Chris Peck

"My husband and I were happy to see Mother Teresa on the front page," said the earnest Spokane woman at the airport. She was talking about the paper from eight days ago when Princess Diana was the big story. Then Mother Teresa died. The angel of Calcutta took her turn at the top of the front page. "My husband and I had just been talking about it," the woman said. "When Princess Di was killed we asked ourselves, 'If Mother Teresa died would she get coverage, too?' " On the flight home I wondered: If someone took a poll in Spokane about the significance of Mother Teresa vs. Princess Diana, what would be the result? Is Spokane a Princess Di kind of place or a Mother Teresa town?

At Many Glacier Hotel, there are no televisions in the rooms. The gift shops sell a few copies of the Great Falls Tribune, but people don't travel to Glacier National Park for the news. They travel there to get away from the news. Except news of bears. Lots of bears are visible this year. The huckleberries are ripening on the low-lying hillsides. So, it was an accident, really, that news of Princess Diana's death managed to waft over Going-to-the-Sun Road, navigate up Swiftcurrent Creek, and be picked up on a scratchy shortwave radio by a guest at Many Glacier Hotel early last Sunday morning.

To quote a well-known Spokane TV sports personality, "Are you kidding me?" Washington State University pulled the plug prematurely on the best radio and TV ads ever for Cougar football after four people born without senses of humor complained. I hope you saw or heard the ads. They were funny, to-the-point and effective. A little old grandmother's voice starts bemoaning violence on TV. Football violence, she muttered. Bone-crushing, helmet smashing, college football violence is just about the most awful thing on Saturday afternoon TV.

What is a Cheney Weeder, anyway? A college student from Eastern Washington University who pulls weeds for tuition? A new kind of vegetarian sub sandwich? A company in Eastern Washington you have heard about but whose products are a mystery? The last comes closest to the definition for most people.

The 11th-hour debate over the Lincoln Street bridge offers another example of the destructive mindset Spokane must overcome as it wrestles to define itself for the 21st century. The debate about the bridge is poised to turn down a most familiar Spokane pathway worn smooth by naysayers, second-guessers and impoverished thinkers. A certain drumbeat can be heard from those quarters: the bridge was dreamed up by an insensitive City Council; the bridge is an expensive boondoggle that isn't needed; the bridge will ruin the gem of Spokane, namely, the river gorge in the center of town.

When the guy started waving his cane as the Doobie Brothers rocked the stage at the Festival at Sandpoint, it became clear. Rock 'n' roll will never die. No, it will migrate to the nursing homes with the generation that grew up on it. It will send wheelchairs swiveling. It will be played at retirements, then 50th wedding anniversaries and, finally, at funerals.

Spokane - Seattle. Dry side. Wet side. East vs. west. For 100 years, Seattle and Spokane have been Washington's two largest cities. As far back as 1900, when Seattle's population stood at 80,671 and Spokane's residents numbered 36,848, the two cities have been compared and contrasted to define Washington state.

The future belongs to computers and people who know how to use them. This isn't a knock on the liberal arts.

Today my daughter turns 15. One thing stands out. There is no going back to the day when she was daddy's little girl. Not when your little girl is 5-foot-8 and has a mind of her own. She is looking forward. She is looking out. She is looking at boys.

Not everyone in Spokane loved Carl Maxey. Some people feared him. Some people were angry at him. Some people cursed his causes and his clients. Nearly everyone knew his name.

The world now knows what we who have lived here a long time already understood. Mars and Eastern Washington/North Idaho are much the same. A few days ago NASA researchers announced the barren scablands west of Spokane and basalt outcroppings visible along the freeway through Eastern Washington and North Idaho are the close geographic examples of what the Pathfinder spacecraft has found on Mars. The pictures beamed back from the red planet did look a bit like the view when driving west from Spokane. Snickering and guffawing can be heard in Seattle, Portland, and Boise about this revelation. Those who live in the supposed centers of progress, prosperity and perfection have long thought of Eastern Washington/ North Idaho as a separate planet where people think and do odd things.

We who love fireworks are going to win. The right to set off sparkling fountains in our front yards is a right that has been taken away by worrywarts in most Washington and Idaho cities and towns. Fireworks are more fun than worrywarts. Fireworks have God, the Chinese and Native Americans on their side.

Lorraine Bacon's husband has been a firefighter for 25 years. Doug Bacon works at Fire Station No. 3, the busiest station in Spokane. Last year, Station 3 crews made 2,300 runs. Day and nights. Weekends and holidays. Doug and Lorraine are part of the brotherhood of firefighters. Sisterhood, too. And wifehood. I have a soft spot for firefighters. The men and women who pull on 60 pounds of gear to rush out and combat flames have withstood, for the most part, the critical winds that have battered many other institutions. Firefighters remain heroes and heroines in the eyes of the public, and in their own eyes, too.

The clock behind the Southwest Airlines ticket counter reads 6:45 a.m. This is the first day of summer vacation. A line snakes back past the pay phones. Real people from the Inland Northwest are heading out of town.

Eastern Washington University is in trouble. Enough trouble that privately some state regulators and higher education leaders are asking whether EWU can, or should, continue in its current direction. These hard questions arise from the gloomy news that EWU must cut another $2 million from its budget this fall by eliminating three teachers, 13 staffers and leaving 23 faculty positions unfilled to meet its state funding target. The reason? Students simply aren't attending the school in the numbers they once did.

Suggestions for what to do with the kids this summer are pouring in. The camp notices. Vacation destination guides. Reviews of summer's blockbuster movies. There is one really cool thing that could easily be forgotten.

Stupidity flourishes in every garden of human endeavor. It blooms in such variegated shades of pink embarrassment and purple rage that a sudden blossoming in a new place still generates wonder and amazement. Stupidity? Here? Can it be? The answer, it seems, always is yes.

Hayley Jensen, 15, was taking a break between performances. She sat in the warm, afternoon sun on a bench outside Hughes Auditorium at Gonzaga University. Sunning herself on a school day isn't what got Hayley Jensen here.

Some life-changing pathways are opening up for Washington's young people. Declaring this the year of education, the Washington Legislature budgeted for an additional 6,390 students to enroll in the state's colleges and universities. This is a big vote of confidence in our youth. And a nod to kids who aim high and have a bright future.

Sam Donaldson, the in-your-face co-anchor of "PrimeTime Live" is articulate and funny. He is also wrong when he says today's TV journalism is really no different from the broadcast journalism of 50 years ago. A few nights ago Donaldson visited Pullman to deliver the keynote speech for the Edward R. Murrow Symposium.

My question to Bill Clinton has entered our family history under the heading of a dad moment. Positive dad moments, usually occurring when children are under age 13, are times when dad's presence seems larger than life. Negative dad moments, ever-more frequent occurences as children grow up, are the strung-together bits of evidence that a father also can be dumb, confused and imperfect.

Jaime Johnson, 16, attends Post Falls High School and has a black father. She also has met with Milt Priggee, editorial cartoonist for this newspaper. She seemed to be an ideal person to speak about the way young people in Idaho struggle with the label of residing in a bigoted state. Jaime's outstanding connections and leadership skills at Post Falls High made her a good barometer for reactions to the Priggee cartoon last Sunday that poked a pen at this image of Idaho as a home for bigots. The Sunday cartoon showed the start of Junior Bloomsday. A kid in the front row is asking, "Did you see the kids from Idaho...?" In the back of the race, some pointy Ku Klux Klan hats are visible. "My classmates were bothered by the cartoon," Jaime said. "I know that they don't all think of themselves as racist." And of course they aren't all racists. Not by a long shot. Idaho's young people reflect a wide range of attitudes about diversity, tolerance and the races. Jaime says her personal experiences as a person of color at Post Falls High have been mostly good. "Overall, my experience in high school has been great," she said. The she paused. "But there are a few people that don't exactly have the same thoughts as the Aryan Nations, but who use the word 'nigger' and feel it is OK." For a girl who is on the prom committee, who runs school fund drives, who considers most people her friends, the shock of this occasional hallway chatter still sets her back. "Being a person of color, when I'm around people and they happen to say something like that, I look at them hard and say, 'I can't believe you said that.'" And that's the tough part for many people in Idaho. It's hard to believe this state has developed such a bad reputation. About 350 people from business, education and government showed up at a leadership forum only a week ago to show their concern. Speaker after speaker that night said Idaho's reputation as a haven for hate groups has now become a factor in business recruitment, a factor in the tourism industry, a point of discussion in federal and state government agencies. And come to think of it, that reputation is why Priggee sharpened up his pen. Of course, Priggee's cartoon was a gross exaggeration. That's the way of cartoonists. Take a little kernel from the news and stretch it, exaggerate it, push it to one side in the hope of making a point. Cartoonists express outrageous opinions with a pen, opinions that are their own, like talk radio hosts, or political columnists. Milt Priggee doesn't speak for this newspaper. In fact, the voice of this paper's editorial board consistently has praised Idaho's efforts to combat hateful words and despicable acts. The editorials have supported efforts of Gov. Phil Batt to draft the toughest anti-harassment laws of any state. The voice of this paper has lauded the efforts of the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations and its work to counter hate messages that can be heard any day on the Idaho Aryan Hotline in Coeur d'Alene. And in its news coverage, The Spokesman-Review has done more than any paper in the country to shine a light on the hate crimes perpetrated by white supremacists and their supporters in the region. And we're going to do more to help this region confront and overcome its image as a hate-filled, intolerant place. This year, one of the paper's most important civic outreach efforts has been to help organize the Inland Northwest's first-ever Community Congress on Race Relations scheduled for May 20. More than 20,000 groups and individuals have been sent letters asking them to come to the Spokane Convention Center to discuss ways this region can make a commitment to improve race relations. After last Saturday's leadership gathering in Coeur d'Alene, The Spokesman-Review contacted Doug Cresswell, the incoming chairman of the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations, and volunteered to help the task force develop plans for changing the image of North Idaho. And don't forget Jaime's reminder. "I think Milt's cartoon kind of puts into a reality what a lot of people think about Idaho," she said. "The reality is that these Aryan Nations kind of people are right here, right next door." For what it's worth, Priggee will be available to go to North Idaho high schools and meet his critics face-to-face. His boss already has contacted the schools. The more important discussions, however, won't involve a newspaper cartoonist and whether he should be strung up by the thumbs. The important conversations must be among people across the Inland Northwest, who need to be talking right now about what it will take to confront the realities and then change the image of this misunderstood region.

Charlie Russell, America's most famous western artist cashed his chips and rode into the sunset 71 years ago. In Great Falls, however, his memory, his art and his appeal remain very much alive. The vigor flowing from Russell's empty boots, still are on display at the C.M. Russell Museum a few blocks from downtown Great Falls, offer an inspring, instructive example of how a midsized city can reap major benefits from a thriving art scene. Great Falls has made the life, times and art of Charlie Russell into an industry. A big industry.

Fourth quarter and the Seahawks are behind. But players from Eastern Washington, McCaslin, Prince, Morton and West, may pull it out for the team. The game, of course, is being played in the Washington state Legislature. The linemen opening the pathway for the Seahawks are Eastern Washington's senators.