This week on Inland Journal,
Have you been part of a conversation recently where people with different political viewpoints wound up arguing with each other?
Today, we focus on one group, Braver Angels, that is working to bridge America’s red-blue divide with honest, but respectful, conversations. Braver Angel member Sue Lani Madsen from Lincoln County is one of the group's co-coordinators in Washington.
"We're still pretty polarized, but we're going to have to come out of that. A piece of that has been driven by President Trump. He elicits strong emotional responses, but he's only going to be around for a couple more years. I mean we have to keep going. And at that point, there's going to have to be a reckoning,"
We get a civics education lesson from Spokane County Treasurer Mike Volz about the basic functions of his office.
"One thing that most people see is we send out 220,000 statements a year with my name on them and your bill, so I think that that's one that a lot of people think about. But behind that we're basically a regional bank, commercial bank, that serves public sector customers. Most every taxing district in Spokane County we bank for them."
And we’ll meet University of Washington researcher Ellen Schur, who studies how our appetites work. We’ll talk about anti-obesity medicines.
"What we're addressing is that the body's defense of elevated body fat mass prevents people from managing their health concerns when all that we offer them are lifestyle changes for long term management...I'm happy that we have new tools to aid people in managing their health in that way. And I think that they are very significant and effective tools when used safely with the appropriate evidence-based care in the medical system."
