This Is Far From Justice
First District Court sentences are getting lighter and lighter if that’s possible. Take those handed down last week by Judges Craig Kosonen and Gary “Ol’ Softy” Haman. Ple-e-e-ase. Both slapped wrists instead of throwing the book at two losers. Steven Elliston, a pervert with what a psychologist called an “unfortunate obsession with buttocks,” got two years for assaulting his best friend’s 18-month-old daughter. This, after Elliston served time six years ago for improperly touching an 11-year-old boy. Incredibly, Kosonen told the parents their little one wouldn’t recall the assault as long as they didn’t tell her about it later in life. Then, Larry Hannaman, a University of Idaho student with a violent history, received only six months from Haman for a vicious assault in a Safeway parking lot. After a near car crash, Hannaman hit Robert Schrader with a beer bottle and kicked him in the head as he lay unconscious. Schrader suffers from memory lapses now. Hannaman cried his way to a soft sentence. Haman’s a sucker for tears.
New PC cop patrols WSU block
Hmmm. There’s much good to be said about Gretchen Bataille, Washington State University’s new $163,000(!)-per-year provost. She’s one of the nation’s top ethnic studies scholars, has written 10 books on the subject and plans to reach out to nearby Indian tribes. BUT she has “PC police” written all over her. As a doctoral candidate at Drake University, she said in a recent interview, she decided to specialize in American Indian literature because she felt nontraditional material was being neglected: “What was being taught in literature were all books by dead white males, and I knew I wasn’t going to do a dissertation on Hemingway, Faulkner or Shakespeare.” That’s well and good as long as the new provost respects English majors who understand the value of studying such dead white males - and literary masters.
Sock it to him, sock it to him
The latest twist in the sorry saga of ex-University of Idaho basketball coach Kermit Davis involves a signing bonus. Seems UI officials, including then Athletic Director Pete Liske, slid Kermit The Ingrate an extra $20,000 without telling the Idaho Board of Education. The board, you may recall, wondered whether Davis should be hired at all after recruiting violations got him in trouble at Texas A&M. Now, Kermit has boogied to Louisiana State after only one year with the Vandals, and the state board is wondering if it should seek to get the bonus money back. I’d say go for it. Ol’ Kermie deserves a stiff dose of legal threats to accompany him to his new haunts.
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