Save the clock tower!
Spokane has always been a city with a small but passionate independent music sector, which has been able to thrive due to the activism on the part of students and local establishments friendly to the arts. Many Whitworthians have fond memories of nights spent at the Empyrean, a downtown coffeehouse which serves up more culture than you’ll find at any dozen regular establishments.
Unfortunately, a recently passed state law (RCW 19.27.500) requiring automatic sprinklers in all “nightclubs” (any place with a dance floor larger than 350 square feet) has the potential to force the Empyrean to shut down.
The Empyrean, founded two years ago by sisters Chrisy and Michelle Riddle as a personal commitment to community service, has been one of Spokane’s greatest friends to independent artists, poets, and bored students.
Installing a new sprinkler system would cost more than $20,000, which is money the owners do not have.
“It will basically shut us down,” Co-Owner of the Empyrean Chrisy Riddle said.
[...]
The sisters don’t make any money here, but they rely on their day jobs for income. They say this is their community service.
“I always had this dream about owning a coffee shop that would be also a center for the arts,” Riddle said.
She may have to wake up from the dream this winter, when a new law will require any business with a performing or dancing area that has an area 350 square feet or more, to have automatic sprinklers installed.
“Unless some miracle happens, or the law changes, or somehow we find the money we need, our plan is that we may have to close on November 30,” Riddle said.
[News coverage: http://www.kxly.com/Global/story.asp?S=10667473]
The Empyrean’s closure would truly be a great loss to the community. Unfortunately, it sounds as though the amount of money in question is essentially insurmountable without what Riddle calls a “miracle.
So here’s a thought: Whitworth’s students have the capacity to make that miracle happen. $20,000 across, say, 2,000 students starts to look pretty affordable pretty fast. I’m not intimately familiar with ASWU bylaws and financial regulations (especially as an ex-student), but it seems to me that a few motivated campaigners could get a benefit concert going on-campus. With sufficient impassioned advertising, a $10-30 ticket price over the course of one or two concerts could make a serious dent in solving the Empyrean’s problem.
What sorts of creative solutions do you folks have?
A Brief Rundown of Heller
I think most people have better things to do than read 157 pages of judicial decision over the summer, but I spent all yesterday vigilantly scouring the U.S. Supreme Court’s District of Columbia v. Heller opinion written by Scalia. While I bet most people don’t want to read these long texts for themselves to sort through their meanings, I hope that they are skeptical of all-or-nothing summaries declaring that either Heller is God’s Blessing Upon our Glorious Faithful Nation or it is An Opinion Guaranteed to Lead to Violent Rioting Chaos Throughout the U.S. So after briefly purveying news results, I was sad to find lots of opinions of and political responses to Heller, but no clear evaluation of its actual implications. Political evaluations and opinions most certainly have their place, but a clear understanding of a case’s holdings should come first.
I’ve typed up this basic evaluation of Heller after reading the whole thing and noting what it specifically purports to do and not to do, and I hope it is helpful to anyone who’s interested in understanding the decision.
Art Attack
Much has been made of the “Vandalism” incident in the Art Building.
There’s only one problem. It can’t, by any regular stretch, really be considered vandalism.
Somebody, in the wee morning hours of Nov. 12, broke into the Whitworth Koehler Gallery, took down the Official Featured Art, and replaced it with the art from the student gallery. The art, despite being worth $11,000, wasn’t damaged. Vandalism usually has a downright cavalier, hasty, attitude towards what they are vandalizing. Vandals, usually, are not worried about damaging property. They didn’t have a “vandalish” approach to the issue. The vandal’(s’) handling of the art, from what I read, seems downright dainty.
Frankly, I’ve seen more destructive vandalism in the average North Central High School bathroom stall.
Walk up to the second floor of the HUB. There, you’ll see an old black-and-white photograph of Whitworth students smiling in front of two stolen Gonzaga University (or possibly “College” at that point) signs. One of the signs has the word etched out.
Now that could be considered vandalism (not to mention theft.) But because this was back in the good ol’ days of the college-students-will-be-college-students mentality, it’s lionized and commemorated rather than condemned.
The art situation, however, doesn’t even sink to the level of prank. The word “prank” has an immature, sophomoric tinge to it.
Instead, I’d argue, replacing professional pieces with student pieces is as much a piece of Art as anything in the art building. It makes a clear succinct statement: pointing out the hazy edge between “professional” and “amateur” art. What makes the sculptures of Ruben Trejo worth $11,000, while student sculptures are — at least monetarily– practically worthless? What makes “good” art is an unceasing question of debate in academia. This act of “vandalism” deftly highlights the arguably arbitrary nature of judging art. (There’s an interesting discussion in the comments section of this post about whether even blatant vandalism can, in fact, be a form of artistic expression.)
(Note: The title of “vandalism” isn’t The Whitworthian’s fault. If security calls it “vandalism,” the newspaper is obligated to call it the same)
I’ve seen a lot of students get angry about what happened. They seem upset mainly because of the fact that the doors are now being locked at night for the art building. (Whitworth’s response to almost any safety concern, including slippery ice or thunderstorms, will invariably be to lock more doors, more often.) This is, understandably, intolerable for the busy art student. They need the late hours to be able to produce quality pieces.
Students should direct their anger to the policy, not the action that precipitated the policy. It’s sad that years and years and years of nothing bad happening in the Art building, is thrown away simply for the notion that something bad could happen, someday.
There’s a curious air of mystery, furthermore, to the situation. The Koehler art gallery is locked, late at night. Yet, apparently, such locks didn’t stop the “vandal” from breaking in. (You could make a far better case for breaking and entering, than vandalism, I’d think.)
So whodunit? Was it a person with a key — a staff or faculty member, or somebody on security or custodial services? Did somebody just forget to lock it and the perps took advantage of this mistake? Or can the Koehler Gallery’s, like Warren Mechanical room, latch just be slid aside with a thin piece of metal? Was it Colonel Mustard, with the Slim Jim, in the Art Gallery?
Either way, more work should be put into reinforcing security for the Koehler door. Keep the outside doors unlocked so students can work on their “amateur” pieces late at night, while protecting the “valuable” pieces from acts of “vandalism” that leave them undamaged.
Police kill immigrant 24 seconds into encounter
Police have tasered another person to death (this time it wasn’t in Spokane).
These police with their electroshock weapons are acting increasingly like attack dogs. They arrive on the scene and, by default, incapacitate the person. There’s little consideration of alternatives. They show up and bite (they addressed the man in the link above for 24 seconds before they killed him).
When a dog attacks a person, it is presumed the dog will attack again. So, of course, authorities euthanize the dog. We may, by analogy, assume violent police officers will attack again. So, authorities should effectively euthanize officers. I don’t mean police chiefs should kill their staff, but rather that the officers should be punished to the point that they are not capable of biting another person again.
Next post: How tasers violate the 14th Amendment’s due process clause.