Huckleberries: Sorry, that door’s closed

In case you were wondering, the answer is yes. County clerks get called for jury duty, too. At first, County Clerk Dan English thought he’d received a refund check when he looked at the envelope sent to his personal address. After all, the jury duty notification arrived in a window envelope on colored paper. He quickly realized his mistake and wondered if he’d get bumped. In a comment at Huckleberries Online, English asked: “Would you want me on your jury panel?” The popular county clerk has been called once before. And he served as the foreman for a jury that found a defendant guilty. However, there’s a snag this time. He has been summoned to serve during the final week of filings for county and legislative offices, March 17 through 21. Sez he: “I have a little ritual of personally locking the door at the elections office at precisely 5 (on the final day for filing to stop prospective but tardy candidates.)” Now, there’s a possible excuse for getting out of jury duty that a head bailiff doesn’t hear every day.

Trib slams Hart

Opinionator Jim Fisher/Lewiston Tribune, has leveled his editorial pen at another House District 5 legislator. As you may recall, Fisher and state Rep. Bob Nonini engaged in a war of words after Fisher’s opinion page criticized Nonini for stands on education and abortion. Last week, Fisher zeroed in on Rep. Phil Hart, recalling his refusal to pay federal income taxes (1996 to 2003) in an editorial criticizing the Athol Repub for a vote as a member of the Revenue and Taxation Committee. Hart, writes Fisher, “was able to help protect out-of-state retailers from collecting the same sales tax that Idaho’s Main Street retailers must collect.” The Post Falls district is to blame for Hart’s presence in the Legislature but not his influence, Fisher adds. House Speaker Lawerence Denney, he says, is responsible for placing the tax rebel on a committee that oversees all state tax issues rather than on a backwater panel. Where, Fisher reasoned, Hart could do no harm until his district comes to its senses and elects someone else.

Huckleberries

Oopsy: Jim Fisher and Silver Valley tycoon Harry Magnuson both objected via e-mail to a recent Huckleberry in which I said Fisher quit Harry’s old North Idaho Press/Wallace. Fisher assured me that he and two other staffers (Editor Mike Green and Nancy Lee Hanson) were fired after they apologized for the paper’s questionable 1978 primary election coverage in a front-page article … Fisher noted that Harry ordered the locks changed on the newspaper’s doors immediately … Harry remembers that he not only fired Fisher but he denied him unemployment benefits. No love lost there … At Rants, Raves & Random Thoughts, blogger Nic Casey is thankful he didn’t suffer any of these medical conditions as he bumped over winter roads this winter: pregnancy, whiplash, migraines, diarrhea, constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, spastic colon, frostbite, snow blindness, acid reflux, appendicitis, or hemorrhoids … If you try to reach the old “grassrootsforgrant.com” Web site, you’ll get a dating Web site with racy ads instead. At least, you would through last week. Seems a passion pusher got its hands on the defunct site.

Parting shot

After some local observers dissed the recent lunar eclipse as being less than spectacular, Kristin Hoppe/Not So Fast blog offered her own rating system for naked-eye solar system events: Sun rising, 1; moon rising, 2; full moon rising (without Credence playing in background), 3; full moon when it’s really big on the horizon, 4; lunar eclipse, 5; solar eclipse, 6 (would rate higher if didn’t burn out your retinas); a meteor, 7; meteor shower, 8; close comet pass, 9; close star going nova/giant comet smashing your house, 10. What? No northern polar lights?