In their words
A selection of quotations from people in recent news stories, big and small
“I’m sitting here thinking, ‘This is a huge not-for-profit corporation behaving badly.’ ”
– Empire Health Services board Chairman Ron McKay, speaking before Providence Health Care announced it would drop a lawsuit, which some feared would prevent the pending sale of Empire’s Deaconess Medical Center, but after Providence announced plans for a 173-bed expansion at a cost of $175 million.
“Pleas to juries to make us all safe shouldn’t be allowed.”
– Attorney Tim Trageser, saying state lawyers seeking a lifetime civil commitment for his client, convicted rapist Kevin Coe, should not be allowed to argue to the jury that keeping Coe confined would make the community safer.
“It’s heavy, heavy, heavy.”
– U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., head of the congressional Joint Economic Committee, describing the $85 billion federal bailout of insurance giant American International Group, one of several dramatic steps during a week of economic catastrophes and rescue strategies.
“We’ve got tales of people feeling as though they have to file bankruptcy because they can’t refinance because the bank’s got a map that shows the highway going through their house; businesses that want to sell but can’t tell the potential buyers where the highway’s going to be.”
– Idaho state Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, after the Idaho Transportation Board announced decisions that will delay work on segments of a planned freeway from Coeur d’Alene to Sandpoint.
“He’s made a few mistakes that were not good decisions at all.”
– Washington State University football coach Paul Wulff, summing up the behavior of Cougar safety Xavier Hicks, who spent the summer in jail and was suspended for three games after putting rubbing alcohol in his roommate’s contact lens case, then violated the terms of his daytime release from jail and later was caught driving without a license.
“When I get on the bus in the morning, it’s like a big party.”
– Spokane Transit rider Darrell Reeves, an officer of Greater Spokane Inc., talking about his commute from Liberty Lake to downtown Spokane.
“The show will go on, and it will not stop. We will continue, and we will not change our course.”
– Newsroom director Ali Waheeh of Sharqiya, the Baghdad television station that experienced the kidnapping and execution of three journalists and a driver who were producing a reality show that delivers food and gifts to families who suffered losses in a massive bombing.
“They are pulling things apart very carefully because if there is a miracle, they don’t want to undo it.”
– Los Angeles Police Lt. John Romero, about rescue efforts in the wake of a commuter-freight train collision that killed 25 people and injured 135.