In their words
“People I associate with are looking at me like, ‘Are you guys crazy? Is this really going to happen in Portland?’ “
– Portland, Maine, School Committee Chairman John Coyne, one of two dissenters in a vote to make a full range of contraception services, including birth-control pills, available to middle-schoolers as young as 11 without notifying parents.
“It means we will get some honest stuff. If everyone was intimidated and scared, what kind of a plan are we going to have?”
– Kootenai County Commissioner Todd Tondee, saying it doesn’t trouble him if, as reported, some Planning Commission members criticized the Board of Commissioners following a recent public workshop on a rewrite of the county’s comprehensive plan.
“To see that we now liaise with the Libyans, that we are promoting diplomatic relations, signing new oil agreements – it’s kind of a bitter pill for a lot of people.”
– Vincent Cannistraro, who was an aide to President Reagan when Libya, which just joined the U.N. Security Council and where Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is now planning to visit, was a Cold War enemy.
“We can talk about what you destroy in war, but what is equally important is what you build in peace.”
– Adm. Patrick Walsh, vice chief of naval operations, announcing that the Navy’s battle against global terrorism will start putting more emphasis on humanitarian relief in countries that suffer from anti-American extremism.
“Heaven to hell.”
– Iraqi refugee Zeyad Tarek Abdel Okhawa, comparing his life in Boise, where he was resettled in June, to that in Iraq, which he had to flee because his assistance to U.S. forces put his life in danger.
“The day I had to stand in the Kimball Funeral Home in Pullman, and they handed my daughter to me in a box … that undid me.”
– Rich Morrow, whose 21-year-old daughter Stacy was one of three Washington State University students killed six years ago in the motor vehicle crash involved in the vehicular homicide trial of Fred Russell.
“I feel blame cannot be limited to Mr. Turner. But on the other hand, he’s the only one before me today.”
– U.S. District Court Judge John Coughenour, upon sentencing Thomas Turner to two years in prison for his role in the failure of Metropolitan Mortgage & Securities Co., where he was a top executive.
“We would’ve waited a few years. … But if you’re not married you don’t mean crap to them. The minute I got married, so many doors opened for me.”
– Jessica Shipp, bride of Marine Lance Cpl. Matt Shipp, explaining that the North Idaho couple hastened their wedding plans because military rules would have prevented them from spending as much time together when he was in California for training.
“The job is proving difficult.”
– Local magistrate L.S. Changsan of the island of Majuli in India, where officials and residents were trying to control 100 rampaging elephants that demolished homes, gobbled up sugar cane crops and panicked villagers.