Blaine Stum

If you read the Spokesman-Review last week, you might have seen the alarming news that Spokane Transit Authority put the much needed remodel of the downtown bus plaza on hold.

One day, he told me he was from Bethlehem in Palestine. He started to tell me about what life was like in Palestine: clean water was scarce, poverty was endemic, military checkpoints degraded and humiliated people, settler roads cut the occupied territories up and made it impossible for people like him to travel, he had to go through Jordan when visiting home because he would be detained if he tried to return through Israel.

On a Monday night several months ago at Emannuel Family Life Center, a room packed full of people met for the monthly NAACP Spokane Chapter meeting. James Wilburn, the president of our local NAACP, was standing in front of the room when he pulled out a Spokesman-Review article about the location of marijuana retail stores in Spokane.

The court decided that the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act could not require closely held corporations to provide health coverage that includes contraceptives. Beyond setting a horrible precedent with this case, the ruling is another horrifying blow to both women’s rights and workers’ rights.

We are a nation of immigrants, as the saying goes. Despite this obvious fact, we resist tooth and nail the implementation of anything approaching a humane immigration system.

I stroll through downtown every day on my to and from work. My walk is usually pleasant, but jarring.

Another mass shooting takes place in America. We pay our respects to the victims of such a tragedy, condemn the man who committed it and move on