Something awfully familiar about show’s b-ball banter

If you still don’t think your star player and college sports program have reached the top rung, you weren’t watching NBC’s “Law & Order” this week. Opening Scene (according to Berry Picker PDX Pup) showed four college guys watching a TV basketball game. College Guy No. 1 says: “Baby Bird! Woooo!” CG #2: “Did you see the Oklahoma State game?” CG #3: “Heh, 30-foot bank at the buzzer.” CG #4: “Man, when is this guy going to lose his raggedy-ass mustache?” CG #1: “After he goes Numero Uno in the draft!” CG #4: “No way! Dude got no hops, no speed.” CG #1: “You just can’t give a white man no props, can you?!” CG #4: “He’s a good college ball player. Period.” Then, a bullet from the room next door destroyed the TV set, leaving the quartet cowering and whining about the game interruption as the camera pans to detectives examining a body next door. Thirty-foot bank? Raggedy-ass mustache? Numero Uno? That doesn’t describe J.J. Redick. Thanks for the memories, Mo.

Elephant in the Room

‘Twas hard to say which lead balloon went over worse for the Kootenai County Elephants gathered at the annual Lincoln Day gabfest: Party Chief Donna Montgomery introducing radioactive “special media person Mark Fuhrman” as a guest at her table. Or the $250 raffle giveaway that wasn’t. Seems ex-LAPD Detective Fuhrman was given wide berth by elected officials who didn’t want possible photos with him popping up in Demo brochures this fall, including Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, who skipped the event after being scheduled to sit at Montgomery’s table, too. But the raffle got tongues wagging. For $5, diners were handed a Hershey bar in a special wrapper. Later, they were told to unwrap the bars and look for a lucky $250 ticket. They did. Then, they waited. Finally, GOP jumbos realized that the winning ticket was among the unsold candy. As time paused pregnantly, GOPer Angela Cross ad-libbed something along the lines: We really stuck it to you guys (but, hey, it’s a fundraiser). The herd wasn’t amused. Said a GOPer: “The Lincoln Day Dinners of the past were fun but classy affairs. This one wasn’t.” Now, that’s something you won’t see on a Kootenai County GOP fundraising letter.

Another Close Encounter

Richard Dimmick can go Steve Granat one better. When we last visited Steve, he was trying to figure out why the Post Falls post office required him to sign the back of his credit card but never requested any ID. Richard ran into the same problem several months ago. But he got the last laugh. Seems he was trying to mail packages and buy stamps when the clerk asked him to sign the back of his credit card – one with “CID” in big red letters in the signature block on the back. Richard started to explain that banks urge holders to place “CID” on cards to avoid fraudulent use but stopped when he noticed the glazed look on the clerk’s face. Then, he asked for a pencil and signed his name. After comparing the signature with the one on the charge slip, she returned both to Richard and said, “Thank you.” Richard used the pencil in her presence to erase the signature on the card, put the card in his wallet and said, “You’re welcome.” Touché.

Huckleberries

Poet’s Corner: Abracadabra/and hocus pocus,/last week we had snow,/now we have crocus – The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“March Magic”) … Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne’s numbers for that Idaho Statesman online poll would be great if he walked in Dubya’s shoes: 54.8 percent. But they’re suspect for a former Boise mayor in supermajority Repub southern Idaho: only 54.8 percent. Mebbe ‘tis good that Old Blue Eyes is trading up for that Head Honcho job at Interior … Oopsy? When is an error not an error? When Huckleberries’ Hound uses “John Henry” instead of “John Hancock” as a colloquialism for someone’s signature. And then learns from Mr. Webster that either designation is OK. But thanks for holding my feet to the fire, Dave Haugen/Spokane … Bumpersnicker (spotted by John Livingston on a white VW at Café Marron in Spokane’s Browne’s Addition): “I’m already against the next war” … After describing what the term “teacher’s pet” meant, Family Phil Corless asked Junior if his Bryan Elementary School teacher had a “pet.” Nah, responded the boy, “she yells at everybody just the same.”

Parting Shot

In the interest of full disclosure, Huckleberries’ Hound opted for love over principle, as I spent my first dollars at the CDA resort in years, to satisfy Amy Dearest’s desire for an ice cream gooey at Dockside. My offspring turned a deaf ear to my lame excuses about not wanting to enrich the owner of the rival Brand X paper. She shared her gooey with her college roommate. And I ordered a huckleberry shake. Good treats. Good service. Great conversation. Decent tip: $2.63 for an order of $14.33. Mr. H’ll have to make do with that for the next coupla years. Or until Amy Dearest demands another gooey.

BOISE – Two bills regulating abortions were introduced to the Senate State Affairs Committee Friday, but Senate Majority Leader Bart Davis won’t give them hearings until the attorney general issues an opinion about their chances of surviving a court battle.

“I’m tired of writing laws in an area that’s important to me and then finding they don’t survive judicial scrutiny,” Davis said.

One bill, sponsored by 1st District congressional candidate Rep. Bill Sali, R-Kuna, requires women under 18 to obtain permission from a parent or guardian before getting an abortion, except in the case of a medical emergency or sexual assault.

Sen. Hal Bunderson, R-Meridian, is sponsoring another regarding informed consent, mandating that women be educated on issues such as fetal development before getting an abortion.

Idaho lawmakers have passed parental consent laws in before, but all were overturned in court after costly battles. Some legislative leaders are concerned Bunderson’s and Sali’s bills will cost taxpayers even more in court fees.

Davis said he was “disappointed that in an effort to try to hurry it along,” neither Bunderson nor Sali cleared their bills with Attorney General Lawrence Wasden before introducing them, as Davis said he’d asked them to do.

“I don’t want to hear an opinion from those of us who will be passionate on one side,” Davis said. “I really want to see from the attorney general that this (bill), as written, word for word, comma for comma, is going to survive judicial scrutiny. Otherwise, Idaho is left with some of the most soft abortion laws in the country.”

Kriss Bivens Cloyd, spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, said the office is reviewing both bills and should finish by early next week.

The parental consent law passed last year was rejected by the U.S District Court. The state is appealing the decision to the 9th U.S Circuit Court of Appeals. Sali said he expects the circuit court to overturn the lower court’s ruling and uphold the parental consent law, but that his bill presents is an even more unassailable version.

The bill is virtually identical to Arizona’s parental consent law, Sali said, which gives girls the option of going to a judge for permission to terminate a pregnancy rather than to their parents. The Arizona law also has survived a challenge in the 9th Circuit Court.

“We have spent several hundred thousand dollars defending that law,” Sali said. “We will be walking away from that investment in that law by passing this statute.”

This raises the question of whether a new parental consent law would moot a decision from that court to overturn the previous law, which would require the state pay substantial court fees for both sides of the case, Davis said.

Davis said after the meeting that he wants Wasden or a deputy attorney general at the bill hearings to answer such questions.

The American Civil Liberties Union opposes both bills, said Marty Durand, lobbyist for the ACLU Idaho chapter.

Senate Minority Leader Clint Stennett of Ketchum and fellow Democrat Sen. Edgar Malepeai of Pocatello voted against the introduction of both bills.

Senate Assistant Majority Leader Joe Stegner of Lewiston opposed just the parental consent bill. He said he always apposes parental consent abortion legislation because he feels the current law is adequate.

He wasn’t sure if whether he’d support the informed consent bill.

“These are not fun issues,” Stegner said.