Huckleberries: Larry Craig still making the papers

Ruben Rosario is the latest newsman to pile on Idaho’s U.S. Sen. Larry Craig – or as Rosario calls him “Larry Craig, the undead.” Rosario, a columnist for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, reasons Craig “is as hard to whack as one of those pesky creatures stumbling about in zombie flicks.” Every time you think Craig’s done for, Rosario wrote Feb. 27, he pops up again. Rosario based his column on the filing by Craig’s lawyers of a 242-page-long, 13,962-word brief in the senator’s ongoing attempt to withdraw his guilty plea in that infamous toe-tapping incident in a Minnesota airport bathroom sex sting. Craig’s “obstinate and delirious state of self-denial is filling the pockets of already well-heeled, white-shoe lawyers from the Beltway and New York,” writes Rosario. Through Feb. 15, Craig has spent $213,000 on lawyers while forcing the Metropolitan Airports Commission to squander $28,000 in legal expenses. “To save money,” Rosario writes, tongue firmly cheeked, “I strongly suggest lawyers be required to use one-ply to file future motions in this extremely crappy case.”

Underground agent

Yes, S-R staffer Paula Davenport, who formerly covered western Kootenai County for the Prairie Voice, followed her 90-year-old Aunt Rose’s unconventional advice to use a statue of St. Joseph as an aid in selling her home. And, yes, it worked, despite the current soft real estate market in the Inland Northwest. Seems you’re required to bury the statue near your for-sale sign “head first, feet toward heaven, facing the direction of the street.” Then, Paula writes on her Far Corner blog, you’re to “say a prayer and wait for the offers to roll in.” After the sale, she said, “exhume your ‘underground real estate agent’ and display him in a place of prominence in your new home.” Hey, it beats putting a new roof on the house. Or baking cookies for potential buyers. Or a voodoo doll.

Huckleberries

In the “Will Flash For Cheap Beads” Dept., two writers from the U-Idaho Argonaut newspaper warned female students last week against showing their chests during the Moscow Mardi Gras celebration. “… Just because she flashes you,” warns Chris Bidiman, “does not mean she has any interest beyond getting your beads. Chances are that she is not interested in going home and having sex with you, so do not make the assumption otherwise.” You’d think that would go without saying … In a Huckleberries Online discussion about a new program that guarantees students will finish Boise State in four years, John Austin brought the house down by observing: “It only took me two terms to complete college – Jerry Ford’s and Jimmy Carter’s” … If you believe their detractors, writes Berry Picker Zelda, the 2008 presidential race features: “a post-menopausal, emasculating feminist who’s a front for her husband; a crypto-Muslim black terrorist crack-head; and a former POW Manchurian candidate in his 70s with a bad temper who could snap if he ever sees the Queen of Hearts” … Online Poll: 75 percent of 1,245 respondents to an Idaho Statesman poll clicked “no” when asked if they backed Butch Otter’s plan to pay for Idaho road repair by raising vehicle registration fees as much as sixfold.

Parting shot

North Idaho College prez Priscilla Bell doesn’t seem to be a rumor monger. Sometimes, however, appearances aren’t what they seem. An item in a recent NIC WeeksWorth newsletter begins by saying the fashionable prez wants to open lines of communication with a new column, “Rumor of the Month.” Readers are invited to submit their rumors to weeksworth@nic.edu and, the article continues, “a rumor and response from Bell will be printed each month.” Which can be read to mean she’ll print a rumor and respond to it. Or she’ll print a response to a rumor and start one of her own. The latter certainly would bump WeeksWorth circulation up.