Why Won’t Policymakers Talk More About Drugs and Homelessness?

A Strict ‘Housing First’ Approach Oversimplifies the Complexity of a West Coast Epidemic

More than half of America’s unsheltered population lives in just three states—California, Oregon, and Washington—and West Coast voters are demanding a response. Homelessness ranked as the top concern in a recent poll of likely voters in the Los Angeles mayor’s race. Last year, Seattle residents replaced a long-serving progressive city attorney with a Democrat-turned-Republican who vowed to clear encampments. And San Francisco’s progressive district attorney may be headed for defeat in an upcoming recall election, in part because of spiraling crime rates in neighborhoods with large homeless populations.

Much of the …

by Jim Hinch | May 23, 2022

The Long, Violent 1962 Storm That Inspired the Environmental Movement

100 MPH Winds Killed Millions of Trees in the Pacific Northwest, Changing Its Forests Forever

by John Dodge | June 6, 2019

The Columbus Day Storm of 1962 was the largest, most violent windstorm in the recorded history of the West Coast. Starting on October 12, it swept from Northern California …

Why Washington, D.C., Is the Most Undemocratic of Capitals

The City's Slaveholding Past, and Disenfranchised Present, Make Its Residents Dependents, Not Citizens

By Chris Myers Asch and George Derek Musgrove | May 23, 2018

Every year about 20 million tourists come to Washington, D.C., to visit the marble monuments of American freedom and democracy. Few of them, however, realize that the 680,000 permanent residents …

When Variety Theaters Tantalized the Frontier West

In 19th-Century Spokane, Risqué Performances Set off a Battle Over Civil Morality

By Holly George | November 6, 2017

In the spring of 1897, Spokane, Washington’s Spokesman-Review published an exposé of its city’s thriving red light district—known as Howard Street. The newspaper lingered on distasteful scenes in variety theaters …

We’re Going To Fall Off A Cliff!!!!

So Why Aren’t People Outside of D.C. Terribly Worried?

by Andrés Martinez | December 10, 2012

Have you stocked up on extra food and water? Have a flashlight and plenty of spare batteries? The Fiscal Cliff is nigh, and much of Washington is fearfully counting down the …

Baked & Wired (D.C.)

Because They Hold the Nuts

by Elizabeth Weingarten | April 12, 2012

The sweet smell of a bakery accelerates my pulse and propels panic signals to my brain. I’m allergic to nuts. I dream of warm apple pie slices and soft, sprinkled …

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