Radio can add #*@! to vocabulary

CdA’s Phil Corless was flipping through the radio channels while driving his daughter to the store the other day when he paused to hear Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s spiel. Dr. Laura was discussing an impatient man who accidentally killed his stepdaughter because he drove around crossing barriers into the path of an oncoming train. Then, Phil was shocked when Dr. Laura exclaimed: “This bastard! That’s what he is, I’m sorry, but he’s a bastard!” In his blog, A Family Runs Through It, Phil said he agreed with Schlessinger’s assessment, but he quickly changed the channel to prevent his daughter from hearing more. At bedtime that night, he learned that wasn’t the end of it. While saying his goodnight to the little girl, she grabbed a Little Pony and proclaimed its name to be Starcatcher. And the other one? Phil asked. The girl looked down, frowned, thought awhile, and said: “That one I’ll call Little Bastard.” Sighed Phil: “Thanks, Dr. Laura.”

Bummin’ in a Bimmer?

So, Joe, a fictional name to protect the innocent, was parked near a railroad crossing above Sandpoint when he noticed a police cruiser pulling up behind him. Joe had stopped on a wide shoulder to answer a cell phone call to avoid being distracted while driving. Good so far. Seems the patrol cop wanted to know if Joe was all right. And more. When Joe assured him he was, the badge reacted suspiciously and told him that the authorities had been having a problem with “transients around here.” Joe simply stared at the cop. Then, the copper asked Joe if he’d had anything to drink and left when Joe said no. So, what’s the kicker? Joe drives an $80,000 BMW. Now, he wonders why local authorities believe a transient might drive one, too. Aluminum-can recycling can’t be that lucrative.

It’s a bad headline

Idaho Supreme Court justices weren’t crazy about that front-page banner headline in the Coeur d’Alene Press that greeted them during their session in Coeur d’Alene last week: “It’s a girl! Bush selects Miers.” Brand X, of course, was talking about President Bush’s nomination of Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court, not the Idaho high court. But that didn’t deter the justices at a breakfast meeting with the media from directing their first question at columnist Sholeh Johnson, who, unfortunately, was representing the press that day: “Who wrote that headline?” Ouch! … Later, with the justices in session hearing arguments about a Sanders Beach case, proud attorney John Magnuson took note of students in the audience from his old high school, Wallace. A wag tells Huckleberries, “Let’s hope he didn’t act like those Wallace students, making noise, fidgeting, pulling hair and groping each other.” Sounds like young lawyers in training.

Quotable quote

“Back in my drunken college days, there was plenty of ‘freak dancing’ going on. As an ” ‘adult’ it’s easy to get out of that situation by pretending your friend is calling you, or just dancing yourself over to someone else, or simply telling the boy, ‘Ew! Gross, get off me,’ and walking away. But, as teenagers, it might be harder to get away from someone trying to ‘freak’ on you because you’re trying to look cool. It’s definitely not appropriate for high school kids” – Bre Williams/Coeur d’Alene High alum responding to Huckleberries Online question about bans on freak dancing spreading in Spokane area high schools.

Huckleberries hears …

That Olympic ice skater Scott Hamilton has bought a home at the ritzy new Gozzer Ranch Golf and Lake Club at Lake Coeur d’Alene’s Arrow Point … That the FBI, according to the Irish Voice, has discovered a Beresford Place, Dublin, mailing address for Vince Bertollini, who helped Aryan Nations founder Richard Butler buy a home in Hayden and later vanished from Sandpoint in 2001 while awaiting sentencing for his third DUI … That longtime reporter/editor Ric Clarke and the Coeur d’Alene Press have parted ways for, what, the fourth time? – this time as a result of a snub at the snoozepaper’s circulation party.

Huckleberries

Golden as ingots/and scarlet as dawn,/all of that color/will land on your lawn – The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“Autumn Leaves: The True Story”) … Bumper sticker (vigilante style) spotted on a silverish-gray Honda Civic on Seltice with white background and a noose on each side in Post Falls last Tuesday: “Kill Duncan” … Pursuing a story, SR colleague Taryn Brodwater contacted the national HQ of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives for info. But all she got was – “Ohio, you say?” When Taryn responded that she was calling from Idaho not Ohio, the ATF official responded: “Is our Ohio office close enough to help you?” New state motto: Idaho: The Rodney Dangerfield of the United States.

Parting shot

Dunno what’s worse about that Rolling Stone article about Kid Cannabis: How easy it is for North Idaho kids to become drug kingpins by trafficking weed across the nearby Canadian border, or its description of Lake City as “a gorgeous but dull resort town in Idaho.” Seems writer Mark Binelli isn’t into hiking, hunting, winter skiing, or rolling the sidewalks up at 5 p.m. Huckleberries Online has a link to the story this morning at www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/nhb.