Vandals win where it counts
For all long-suffering UIdaho Vandal fans, Argonaut News Editor Marcus Kellis offers a unique perspective re: the lopsided results of recent football games w/Boise State. First, Marcus has solid southern Idaho pedigree. He spent his boyhood in Jerome and Meridian. Also, both parents are alums of what was once Episcopalian Boise Junior College – his father earned an associate degree in business, his mother a bachelor’s in technical communications. Now, onward. In a recent column, Marcus admits that Boise State has Idaho beat in “enrollment, football, and number of bowling lanes on campus.” But, he continues, “academics is not chiefly among them, and numbers can tell the story.” Then, he goes on to list Idaho superiority in terms of doctoral degrees, technical and vocational programs, and the amount of money attracted in research grants and contracts ($100M to $37M in 2008-’09). Observes Marcus: “I like to reduce the difference between the University of Idaho and Boise State University to a glib one-liner: they win football games, and we won the National Medal of Arts. But again, that’s glib, and does a disservice – we win football games too, after all.” God bless Robb Akey, everyone.
Paranoia tracks deep
A cuh-razy notion being circulated by a shocked troop suffering Mike Kennedy Derangement Syndrome (the malady that causes sufferers to blame everything bad in their lives on Councilman Mike Kennedy) goes something like this: Mike Kralicek was forced to campaign for Kennedy against his will because the police union made him do it. I’m serious. Kralicek, the valiant CPD Blue who was critically wounded in the line of duty a few years ago, joined Kennedy in door-knocking at Coeur d’Alene Place on the Sunday before Election Day. I encountered the two, and the former officer’s daughter, Alexis, when Kennedy knocked on my mother-in-law’s door. Mike simply laughed when I called him at home to ask him about the rumor. Wife Carrie was less amused. Said she: “Some of these people act as though Mike doesn’t have a brain in his head. That he can’t make up his own mind.” Actually, some of these people act as though the world will end if a Democrat holds a nonpartisan office in Coeur d’Alene. On the other hand, the world is supposed to end in 2012. Which will be midterm for Kennedy. Hmm.
Huckleberries
Poet’s Corner (in recognition of my 60th birthday Friday): He’s still looking good,/he’s still looking fine,/but a little bit worse/than at age fifty-nine/The Bard of Sherman Avenue. (“The Blogmeister at Sixty”) … HBO Poll: For those keeping score at home, 70 percent of the respondents to a Huckleberries Online poll last week consider the BNSF refueling depot to be a significant risk to the aquifer (despite that unanimous vote by county commissioners that the railroad is in compliance with various local regs at the five-year mark) … Factoid (from SReporter Meghann Cuniff): “In the dozens of pharmacy robberies that have hit the region in the last 18 months or so, the only people injured have been the robbers.” Knock on wood … Scanner Traffic: Hauser Lake fisherman reports he snagged his line in about 10 feet of water – and then reeled in a plastic bag with a pistol in it. (Wondered Berry Picker Bent: “If the gun was used in a crime, did the shooter want to protect the fingerprints or what?”)
Parting shot
None other than Dan Gookin laid to rest another silly rumor after the CdA elections – that absentee ballots weren’t mailed in a timely manner to residents serving in the military. Gookin, who lost by 29 ballots to incumbent Deanna Goodlander, commented online in the Coeur d’Alene Press that the military ballots went out early. Quoth: “I remember it because my campaign was informed that the ballots were ready about a week early.” Last week in Huckleberries, you read mild-mannered County Clerk Dan English’s angry response to the insinuation made by the usual suspects who are now searching for ways to overturn the elections, beyond a simple recount.