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Why protests around the world often involve public transportation

In Hong Kong, Santiago, and New York City, protesters have disrupted, delayed, or even boycotted subways.

In acts of civic resistance, protesters have taken up space in stations, sometimes disrupting or delaying services. And since transit systems are often seen as an extension of local government and of the officials that run them, they’ve become a ripe setting for civil disobedience.

For people in major metropolitan areas, transit systems are vital, connecting them to jobs, schools, and social communities. They’re largely perceived as a public service, funded by taxpayer money and fares although owned and operated — either partially or completely — by the government.

And since transit systems are an extension of the local government, it’s fair to assume that specific policies (like fares, increased policing, or service hours) reflect the priorities of the state.

Andra Chastain.
Chastain

As Andra B. Chastain, an assistant professor of history at Washington State University, writes in her explanation of how the metro system is a microcosm of Chile: “Transportation is not just about having a well-run system from the standpoint of economists or engineers, but about people’s basic dignity.”

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Vox

Dr. Universe: How do people name continents or places on earth?

Our world is full of so many different places. They get their names in lots of different ways.

One way a place might get a name is from the person who explored it. The Americas are named after an Italian explorer, Amerigo Vespucci. But Amerigo wasn’t the first person to explore these continents.

There were already people living there when he arrived. Still, “America” was named after Amerigo. For the most part, people name things because they are claiming possession of a place. Because of that, sometimes the original names of places are lost or erased.

Theresa Jordan.
Jordan

That’s what I found out from my friend Theresa Jordan, a history professor who teaches a geography course at Washington State University.

I also found out that Native Americans in the northeast of North America were already calling the place they lived “Turtle Island.” The Guna people, the first to live in Panama and Columbia, called the Americas “Abya Yala.”

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Dr. Universe

A museum and national park, Hanford’s 75-year-old B Reactor is a vital reminder of the nuclear age’s extraordinary potential and devastating power

Along the bank of the Columbia River in south-central Washington, an expanse of windswept desert plateau teems with wildlife, despite being designated as the “most contaminated site in the Western Hemisphere.” At Hanford, where Native Americans fished and lived off the land for eons, the U.S. government created the most powerful, dangerous materials humankind has ever known, and the largest environmental disaster the country has ever confronted.

All that’s taken place at Hanford, birthplace of the world’s first full-scale nuclear reactor, has indisputably changed the course of humanity.

Robert Franklin.
Franklin

“There is a world before atomic weapons and a world after atomic weapons, and we live in that world, and the B Reactor is the point where that shift happened,” says Robert Franklin, a history professor at Washington State University’s Tri-Cities campus. Franklin is also the assistant director of the Hanford History Project and president of the nonprofit B Reactor Museum Association.

By reflecting upon the entirety of Hanford’s history, Franklin hopes current and future generations can learn from its far-reaching impacts. To start, those interested can visit Hanford itself, where tours of the decommissioned B Reactor offer an up-close look at how the Atomic Age was born. Also, a new exhibit by the Spokane County Library District — on display next month, alongside a series of local events — will explore the complex history and legacy of Hanford.

“However [people] think they might feel about it, come and see the place and give yourself time to reflect both on the achievement it was to build that on such a short time, and to understand the nature of the country in 1942, ’43,” Franklin says. “And to reflect on the scale of loss that it created and to reflect on a world that was forever changed.

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Inlander

In World War II, serving Jesus while spying for the United States

Book review by David A. Hollinger, historian at the University of California at Berkeley

Laying the political groundwork for Gen. George Patton’s North African landing of 1942, a top intelligence agent promised local communists that the United States would help them overthrow the government of Spain’s dictator, Francisco Franco. The Americans would even drive the Spanish out of Morocco and thereby facilitate Arab independence. William Eddy, a member of the Office of Strategic Services, America’s first foreign intelligence agency, knew these were lies. Later in life the devout Episcopalian’s conscience troubled him, and he wondered if he, a magnificently effective spy, or anyone in the OSS or later the CIA, could “ever again become a wholly honorable man.”

Matthew Avery Sutton.
Sutton

Eddy is one of four deeply religious American Protestants who are the subjects of Matthew Avery Sutton’s arresting and informative book, “Double Crossed: The Missionaries Who Spied for the United States During the Second World War.” All served in the OSS, the World War II predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency. Sutton. professor and chair of history at WSU, adds to our understanding of the clandestine services by revealing the little-known role of missionaries in these operations.

Sutton skillfully juxtaposes his four stories, revealing the actions of each figure throughout the war and its aftermath. We see Birch dodging bullets in China while Eddy was translating for President Franklin Roosevelt and the Saudi king at a meeting aboard a warship in the Red Sea. “Double Crossed” is a great read and a fresh, archive-intensive contribution to our understanding of American intelligence during World War II.

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The Washington Post

 

First Flood, Then Fright: Community Rallies To Save Eastern Washington Town With Haunting

All over the town of Palouse, Washington, townspeople prep for volunteer roles as ghosts, ghouls and dead children.

This annual Halloween fundraiser started after a devastating 1996 flood damaged the town’s sidewalks and gutted the buildings on Main Street. Haunted Palouse took up the slack after the grants and insurance money ran out.

Twenty-five bucks buys admission to two haunted houses, and a pitch-dark hayride through the woods. Inside the old jail and fire station, black plastic and wooden beams create a labyrinth of dark rooms. And a pig-tailed woman wearing a clown mask acts as the bellhop in an elevator to nowhere.

Robert Franklin.
Franklin

Washington State University instructor of history Robert Franklin has spent a lot of time exploring small struggling towns in the Inland Northwest. “You saw a lot of faded glory and opportunity,” Franklin said.

But, he says, Palouse is different. It’s become a bedroom community for two nearby college towns — homes to WSU in Pullman and the University of Idaho in Moscow. There are shops downtown and a busy restaurant — all of which also make money during Haunted Palouse.

“Palouse is bucking the trend,” Franklin said. “Many of the towns around it, they are becoming more and more marginalized. And many people leave them, or have left them to seek greener pastures elsewhere.”

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OPB.org