The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper The Spokesman-Review
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
Current Temperature
40°F
Current Conditions
Scattered clouds
View complete weather report
Subscribe now

Shawn Vestal

This individual is no longer an employee with The Spokesman-Review.

All Stories

News >  Spokane

Vestal: UI law student beefs up résumé

Luke Howarth’s entry into the big time of beefcake has brought support from family and fellow students at the University of Idaho law school. And from his buddies, too, of course.
News >  Spokane

Vestal: Parenting programs imperative

A baby cries. A kid can’t handle it. A baby dies. Change the names and dates. Replace one city with another. The template just repeats and repeats. Young dudes with anger problems and no self-control lose it over a crying baby, hit the child, shake the child, choke the child …
News >  Spokane

Vestal: Coulee City mayor pays price for doing things his way

I don’t need to tell you: We live in a politically fractious time. Everyone’s ticked off at everyone else. Red states and blue. Democrats and Republicans – to say nothing of the internecine battles within. The very idea of civil disagreement seems quaint as a small-town soda fountain.
News >  Spokane

Vestal: Alleged givebacks are a cop-out

Give it back. This is the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad mantra of this recession. Give back your job. Give back some salary. Give back your raise. Give back a week of pay. Give back a bigger piece of your paycheck for health care.
News >  Marijuana

Vestal: Medical marijuana dispensaries don’t seem like big threat

It’s time to de-stupidify medical marijuana. Earlier this month, the local gendarmes once again expended a bunch of time and effort bringing down a medical marijuana dispensary. If someone breaks into your garage, don’t hold your breath waiting for an officer. But if you’re growing medical marijuana in that garage, they’ll find a way to send a car.
News >  Spokane

Vestal: Spitzer talks faith, science on King show

In the cultural fight between faith and science, there’s a new name on the scorecard: the Rev. Robert Spitzer, former president of Gonzaga University. Since he left GU a year ago, Spitzer has been working on a project to reconcile science and faith as president of the Magis Institute for Reason and Faith in Irvine, Calif. He’s got a new book out and is wrapping up a documentary on physics and faith.
News >  Spokane

Vestal: Kirkpatrick’s ‘protocol’ lecture missed the point

Earlier this week, 13 days after a cop fatally shot a citizen on his own property, Spokane police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick appeared before the public. Basic information about the shooting of Wayne Scott Creach has been slow to emerge and shamefully scarce. Just days earlier, Kirkpatrick’s department had issued a news release describing the Aug. 25 event as a “close encounter” with a “verbal exchange” – paltry, insufficient generalities that could have accurately been stated the morning after the shooting.
News >  Spokane

Vestal: Entry-level jobs highly desired

At his new job, 47-year-old Scott J. Smith does all the rookie stuff: janitor work, mowing grass, unclogging pipes and drains. “It’s definitely a hands-dirty type of job,” said Smith. “It’s not for the squeamish.”
News >  Spokane

Vestal: Random acts of kindness hard for many to stomach

What if the Little Red Hen – who did all the work and ate all the bread – had been a selfless chicken? What if she did all the work and then shared the bread? Wouldn’t the rest of us – the loafers, the free-bread-eaters, the dogs, cats and pigs of the world – like her better?
Opinion >  Column

Shawn Vestal: A more civilized era of flight

Back when Jim Bickel helped break the gender barrier among flight attendants, the skies were a good bit friendlier. At least that’s how he remembers it. Airline passengers chose among a variety of meals. Liquor carts trawled the aisles. Passengers were a lot more likely to dress up – or at least less likely to wear sweatpants – and 100 percent more likely to light up.
News >  Spokane

Adventurer connects thrill-seeking, trigonometry

Summer 1977. John Herrington, suspended from the University of Colorado for lousy grades, hangs by one arm from a cliff, holding a prism for highway surveyors, earning four bucks an hour. Winter 2002. John Herrington finds himself hanging by one arm once again, far above solid ground. Though hanging isn’t the right word – you don’t “hang” in space. Herrington holds on to the International Space Station with one hand, using the other to perform a bit of ad-hoc maintenance. Two hundred miles below, the Earth spins rapidly.
News >  Spokane

Permitting perils sink Muzzy Mansion dream

When Mike Schultz and Steven Sanford first laid eyes on the Muzzy Mansion, “it just sang to us,” Schultz said. Now, after more than three years, $70,000 in expenses and thousands of hours spent restoring the landmark home, the song is ending on a sour note. Schultz and Sanford have listed the West Central mansion for sale and are leaving town, after a battle with bureaucrats that left them “feeling railroaded by the city of Spokane into financial ruin and homelessness.”
News >  Spokane

Time for a change – in stale campaign slogans

There was a time when political speech was vigorous and interesting. Wasn’t there? That’s what the history books suggest, at least. Ma, Ma, Where’s My Pa? Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too. You Shall Not Crucify Mankind Upon a Cross of Gold.
News >  Spokane

Drawing a line between law and grammar

A little punctuation can make a lot of difference. When Bob Strick and Vicki Tomsha had business at the Spokane County Courthouse on June 2, they drove around from parking lot to parking lot, looking for some free public parking.
News >  Spokane

Impound company reaped when it towed

Hoopfest Saturday is a bit like a holiday. But it was positively Christmas this year for one local towing company, and Santa’s bag was overflowing. Unfortunately, 42 people who came to play, watch or volunteer at Hoopfest got Scrooged.
News >  Spokane

WSU students re-imagine a classic

Catch them at the right time, and these grad students look like coal miners. In the garage on the Riverpoint campus, Aaron Pasquale wears a layer of grime that’s a shade or two deeper than the one covering classmate Shona Bose. They’re hard at work buffing a 52-year-old Airstream trailer back to its shiny glory – trying to make the iconic trailer instantly, brilliantly recognizable.
News >  Spokane

Economics shouldn’t jeopardize kids’ safety in the water

The reminders come every year, sometimes as tragedy, sometimes as relief. A child drowns, or almost does. Last week, there were two near misses – a 3-year-old girl at Witter Pool and a 4-year-old boy at City Beach in Coeur d’Alene. Fortunately, lifeguards and alert swimmers saved the kids. But it was a chilling reminder about our cooling ways: All that summer fun has a dark fringe to it. We’ll be lucky if we make it to October without someone dying in the water. On average, two dozen kids drown each year in Washington.