Washington Voices

It being the political season and all, I’ve been musing about situational outrage and how we engage in it over and over without ever seeming to feel any embarrassment. I thought we were smarter than that. Look at a couple of things in the headlines recently. Presidential candidate and businessman Donald Trump freely uses the term “anchor baby” in referring to children born on American soil to undocumented immigrants and receives a lot of praise and hardly a tsk-tsk. Yet fellow candidate Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida and married to a naturalized American citizen who was born in Mexico, uses the term and – well, he’s still trying to quell the firestorm that followed. And they’re both in the same political party.

Dog days: Bernadette Powers submitted this photo of her dog, Ducan, with this caption: “This yard is mine. If you didn’t want me to relax among the flowers, you should have planted them somewhere else.” Submit your backyard photos at spokesman.com/ reader-photos.

Poetry is as timeless as language itself and a local group offers a supportive forum for poets, both novice and accomplished. Since 1937, Poetry Scribes of Spokane have met to share poems, offer feedback and indulge in their love of verse.

“Spokane Doesn’t Suck” is far from the best thing Derrick Oliver could say about his adopted hometown. The 31-year-old Texas transplant would rather tell people about The Bartlett’s upcoming concert schedule or his plans for Terrain, the eighth annual art extravaganza scheduled for the first Friday in October.

Pattison’s Inline Racing competed in the 2015 Elite National Indoor Speed Skating Championship in Albuquerque, New Mexico, this summer – bringing home several individual national champion titles. The Spokane team was one of 78 from around the country competing. Washington state teams skated well: Pattison’s Inline Racing placed seventh while Federal Way’s Pattison Team Extreme won the competition and Auburn’s Speed Team placed sixth.

Wolverines will enter Spokane Valley soon, under wraps of a school name change. Barker High School will become Mica Peak High School with a February move to new permanent quarters and adopt the slogan, “Home of the Wolverines.”