Far From The Madding Crowd, A Small, Meaningful Purchase

It was difficult to stay away from the Not-So-Great Hate Parade. The newsman in me wanted to be where the action was. The community part of me yearned to see history being made. But the husband and father in me wanted to be with my family on a glorious Saturday - and not wasting time watching the dregs of humanity being taunted by hateful anti-haters who shouted and whistled them down.

I spent Saturday morning going to garage sales with my wife.

Not only was Coeur d’Alene going about business as usual, but many shared the ambivalence I felt. At a sale on 21st, a human rights activist said she’d like to see the circus on Sherman but didn’t want to dignify the Aryan Nations march with her presence. A couple of good ol’ boys near St. Pius X Catholic Church said they’d better stay home or their wives might have to bail them out of jail.

Later, a fiftysomething who witnessed the march told me at his wife’s sale on Mt. Carrol the antics of some anti-Aryan activists made it hard “to tell the good guys from the bad guys.”

The near-unanimous opinion out there was that the media had blown the event into something way bigger than it should have been.

Finally, at an East Parkwood garage sale to raise money for square dancers, I was pleased to pay only 50 cents for a hardbound copy of “The Wall” by John Hersey. It describes the valiant Jewish resistance to the Nazis in the Warsaw ghetto. Finding that little treasure made me feel I’d picked the right alternative Saturday.

Tater Tots: Local cops win no-win situation

Sweet Potatoes to Police Chief Dave Scates and the area’s combined police force for preserving the peace - and our downtown - by keeping a short leash on troublemakers of all stripes Saturday … Hot Potatoes to media outlets that didn’t mention the Spokane counterdemonstration and Lemons-to-Lemonade pledge drive in their not-so-great Aryan coverage … Hmmm. An interesting note in colleague Susan English’s column Sunday bears repeating: According to the July issue of Harper’s magazine, only 16 of 535 congressmen refused a free subscription to Hustler magazine last year. Do you think our four congressmen resisted the free peep show? … Now that the Aryans have crawled back under their rocks for awhile, it’s time again to address the issue that really divides this community: field burning. I still prefer a few days of smoke to subdivisions year round on the Rathdrum Prairie.