Here’s the last thread of the week. Use it wisely.

Let’s just call it heavenly dandruff or pretend it didn’t happen.

What are your thoughts today?

Halloween costumes. Palin is so last year. Who will be the scary pol this year?

Thoughts on this or other topics?

You, too, can be a pundit, but the rules have changed. Here’s helpful hints from the Washington Post’s Gene Weingarten.

Example:

”Rule 3: Being a modern pundit is like being a microwave oven — it’s about heat, not light. The current debate in America, for example, isn’t whether Barack Obama is, or is not, right for the country, it’s about whether Barack Obama is, or is not, Hitler. This sort of thing helpfully crystallizes issues for a public that is increasingly accustomed to black-and-white, either-or, on-the-island or off-the-island decision-making. The more simple-minded, the better.”

Been reading “The Big Burn” by Timothy Egan (grew up in Spokane). It’s about the onset of the Forest Service, the fierce battles to oppose setting aside public land and the huge fire that turned public sentiment to the foresters.

Find it odd that Heyburn State Park was named for an Idaho senator who battled Teddy Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot because they wanted to prohibit commercial development on some lands. 

What’s on your mind today?

Green Bluff. Pumpkin doughnuts. Get on it.

What’s on your mind today (other than a Carpenters’ song)

Collect up those random musings and post them here.

Cloudy. No chance of meatballs. So I have to speak with high school kids wiith an alleged interest in journalism. What advice should I give?

What else is on your mind today?

Don’t like the topics in the other threads? Then test drive your ideas here.

Three topics in today’s Smart Bombs. Noticed this morning that the KPBX hosts smoothly folded the column into their pitches. Dang, they are good. Was also glad that they took the comment in the right spirit.

Thoughts on these topics?

Here’s Our View on the H1N1 vaccinations.

What’s your view? Will you or your kids be getting inoculated?

The Web site was experiencing technical difficulties yesterday. Sorry about that.

So what’s up today?

So it’s come to this.

  NEW YORK—According to a report published this week in American Journalism Review, 93 percent of all newspaper sales can now be attributed to kidnappers seeking to prove the day’s date in filmed ransom demands.

Here is a link to S-R endorsements in selected races.

Last call for alcohol. Last chance for dance.

Those were the daze. Any thoughts on the issues of the day?

The Lost Decade of investing. That’s what Dow 10,000 signifies

Anyone buy this book? Or that one? Did they offer refunds?

Thoughts on this and anything else?

I had my say on the reluctance of police to practice shared sacrifice. The loss of 22 officers looms, says the mayor. This is an issue with firefighters and other employee unions, too.

UPDATE: County seeking concessions, too.

Thoughts?

Well, the health care bill moves to the Senate floor. Is it a big deal that a single GOP senator has signed on? I don’t quite understand the importance of that. It’s not like she’s beloved in conservative circles, where she’s long been considered a Rino (Republican in Name Only). Nonethless, I’m sure she used that leverage effectively.

Thoughts on this or other matters?

Forty-six degrees (this morning) never felt so warm.

Thoughts?

Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492, and thus started the male tradition of never asking for directions.

Thoughts on this chilly day?

Of all the editorials published around the country about President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize, the most concise is probably this one from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in Little Rock:

 Enough said
   What is one to say on hearing that the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to … Barack Obama?
How about, for one brief shining moment of national unity, a little simple propriety, for there is no better guide to the perplexed than good manners:
   Congratulations, Mr. President!

No Olympics, but a Nobel Peace Prize. What a difference a week makes. Instant analysis here.

Discuss this or other items of interest here.

Take this link and you can hear Amber Waldref and Mike Fagan debate the issues.

Karen Kearney vs. Nancy McLaughlin here.

Jon Snyder vs. Mike Allen here.

Who do you support in these racea and why?

Is there really no interest in local elections? It’s a bit odd to me that a blog in Spokane is dominated by discussion of what goes on nationally and internationally. Local elections don’t matter?

Thoughts on this and other issues here.

Any thoughts on local races? General election ballots will be mailed out next Wednesday. You’ll begin to see S-R endorsements this week and next for Spokane County races. There’s a Spokane Valley council debate tonight at 7 CenterPlace (at Mirabeau, near the Valley YMCA). Be there and be square, along with me.

You guys really wore out that Monday thread. So here’s another.

Take it and run.

Just watched S-R’s Lynn Swanbom on Jeopardy and she won! Very impressive. So she’ll be back Monday to try to add to her $10,400. Be sure to tune in and root for her.

P.S. They all missed the Final Jeopardy question (or is it answer?). But Lynn had the lowest  wager and won. Initially, I thought the same thing she did. But in the comfort of home and under no pressure, I was able to think it through and change my mind. Got it right!

Here is it (paraphrasing): These two men who played on series with Mary Tyler Moore combined for 16 Emmy Awards. One played a TV host. One played a TV producer.

Who are they?

 UPDATE: Lynn did even better Monday night (leading going into Final Jeopardy), but finished second. As I understand it, this means she wins what she won on the first night but not the second. Dang that Mount Rushmore! Anyway, she did great!

Sure looks like it, based on this report. 

If it’s losing support in the military, then what’s the point?

Now that the Olympics is a political issue, I think it only wise for the paper to send me to Rio.

Thoughts on this drizzly day?

Watching the cable news personalities report on Chicago’s elimination as host city for the 2016 Summer Olympics looks almost satirical in their shocked disbelief. (“I did not see this one coming,” one of them just gasped.) 

Especially after the president and Oprah — OPRAH! — made personal appeals in Copenhagen! Anybody but me think the vote may have been a show of resentment over the powerplay and the air of entitlement?