Blogroll
A glance at what Spokesman-Review bloggers have to say
Office Hours
By Tom Sowa
July 20 – The London Olympics are right around the corner. Which means someone out there totally thinks they have a timely idea for a themed book.
But I’m pretty sure it’s not this book, “Inside the Beijing Olympics,” by Jeff Ruffolo. He just emailed me (and probably 20,000 other scribes) an invitation for a review copy.
Ruffalo might have wanted to publish this book oh, sometime in 2008, when the Beijing Olympics occurred. I have to say I’ve postponed work before … but really, waiting four years to put out a book?
Sirens and Gavels
By Meghann M. Cuniff
July 20 – In the end, Patrick Kevin Gibson’s bravado as a professional bank robber didn’t exactly contribute to his defense in the 1992 murder of a Spokane Valley furniture store owner.
Spokane County Superior Court Judge Tari Eitzen said he appeared to be bragging about his exploits and gave more detail than necessary when he testified at his murder trial last week.
Gibson, 60, also didn’t sway Eitzen with his claims that the robbery at Cole’s Furniture that ended with the shooting death of Brian Cole was sloppy. He theorized that a man named Tim whom he’d hired to assist in bank robberies reused a disguise from one of the robberies to commit the Cole’s robbery.
After Eitzen convicted him Wednesday and Gibson walked down the hallways of the Spokane County Courthouse, a reporter asked him: “Patrick, did you do it?”
“No I did not,” he replied. “Do I look 5-8?”
Cole’s wife, Michele Cole, had described the killer as being about 5-foot-8 or 5-foot-9.
End Notes
By Rebecca Nappi
July 18 – On a recent road trip, I listened to A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life – a recording of a retreat given in 2004 by Franciscan priest Richard Rohr and Paula D’Arcy, writer and conference leader who lost her young husband and toddler daughter decades ago in an accident with a drunken driver.
These are wise people. And so much of what they said has stuck with me, including:
• At some point, everyone and everything will disappoint you.
• Everything is a gift. We are entitled to nothing, really.
• The task of the second half of life is to break some of the rules we adhered to in the first half of life.