Strippers not a.m. fodder
Yeah, telling your kids about the birds and the bees is tough duty. Fortunately, neither of my kids asked me about strippers. At A Butterfly Moment, blogger Jen wasn’t as lucky. Recently, she and her 6-year-old son were listening to morning DJs yak about pole dancing when one radio magpie observed pole dancing wasn’t stripping. The femme DJ added she was fascinated by strippers. Faster than you could peel your shirt off, Jen’s 6-year-old asked: “Mom, what’s a stripper?” Jen responded it was something he didn’t need to know right now. That, of course, triggered a whiny “but, mo-ah-om.” Take it away, Jen: “I thought for a second about telling him, but how do you describe a stripper to a 6-year-old? It probably would have been OK because he would have thought it was extremely gross.” Jen changed the subject to something easier, “like why the sky’s blue or how to perform brain surgery.” Tellingly, she titled her blog post, “One more reason to avoid morning radio.” Me? I quit tuning into morning radio when KVNI dumped popular Dick Haugen during the 2006 Christmas holidays.
California dreamin’
I was accused of making up “Malibu Man” by my Huckleberries Online gang, simply to enrage them into slobbering, snarling Pavlovian animals. Malibu Man? At the zenith of Snow Storm ‘08, he posted his first comment on the blog: “I am disgusted with the highway districts and Kootenai County and the State of Idaho, for that matter. We live south of Coeur d’Alene and they cannot even keep our road open. No, I don’t live on a private drive either. My daughter has piano lessons to attend. My wife has her appointments in town to go to, and we have been snowed in for two days. We pay our fair share of taxes here, and we should get the service we deserve. Everyone should get out and vote this year and throw the bums out. I have never seen a state as backward as this.” Berry Picker Machiavelli summed up the 31 responses to Malibu Man best with his comment: “Grow up or go back to Kinderfornia where the government will wipe your nose for you and make all your ‘wittle’ boo-boos all better.” Later, Machiavelli claimed I made up Malibu Man, to stir things up. Me? Stir things up? I’m innocent, I tell you.
Huckleberries
Poet’s corner: I can recall warm summer days/of great beauty seen but rarely;/I can recall warm summer days,/but at this point only barely – The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“Memories In Late Winter”) … In the “Spring Is On The Way – Really” Dept., Kathryn Scaletta e-mailed Friday: “5 ROBINS have been spotted in a box elder tree on Fruitland Ave in CDA. Taa Daa” … An Idaho Statesman poll shows how differently North Idahoans and subjects of the Kingdom of Ada view things. When asked what they thought of this Mother of All Winters, 69 percent of the Boise area responded “love it” or “need it.” Only 16 percent clicked on “ready for spring.” Which would be the dominate response of North Idahoans, if the poll was taken up here.
Parting shot
In the “Larry Craig Can’t Catch A Break” Dept., faux CAP News conjured a “story” in which Idaho’s beleaguered U.S. senator is caught in a Minneapolis airport bathroom “trying to pick up chicks.” Tongue firmly cheeked, the online mag sez the senator was making inappropriate comments to women using the facilities, slipping his business card through cracks in the stalls, and readily pleaded guilty to “heterosexual solicitation and disorderly conduct.” As a result, spoofs CAP News, Craig wins over senators who’d called for his ouster and his poll ratings in Idaho bounce up 10 points. Hey, such a strategy couldn’t be worse than going on national TV with Matt Lauer/NBC News to plead your innocence.