RANGE

Listen now (107 min) | Spokane's new Planning Director, Spencer Gardner, chatted with Luke about his planning philosophy all the way back in 2019.

Get full access to RANGE at www.rangemedia.co/subscribe

Starting the year off with a banger: Senate Majority Leader Andy Billig joins us to talk about the legislative year that was, and what to expect from Washington state in 2022 as the legislature tries to pack all its work into a whirlwind 60 day session.

Get full access to RANGE at www.rangemedia.co/subscribe

This week we speak with Inlander reporter Samantha Wohlfeil, who has been filing the best stories anywhere on the continuing — and honestly, worsening — crisis at the Spokane Regional Health District.

She wrote the authoritative piece to date on the steady exodus of staff from the district. It’s vital reading.

Since we recorded, more heads have rolled. Here, Sam covers the firing of two leaders heavily involved with pandemic response and the subsequent dismay of staff.

Read her at the Inlander and follow her on Twitter

Get full access to RANGE at www.rangemedia.co/subscribe

Listen now | RANGE OF CARE | Building resiliency in the face of burnout, uncertainty and flux

Get full access to RANGE at www.rangemedia.co/subscribe

This week on the pod, Gene Brake, Spokane-based Realtor, civil rights activist, and neighborhood leader joins us to talk about:

How the local Realtor association is spending heavily in local political races and the un-democratic process they use to decide who gets their support

How administrative dysfunction on the one hand and restrictive zoning on the other are affecting our ability to build the housing we need.

One neighborhood’s plan to build densely in targeted areas to both provide more homes while still keeping the area affordable for its mostly low-income residents.

Get full access to RANGE at www.rangemedia.co/subscribe

We won’t call it an “emergency” pod because the news is kinda good. We’d call it Breaking news … but it’s not really that either.

WHAT IT IS: a conversation with Rebecca Cook, proud Spokanite and Vice President of IATSE Local 488, which serves film and TV crews in Washington, Oregon, Montana and North Idaho.

We discuss:

The breadth of entertainment workers in our area

How a 12-hour “shoot day” is really a 16-hour work day.

How grueling hours lead to unsafe working conditions and potentially deadly commutes.

How “new media” like Netflix, Amazon & Disney+ continue to pay people poorly, even as they cross a quarter-trillion dollars of market value, thanks to outdated contracts they are trying desperately to maintain at the expense of workers’ health and safety.

The overwhelming majority of workers who are now saying “enough is enough.”

BUT ALSO:

Some seriously encouraging news about how taking this stand seems to be working.

Further Reading

Working conditions on film shoots: IAStories on Instagram & Twitter

Solid background on how we got here.

Track this fast-moving story at the industry trades Deadline & Variety

A Smidge of Action

An exhaustive list of resources and ways to help.

It’s one of our more hopeful episodes in a while! Enjoy!

Get full access to RANGE at www.rangemedia.co/subscribe

This week we discuss the tremendous challenge of climate change and the impacts of that challenge on mental health — especially the mental health of young people, who will bear a disproportionate trauma and hardship from our collective inaction. Younger generations are suffering deeply from what feels like an overwhelming challenge, and need support. They are also incredibly resilient and are creating a kind of activism that feels completely different than the climate activism of the 90s and 2000s.

We also talk — among many other things — about climate denial as an observable psychological response and discuss strategies to bring those folks in.

Our Panel

Vinai Norasakkunkit | a professor at Gonzaga whose research focuses on the intersection of cultural psychology and clinical psychology. He studies the psychology of globalization and youth marginalization, as well the cultural shaping of social anxiety and happiness and the cultural shaping of: attitudes towards climate change.

Maggie Gates | a climate justice advocate and educator. She graduated from Gonzaga in 2019 with a degree in Political Science and shortly after co-founded Sunrise Spokane, a youth-led climate activism group. The group’s model is brilliant and will hopefully be transformational for all activism, but feels especially necessary for something as big as climate change.

Our host, as always, is Meg Curtin Rey-Bear, psychotherapist and co-owner of Wellness Therapies Spokane.

Luke tags along on this one as well.

Past Episodes

Let The Sunrise In | A conversation about climate and Sunrise Spokane with Rosie Zhou

Kids, COVID, and “Deep Loneliness” | The first episode in what has become known as our Range of Care series.

Analyze This (Pandemic) | Meg first joined us last November to talk about mental health entering the holidays, and a second year of COVID uncertainty and risk.

Get full access to RANGE at www.rangemedia.co/subscribe

On this week’s episode, we speak with Jeff Ketchel, Executive Director of the Washington State Public Health Association, about the state of public health 18-plus months into a centenary pandemic.

It’s slow, painstaking work done by diligent people in the messy environment of human frailty, government funding, society, culture and politics. Not complicated at all!

Then you throw covid into the mix and all of those variables suddenly become amplified and even more unpredictable.

There’s the bad news we’re mostly aware of, and some good news that’s under-reported. So all-in-all, we think you’l walk away from this episode feeling marginally better about things!

And plus it gives us an excuse to showcase the Swiss Cheese Model of disease prevention. Most of those slices are impacted, directly or indirectly, by public health policy.

Further reading

Pandemic and politics drive mass exodus of WA public health leaders (Crosscut)

Local Public Health 101 (RANGE)

Costa Ricans Live Longer Than Us. What’s the Secret? (New Yorker)

How does health spending in the US compare to other countries? (Health System Tracker)

Get full access to RANGE at www.rangemedia.co/subscribe

Many of our local law enforcement officials have expressed concerns about a set of new laws (HB 1310, HB 1054) that, among other things, require stricter standards for probable cause when detaining someone, require de-escalation during encounters, ban chokeholds and significantly restrict the use of tear gas.

Despite the handwringing, it seems pretty reasonable to us, so we spoke with Enoka Herat of the ACLU Washington about what the laws do and don’t do

Further reading

A good primer from Crosscut about what police are allowed and not allowed to do under the law.

A good primer on carotid and choke holds in the Washington Post, and why 62% of the largest police forces in America banned them unilaterally … you know, rather than being forced to by their state legislature.

—

Note: early in the episode Luke calls himself lugubrious when he obviously — OBVIOUSLY — meant loquacious. We regret the error.

Get full access to RANGE at www.rangemedia.co/subscribe

Psychotherapist Meg Curtin Rey-Bear guest hosts a roundtable with fellow therapists Maggie Rowe, a clinical social worker and certified child life specialist, and Ingrid Price, a licensed mental health counselor and a child mental health specialist. It’s a tough, wide-ranging, but ultimately hopeful conversation about what kids and parents are going through.

Content warning: includes frank discussions about self-harm and suicidal ideation among young people.

Previous pandemic mental health content

PODCAST: Analyze This (Pandemic)

PRINT: Ten-ish tips for thriving through another tough season

Get full access to RANGE at www.rangemedia.co/subscribe