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What happens when the thing you’re called to do goes against everything you believe in? And what if a life hangs in the balance? Frank Thompson is no stranger to fighting for his beliefs. He grew up in Arkansas at the height of the civil rights movement, living just blocks away from the Little Rock Nine, who helped integrate Little Rock Central High School. Thompson, himself, fought as a student to integrate the University of Arkansas. T hese experiences shaped him to his very core. “The murder

Lynette McMillan had a small, quiet family, relatively speaking. She and her husband were raising three kids on a ranch in Soap Lake, Wash. They took a trip to a friend's place, a couple that had taken in foster kids and giving them a better life than what they had previously. This was the inspiration for the McMillans to become foster parents themselves. Three kids became four, then five, then six, and now 10. And as you might imagine, it was not without it's challenges. Aside from the standard

Often times our sense of responsibility is to a place, a community. For writer Jack Cameron, that place is Tacoma; he just loves his hometown. “There’s not a lot of pompousness around Tacoma. [It] almost doesn’t care about image and that’s what I like about it,” says Cameron. Cameron’s love for Tacoma has turned into a website: Tacoma Stories . It features interviews with local characters, park reviews and other community news. However, there is one section on the website that is particularly

In America, the phrase "call of duty" is most often associated with our men and women in uniform. Signing up for the military often requires a very strong sense of loyalty to your country. What happens when that loyalty is questioned? That was the case for many Japanese-Americans during World War II, when the U.S. was at war with Japan. Over 100,000 Japanese-Americans were interned in camps along the West Coast. The government classified them as "enemy aliens." However many young Americans born

This week on Sound Effect, we share some of our favorite music-related stories from the past year. Charlie And The Rays We meet the musicians of a local band that just released their first record. While some members of the band are too young to patronize the establishments they perform in, that hasn't stopped them from having big hopes for the future. Bonnie Guitar Almost 60 years ago, Bonnie Guitar had one of the first “crossover” hits, climbing both the pop and country charts. She would go on

Singer-songwriter Kimya Dawson writes intimate music that connects with her fans in a very personal way. Olympia's independent K Records wrote that "her recordings make it feel as though you have a friend there whispering in your ear. And you do because Kimya is your friend." However, Dawson's intimacy can sometimes get her into trouble. She finds herself opening her heart too much and taking in too many friends. At our live event in May, Dawson shared one of her songs and explored how she

When it comes to music, the idea of band rivalries goes back decades. The Beatles vs. The Rolling Stones has been a classic matchup that goes back five decades. In the Pacific Northwest, the most visible example of a band rivalry started 25 years ago, when Nirvana and Pearl Jam were two of the biggest bands in the country. But how did these so-called rivalries start? And do we have any evidence at all that these bands actually didn't like each other? We spoke with Charles R. Cross, a Seattle

Getting a tattoo can certainly be an occasion for regret. Getting a tattoo that has an intentional misspelling in it could potentially lead to more opportunity for regret. Naming your debut album after your intentionally misspelled tattoo pretty much sums up the "no regrets" attitude of the Seattle-based band Chastity Belt. There certainly could have been moments for regret — from singing songs about "how a guy is hot" to playing in creepy little venues in the middle of nowhere, to making the

You are what you eat, or so the saying goes. Seattle’s Museum of History and Industry explores that idea in depth with a new exhibition that opened over the weekend. Called " Edible City ," it charts more than 100 years of Seattle’s evolving food culture. The show tells Seattle’s food history by exploring several basic themes. It starts with the raw ingredients that provide the foundation for our culture. From foraged foods such as mushrooms and berries to farmed landscapes and how they’ve

This week on Sound Effect, you are what you eat. We bring stories of food, and how it intersects with identity. We Eat War Seattle Civic Poet Claudia Castro Luna left her native El Salvador at age 14, fleeing civil war. “We’re still living through the aftermath of the war,” she says. A number of her poems touch on food and its connection with that war-riddled history, including her poem “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Pupusa.” “We eat war / Each time / A pupusa is made,” she writes, explaining