Hot Potatoes: Stand by your lawman

Cue Tammy Wynette: “Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman/Giving all your love to just one man …” Kootenai County Prosecutor Bill Douglas is a lucky guy. He can swap sexually charged online banter with a flirtatious underling – and his wife of 34 years doesn’t throw him under the bus. In the latest 300 e-mails to be released, “Coconut Willy” (Douglas) and “Uzi” (ex-drug youth court director Marina Kalani) at best joked about how good each other looks, about exchanging sex for a new laptop computer, and about running off together. (Tammy again: “But if you love him you’ll forgive him/Even though he’s hard to understand …”) But Geri Douglas shrugged it off in a recent interview, stating: “Everybody kids like that.” Oh? I wonder how far my wife of 32 years would kick me down the road if I fielded an online “I love you” from another woman without setting her straight, pronto? Probably back to the Azores Islands in the middle of the Atlantic from whence my grandparents came. I’d deserve the boot in the butt, too. Dunno whether Mrs. D’s in denial. Or she’s willing to weather the storm “cause after all (Bill’s”) just a man.” But she belongs to the sisterhood of saints or Hillary Clintons who’ve been forced to stand by their men as they go through their midlife crises. Again Tammy: “Stand by your man/And tell the world you love him/Keep giving all the love you can/Stand by your man.”

So where’s the beef?

Quotable Quote: “It does not show an assault on an officer,” reported Spokane City Attorney Jim Craven after reviewing a SPD Blue video of the Not So Great Anarchist Protest at Riverfront Park July 4. “It does not show any obviously criminal behavior on the part of anyone, other than resisting arrest once the trouble started.” Translation: Game, set, match – to Zach St. John and his Merry Protesters … And the answer is: Run faster than your buddy and/or your pet dog. The question? What should you do if you encounter an aggressive coyote on the Centennial Trail? … French Fries (or, “How you can tell the cast from “Deliverance” is floating near you on an area river”): 1. Pee or go No. 2 in bushes on private property, 2. Open containers, 3. Throw beer bottles overboard for others to step on, 4. Loud and vulgar, and 5. Crack, both butt and otherwise.

We’re all ex-Californians

Overheard: At the Kootenai County Courthouse Tuesday morning, a friend stood in line for two hours to renew her driver’s license. At one point, a Seasoned Citizen complained: “I moved from California to get away from this.” Responded a thirtysomething with a hat that said “Funk”: “We all did” … Headliner: “For sale: Idaho home with a very negative view: Suvivalist’s self-sufficient house includes barbed wire, bunker.” (That’s your typical tract house in North Idaho. Throw in some guard towers, and now you’re talkin’.) … Today’s edition of Hot Potatoes was brought to you by the No. 16. Or the percentage of young adults who read a daily snoozepaper. Or the percentage of 18- to 30-year-olds who know which party controls Congress and what role Florida played in America this decade, besides being the place where Anna Nicole Smith died.

You can read D.F. Oliveria’s blog, Huckleberries Online, daily at www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs.