7 HOME CULTURE POLITICS
Hard 7: Kids at camp preserve dying art
7/4/2008 | Penmanship, letter writing talk about old school. Does anybody still practice these ancient art forms? Besides those folks in the county jail or the convalescent center, I have only been able to come up with one small sliver of society that persists in this archaic form of communication: kids at summer camp.
Hard 7: Laziness leads to usable waste
6/27/2008 | Been to the dump lately? It's absolutely amazing to see what people throw away. Golf clubs, lawn furniture, ice chests and bird cages.
Hard 7: Scouts deserve praise and thanks
6/20/2008 | The Boy Scouts of America has seen some pretty rough times since its heyday, which very well may have been in the '50s and '60s. At the very least, it's become decidedly unfashionable. At worst, It's been plagued with serious charges of discrimination and scandal. There have been many times that I have felt ambivalence about my family's deep involvement in scouting.
My ambivalence turned on a dime this past week. Like lots of people, including, apparently, the King of Sweden, I was deeply touched by the stories coming out of the Midwest about the heroics of the Boy Scouts whose camp was flattened by a ferocious twister.
WASL takes hold on Class of 2008
6/13/2008 | We sat in the crowded Spokane Arena last Sunday, straining to catch a glimpse of our graduate among hundreds of classmates dressed in billowing black gowns and sporting mortarboards.
Hard 7: Assessment variations baffling
6/6/2008 | This week, 170,000 property owners in Spokane County got nifty little postcards from the Assessor's office. The little card looks a lot like one of those inserts that get stuck between the pages of magazines, and falls out annoyingly when you bring in the mail.
River gets the attention it deserves
5/30/2008 | We tend to be a little blasι about the river that runs though the heart of our city. Even the falls, for which the city was originally named, get barely a glance most of the year.
Hard 7: Where to draw line with teen drinking
5/23/2008 | Turns out I made a mistake a few weeks ago when I reported in this column that parents could host an underage drinking party as long as they had the consent of the parents of all kids in attendance.
Hard 7: Another blow to credibility
5/16/2008 | I don't want to pick on the police department, but they keep painting bullseyes on their backsides. All we have to do is wait a few months, and here comes another glaring illustration of why the department's credibility is so badly mangled.
Applying the Pinocchio scale locally
5/9/2008 | There is a big, fat problem with lying in our culture. The Washington Post sees prevarication as so prevalent, it has devised a scale, or continuum to distinguish its varying degrees.
Hard 7: Condemn drinking, or control it?
5/2/2008 | Here in Washington, you can legally start working when you're 14, and get a driver's permit at 15. Somewhere between 16 and 18 you can consent to sex, depending on the age difference between you and your partner.
Hard 7: Will we get the shaft on oversight?
4/25/2008 | Once again, the citizens of Spokane are in danger of being bamboozled. A watered-down, gutted version of last year's original police oversight proposal is being forwarded as the panacea to the widely acknowledged rift between police and the policed in our community.
Hard 7: Track deal should be black-flagged
4/18/2008 | It's mind-boggling. County officials spend months wringing their hands over proposals to restore basic public safety services, yet they can't whip out the ol' checkbook fast enough to buy a dilapidated, contaminated racetrack.
Hard 7: Teen pot use is no relaxed matter
4/11/2008 | Like a lot of parents in my age group, I was pretty relaxed about marijuana. I went to college in the early '70s, when unprecedented numbers of people discovered and smoked pot.
Dog park's popularity not unnoticed
4/4/2008 | My husband says if he ever opens a tavern, he'll call it the Dog Park, and post the rules of Petiquette right above the bar.
In the hot seat at 'Antiques Roadshow'
3/28/2008 | When I schlepped my goodies to the Convention Center last August, I never imagined I'd end up getting the third degree from all those nice "Antiques Roadshow" people.
Hard 7: Still seeking explanation for tragedy
3/21/2008 | The criminal trial of Clifford Helm is over. A jury last Friday acquitted Helm of five counts of vehicular homicide and one count of vehicular assault.
Hard 7: Helm's silence takes a heavy toll
3/14/2008 | The way I see it, there's not much difference between Fred Russell and Clifford Helm. Each killed multiple people after getting behind the wheel of a vehicle a total of eight souls.
Ballots put voter diligence at risk
3/7/2008 | When I flipped through a stack of mail and saw the familiar red-and white envelope marked "Special Election Mail OFFICIAL BALLOT-DO NOT DELAY," I had a sinking feeling.
Vote for oversight system long overdue
2/29/2008 | A critical vote is coming up, one that has the potential to help restore faith and trust in the Spokane Police Department. Spokane's police union membership will be giving thumbs-up or -down to a new oversight system for reviewing citizen complaints about police conduct.
Ahern's antics deserve another look
2/22/2008 | I've been a little caught up in the presidential primary, but there's a local politician who has been behaving like such a bonehead, he has managed to score some space in this column.
Hard 7: Making sense of the caucus
2/15/2008 | Something monumental happened in the political landscape this past week, and if you missed it, shame on you. I'm not talking about the Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton stump speeches. Those events attracted a lot of folks, but there was no real action just the usual boiler-plate blah blah blah. The happening place was the next day, at the local precinct caucuses.
Taking a shot at the written word
2/8/2008 | I lost my voice a couple of months ago, when Mark Fuhrman and I were axed from our 3-hour daily talk radio program. For more than seven years, we talked about cops and crime, politics and policies, drugs and obesity.
Taking a final spin through Spokane
12/28/2007 | Before uprooting my family and taking on a new role as a Chicago magazine editor, I'm soaking up Spokane's singular delights. Several months ago I had an idea for a 7 cover story: Ask prominent locals to imagine three things they would do on their last day in Spokane.
Biting the hands that read me
12/21/2007 | In 189 straight weeks of writing this column, I've taken on all manner of wrongheaded, boneheaded and downright chowder-headed officials. But in a twist, I'm now confronting several of my most supportive readers.
Sorry, I don't know what I was thinking
12/14/2007 | At the request of my editors, as well as state and local authorities, I must once again present my annual list of column corrections. I'll start by setting the record straight with convention bureau honcho Harry Sladich, who e-mailed last week to call me a cheap-shot artist.
