Trade Group Survives Bout With Disasters
First, Idaho’s big trade delegation was in Taiwan for the horrendous earthquake. Later in the two-week trip, the group was in Japan for the partial nuclear meltdown, just 80 miles from where the Idahoans were schmoozing with business and government officials.
“We’re glad to be home,” said Gov. Dirk Kempthorne.
State Agriculture Director Pat Takasugi put it this way: “Thank you, governor, for bringing us all back in one piece.”
Like rice on a hamburger
What’s the ideal topping for a pizza? According to Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, thousands of pizza lovers in Korea and Japan choose Idaho spuds.
That’s right - potatoes. On the guv’s recent trade mission to Asia, he discovered that one of the best-selling varieties on Pizza Hut’s menu over there is the “Idaho Special,” a potato-topped pizza.
“We happened to enjoy one of those” on the trip, he reported.
And how was that starch-on-a-crust?
“It was excellent,” the governor said.
Words of a high-ranking ex-Spokanite
Former U.S. House Speaker Tom Foley - now U.S. ambassador to Japan - met with the Idaho group while it was in Japan.
Foley, a Democrat, couldn’t help needling the Republican governor for the extensive media interviews Kempthorne gave after the Taiwan earthquake.
Foley’s best shot: Calling Kempthorne “the highest-ranking CNN reporter.”
Capital source for spare parts
Maybe Idaho’s speaker of the House can’t fill all requests, but that doesn’t stop people from calling. How else to explain this recent warning at the start of Speaker Bruce Newcomb’s answering machine message: “If you’re calling for motorcycle parts, you’ve got the wrong Bruce Newcomb.”
Airing out a message
Caldwell businessman Ralph Smeed still is chortling over the round stickers he ordered up a batch of, for placing on the start button of hot-air hand driers in various public restrooms.
The message?
“PUSH HERE for a Message from Congress.”
“They have those hand driers where that hot air just gushes out there to beat the band,” Smeed said, brimming with laughter. “There’s a button just the size of that sticker.”
Smeed’s targets range from the men’s room at a Caldwell truck stop all the way to New York City.
“I don’t know when I’ve had so much fun,” the retired businessman and libertarian activist said. “It’s my observation that what we do is we make a religion out of politics. This is part of trying to let the air out of all that puffery.”