Shawn Vestal

Mark Hamilton sure seems like a nice boy. Just a super … nice boy.

First things first: Domini Sandwiches, home of the largest small in town, is not closing. But Joe Domini, the familiar face behind the cramped front counter, is retiring. Many familiar faces at this Spokane institution will remain, including Joe’s brother Tom, but Joe is off for Arizona after more than two decades of taking orders, making change and remembering “the usual” for countless regulars.

Is Guillermo Guzman a good teacher and contributing member of his community? Or is he merely illegal?

Tyler Weyer and his fellow seniors at Republic High School began considering possible commencement speakers last fall. Confronting them was the reality that the most likely speaker would be a popular teacher or a standout community member. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Tyler Weyer and his fellow seniors at Republic High School began considering possible commencement speakers last fall. Confronting them was the reality that the most likely speaker would be a popular teacher or a standout community member. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But Weyer had a crazy thought. “I said, ‘Hey, let’s just get Sarah Palin,’ ” said Weyer, the 17-year-old senior class president at Republic High.

How much of our current predicament regarding health care can be packed, symbolically, into one surgical procedure? A whole lot, if we’re talking about joint replacements. All the promise and the problems of modern medical care seem focused in the rapid rise of our ability to replace our hips, knees and shoulders – from the demographic challenges of an aging population to the long-term effects of obesity to the life-altering benefits of technology to preposterous pricing schemes.

Let the record show that Mike Fagan took the high road this week. He considered the contradiction inherent in something he was doing and issued a public statement acknowledging that he had been wrong.

If only those Head Start kids could do something to make the lives of air travelers more pleasant. Bring them a hot towel, say, or a cool drink or a meal on wheels. Give them a foot rub with lavender-infused oil. Anything at all that might make them more worthy of congressional consideration.

Might it be possible that the “thing to do” about downtown loitering – about the discomfort inflicted by the smokers, skaters, panhandlers, ruffians, ne’er-do-wells and others clogging up the tidy business lanes and walkways – is just …. learn their names? Probably not. It’s not that simple. And yet, as we consider new ways to drive out the “nuisance populations” from our downtown areas, it may be that the homeless shelter on the east end of downtown has some lessons to share.

If you thought that Duane Alton’s anti-schools campaign had slowed down since it took a drubbing at the ballot box last fall, think again. It just shifted the battle ground to Battle Ground – a school district near Vancouver, all the way across the state. As you may know, there is no public school anywhere on Earth that Alton and his band of merry patriots will not try to make poorer, whether they live there or not. Alton’s group sent out its familiar yellow scare fliers to Battle Ground voters earlier this month in an effort to defeat a levy on Tuesday’s ballot. They also targeted a bond issue in Reardan-Edwall.

It’s 7 p.m. and the Ferris High School gymnasium is looking fairly un-gymnasium-like. A chorus line dances in the hall. A vinyl surface covers the middle of the gym floor – a way of providing “clickety-clackety” for tap dancing. A woman in a hot-pink wig and tutu walks past a man carrying a case of water bottles, who walks past a man holding a red Kool-Aid Man suit…

Why all the whispering, Fairchild? If the Spokane Tribe’s proposed casino is a threat to the base – which is, in turn, a threat to the local economy – why not just say so, in clear, modern, American, nonbureaucratic English?

The firefighters and city governments who gamed the system – and the taxpayers – for massive extra pension payments have cost the state more than the extra million bucks or so they’ll collect in retirement. They’ve dumped gasoline on the fire that is blistering the foundation of public life in Washington – scorching our sense of common cause. They’ve legitimized arguments that have undercut every recent effort at public investment in this state. As Washingtonians snip ever more holes in the social safety net and withdraw ever more good will from the bank of faith in government, we will have this kind of thing, in part, to thank for where we end up.

Mayor David Condon’s proposal to skirt civil service rules and expand the number of administration-appointed managers in the police and fire departments is worth considering. In particular, the need for reform in the Police Department is a persuasive reason to try something new. But Council President Ben Stuckart’s objections are worth considering, as well. He needs only to point to the county’s not-so-distant-history with the county’s full-employment policy with the Harris family to remind us that unrestrained power in the executive is not always what it’s cracked up to be.

You know something’s really alive when you get the urge to name it. That’s where things stand in the little block on the east end of West Main Avenue – a thriving amalgam of the best expressions of the local and the organic, from the Community Building’s galaxy of progressive organizations to the Zola-centered strip of enterprise across the street, from Revival Lighting to the Main Market, from Merlyn’s to the Magic Lantern.

Does self-defense extend to your SUV? And if it does, let me pose another question: Is it just car theft that good guys with guns can punish? Or could I, say, shoot to death someone I caught stealing my bike? Or my newspaper?