The Slice: Definitely chilly in both blue, red states

You know how smokers have to go outside of commercial buildings to indulge in their habit?

Sure. Well, what other practices should be banned indoors?

How about passing off some reheated election analysis as an original observation?

“Hey, take that outside! And stay 25 feet from the door.”

•After the first 30 or 40 times, it might start to get old: There are about 50 Malones listed in the Spokane phone book. I wonder how many have had to put up with predictable co-worker witticisms while a movie called “Give ’em Hell, Malone” is being filmed here.

“These numbers don’t seem right. I’m going to ask Patty if she included the Idaho vendors.”

“Give ’em Hell, Malone!”

•Slice answer: The person in Heather Leveque’s family who can be counted on to issue a thumbs-down on the prospect of going to interesting restaurants is her elderly mother. “She tells everyone she eats only plain food, which means anything bland and pretty tasteless,” wrote Leveque. “If we are taking her out to dinner, the only place we can go is a buffet restaurant.”

•Slogan time: Steven Stehr, who teaches at Washington State University, recently visited a Cabela’s store near Olympia. He did so even though he’s not really into hunting and fishing.

“My first thought was: This is like IKEA or Home Depot for a different set,” he wrote. “So I thought a perfect ad campaign for this store should be, ‘You can kill it, we can help.’ ”

That gave him an idea for a Slice question: “What companies could adapt their advertising campaigns to more accurately reflect what they offer?”

•Finish this sentence: “I know some people might not get it, but it would not be Thanksgiving in our family without …”

•Follow-up from Tuesday: I heard from a couple dozen readers who reported having seen drivers veer out of their way to intentionally run over animals.

I will spare you the details. Though, for those who witnessed these despicable acts, the scenes will never completely fade from memory.

Perhaps all we can hope is that one day a light will go on in the offenders’ undersized hearts and they will repent.

•Warm-up questions: How many people reading this can say they voted for Sen. Frank Church once upon a time? With Vietnam veterans retiring, what job categories will experience manpower shortages?

•Today’s Slice question: If more than a few white Southerners would like you to believe that some of their long-ago relatives were a lot like Atticus Finch of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” what literary or TV/film character do white Westerners cling to as representative of the best in their family tree?

Shane? Hoss Cartwright? Al Swearingen? Ransom Stoddard? Henry Stamper? You make the call.