Blogroll

Oct. 7 – Judge Kathleen O’Connor had choice words Thursday for attorneys on both sides of the Jay Mehring civil case. The wrongful termination and defamation lawsuit filed by the Spokane police detective against the city of Spokane and police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick is set to go to a jury trial Oct. 17, and O’Connor says she’s lost her patience with the problems that keep arising. 

She ordered attorneys Bob Dunn and Ellen O’Hara to appear before her this afternoon “no matter what” with an agreed-upon statement in the case and a list of issues that are in dispute and issues that aren’t. She threatened to hold the lawyers in contempt if they weren’t able to do so “because I am sick of this.”

Oct. 6 – Now that Sarah Palin has bowed out of the presidential race and the country faces the dreadful prospect of watching Barack Obama run against Mitt Romney for the next 13 months, New York Times columnist Gail Collins is renewing her call for Idaho Gov. Butch Otter to run. Opines Collins:

“I have been promoting him as a possible presidential contender, mainly because I like saying ‘Idaho Gov. Butch Otter.’ But there’s much, much more there to recommend him. For one thing, I’m pretty sure he’d be the first president who was on the board of directors of the National Cowboy Hall of Fame.”

Oct. 5 – With his own kids now discouraging my friend Mike Carlson from “sugaring up” his grandchildren, he has come up with something new.

He now feeds the little ones baked beans.

“I call it tootering the grandkids,” he said.

Oct. 4 – Leonard Nimoy, who played the emotionless alien Mr. Spock in “Star Trek” has announced his retirement from the “Star Trek” convention circuit.

I’ve been a big “Star Trek” fan since seventh grade when the original series came out, despite my sister telling me a few years ago that she read that “Star Trek” fans suffer from depression.

Anyway, Nimoy, who is 80, will be missed. The stories written about his retirement don’t mention a reason. Maybe he just burned out. I think we all have to, or want to, give up regular parts of our routines as we age. My husband, a golf champ in high school, quit golfing in his 40s because he said he knew he was losing the touch and the desire to play.

No shame in giving up.