D.F. Oliveria

Bazillionaire J.R. Simplot put a human face on "Boisecentricity" while ranting this week at Idaho legislators. "Boisecentricity" is Idaho's version of Washington, D.C.'s "Inside the Beltway" mentality. It strikes legislators, state department heads and southern Idaho big shots such as Simplot. The afflicted believe the world begins and ends in Ada County. Ol' J.R., the potato magnate, flashed his southern Idaho arrogance while blaming Idaho legislators for fumbling Micron's expansion project. It wouldn't have happened, he said, if Boise State University had the University of Idaho's engineering school. In fact, added J.R., maybe we should move the UI school to Boise. And maybe North Idaho should secede from the part of our state that gave us a swell license-plate slogan we finally shook: "Famous Potatoes." Forget Junior - bring on the replacements Gee, it's tough to see Ken Griffey Jr., Jay Buhner and Jeff Nelson down on their luck. They recently traveled to Olympia, baseball caps in hand, to promote bills banning replacement players from playing in the Kingdome and forbidding the Seattle Mariners from advertising games played by replacements as "major-league baseball." Said Griffey about baseball: "We play and care about it (sniff!), but it's going to take more than us (sniff!) It's about time people speak up (honk!)" Ok, Junior, I will. Why don't you try to find another job that pays $31,000 daily? Sorry, bub, I'm for the replacements. They may be the Northwest's only chance to land a championship pennant.

Burned-over and diseased forests in the Inland Northwest are rotting while Congress fiddles. Dead trees, scorched in devastating fires throughout the Inland Northwest last summer, will be lost in 15 months unless Congress acts - now. A bipartisan forest-health bill, proposed by U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and endorsed by Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., provides a reasonable solution by eliminating some timber sales appeals and some environmental reviews.

Some want ex-heavyweight champion Mike Tyson to suffer forever for his 1991 date rape of a Rhode Island beauty queen. His crime outrages them - as well it should. But their beef is with our lenient judicial system, which decreed that Tyson owed only six years of his life for his crime, with time off for good behavior.

The Avon Lady has shown spunk in fighting City Hall for several years now - though she's totally in the wrong. Rose Christmann had no business setting up shop in a residential area along Best Avenue. But you have to admire the way she's attracted national media attention and frustrated the bureaucrats while delaying the inevitable. Now, the 72-year-old is demanding a payment of $525 million from the 21 local officials she thinks are harassing her. (That's quite a markup - even by cosmetic standards.) Unfortunately, Rose is going to find herself back in jail. A community can't allow individuals to flout its laws. When the time comes, Rose should surrender peacefully - particularly if the city calls in the U.S. Marshal's Service to arrest her. Donkeys have reason for optimism, but ...

Idaho House Speaker Mike Simpson is at it again. The Blackfoot Republican sponsored the worst law of 1991 - the so-called Truth in Taxation Bill - and is an odds-on favorite to repeat that dubious feat this year, unless common sense intervenes.

All those people who thought Micron's $1.3 billion expansion search was a charade should stand in the corner. The microchip giant has selected a short list of three communities that doesn't include an Idaho site. Idaho Statesman business writer Paul Beebe in Boise and this editorialist were among the doubters. Beebe recently wrote: "Micron Technology Inc. will expand in Boise or Nampa. None of the other 11 communities vying for its new factory has a chance. How do I know? Simple. Micron has maneuvered itself into a box with only one exit. By expanding somewhere else, Micron risks alienating the Legislature and losing what it really wants - an engineering school at Boise State University." Oh well, with that kind of accuracy, maybe Paul and I can catch on as TV weather forecasters. The bums don't want to be thrown out The presumptuous Idaho Senate is at it again. Recently, senators showed their arrogance by rejecting a House-approved bill that would have required them to vote on their own pay raises. Now, state Sen. Sue Reents, D-Boise, says she thinks legislators should serve for four instead of two years. She apparently believes that what's good enough for the U.S. House of Representatives isn't good enough for the Legislature. But a short term makes representatives far more accountable than a longer one does. A politician can get away with a lot of mischief in the early years of a four or six-year term. Constituents forget; news reporters change. Send this one to the circular file.

The Lake City High girls' basketball team, guided by coaches Dave Fealko and Dave Stockwell, has made all Coeur d'Alene proud by winning the new school's first state championship Saturday at Caldwell. Seven Timberwolves are former Coeur d'Alene High Viks who have played on back-to-back state championship teams, compiling an incredible 49-1 record overall.

Punks have taken control of our streets because we've become a nation of patsies. We shake our fists at soft judges who spank hands rather than butts and then fret because "barbaric" Singapore canes a young American vandal. Our squeamishness leads to situations such as the one going on now in Newport, Wash., where young thugs fondle and harass passers-by and vandalize businesses.

Normally, Seattle attorney Mary Alice Theiler would be an ideal investigator of sexual harassment allegations against Washington Gov. Mike Lowry. The credentials of the former King County Bar Association president are sterling. State Supreme Court Chief Justice Barbara Durham and attorneys who handle sexual harassment cases say she's top-notch, too.

New Kootenai County commissioners have been typecast as soft on environmental issues - though they've done nothing official yet to earn that stereotype. (See what happens when you snub a Kootenai Environmental Alliance candidates' forum?) In fact, the Commissioners Dick Panabaker and Dick Compton showed good environmental sense last week by rejecting a mammoth subdivision proposal, 17 miles south of Coeur d'Alene. A California developer wanted to dump 279 homes on 251 acres, near Rockford Bay. Unh-uh, said Compton: Nice rural setting, but it's too big and too far from infrastructure. Give the man an A for midterm grade in rural planning. Now, keep your fingers crossed that common sense like that will prevail in the commissioners' office.

Our Temporary Man In Boise tells of a discussion that took place Thursday between a state senator and a staffer in a Statehouse hallway. Staffer: "Hi, senator." Senator: "Hi. Everything under control?" Staffer: "No sir." Senator: "Anything under control?" Staffer: "No sir." Senator: "Good. Everything's normal then." Onward. Bleedin' 'em dry: Who says you can't squeeze blood out of a turnip? At a recent luncheon, the Inland Northwest Blood Center recognized tax activist extraordinaire Ron Rankin and others for donating 10 gallons of blood. At a minimum, that's more than 13 years worth of rolling up your sleeve. Attaboy, Ron. Kudos also to other North Idaho 10-galloners, including retired instructor Dick Raymond and Silver Valley broker Mary Hendrickson.

Communities around the world would kill to land Micron's $1.3 billion expansion plant. The project promises more than 3,000 jobs and some $29 million in annual tax revenue. But in Kootenai County, considered one of the front-runners in the Micron sweepstakes, two towns are on the verge of fumbling away this economic chance of a lifetime. On Tuesday, Post Falls and Rathdrum will decide whether their voters or their elected officials are in charge of offering tax-increment financing to lure companies like Micron.

After San Francisco scored twice early in Super Bowl XXIX, commentator Dan Dierdorf said: "I'm in favor of rewinding back to the `National Anthem' and starting over." The same can be said of Idaho Superintendent of Schools Anne Fox's administration. Controversy dogged the Republican's first month in office, ending in chief deputy Terry Haws' firing last week following disclosure of a drunken driving charge and past criminal allegations.

So, the transplanted gray wolf gunned down while chomping on a calf near Salmon was in the wrong place at the wrong time? That's what the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says. And I agree. O' Unlucky No. 13 was hundreds of miles and one country south of where she should have been. She'd be alive today if the U.S. government, in its infinite wisdom, hadn't ordered her trapped, radio-collared, and dropped into a hostile environment as part of a critter experiment. Fortunately, rancher Gene Hussey found the dead predator with a belly full of evidence, or he would be in big-time trouble today with the feds. Someone - Hussey says it wasn't him - caught Sister Wolf in the act and dispatched her with a single shot through the lungs. At least she didn't suffer like the poor calf that died watching a wolf gobble its entrails. Stoicheff calls solons `gutless.' He's right Idaho legislators probably deserve small increases in pay and per-diem expenses - even in this tight-fisted era. But they should vote for them, just like county commissioners and city council members do. Now, solons automatically receive the raises recommended by a citizens' commission unless the Legislature rejects them. State representatives, probably fearing a public backlash, unanimously voted this session to do just that. The raises will go into effect, however, because the Senate won't act on them. Quotable Rep. Jim Stoicheff, D-Sandpoint, sums up this act of cowardice best: "I just think, egads, we scream about accountability in our schools. What's the one agency that's not accountable? The Legislature. That's terrific."

Eight years ago, ex-Kootenai County Undersheriff Larry Broadbent faced the world's cameras and said: "We in Coeur d'Alene recognize that the forces of organized hatred, racism, bigotry and religious violence must be combatted." Broadbent, along with then-Mayor Ray Stone and humanrights leader Bill Wassmuth, had traveled to New York City representing Coeur d'Alene, recipient of the Raoul Wallenberg Community Award for human rights. I reported on the event. Stone's speech was spectacular, steeped in his World War II experience as a concentration camp liberator. Wassmuth's was good, too. But just as moving was Broadbent, the big cop with a bigger heart, who self-consciously read a speech at New York City Hall within feet of where Abraham Lincoln's body once rested in state. Human rights was Larry's passion. Who will pick up his torch?

The U.S. Forest Service traditionally has used road closures to protect endangered animals such as the grizzly. But that approach doesn't work completely.

Super Bowl Sunday is as uniquely American as General Norman Schwarzkopf, rock 'n roll, and the 1956 Chevy. It's King Kong versus Godzilla, the seventh game of the World Series, Survival of the Fittest, New Year's Eve at Times Square, and the Power Ball lottery rolled into one.

Sorry, I don't buy the squawking that the Coeur d'Alene School Board is kowtowing to conservative activists. Chairman Ken Burchell and his philosophically balanced board aren't stooges for anyone. The board is being criticized for scrapping questionable experimental programs and heeding parents' call for a return to the basics. Maybe the trustees interpreted the election of state Superintendent of Schools Anne Fox to mean, as I did, that most Idahoans want the education system fixed. We're losing too many quality students to private and home schools because parents - and not just the conservative ones - don't trust the system. Was that the Ol' Gipper or Slick Willie speaking?

Promises. Promises. So easily made. So easily broken. Sounds like a song, doesn't it? Actually, it's the battle cry of NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) throughout the region who have lost battles against landfills, composting operations, power plants and gravel pits - and then had to live with the consequences of their political impotence.

Idaho Gov. Phil Batt has shown already that he's decisive, tightfisted, and has a clear vision for where state government should go. On Friday, Batt revealed another important leadership trait. He knows when to admit he's wrong and cut his losses.

Wolf lovers have seen too many Disney films. They've been lulled by Rex Allen's folksy narration into thinking that wolves are harmless and cuddly - particularly during the formative years. (I can hear Rex now: "Here comes ol' Akiata. She's keeping a close eye on her pups. She knows cruel farmer Jones would love nothing more than to plug them full of holes.")

The Washington Horse Racing Commission should change its name. Something like Western Washington Horse Racing Protection Club would be more appropriate. The two West Side representatives on the three-member commission that doles out important racing dates act like the state extends eastward only to the Cascades. Playfair Race Course and horse interests on the other side of the mountains are a nuisance.

The prodigal son returns. And downtrodden Seattle Seahawks fans are singing the hallelujah chorus - with the possible exception of a few Washington State University spoilsports who still are miffed that he abandoned them six years ago. The Northwest should be excited that Dennis Erickson, ex-WSU and University of Idaho football coach, now guides the Seahawks.

Ever been curious what skilift operators think as they work while crowds around them are having fun? Well, wonder no longer. Jon Luric tells all in the March issue of Transworld Snowboarding. And Silver Mountain ain't going to like it: "I couldn't stand working at Silver Mountain. To get there you had to take the world's longest gondola from a parking lot in town four miles upslope. If it didn't stop, the ride took 20 minutes each way, but management kept the time clock at the top. For the 40 minutes I donated each day they gave me 50 percent off on coffee and dollar taps in the bar after work. I had to smile at fat, rich Americans and pretend I was happy to see them. The ski instructors thought they were gods. ... But worst of all, I had to stand all day with one hand on emergency stop while snowboarders flew joyously past." Spy vs. Spy? Luric, copping an attitude throughout the article, added that Silver Mountain paid $20 each time someone reported a violation of the employees' handbook. Apparently, he quit after a friend named Milt was fired for skiing out of bounds: "Silver Mountain employees desperately needed a union. But I seemed to be the only one who thought so. The other employees were too busy spying on each other for management." ... The red ink's flowing at the Kootenai County Courthouse - at least it was during swearing-in ceremonies until Treasurer Jeannine Ashcraft noticed the color of ink in her pen. She asked for another. ... Well-wishers attending the ceremonies ran into a bottleneck outside the main courtroom of the courthouse. Seems the new metal detectors are in place. Be forewarned. They're sensitive enough to pick up the metal band on your charge cards. Freudian slip? Ex-Democratic legislator Lou Horvath is one of the Silver Valley residents supporting Mary Smith's fight to keep 38 American Eskimo dogs. When asked about his interest in the Cataldo woman's kennel, Lou's tongue slipped, "I got involved because at the time I was a state leper." Make that legislator. He and most other Democrats are lepers now. ... Anne Fox has shaken up the education department since being elected state schools superintendent. Heads have rolled. Former department flack Lindy High quit before she was fired and now is working for Gov. Phil Batt as his policy assistant on education matters. That's right. She will present Batt's education budget to Fox. Small world, isn't it?