Ai Weiwei’s Sculptures to Walla Walla, Bird Lawsuit & More News

Heavy Art: According to The Seattle Times, several sculptural pieces of Ai Weiwei, a Chinese artist and activist, will be featured in Walla Walla starting next month. Eight of Weiwei’s sculptures will go up at the Foundry Vineyards. Those eight sculptures are made of steel rebar taken from demolished buildings in the Sichuan earthquake in 2008, and will be accompanied by a list of the victims’ names who died in the earthquake. “Refraction,” another sculpture by Weiwei that weighs six tons, will be featured on a lawn near the Center for Visual Arts at Whitman College. Weiwei is well known for taking a stand against injustice, and has been jailed multiple times by the Chinese government. Just a few weeks ago, he received his passport back from Beijing authorities, and for the first time in four years, Weiwei was allowed to leave the country.

Birds Everywhere: 8-year-old Gabi Mann has been feeding the Portage Bay neighborhood birds for four years. The crows she feeds, which we have probably all heard by now can recognize human faces, gift Gabi with random trinkets like earrings, bolts, paper clips and rocks seemingly in exchange for food. Now, ABC News reports that Gabi’s parents are being sued in a $200,000 public nuisance case by some of their neighbors, who claim that the birds are causing unsanitary conditions, noise and even peanut allergy escalation due to the feedings. Even though the thought of thousands of birds swarming about my house on a daily basis is my personal nightmare, it’s hard not to feel bad for little Gabi. Hopefully the two sides can come to some kind of compromise.

Defensive Help: The Sounders acquired defenseman Roman Torres this week. Torres has been playing in the Colombian first division and is the captain of the Panamanian national team. According to the MLS, Torres will be a huge defensive asset and could also boost the Sounders offense, which hasn’t been quite up to par. Since June 20 of this year, the Sounders have gone 1-8 with not even a single tie. Never heard of Torres before? Here’s a recent highlight, in which he scores a header goal against Mexico and looks generally awesome and terrifying. Along with Torres, the Sounders also signed Andreas Ivanschitz, a midfielder from Austria, and a Nelson Valdez, an attacker from Paraguay.  

College Jobs: This week The Seattle Times reported that on a list of the highest-paid Washington state employees, only one person on in the top 100 (the chief investment officer at the state investment board Gary Bruebaker) was not connected to the University of Washington or Washington State University. The top two salaries belong to the head football coaches for the two state schools, Chris Peterson of UW ($2.686 Million) and Mike Leach of WSU ($2.75 Million). The Times does state that athletic salaries at the schools do not come from taxpayers. They are instead paid out of money earned from ticket sales and television revenues. The next two highest paid state employees? The head men’s basketball coaches at UW and WSU.