Reporter tries to clear air about rumor
Trish Gannon, intrepid reporter for The River Journal weekly, tried to still a rumor when she encountered Sandpoint Mayor Ray Miller at the Festival at Sandpoint. She’d heard the mayor was advocating boycotting businesses that’d signed a snoozepaper ad against the proposed Sand Creek bypass. Didja? asked Trish. “It’s a long-standing policy of the city not to do business with people who sue us,” responded Miller. The mayor repeated his mantra when Trish asked him a second time about the rumor. The two had a brief discussion, which ended when Trish asked the mayor a third time about a biz boycott. According to Trish, the mayor then said he would be willing to accept donations to pay for mental health treatment for any business named in the ad. Methinks the answer to Trish’s questions are: yes, yes and yes.
Bumpy Ride
Airport security in these PC times isn’t profiling Middle Eastern men with one-way tickets, sez ex-commish Ron Rankin of Kidd Island Bay, because (drum roll, puh-LEEZ) – they’re too busy profiling stout 70-somethings with knee replacements. RR got the full treatment at both ends of a round trip to Denver. The plus side? The Ronfather sez he got to sit down while security guards waved their magic wands over him … Then, after being delayed on Denver’s tarmac for four hours by tornado warnings, Ron had an uneventful flight to Spokane, where he appreciated the captain’s comment while deplaning: “Thank you for flying United’s famous same-day service” … All that, and Ron was thinking clearly enough to recall this bumpersnicker for Huckleberries: “Don’t drink and park: Accidents cause people.”
Idaho Vandal-ism
“For poor Vandal fans/It’s easy to think/That they’ll have a need/For very strong drink” – The Bard of Sherman Avenue re: new U-of-I policy allowing alcohol at football games … Demo David Larsen was outraged – outraged! – that Huckleberries’d applaud creative vandalism to a D party sign. And he’s still waiting impatiently for a “retraction/modification” … Meanwhile, The Outraged One has this to say to the cur who added “for higher taxes” below “Kootenai County Democrats”: “The vandal appears to have passed spelling, but obviously failed civics!” Not in Republican Idaho … On a European vacation, CdA’s Lynne Hutton found kindred spirits among the French, a “very content and beautiful people,” she sez who share her contempt for President Bush – or “Shrub,” as the D’s call him affectionately. … Promises Lynne half-heartedly re: “The War to End All Peace” (her words): “I’ll pray for Bush – ugh!” Right.
Huckleberries
Here’s some numbers for men over 50 to consider when they walk by the North Idaho Cancer Center prostate screening booth at the North Idaho Fair this week: 90, 11 and one. Last year, 90 men were tested, 11 had problems and one ended up in emergency surgery the following Monday. Get the picture? … An S-R hired hand yucked up when she read a news release from the Clay Arts Guild about a Big Pot clearance at the Kootenai County Farmers Market. Tax deductible, too. It’s too late to call the cops, however, because the sale took place Saturday. They probably wouldn’t have been interested in clay art pieces anyway … In an upbeat column about the Spokane economy, Stephen H. Dunphy wrote in The Seattle Times this month: “It is often hot here (Spokane) when it is cooler elsewhere and cooler here when other areas are doing well.” It’s a nice way of saying Spokane’s out of step with the rest of the nation.
Parting Shot
After John Livingston found a dead bat in a coffee can, he called the public health police in Spokane County and was told to put it in a freezer until he could mail it to Oregon State University for a rabies test – at his expense. Oh, and he was supposed to quarantine his cats for six months. Sez John: “They want you to do all the work.” John obliged them. He buried it.