Three Cheers For Chain Gangs

Homph! Hah! Homph! Hah! That’s the sound of the men working on the chain g-a-a-ang. … Three cheers for Gov. Fob James who reinstituted chain gangs in Alabama in an attempt to make prison life miserable for two-time losers (first offenders need not apply). Inmates, shackled together by 8-foot-long lengths of chain, picked up trash and cut weeds along a busy Alabama freeway Wednesday. And did they ever whine! Sniffed a convicted robber who thought the experience degrading: “You can’t even chain five dogs up on the side of the road without the Humane Society doing something.” You’d think he had been involved in backbreaking work like his forefelons did - building roads and clearing snakes from swamps. Credit James for putting the “P” back in punishment.

Again, Kootenai County public goes begging

Hmmmm. Apparently, some real-estate brokers and developers are more equal than the rest of us Kootenai County constituents. Commissioners released to them a spanking-new, never-seen-by-planningcommissioners version of the subdivision ordinance and asked for comment. Meanwhile, a subdivision ordinance that planners have steered through the hearing process languishes in the commissioners’ office. Something smells here, folks. Only last week, commissioners bent to public pressure and rescinded permission they privately had given a speedway owner to use his track on Sundays. The current board of commissioners continues to show contempt for the public process.

Government watchdog Peggy Hopkins, R.I.P.

Peggy Hopkins had an opinion on a lot of things. Grass burning. “Thong Man.” Cops. Lakeshore development. She never was at a loss for words, including the time I asked her how she could oppose grass burning and still smoke. Said she in a raspy voice: “There is a big difference between a drink of water in a self-controlled manner and drowning where you have no control.” Peggy regularly expressed herself at Coeur d’Alene City Council meetings. She’ll be missed.

Quotable quote

Some congressional conservatives are on the defensive in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing. They shouldn’t be. In his first trip to Spokane since his election defeat, ex-House Speaker Tom Foley summed up the situation best: “Conservatives are not responsible for people who go over the line and commit terrorist acts any more than progressives were responsible for people who went over the line during the Vietnam War and blew up buildings.”

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