Doug Floyd

Let's be honest. Not everybody who buys Playboy, Playgirl or Penthouse magazine is looking for top-notch fiction and consumer advice about stereo equipment. Some readers just want to look at dirty pictures. Disgusting? A lot of people think so. But the First Amendment protects such publications just the same, not necessarily because of the values they impart, but because guaranteeing public access to all ideas - even some discomfiting ones - is less dangerous than letting the government decide which ideas are allowable and which ones aren't.

Nobody will go to the polls for Liberty School District's bond election on May 21. The polls will go to them. Ballots went out this week to all 2,200 registered voters in the district for the county's first all-mail election. Voting by mail is expected to save tax dollars and increase turnout.

Television can educate you, inform you and entertain you. Or it can isolate you and broil your cerebral cortex. It can be used or abused, and surveys tell us that Americans are big-time abusers. So a Washington, D.C., organization called TV-Free America wants all of us to switch the tube off - for a week - beginning Wednesday. A week's abstinence is supposed to purge us of the mind-numbing toxins we absorb for four hours a day. National TV-Turnoff Week will make us a healthier, more productive nation, says TV-Free America.

A reader called Monday to say how frustrating it is that so many people have such limited understanding of our political system. But Shannon Selland's frustration is no match for her persistence. Besides running her own family day-care, Selland is public policy chairperson for both the Eastern Washington Family Day Care Association and the Washington Association for the Education of Young Children.

Former House Speaker Tom Foley was at Washington State University last week to help launch an ambitious project of civic repair. Restoring Americans' confidence in their government and political system is the main goal of WSU's new Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service. Foley's detractors are sure to find irony in the matchup of man and mission. During the three decades he served in Congress, that institution watched Americans' respect for it take a nose-dive.

Stop! Cease! Hold it! Tonight the Spokane City Council plans to decide whether to pay a consultant up to $5,000 to collect the information council members will weigh in deciding whether to renew City Manager Roger Crum's contract. The council members shouldn't pay a consultant even $5 to do this work. That is part of their job. In fact, in a council-manager form of government it is the essence of their job. Employees report to supervisors who report to department heads who report to the city manager who reports to the council.

Inside Coeur d'Alene's two high schools, young people learn about the rights and responsibilities that go along with citizenship. They learn, for example, that Americans needn't fear searches of themselves or their property unless authorities have good reason to suspect them of wrongdoing.

Once there was a town where property developers identified a perfect location for new homes. Even though it would be decades before American communities would confront the hornet's nest known as zoning, these developers had vision enough to worry about protecting the area's residential character. So they adopted a covenant prohibiting any building there from being used "for business purposes of any kind." A harness shop couldn't move in next door, for instance.

It's too bad James Madison's words don't have as much impact on American politics today as does his picture - the one on a $5,000 bill. Madison warned that "factions" - what we usually call special interests - endanger popular government.

An election in Spokane County would be incomplete without a jail issue on the ballot. Or so it seems from the past three years. True to form, this Tuesday's general election includes a sales tax proposal to raise $12 million for various jail construction and staffing efforts. As modest as the tax is at 0.1 cent on the dollar, and as pressing as the crime issue is, there are numerous reasons to vote no on Spokane County Proposition 2. Chief among them are these:

As Shakespeare reminded us a long time ago, mercy blesses the giver as well as the receiver. A winner all the way around. So when Christina Finney's parents asked leniency for the teenage motorist who had killed their daughter, First District Judge John Luster was moved.

For years, Orville Barnes has been a thoughtful and involved player in Spokane civic affairs. As a Spokane and state school board member, as president of the Spokane Taxpayers Association and, for four years, Spokane city councilman, Barnes has taken a reasoned approach to public-policy questions. This fall Spokane voters will decide whether to give him another term on the council. We think they should.

Unless you're a cave-dweller, you know Spokane faces tremendous pressures as a result of growth. Issues such as crime, jobs, transportation, sewer and water systems seriously test the city's preparedness to convert growth into prosperity rather than paralysis.

A nation of laws either holds its law-enforcement agencies by a sturdy leash or it forfeits its legitimacy. That is why the 1992 standoff at Ruby Ridge, where three people, including Randy Weaver's wife and son, were shot to death, is under scrutiny now. It is not clear, however, that members of the Senate subcommittee appreciate the difference between holding agencies accountable for indefensible excesses and canonizing a self-made victim like Weaver who is unworthy of the honor.

He received not one vote, but Paul Bastine has been elected a Superior Court judge for Spokane County. He may well hold elective office for years and never face the voters. That's the way it typically goes with Superior Court judges: a vacancy on the bench, an appointment by the governor, maybe an opponent in the first election and maybe not, but usually free rides thereafter. State law spares them even the formality of appearing unchallenged on the ballot.

Now there have been two Waco standoffs. One between federal agents and Branch Davidians in the spring of 1993.

Not enough seating. Not enough trust. Not enough to do. That, bus riders told "Bagpipes," is why they cluster on the sidewalks rather than wait for buses inside Spokane Transit Authority's spacious but under-used new Plaza. "They only have 12 seats in the entire building," said Susan Scott of Cheney. "Three benches of four each and that's it."

In what there was of the 1994 season, Chicago White Sox pitcher Jack McDowell, once superb, was mediocre. And even though he sold his talents to the New York Yankees for $5.4 million, he's mediocre again this year. Last Tuesday, mediocre would have looked good. McDowell was miserable, and the fans booed.

Nothing in the council's new approach will prevent its meetings from being spirited. Heaven forbid. If you believe Spokane City Council meetings have become to municipal politics what mosh pits are to rock music, take heart. Relief may be in sight. Tonight's council meeting will be the first under an improved set of rules and procedures.

A Seattle doctor's claim that a Washington State trooper bullied him sounds far-fetched. But that's no justification for a libel verdict that warns all citizens to bite their tongue rather than criticize police. Woodrow Thompson, an anesthesiologist, wrote to Gov. Mike Lowry following the 1993 incident to complain that he had been pushed and threatened at gunpoint by trooper Davis Richmond. An internal investigation by the Patrol exonerated Richmond. At no time did he face disciplinary action or lose pay over Thompson's allegations.

Congress is right to seek and destroy overreaching government programs. But the Senate needs to work on target selection. On Tuesday senators voted to end federal authority over speed limits on interstate highways.

Risking public scorn is one of the burdens an editorialist volunteers for. So, here goes: Formal prayer has no place in a public high school's commencement program. None. Not if Billy Graham leads it, not if the captain of the rally squad leads it.

It's a dirty job, as they say, but (altogether now) somebody has to do it. Not a menial job. A tough job that requires sacrifice and risk but for which scornful second-guessing often is the reward - law enforcement. Last week, three Spokane police officers had a tough job to do. It involved a violent and possibly suicidal man whose mother had called police because she feared he might hurt her or kill himself. Blaine Dalrymple was smashing glass in a bathroom. Neither words nor pepper spray drew him out, so police kicked in the door.

The $7,000 Spokane taxpayers spent to find out their City Council is dysfunctional is gone; the dysfunction remains. But, honestly, is that so bad? Do we want civility at the cost of keeping serious policy disagreements quiet? Is loud, angry and even rude discourse necessary in the democratic process? Or is it just a showboating technique that polarizes and paralyzes government? Let's hear from "Bagpipes" readers. How much candor do you want from elected leaders?