The Slice: How’d you do on your screen test?

One way to measure your time in Spokane is to count the movie theaters that have closed during your years here. So how long is your list now?

•Fading North Idaho claim to fame: The percentage of the population that recognizes the name Lana Turner grows smaller every year.

•One day you wake up: And you realize you no longer really care about the new fall lineup of TV shows.

•Key question: Do friends recognize you when you’re wearing your bicycle helmet?

•Near nature, near obscurity: There’s something eye-catching about the first sentence of an Entertainment Weekly review of a book about forensic anthropology called “Teasing Secrets From The Dead.”

Here it is: “With ‘CSI: Spokane’ due any day now, it was only a matter of time before something like ‘Secrets’ hit shelves.”

Now obviously that’s a legitimate comment on the proliferation of similarly themed TV shows. But it’s a good bet the reviewer also regards “Spokane” and “Crime Scene” as an inherently humorous coupling. If only.

Oh, well. Maybe a murky, ill-defined national image is preferable to some of the alternatives.

•Just wondering: There are more than a dozen guys named David Thompson in the phone book. How often do people mention the explorer to them?

•Righting a geologic wrong: The Slice was going to suggest that some enterprising law student look into the possibility of filing a lawsuit demanding that land owners in the rich fertile valleys of Western Oregon return the topsoil that is rightfully Eastern Washington’s. But if we start down the road of seeking reparations for losses incurred during the great Ice Age floods, who knows where it would end?

Someone east of here is certain to cast a covetous eye toward the Palouse, and on and on.

So never mind. Let’s let sleeping landscapes lie.

•Warm-up question (multiple choice): Kids being taught the history of the West need to learn more about ….

A) Shrinking wildlife habitats. B) The political agendas of those who have been Secretary of the Interior. C) The environmental impact of mining. D) The role of brothels. E) The fact that the practice of stealing land from Native Americans was not invented out here. F) The unvarnished truth about gunshot wounds. G) Racism and Chinese laborers. H) The staggering courage and boldness it took to leave relatives back in Ohio or Indiana and move out here. I) The role of the railroads. J) The real life of cowboys. K) The civilizing influence of women. L) Bribery and public officials. M) The Mormon experience. N) Beans. ) O) Alcohol. P) The way most people would have smelled much of the time. Q) 1890s agriculture. R) The origins of the spaghetti feed. S) What the West owes to second sons. T) Other.

•Today’s Slice question: What letter grade would you give your summer?