RANGE

Hey y'all fascinating conversation -- part 1 of 2 -- with Angelique Tomeo and Sabrina Ryan-Helton of the Bail Project about how maybe America isn't really the land of the free after all, what with the absurd amounts of pre-trial detention going on all throughout America (and certainly in Spokane) and how, just maybe, we should totally dismantle and abolish such a horribly inhumane system all together.

As a supplement to this episode make sure to check out my essay on what happened to crime rates when Spokane let a bunch of people out of jail due to COVID. Really gives some extra urgency to the work. 

Photo illustration by Connor Bacon

SUPPLEMENTS

• Spokane let people out of jail; Crime went down.

GOOFS

• Why yes, that is a mash-up of a climactic scene from 1996 blockbuster Independence Day and the Spokane County Jail.

This week’s RANGE comes in two parts.

PART 1 | A Letter to My City Council Members | Offers a little background on the soon to be voted-upon police contract as a warm up for a dramatic reading of a letter Luke wrote this week asking Spokane City Council to tear it up with extreme prejudice. 

PART 2 | Our Borders, Ourselves | We reach the conclusion of the awesome interview with Yakima immigration attorney Stephen Robbins, where the conversation turns toward some of the more mundane, overlooked atrocities of Trump's immigration policy and also some (infuriatingly) hilarious reflections on our dumb, dehumanizing border policy. 

SUPPLEMENTS

• Spokane City Council Directory -- has a nice map in case if you want to send directly to your district's commissioners, but I'm sure they'd ALL love to hear from you. 

GOOFS

• I've never seen Mr Smith Goes to Washington, but for some reason that image of Jimmy Stewart staring mournfully up at a broken system is seared into my memory. 

Immigration lawyer Stephen Robbins dials in for a WIDE ranging chat about life in Yakima -- currently the unexpected epicenter (or in Governor Inslee's words, "Eh-pee-center") of Coronavirus in Washington State. 

We cover the demographic and political environment in the county and how pre-existing sanitation and other abysmal conditions in the agricultural industry might be contributing to a public health crisis in a placewhere half the population sees not wearing masks as a patriotic statement and the other half works in an industry that is 50%-70% undocumented and lives very close to the edge in the best of times.

So yeah, it gets a little dark in this ep, but there's a labor fight that's actually going kinda well, so it ends on a hopeful note! 

SUPPLEMENTS

• "DACA Survives" latest episode of Stephen's great immigration law podcast

GOOFS

• None because I'm perfect.

Jac Archer dials in to talk protest, big white supremacy (murder), little white supremacies (the gutting of EWU's gender and ethnic studies programs) and how you can't just support black liberation when it makes you comfortable.

Oh, and Luke and Jac also talk Scandal (the show) and trade James Baldwin quotes like total badasses.

LITERAL NAZI ALERT

SUPPLEMENTS

• The Anti Defamation League Pyramid of Hate

GOOFS

• The Girl from Ipanema, elevator edition

While much of America is on fire, and trust in police is shaken to the core, activists have discovered that Spokane law enforcement has invited Dave Grossman -- the inventor of "Killology," a widely discredited training technique -- to train our local police. 

Among Grossman's more infamous pupils: the guy who killed Philando Castile in Minneapolis in 2016, a precursor killing that laid the groundwork for the nationwide unrest that sprang up after the murder of George Floyd. 

Ask Sheriff Knezovich and Police Chief Meidl to disinvite this merchant of death:

GROSSMAN BACKGROUND

• "Conditioned Response" short doc 2017

OTHER SUPPLEMENTS

• 2020 "Mindset Bootcamp" web page and flier

Good news Millennials: your life sucks exactly as much as you think it sucks! And that's according to journalism!

SUPPLEMENTS

• "The unluckiest generation in U.S history" by Andrew Van Dam / WaPo

CURIOSITIES

• Behold the first millennial | True Detective S01

An interview with cook, writer, artist & activist Tunde Wey sends Luke down a rabbit hole thinking about the place of restaurants as one of the most accessible, understandable (and delicious!) places where capital from literally all over the world collides right in front of us, and how restaurateurs -- like all small business owners -- must take this moment of crisis to be an ally of workers, not big business. 

All this and a couple little confessions from yours truly.

EPISODE SUPPLEMENTS

• New Yorker Interview with Tunde Wey by Helen Rosner 

CURIOSITIES

• The New Yorker hell joke is from Good Place S02E11*

*Yikes on all the Luciferian references. That kind of week.

Luke takes a trip down to nerd town and really digs into the data on predicted coronavirus deaths, national perceptions on how quickly to open back up, the interplay of fear of the virus and economic anxiety and finally how to win an argument against someone who calls you "sheeple" without coming off as a total cuck globalist!

Then, at the end of the show (right as Luke was about to go to bed), Dr. Bob Lutz, Spokane regional health officer, drops by to break a little news. 

EPISODE SUPPLEMENTS

• Department of Homeland Security Covid Projections (May 1)

CURIOSITIES

• An absolutely iconic piece of art

A bad editorial in our local newspaper demanding workers use their health to grease the economy inspires a brief history of newspaper editorial boards, a deep dive into the American concept of objective journalism, an attempt to reframe the value of human life (no big deal there).

Housekeeping:

• Here's a link to the editorial in question. 

Starting a podcast maybe isn't the first thing you'd imagine doing four-plus weeks into a nationwide lock down, but we're all working through this in our own way, okay?

It's been an almost indescribably dark time for many people across the world, and there isn't currently an end in sight. But maybe there's something to be found in this utterly brutal but also unprecedented month that can give us some hope for the future and, more importantly, a path to get there.

Not a lot is clear right now, but one thing seems clear: we can't just return to normal. We have to imagine something much, much better.

Writer, organizer and occasional journalist Luke Baumgarten locks himself in his attic for a week or so and emerges with ... whatever this is.

NOTE: Luke is definitely a professional audio technician and natural vocal performer. You should 100% assume that any sound issues or gross/strange vocalizations are completely intentional.