November 18, 2008
Just Shut Up, Doc
How the politicization of public health in Spokane is spinning into a dark comedy.
Read moreNovember 17, 2008
How the Flecktones Kill the Blues
Their opening number, “Scratch & Sniff,” is kind of like a sonic firecracker with a long fuse. It sneaks up on you and then explodes like a yellow paint can dropped from a helicopter. Bela Fleck & the Flecktones were in Argentina last week so they played “Lovers Leap” in Spokane as though it were a tango.
Read moreNovember 10, 2008
Mending “Spine” at the Justice Department
The list of dire problems facing the new President is mind-numbing. But major surgery to save the Department of Justice from its demise during the Bush Administration has got to be near the top.
Read moreNovember 5, 2008
The Obama Nation
There’s at least one thing I’m very confident Barack Obama will change. It’s the way we talk to each other.
Read moreNovember 4, 2008
Kelli’s View from the Trenches
The Center’s work on driver re-licensing doesn’t get a lot of media attention, but it makes a huge difference for those we’re able to help. Whitworth senior and CFJ intern Kelli Christianson offers her take on how the program works and what she and our clients get out of it.
Read moreOctober 29, 2008
Welcome to Mayberry, Let’s see some ID
As the national election year dialog began to bubble into a comical lather last week with accusations that a certain major party candidate would socialize the republic and end freedom as we know it, the American Civil Liberties Union had something a little more meaty for us to think about.
Read moreOctober 28, 2008
Alumni Beat
Noah Patterson connects with the adventuresome Danielle Wegman.
Read moreOctober 27, 2008
Tom Grant, Maui’s Turtles, & Shallan Dawson
I just want you to know the tickets were half-priced because we spent the entire evening of my 50th birthday in 2006 trying to sleep on the floor of the Honolulu airport, to the unrelenting ambiance of ukelele music.
Read moreOctober 12, 2008
Confluence
I know the calendar says otherwise but since there was no one other than the maintenance guy to argue with, I just decided that this day, October 9th it was, would be my last day of summer.
Read moreSeptember 28, 2008
What Would Charlie Think?
The person I most wanted to hear from this morning was my father’s father.
Read moreSeptember 23, 2008
Rodeo Days
Our ace paralegal Mary Harvill takes us to the Pendleton Round Up. But just so you know, what happens in the Let ‘er Buck room, stays in the Let ‘er Buck room.
Read moreSeptember 19, 2008
Alumni Beat
Noah Patterson catches up with Clinton Lipscomb (2006-07).
Read moreHere, drink this
Washington state faces an interesting dilemma in trying to punish Spokane County for violations of the Growth Management Act.
Read moreSeptember 17, 2008
“The Kibosh”
Today the “Spokesman Radio” show, and its startled and frustrated host, went on without me.
Read moreSeptember 15, 2008
Letter from St. Paul
The presence of so much armor and weaponry lends the gathering a surreal tension: glorious sun, concerned citizenry, excited media, and bared batons.
Read moreThe Pipe Fitters’ Line in the Sand
If you’re a worker who’s been punished for trying to do the right thing in the face of an unscrupulous employer, you’d do no better than having Tom Carpenter and the Hanford Challenge in your corner.
Read moreSeptember 11, 2008
September 11th
Annette Remshard’s talk that night stays with me because it said to get up, to deal with it, to move on, to do what was within us to be Americans, to not just be stunned spectators and bystanders.
Read moreSeptember 7, 2008
Avista’s Invisibility
It is a testament to just how misguided Ecology’s work on the Avista dams relicensing has been that Inland Empire Paper agrees with us, and not just quietly.
Read moreSeptember 5, 2008
Federal Prosecutors on River Park Square: Nothing much to see folks, just move it along.
Question: Will this put to rest suspicions and conspiracy theories surrounding River Park Square?
Answer: No.
Read moreSeptember 4, 2008
Drea Traeumer, Vindicated
Drea’s story is bigger than the river. It’s about integrity in government and the courage of a woman who put her principles before her paycheck.
Read moreSeptember 3, 2008
Hurricane Sarah
Suddenly we’ve got this lurid, comical, screwy, quintessentially American soap opera where embattled social conservatives see Sarah Palin as the grievously maligned standard bearer for their cause.
Read moreAugust 29, 2008
Paging Bruce Fein
Why a former Reagan Justice Department luminary won’t be invited to speak at the Republican National Convention.
Read moreAugust 28, 2008
“I Have A Dream” 45th Anniversary
“When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Read moreAugust 27, 2008
Missing Carol
Like so much about her, that laugh is still in my head and, as it echoes, it really helps to calm the other things rattling around in there.
Read moreAugust 21, 2008
What Jon Meacham Got Wrong
Maybe the extraordinary and tragic collapse of American credibility on the most basic principles of the human enlightenment is not a story that Meacham feels comfortable teeing up for Newsweek’s readers. But that’s still what the story is.
Read moreThe Alumni Beat
Noah Patterson tracks down Jessica Davis
Read moreThe River Fugitive
I couldn’t pull myself out of the water until a very helpful Mexican-American fisherman guided me behind the dock to a footing and helped haul me out of the water. It was then that I noticed my pants were missing. That’s an issue because the car key is in the pants.
Read moreJuly 25, 2008
Out of the Box
Center’s lawyers team up with Futurewise and neighborhood groups to fight Spokane’s Southgate “Big Box” decision.
Read moreJune 29, 2008
Hip Deep In Hoops
How could we not rise in awe (and snap a few pictures) when our downtown neighborhood became the epicenter of the basketball universe for a weekend?
Read moreJune 23, 2008
It’s Heather
The Center’s new development director has Northwest roots, a sterling resumé, and a passion for what it is we do.
Read moreWelcome
Kitchen Table is a state of mind based, loosely, on a real table just around the corner from the Fish Bowl.
This stop on our website, the Kitchen Table, would be considered, by some, a blog. But I think of it as a feature page, where I can insert some news, commentary and background on life at the Center, and beyond. It’s also a place where I try to offer a bit of comic relief from all the very serious work our lawyers, paralegals, and interns do that is so often stressed with the tense knowledge that real lives hang in the balance. Of course, comedy is in the eye of the beholder(s), so please note I’ve used the verb “try” in the run up to that endeavor.
So, that’s the spirit of this space. Hope you like it. If you don’t, feel free to come by the Fish Bowl (it’s the office near the water cooler and copy machine, with all the windows, hence the name) and give me an earful. If I’m not in, or just hiding under my desk, you can leave a note on my chair. I’ll take e-mail too, at tconnor@cforjustice.org.
–Tim Connor, CFJ Communications Director