All that, I get. It’s the music itself that leaves me stymied. But, much like other things I’m pretty sure I should love but don’t understand (jazz, ketchup, The Big Lebowski), I’ll keep trying it on with the hope that one day it will fit.

One of the things that keeps jazz—especially the homegrown variety—firmly on my radar is my long acquaintance with people who make jazz their business, both personally and professionally. One of those people is, of course, the Jazz Project’s Jud Sherwood. And the other is drummer Julian MacDonough.

Over the years, I have learned that if Julian isn’t currently playing with someone, he has in the past or probably plans to in the future. And when someone worthy comes along that he can’t/won’t/doesn’t share a stage with, there’s a decent chance he’ll be talking about them. So, by keeping tabs on Julian’s whatdoings, I can actually keep tabs on much of Bellingham’s current jazz scene. This is why when he seeks me out to tell me about an event, I tend to pay attention.

Which is how we’ve now arrived at the Midwinter Jazz Festival, which will take place from Tues., Feb. 28-Thurs., March 1 at the Blue Horse Gallery. The purpose of the festival is twofold: 1. to help mitigate those winter blahs with some world-class jazz and 2. to help benefit the Bellingham Youth Jazz Band, which is a program that has been part of the Jazz Project for nearly 15 years (see how this all comes full circle?).

As for the aforementioned “world-class jazz,” that will come in three different forms. The first arrives Tues., Feb. 28 in the form of virtuoso guitarist Peter Bernstein. Classically trained but with contemporary sensibilities, Bernstein has spent the past three-plus decades collaborating with everyone from Joshua Redman and Diana Krall to Melvin Rhyne and Bill Stewart.

The next day, Wed., Feb. 29, MacDonough and the rest of the WWU Faculty Jazz Collective—Mike Allen (tenor sax), Miles Black (piano), and Adam Thomas (bass and voice)—will make the most of the Leap Year with their own performance at the festival. The Midwinter Jazz Festival closes out Thurs., March 1 with saxophonist Vincent Herring, who has had a career most easily described as both “distinguished” and “impressive.” He’s been playing, studying and teaching jazz for a long time, and along the way has played with nearly every well-known jazz musician you can think of. Dizzy Gillespie? Yes. Art Blakey? You know it. The Mingus Big Band? Yep. Wynton Marsalis? Sure thing. And, after the festival, he’ll be able to add Chuck Kistler, Miles Black, and MacDonough to that list.

Perhaps the Midwinter Jazz Festival is just the thing I need to finally grasp jazz music once and for all. Either way, it certainly can’t hurt to try it on.

I’m still not sure how I managed to even make it up the stairs on the limited number of calories I was consuming on a daily basis, but I do know that what I was doing was, in the long run, more harmful than beneficial to my body.

Fast forward a number of years, and you’ll find it’s no surprise that I’ve gained back all the weight I initially lost—plus a whole lot more.

I’m not looking to attain supermodel status, but I’ve reached an age where my extra weight and lack of regular exercise is becoming an issue. In other words, I don’t want to be skinny, I just want to be able to keep up on hikes with my boyfriend, not rely on pants with elastic waistbands and overall, feel better about myself and my health.

I don’t have the best track record when it comes to slipping on spandex and hitting the gym—and am reluctant, at least initially, to pony up the cash when I know I’d rather exercise away from the glare of a room full of people who are in better shape than I am—so I recently queried my Facebook family about the best way to get fit on the cheap in Bellingham.

The answers I got surprised me, as it turns out many of my friends and acquaintances have put a lot more thought into the long-term benefits of working out than I have. 

One advisor—a man I’ve seen transform into a lean, mean marathon machine over the years—noted the outings Fairhaven Runners organizes throughout the week from their headquarters are free, and pointed out that, once I start getting more fit, I can sign up for circuit-training classes every Tuesday and Thursday at Taylor Street Dock and Boulevard Park.

Throughout the day, suggestions kept coming in. For example, it was pointed out that the Interurban Trail comes without a tollbooth. It was also noted that running up and down the stairs (even at home) is great aerobic exercise, and that there are plenty of programs on YouTube and hulu that offer up fitness routines without a fee. 

“Most importantly, you have to pick stuff to do that is fun for you, and you need to have intrinsic motivation,” one fit friend advised. “What will really hold your feet to the fire when you feel like flaking?”

While I don’t have the precise answer to that question yet, I do have plenty of offers to help me figure out what it is that will keep me interested. I’ve been invited to sign up for a 30-and-over ladies soccer team, “drag my ass” up a mountain, sign up with a friend on http://www.myfitnesspal.com, carry my cast-laden coworker around town and attend water aerobics.

I’ve already started watching what I eat, so I figure the next step—or, according the pedometer I’ve been advised to purchase, the next 10,000 steps—is simply getting myself out the door and moving in a way that quickens my heart rate, makes me sweat more than a little bit and doesn’t make me want to head back inside before my goals are reached. Wish me luck!

CW: What’s the overall aim of this artsy extravaganza?
MB: The goal of Winter Commission is always celebration and collaboration. Between the 40 or so artists, the people involved in the films, the bands, the MCs, the DJs and the volunteers, we’ve probably got more than 100 people involved in creating a single evening of entertainment. 

CW: How did the first Winter Commission come about?
MB: We started Winter Commission because we wanted to stay busy during the winter—to give ourselves a project to focus on, with a deadline, that would keep us working on art and interacting with each other, instead of moldering inside and drinking warm beverages.

CW: What’s up with the “Disaster” theme?
MB: 2012 is supposed to be the year the world ends, so we thought a disaster theme would be a cheeky way to acknowledge that. In addition, between all the natural, economic and political disaster afoot, this year has a very apocalyptic feel. Artists have taken a lot of approaches to working with it, from the very broad to the very personal.
CW: Will there really be people dressed at St. Bernards and a fire-themed photo booth?
MB: Gillian Myers sewed a made-to-measure St. Bernard costume for Steeb Russell, and he’s going to go around offering people free hot chocolate from a cask around his neck. Jubal Sather and Brittany Beug made a photo booth that looks like a house on fire, and people will be able to pose for Polaroid photos in it.

CW: What else?
MB: We’ve also got a collage station where kids can create their own disaster art (don’t worry, no scissors!). We’re going to have a bomb shelter area as well, where people can recuperate. At periodic intervals, poets Elissa Ball and Kate Lebo will call on bullhorns for an emergency dance break, and everybody will have to drop what they’re doing and dance furiously for at least a minute.

CW: Will the art be for sale? Will it all be disaster-related?
MB: The art at Winter Commission will definitely be for sale, and it’s all disaster-related. The organizers came up with a list of historical disasters and some of the artists chose to do pieces based on these. We’ve got a mini-exhibition within the art show depicting artists’  interpretations of these disasters, which range from elephant stampedes to devastating fires.

CW: Is everything created specifically for Winter Commission, then?
MB: Yes! Virtually all the art made for this year’s Winter Commission is tailored to our disaster theme. All the visual art is new, and the singer-songwriters wrote historical disaster songs just for this show. There were bands formed just for Winter Commission, as well. The films were all made specifically for Winter Commission, too. 

CW: What do you enjoy about being part of the Winter Commission?
MB: Winter Commission is sort of like Art Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and Easter all in one—you’re celebrating your own and others’ work together, you’re discovering what your friends have been working on all winter for the first time.

CW: Why should people come?
MB: We’ve got so much stuff, by so many people, that it’s impossible that you’re not going to see something that you like.

CW: Is there anything different about this year’s Winter Commission?
MB: We’re bigger and fancier than ever. The disaster theme is going to give the whole night a more dramatic tone. I’m not worried, though—if it gets too intense, you can always go lie down in the bomb shelter and have Steeb minister to you with hot chocolate.

Great-grandma probably never had a microwave, either. At some point in life, she washed her clothes outside and hung them on the line, which took all day. She grew her own food, sewed her own clothes and learned how to fix things around the house—or she hired someone who could do it for her—all the while managing to raise a family.

And you can barely muster the energy to fix dinner.

So how did your ancestors do it?  What could you learn from someone who’s been down the road that stretches before you?  Read 30 Lessons for Living by Karl Pillemer, Ph.D., and find out.

One of the more popular spots in many bookstores is the self-help section. We love to get advice on our love lives, our health and ourselves. But when gerontologist and “advice junkie” Pillemer turned a Certain Age, he began to realize the best guidance was right in front of him.

“Maybe” he said, “there is something about getting older that teaches you how to live better.”

With a list of questions and time to dig, he went on a “quest for wisdom” by seeking out people who were 65 years or older. He asked them for the best advice they could offer on love, relationships, health, family and more.

How, for instance, did people manage to stay married for decades? 

Marry someone a lot like you, Pillemer was told. Opposites attract, but opposing values generally mean trouble in a marriage. Get to know one another, be friends as well as lovers, learn to communicate and forget about changing your beloved after the wedding. That ain’t happening.

Since you’ll spend four or five decades making a living, choose a job for its intrinsic value and not because of salary. If you’re miserable in a job, find another one. Take a pay cut if you have to; it’s worth it to love your job.

On the other hand, don’t put your work ahead of your children. Spend time with them, and never allow a rift. Be honest. Be open to opportunity. Choose happiness. Don’t wait.

And know that being old is much better than you think. Imagine the outrage if one of this country’s best-loved treasures suddenly disappeared, never to be retrieved. That’s what will happen to a bit of our history when our oldest citizens are gone, but 30 Lessons in Living helps in the preservation.

Through interviews with “experts” in life, author Karl Pillemer presents a twofold gift to readers. First of all, there’s useable real-world advice that comes from the perspective of those who have survived, endured and thrived. Secondly, there are stories of how those experts got to be where they are: tales of hardship, loneliness, risks and love. Together, those two facets make this one book a pure delight.

And because of that, I highly recommend it for anyone who craves words of wisdom and comfort. If age is just a number, 30 Lessons for Living is number one.

A bar in downtown Anacortes that has been in business since Prohibition (and looks like it), it definitely isn’t a frilly-curtains-and-placemats sort of place. The room has a classic pub ambience—lots of dark wood, sports paraphernalia on the walls and ceiling, painting of a naked lady behind the bar and an inflatable shark wearing a sombrero (doesn’t every bar need one of these?).

There are television screens in a few spots, and if a big game is going on you may hear shrieks and bellows from various corners of the room, but it’s not overwhelmingly a sports bar, and you can ignore the TVs if you like. During the rest of the week they have trivia and game nights and live music, and it can be hard to find a seat when the place is hopping. But then there’s Sunday morning.

Despite living in Skagit County for nearly 15 years, my husband and I only recently started going to the Brown Lantern (what can I say, we’re slow). But one Sunday after a rather wet hike in the Anacortes Forestlands, we felt the need of a burger and a beer and wandered in. It wasn’t too busy, with a few locals at the bar. We sat in the window looking across Commercial Avenue and immediately felt right at home.

When the Sunday Brunch menu was put in front of us, we were amazed. The regular lunch menu looked promising, but we hadn’t realized that the pub also serves breakfast on Sundays, beginning at 10am, and their selection is exciting: a burrito stuffed with bacon and tater tots ($9), huevos rancheros ($9), a breakfast burger ($9.50), and—what caught my eye immediately—breakfast mac and cheese ($10). I didn’t order it that visit, but I have since rectified that. Several times.

So, what’s in breakfast mac and cheese, you ask? Macaroni noodles, of course, and cheese sauce, which some days is quite soupy and other days more stiff (I like it when it needs to be eaten with a soup spoon). It has spinach, tomato and onions, so you can say you ate vegetables, pieces of bacon, and two fried eggs right on top.

When you cut up the eggs and stir everything together in a big gloppy pile with a splash of Tabasco it becomes a transcendent experience. If you’re feeling at all fragile from your Saturday night, it has the effect of soothing and uplifting. If you’re just hungry, it will definitely take care of that. Don’t get it if you’re only a bit peckish, though, because if you’re like me you will eat too much of it and need to go take a long nap. Well, you may want to do that anyway. Especially if you have a beer with it.

The pub has a good range of beers on tap, including several Georgetown Brewery selections, and a decently stocked bar. We haven’t tried ordering anything too adventurous, but the bartenders know their way around the basics. Their Bloody Mary is well built, and they offer mimosas by the pint. Cocktail prices are very reasonable, making it a great place for a little hair of the dog on a Sunday morning. Getting a beer with breakfast will not raise any eyebrows here, I promise.

All of the food we’ve had at the Brown Lantern has been good. I really enjoy their Reuben ($11, served with horseradish sauce), and the lamb burger ($15) is surprisingly perky, with its topping of feta and mango chutney. Sweet potato fries are excellent, crinkle cut and sprinkled with cheese and parsley. Their biscuits and gravy ($6) are hot with pepper and they don’t stint on the rich sausage gravy, and the regular Lantern breakfast ($8) is a very reasonably sized assortment of toast, tater tots, eggs and bacon.

Unfortunately, a recent visit with friends involved some severely undercooked bacon, but my friend assured me that the tater tots were of very high quality. All of it is good, but I personally just have trouble ordering anything except the mac and cheese. And maybe, someday, that tater tot burrito.

In fact, for those looking to communicate in a nonverbal manner, Facebook is the place to be. With more than 500 million active users, there’s a good chance at least one or more of your real-world friends are hunched over their computers—or sidled up to their oh-so-intelligent cell phones—at any given moment, just waiting for a missive that will let them know someone’s thinking about them.

But for others, such as Bellingham Children’s Theatre founder Drue Robinson, Facebook isn’t so much a necessity as it is a curiosity. As a playwright and director who still remembers producing plays on a typewriter with wadded-up first drafts piling up behind her, she says although she’s grateful for the many advances in modern technology, she gets frustrated with having to constantly relearn things as computer programs get upgraded and cell phones get progressively brainier.

With her new play, Poke•Chat•Friend, Robinson and her Viewpoints Theatre Ensemble troupe are exploring the good, bad and ugly sides of interacting on the Internet.

“Ever since Facebook came into being, I have grown more and more curious about the state of people’s personal interactions with one another,” Robinson says. “I gathered together ensemble members who wanted to approach the subject of technology and how it has affected our interpersonal relationships, and we began digging up statistics, asking friends about their technological experiences and researching the upside and downside of online connection.”

Using her Viewpoints training—a process she says is akin to “brainstorming with your body”—Robinson and her theatrical cohorts started researching the phenomena last October. After putting the project on hold while the Bellingham Children’s Theatre produced The Wutcraker last December, they’ve been rehearsing since January and already have a weekend of performances under their belts.

“Many audience members have said that we give a pretty balanced perspective on the amazingly wonderful things brought about by technology, as well as illustrating some of the horrors that can occur,” Robinson says. “The show has a quirky, smart, personal melange of statistics and personal stories. We’ve had more than a few people tell us that they’ve come away from the show reassessing their own relationships to their technological devices.”

Basically, Robinson says, Poke•Chat•Friend is asking viewers whether they own—or are owned by—their various technological devices. The answers, she says, might surprise you.

Pete Kremen helped roll back a Council decision to open 280 acres in the South Fork Valley to gravel mining—a harsh, extractive industry residents say would scar their rural farming community. With his vote, the zoning change failed 3-3.

Council member Ken Mann chose to recuse himself, after the attorney for Nor’west Concrete, the Burlington company that requested the zoning change, claimed Mann and Kremen should not vote on the matter, having earlier indicated how they would vote on the quasi-judicial decision. But here’s the key takeaway: everyone had earlier indicated how they would vote on the matter when the zoning change first came before council last fall. Kremen, then county executive, found their mixed approval flawed and suggested he might consider a veto. Yet gravel industry attorney Lesa Starkenburg-Kroontje asked that only those who publicly had indicated they opposed the change should recuse themselves. Starkenburg, Mann explained, “questioned my eligibility to vote on the mineral resource land expansion. I was deeply offended by that tactic,” he said, “but her claims may have had some technical validity.

“Because I did not want to jeopardize the county by exposing us to yet another time-consuming and money-wasting lawsuit, and because I have respect for my council colleagues and the county taxpayers, I recused myself from the discussion and the vote,” Mann said, adding, “I calculated that my vote was irrelevant, they needed four affirmative votes to pass it.”

Kremen was also deeply offended by Starkenburg’s tactics, but refused to recuse himself, declaring her claims against him had no merit. He characterized her attempts to meet with him privately on the matter when he was county executive as “entrapment.”

“I never made any view known until after the completed public process,” Kremen explained. “Although a clever legal tactic, I’m not going to buy it.”

A good attorney will of course employ many clever tactics on behalf of her client, but Starkenburg has potential conflicts of interest in a class of her own. The county, after all, is also her client.

County Council authorized a payment of $40,000 to have Starkenburg help prepare a legal defense of the Rural Element of the county’s comprehensive plan when the plan went in front of the Washington Growth Management Hearings Board last summer. Council’s legal counsel, Karen Frakes, admitted Starkenburg was well qualified to craft a defense of a plan that so favored build-out that the horrified board ruled it invalid and in violation of state law.

Let’s unpack that.

In 2010, County Council met in a semi-private meeting with development attorneys, ostensibly to settle pending lawsuits. In practice, the decision meant council could make substantial wholesale revisions to the Rural Element entirely favorable to private development interests without docketing those changes in a public meeting. Framed in the context of legal settlements, most of the council’s flimflam could be concealed in closed executive session, where they could quickly unwind work created from hundreds of hours of open testimony and process in front of previous councils and planning commissioners, the closest thing to a back-room deal permissible by law.

Their product was an outrageously unsupportable document—scoffed at by planners and planning commissioners alike—and certainly one not protective of the public’s interest in open government and democratic process or one protective of the public’s interest in intelligent land-use planning. No, it was specifically designed to enrich crony interests. To defend this ruinous mess, Frakes recommended hiring Starkenburg as a resourceful, talented legbreaker—a private practice attorney similar to the ones council had already “settled” with—to defend the indefensible and further kneecap the public’s interest. Starkenburg had spent a good portion of her career trying to poke holes in county planning; now she was hired by a council majority intent on facilitating a planning coup d’etat. What private interests wrote, private interests would now defend—paid by public dollars.

Frakes (and by extension her boss, Prosecutor Dave McEachran) knew all too well this unhappy history, which is exactly why Frakes recommended employing the formidable skills of Starkenburg to unwind it. But unlike Starkenburg, these public employees do not have the luxury of operating in the intersection of public and private interests. Their duty is clear: To uphold the laws of the State of Washington and—damn it—the democratic interests of the citizens of Whatcom County. Their job is to prevent lawbreaking, not to facilitate (or even tolerate) it.

Who was present, who had standing, at County Council’s evening session to declare the conceptual opposite of Starkenburg’s complaint: That some on council had already strongly telegraphed their preferences in favor of this mineral lands designation near Acme and in this quasi-judicial decision needed, like Mann, to stand down? Who was present, who had standing, to question the conceptual opposite of Kremen’s complaint, and demand that all ex parte communications be disclosed that might indicate the favorable bias of certain council members?

Ignoring the slippery slope nonsense of disqualifying from voting all who’ve in some fashion previously disclosed their opinions in an open, representative democracy, the person to out these flaws would have been the council’s legal counsel, Karen Frakes, impartial representative of the public’s interest in fair outcomes. Not much helpful guidance there.

Kremen was right for scoffing at the reasoning; Mann was right for walking away from it, disarming the bomb.

For 12 years, the Bellingham Human Rights Film Festival has been documenting challenges to the human condition around the globe, often juxtaposing suffering and decay against a backdrop of corporate plunder. This year’s film selections focus on plunder a bit closer to home—the inexorable damage caused by the dirty business of resource extraction and the fossil fuel industry.

Two dozen films—some long, some short, each profound—detail the abuses and the enduring human spirit that struggles against those abuses. Films are presented without charge. For more information visit: http://www.bhrff.webs.com.

Thurs., Feb. 16

How to Start a Revolution

A firestorm of revolution has swept the globe through a network of international activists, trainers and teachers. This is the remarkable story of modern revolution, the power of people to change their world and one man behind it all. Quiet, unassuming, soft-spoken and barely known to the wider world, 83 year old Professor Gene Sharp has written the standard textbook for revolutionary leaders around the globe. Used by activists from Serbia to Egypt, from Ukraine to Syria, and now influencing Occupy Wall Street, Sharp crafts a handbook of 198 “strategic weapons” that are used to topple dictators. Banned in many countries, his work has influenced a generation of revolutionary leaders who yearn for democratic freedom in Asia, throughout Eastern Europe, in the Middle East, and now here in America. (2011 | UK | 88min.)
6:30 and 9pm, Pickford film Center
Opening-night reception between shows at the Pickford Film Center

Fri., Feb. 17

The Harvest

Every year more than 400,000 American children move from their friends, schools and homes to pick the food we all eat. Three are profiled in this documentary as they journey from the scorching heat of Texas’ onion fields to the winter snows of the Michigan apple orchards and back south to the humidity of Florida’s tomato fields. Representatives of Whatcom County’s migrant farm laborers will answer questions raised by the film. (2011 | USA | 80 min.)
7pm, Fairhaven College Auditorium

Sat., Feb. 18

Sun Come Up

Climate change has a human face. Rising seas drive Pacific islanders from their ancestral land in search of a new place to call home. Screens again Fri., Feb. 24 on campus. (2010 | USA | 38 min.)
12pm, Pickford Film Center

Dirty Business

Can coal ever really be “clean?” A clear-eyed, comprehensive look at the pervasive presence of fossil fuels and electrical power in all aspects of modern life. This powerful documentary demonstrates how the concentrated power of the coal industry holds us all hostage at a time when we need to be seeking innovative, sustainable energy alternatives, including increased efficiency, wind, solar and even recycled heat from already existing manufacturing plants. This film maps the connections between political power and the electrical grid, and undescores the difficulties we face in pursuing a sustainable energy economy. Representatives from RESources and Power Past Coal will facilitate a discussion following the film. Screens again Fri., Feb 24 on campus. (2009 | USA | 60 min.)
12:45pm, Pickford Film Center

Crime After Crime

In 1983, Debbie Peagler was sentenced to life in prison for first-degree murder, despite many factors indicating that she should not have been charged with the crime in the first place. But Debbie’s case is not one of mistaken identity or a matter of simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time, it’s a story of domestic violence and human endurance. (2011 | USA | 92 min.)
7pm, Fairhaven College Auditorium

Sun., Feb. 19

Tar Creek

Once one of the largest lead and zinc mines on the planet, Tar Creek is now home to more than 40 square miles of environmental devastation in northeastern Oklahoma: acid mine water in the creeks, stratospheric lead poisoning in children, and sinkholes that melt backyards and ball fields. (2009 | USA | 74min.)
12pm, Fairhaven College Auditorium

Power Paths

Inspiring story of Navajo and Hopi communities fighting for their rights on lands devastated by coal mining. (2009 | USA | 54min.)
1:30pm, Fairhaven College Auditorium

American Sandinista

In the 1980s, at the height of the Cold War, a bloody civil war between the socialist-influenced Sandinistas and U.S.-backed Contras ravaged Nicaragua. Despite the danger, American engineers were determined to lend their skills and labor to the revolutionary Sandinista cause. One paid the ultimate price. (2006 | USA | 30 min.)
3pm, Fairhaven College Auditorium

Free World

Local Washingtonians travel to Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the 64th anniversaries of the atomic bombings. One will lead a discussion following the film. (2010 | USA | 34 min.)
3:45pm, Fairhaven College Auditorium

Scientists Under Attack

Powerful agro-chemical corporations attack the GMO research of two scientists. (2009 | USA | 60 min.)
7pm, Fairhaven College Auditorium

Monster Salmon

Chinook growth hormones spliced onto the Atlantic salmon genome creates a monster fish; big, aggressive and a threat to wild fish. Anne Mossness, co-chair of the Industrial Fish Farm Reform Project for the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, a nonprofit advocacy group, leads a discussion of how genetically modified fish diminish native stocks. Screens again Wed., Feb 22, at the Bellingham High School Library (2010 | USA | 30 min.)
8pm, Fairhaven College Auditorium

Mon., Feb. 20

Presumed Guilty

Two young lawyers struggle to bring cameras into Mexican courtrooms to expose a chilling justice system, corrupted and fatally compromised by a medieval concept of guilt and innocence. (2009 | Mexico | 88 min.)
7pm, Fairhaven College Auditorium

Tues., Feb 21

Blood in the Mobile

Materials used to produce cell phones increasingly come from the mines in the eastern Congo. The sale of conflict minerals have financed a civil war that, according to human rights organizations, has cost the lives of more than five million people. Nearly half a million women have been raped and murdered. Canadian author Gary Geddes will facilitate a discussion of human rights issues following the film. (2010 | Denmark | 82min.)
7pm, Fairhaven College Auditorium

Weds., Feb 22

Abused

Gripping personal stories of the individuals, the families and the town that survived the most brutal, most expensive and largest immigration raid in the history of the United States, a cautionary tale of government abuses. (2011 | USA | 72 min.)
7pm, Fairhaven College Auditorium

Monster Salmon

7pm, Bellingham High School Library

Education Under Fire

Persecution of Baha’is in Iran. Facilitator: Michael Karlberg and Iranian students (2011/USA/30min.)
7:30pm, Bellingham High School Library

Thurs., Feb. 23

Hot Coffee

Dozens of people were scalded. The corporation was indifferent and corporate policy remained unchanged, until one seriously injured woman took them to court. Bellingham Attorney Doug Shepherd facilitates a discussion of consumer protection law. (2011 | USA | 88 min.)
7pm, Fairhaven College Auditorium

Fagbug

Erin Davies of Troy, New York, painted her Volkwagen Beetle and took it on a provocative road trip across America. Her 55,000-mile journey took her through 41 states, where she interviewed hundreds of people and spoke out against hate crimes, inspiring others to take a stand. The Sehome Gay Straight Alliance Club will lead a discussion after the film. Screens again Sat. Feb. 25 on campus. (2010 | USA | 83min.)
7pm, Sehome High School Library

The Dark Side of Chocolate

Award-winning Danish journlists track down reports of human trafficking and child labor abuses in the Ivory Coast fuel the worldwide chocolate industry. Sehome’s Global Awareness Outreach Club leads a discussion after the film. (2010 | Denmark | 46 min.)
7pm, Sehome High School Library

Fri., Feb. 24

Sun Come Up

7pm, Fairhaven College Auditorium

Dirty Business

8pm, Fairhaven College Auditorium

Sat., Feb. 25

Bhopali

In 1984, one of history’s worst industrial disasters struck Bhopal, India. Suffering from the Union Carbide gas leak continues today, prompting victims to fight for justice against the American corporation responsible for the disaster. (2011 | USA | 75 min.)
12pm, Fairhaven College Auditorium

The Dark Side of Chocolate

1:30pm, Fairhaven College Auditorium

Ten Conditions of Love

A Uygher leader fights the Chinese government for her people’s rights. (2009 | Australia | 53 min.)
3pm, Fairhaven College Auditorium

Education Under Fire

4:15pm, Fairhaven College Auditorium

The Pipe

In a remote corner of the West of Ireland sits Broadhaven Bay. It is the perfect picture postcard. However, this peaceful tranquility belies the turmoil that lies beneath, and the unique nature of the coastline that has sustained generations of farmers and fishermen, has also delivered to Shell Oil the perfect landfall for the Corrib Gas Pipeline. (2010 | UK | 80 min.)
7pm, Fairhaven College Auditorium

In the place of the aforementioned whiz-bang thingamajig, we have the Wild Buffalo, where, beginning Thurs., Feb. 16 and concluding just after last call Sunday night, you can visit no less than three different eras of hip-hop in four days.

First up, you’ll step into the way-back machine Thursday night for an evening with hip-hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa. It’s safe to say that without the innovative nature and influence of the DJ from South Bronx, hip-hop as we know it would not exist. Indeed, his reach is such that he’s known as the “Grandfather,” and has been credited with bringing hip-hop culture to all corners of the world. Needless to say, he’s a big deal in this small town.

After that, it’s time to jump to the here and now and catch a glimpse of hip-hop’s future. And, come Saturday night, Seattle’s Champagne Champagne will help you do just that. If you like your hip-hop to be the product of a punk-rock ethos and a penchant for partying, Champagne Champagne is the act for you. If you like your hip-hop to feature actual musicians playing actual instruments (well, one actual musician, that is), cue Champagne Champagne. If you want to see a band with a killer live show that can comfortably share a stage with just about anyone—yep, that’s Champagne Champagne too. But, of course, for Bellingham’s giant contingent of Blood Brothers fans, Champagne Champagne’s allure boils down to one man: drummer, multi-instrumentalist and fearless innovator Mark Gadjahar. We’ll take him in whatever musical form we can get him, but it’s with this hip-hop trio that Gadjahar seems to have the most fun.

Although Champagne Champagne will no doubt bring the party, it won’t end when they skip town. Sunday night DJs Serve Stacks and Idlhnds will pay homage to two of hip-hop’s greats: Biggie and Tupac. Interspersed with the music of the two entertainment giants will be whatever other hip-hop tracks of that era they see fit to spin. And with Monday being a holiday for many, there’s no reason not to time travel through hip-hop history at the Buff until the lights come up Sunday night and you’re forced back into present day.

During two epic gravity-defying seasons, Big Karl racked up so much hang time while hucking himself off the local array of cliffs, kickers, gaps and jibs he made Air Jordan look like a puddle jumper. He was, indisputably, the most balls-to-the-wall freestyle aerialist I have ever had the pleasure of repeatedly failing to out-do.

Although he eschewed organized competitions and corporate sponsorship, fortune eventually came calling and pro deals were inevitably signed. Interviews were granted. Articles were written. A movie contract materialized. 

Unfortunately, while enjoying a leisurely warm-up run just moments before the cameras started rolling, Big Karl took a digger on the flattest, widest, most obstacle-free section on the mountain and broke his leg.   

Within the span of a few hours, he’d gone from an elite 24-year-old snowboarder on the rise into a lumbering, Franken-footed gimp with no job and $46,000 in medical bills who couldn’t so much as wiggle his right big toe—let alone drive his own car anymore. And his attitude reflected it. 

“Plates, screws and brackets,” he kept moaning as I chauffeured him back from the hospital. “It’s like a goddamn hardware store in there.”

Not only did Big Karl need help getting around, he needed assistance maintaining his self-respect. So, although we were five full-grown men renting out Eagle’s Eyrie that winter, it fell on me—Big Karl’s oldest friend—to take on the role of chief caregiver.

“Call me Nurse Ratched,” I said, stacking pillows six-high on our coffee table to elevate his cast-ridden leg.  “As long as you take your medication and stay off that gimpy limb as your doctor ordered, things will go swimmingly.” 

Grumbling, he hoisted his leg onto the pillows and immediately set about making demands.

“Throw in unfettered access to your spaghetti western DVD collection,” he winced, “and you’ll placate me good and proper.” 

But that only kept him occupied for a couple days. Once the snow level started to drop and flurries reached the cabin, something inside him snapped. 

“Try focusing on simpler pleasures,” I advised, attempting to distract him. “Go make some mixed tapes for your bros or start visualizing all those honey-glazed spare ribs we’ll be barbecuing at the party tonight.”

“No!” he cried, rising defiantly up on his crutches, “I’m not hungry.”

I’m still not exactly sure how he managed to hop past me through the living room, squeeze out our front door, gain three full flights of steps on me and wind up at the bottom of our driveway without killing himself before I was even across the front deck, but I guess if anybody could do it, Big Karl could.