Natasha Hill visited the Washington State University Foley Institute in Pullman on Thursday to discuss her run for the House of Representatives, as well as potential runs for the position in the future, universal health care and building a community.
Hill is the Democratic candidate in the Washington 5th Congressional District race in Tuesday general election against Republican Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who is seeking her 10th term in Congress. Hill currently runs her own law practice in Spokane.
Hill said she believes many of the Democratic Party’s policies were too little, too late and that she wants more done for students, the elderly and in health care.
The revival of Fender’s blue illustrates the collaborative nature of survival.
From the top of Pigeon Butte in western Oregon’s William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge, the full width of the Willamette Valley fits into a gaze. Slung between the Coast Range and the Cascades, the valley is checkered with farmland: grass-seed fields, hazelnut orchards, vineyards. In the foreground, however, grassy meadows scattered with wildflowers and occasional oaks trace the land’s contours.
Upland prairie landscapes like these once covered 685,000 acres of the Willamette Valley. By 2000, only a 10th of 1% remained. Their disappearance has meant the decline of countless species that once thrived here; some are endangered, others have disappeared. Among the nearly lost is a nickel-sized butterfly called Fender’s blue.
Schulz
A few years after the rediscovery of Fender’s blue, a graduate student named Cheryl Schultz found herself just outside Eugene, slogging through blackberry brambles taller than her head. Here, at what is now a Bureau of Land Management area called Fir Butte, pockets of remnant prairie persisted among a snarl of woody invasives. In these openings a few dozen Fender’s blues resided. Today, much has changed, and the site hosts more than 2,000.
Schultz, now a Washington State University professor of biological sciences, has helped lead Fender’s conservation for nearly three decades.
The butterflies turn plant material into food for animals like the western meadowlark, also a species of conservation concern. But Fender’s most significant function might be its ability to evoke the attention, and care, of humans. “People respond to butterflies in a way that doesn’t always happen with insects,” Schultz said.
If women want to lean in to work, they may first want to lie down for a good night’s rest. A Washington State University-led study indicated that sleep quality impacted women’s mood and changed how they felt about advancing in their careers. Meanwhile, men’s aspirations were not impacted by sleep quality.
The researchers discovered this finding in a two-week-long survey study of 135 workers in the U.S. Each day the participants first noted how well they had slept and the quality of their current mood, and then later in the day how they felt about striving for more status and responsibility at work.
Kmec
For the study published in the journal Sex Roles, researchers, including WSU sociologist Julie Kmec, surveyed full-time employees twice a day for two consecutive work weeks for a total of more than 2,200 observations. The participants answered questions about their previous night’s sleep and current mood around noon every day and in the evenings answered questions about their intentions to pursue more responsibility, status, and influence at work.
Both men and women reported good and bad sleep quality over the course of the study, notably with no gender difference in reported sleep quality. However, women more often reported lowered intentions to pursue more status at work on days following a night of poor sleep.
Washington State University printmaking professor Kevin Haas has collected artist’s books for roughly 25 years. With each new acquisition, a unique creative exploration is revealed. For example, Margot Lovejoy’s “Book of Plagues” examines the AIDS crisis, the fear and stigmatization surrounding it, and government indifference to the epidemic, with parallels to current crises. Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo made her book “We Are All Speaking at the Same Time” during 2020, echoing the Black Lives Matter protests, to celebrate and bring awareness of the LGBTQ and black, indigenous, and people of color communities and their voices.
Other books are meant to be playful, such as Eroyn Franklin’s “Just Noise,” which illustrates the bickering, arguments, and love that are part of a relationship.
“I am still thrilled when I discover these surprising, interactive, and affordable works of art,” said Haas, a member of fine arts faculty. “Getting to experience artist’s books firsthand and for the first time can be pretty magical. We don’t usually get to hold works of art in our hands like we do with artist’s books, so the viewing experience is very personal.”
What is an artist’s book?
The term “artist’s book” refers to publications that have been conceived as artworks in their own right, Haas said. Emerging from experiments in design and publications by artists in the early 20th century, the field of artist’s books took hold in the 1960s as artists sought out alternative ways of presenting their work. Artist’s books provide opportunities for artists to explore text, images, sequence, juxtaposition, time, and interaction, creating everything from cheaply made zines and handmade books to decks of cards and other printed ephemera.
“The book format is attractive to artists, since it allows their work to be accessible to a wide audience, as well as being very affordable,” he said.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers spoke with Washington State University students about current events and gave them an inside look at her work in the U.S. Congress on the Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday.
McMorris Rodgers, who was first elected for Washington’s 5th Congressional District in 2005 and is seeking a 10th term, appeared for a talk at the Foley Institute in Pullman. The Republican is being challenged by Democratic candidate Natasha Hill in the Nov. 8 general election.
While at WSU, McMorris Rodgers answered questions about accusations of the “stolen” 2020 presidential election, fentanyl and the claim President Joe Biden’s administration will hire 87,000 new Internal Revenue Service agents.
When asked by an attendee whether she believes the 2020 presidential election was stolen, McMorris Rodgers said she doesn’t believe that accusation, but wants concerns to be heard.
“No, I do not believe the last election was stolen — I voted to certify the election. I believe that President Biden is the legitimate president of the United States,” McMorris Rodgers said.
