT NOW

When animals attack, and also when they don't

Posted Mon, Jun 30, 5 p.m.

It's the time of year when animal-human encounters are on the rise. Bears are picnicking on hikers, moose are invading trailer parks, and muskrats are blamed for destroying entire towns. You could be next.

READ MORE 2 COMMENTS

Sparks in Spokane: a GOP odyssey

Posted Sat, Jun 28, 10 p.m.

The definitive report on the Washington State Republican Convention, as witnessed by Crosscut's resident elephant. There was a little friction, and it will be a tough autumn, but the GOP looks forward to a competitive gubernatorial race.

READ MORE COMMENT NOW

Fired up and ready to go — home

Posted Tue, Jun 17, 7 p.m.

The state Democratic convention in Spokane was both inspiring and stultifying. Among the delegates who bothered to show up, there was passion, tedium, booze, sunshine, and a desire for change.

READ MORE 6 COMMENTS

George Nethercutt: Republicans need to rally around John McCain

Posted Thu, May 22, 11 a.m.

The former Spokane congressman says he is a convert and urges those in his party who have doubts about the Arizona senator to get over them, for the sake of the GOP and the country.

READ MORE 3 COMMENTS

A rebirth of architectural activism

Posted Sun, May 18, 8 p.m.

Red balloons and hot dogs help in a University of Washington grad student's fight to save the Nuclear Reactor Building. Plus: Honors for the state's historic preservationists.

READ MORE 2 COMMENTS

A plea bargain douses the scandal of the Thirtymile Fire

Posted Thu, May 8, 5 a.m.

The darkest moment in U.S. Forest Service history won't be told — not to a jury, anyway.

READ MORE COMMENT NOW

Greg Nickels' rebel yell

Posted Mon, May 5, 11 p.m.

Seattle's mayor waves the flag of secession. In so doing, he may have waved goodbye to a future in state politics.

READ MORE 20 COMMENTS

McCain and Clinton both have serious problems

Posted Sun, Feb 10, 8 p.m.

National update: Hillary Clinton must figure out a way to slow Barack Obama's surge of momentum, and Wisconsin may be a key state. John McCain's big drawback is having no real base in the party. Our campaign veteran also marvels at all the energy at a Labor Temple caucus.

READ MORE 5 COMMENTS

The Northwest whiskey rebellion

Posted Mon, Jan 28, 5 a.m.

Entrepreneurs are lifting spirits with a rash of new distilleries in the region, putting a little more zip in the agri-tourism boom.

READ MORE 11 COMMENTS

Is a species endangered if you can't find it?

Posted Fri, Oct 12, 5 a.m.

That's just one of the questions raised by the mystery of the great white worm of the Palouse – a lilly-scented, spitting underground enigma.

READ MORE 7 COMMENTS

The bad and the ugly of Northwest newspaper Web sites

Posted Thu, Sep 13, midnight

We're asking for your input with a Crosscut reader survey, so we thought we'd offer some advice ourselves – to the regional papers we're reading online.

READ MORE 39 COMMENTS

Primary election results

Posted Wed, Aug 22, midnight

Local races and issues in Seattle, Spokane, and elsewhere.

READ MORE 1 COMMENTS

How the Northwest's cities are coping with the homeless

Posted Fri, Aug 10, 8 a.m.

Homelessness has ceased to be an orphaned issue for the Northwest's major cities, as all of them have in recent years announced ambitious strategies to tackle the problem. Here's a report card on how Vancouver, Seattle, Spokane, and Portland are doing so far.

READ MORE 7 COMMENTS

Other media

Spokane is coping with Sno-mageddon Garbage, mail, schools are all disrupted and tempers are badly frayed as the city moves in on its all-time record for winter snowfall.

Drowning in snow, Spokane girds for another storm December's fall of 61.5 inches is the most in Spokane since 1893, and already January has plenty of new snow.

Spokane still buried under record (59 inches) December snowfall Roofs are collapsing under the weight of the unremitting snow.

No money, but no end to requests for new state funding These big asks, like fixing Husky Stadium, have years of momentum, and none of the advocates want to disarm unilaterally.

The Spokane-area creator of Myst bets on an iPhone version The legendary game, first released in 1993, is about all the company still has going.

Blog posts

Sausage Links, townhall debate edition

Posted Tue, Oct 7, 3 p.m. 2008

Tonight is the second presidential debate between Senators John McCain and Barack Obama, and it represents what could be a knock-out punch for the Democrats. That is, if you're still convinced the election isn't over. (Hint: It is.) If the current polls are any indication, McCain's only chance of winning this election are if Obama walks onto stage tonight wearing an Arab headdress and an Irani lapel pin, and after giving a shout-out to Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers, tells the television audience that Sarah Palin is a trollop.

MORE

Sausage Links, HOV lane endorsement edition

Posted Mon, Oct 6, 1 p.m. 2008

The Seattle Times is recommending voters reject Initiative 985, the Tim Eyman-sponsored measure that would create a statewide "traffic congestion relief" fund, eliminate localized revenues for devices such as red-light cameras, and open HOV lanes during non-peak hours. The paper's editorial board writes, "I-985 is a poorly-packaged jumble of different agendas that will – please, listen carefully – worsen traffic in certain areas. It makes no sense to design a functioning, complicated traffic system by initiative." ...

MORE

Sausage Links, pork barrel edition

Posted Fri, Oct 3, 5:29 p.m. 2008

What's the most important news of the day? It's not the passage of the Wall Street bailout bill. It's not the pundits' reactions to last night's vice-presidential debate. No. The most important news item of the day is that Saturday, Oct. 4, is the last day to register to vote. So if you haven't already, do it. ...

MORE

Sausage Links, the big debate edition

Posted Thu, Oct 2, 1 p.m. 2008

So. Tonight's the big vice-presidential debate between Republican Gov. Sarah Palin and Democratic Sen. Joe Biden. Which Palin will show up? Will we see the pitbull with lipstick or the incoherent Couric interviewee? It's anybody's guess. But with expectations already at rock-bottom, it's fair to assume she'll look better than many liberals think. What about Biden? As former Gore advisor Michael Feldman wrote in the Washington Post this morning, Biden's mission is not to screw it up. ...

MORE

Sausage Links, Buildergate edition

Posted Wed, Oct 1, 2:21 p.m. 2008

Liberal bloggers are delirious with joy about Buildergate, the series of allegations announced yesterday accusing Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi of directly and illegally soliciting funds from the Master Builder's Association in May 2007 to fund the Building Industry Association of Washington's "war chest." Both David Goldstein at Horse's Ass and Aaron Ostrom at FUSE call the memo a "smoking gun" and a game-changer for the hotly contested gubernatorial race.

MORE

Sausage Links, cheap shot edition

Posted Tue, Sep 30, 2:10 p.m. 2008

The folks at Horse's Ass report that while state Attorney General Rob McKenna has already filed suit against the Building Industry Association of Washington for multiple campaign finance violations, new evidence suggests that Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi may have "actively solicited funds" on behalf of the BIAW. If it's true it would be a deadly blow to Rossi's campaign. While the big papers haven't yet caught on, I guarantee you'll be reading about "buildergate" tomorrow. ...

MORE

Sausage Links, weak sister edition

Posted Thu, Sep 25, 1:58 p.m. 2008

Is the Gregoire candidacy growing weak? Not surprisingly, that's what local conservative pundit Eric Earling thinks. But you know things aren't going well for the Democratic governor when someone at the Stranger says Gregoire is running a "lackluster, defensive campaign." ...

MORE

Sausage Links, skeptical journalists' edition

Posted Wed, Sep 24, 1:16 p.m. 2008

"Journalists, start your skepticism." That was the tagline from a letter to Romenesko yesterday from David Cay Johnston, a former New York Times writer who won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on tax policy. It's worth a read. Johnston cautions reporters not to "assume that Congress must act instantly, as so many news stories state as if it was an immutable fact," nor to accept "what gullible Congressional leaders, most of them up before the voters in a few weeks, say after being given a closed-door meeting on supposed horrors." ...

MORE

Sausage Links, abandon ship edition

Posted Tue, Sep 23, 1:54 p.m. 2008

Liberal bloggers gotta love this. Some of the elite conservative pundits are growing skeptical about the McCain campaign's performance in the past weeks. Others are jumping ship altogether. The latest to leave the GOP stable is Washington Post columnist George Will, who says the Republican presidential candidate "is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high." Last week, the editorial board at the traditionally conservative The Wall Street Journal wrote that "McCain has made it clear this week he doesn't understand what's happening on Wall Street any better than Barack Obama does," adding that the Arizona senator was acting "un-presidential."

MORE

Sausage Links, budget deficit edition

Posted Mon, Sep 22, 1:38 p.m. 2008

David Goldstein at Horse's Ass wrote over the weekend – post gubernatorial debate – that "there is no state budget deficit," prompting me to wonder what the hell he was talking about. I thought, "Did I miss something?" As Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire said in Saturday's gubernatorial debate, the state is currently generating a surplus. But it has been widely reported – even by Horse's Ass blogger Josh Feit – that the state faces a projected $3.2 billion deficit in the coming years. Gregoire even told The Seattle Times on Friday that she expects a deficit next year. So what gives? The folks at Washington Policy Center Blog put it another way:

MORE

Subscribe to Newsletter About Crosscut Advertise Web Feeds