Best of the Northwest (8/2/04)

Also on East Lakeshore ... I noticed that the new owner of the late Dr. Ted Fox's house has leveled the "Family Doctor's" magnificent landscaping. Nothing's left but burnt lawn. I was so blown away that I walked around the house to make sure it was the same one that Ted lived in for so long. Frankly, the house doesn't look that special without the landscaping. Dunno what the new owner has in mind. But it's hard to imagine that it'd be any better than what was there. An ill wind is blowing on East Lakeshore Drive.

1. Free-lancer Milt Priggee and Eric Devericks of the Times provide their takes on the 9/11 commissioner report and the national Demo convention here and here.

2. Monday's means Huckleberries -- lots & lots of juicy Huckleberries. You can find my latest column scribblings here.

3. Columnist Joel Connelly of the P-I looks at Demos plans to score big east of the Cascades in places that Easterners can't pronounce, like Spo-KANE, here.

4. The life and death of Army Spc. Jeremiah Schmunk, a soldier killed in action in Iraq from the tiny town of Warden, Wash. (near Moses Lake), is remembered in a P-I article here.

5. A dedication ceremony Saturday erased Idaho's distinction of being the only state in the nation without a veteran's ceremony. "Our veterans deserve this," Gov. Dirk Kempthorne told the crowd of more than 3,000. "Let this (cemetery) remind us to repay duty with duty and honor with honor." Completion of the cemetery is expected in October, according to The Idaho Statesman. Click here.

6. Barb Lindquist, the world's top-rated femme triathlete, is training for the summer Olympics in eastern Idaho here.

7. National polls predict that Boy-C State is going to win the Western Athletic Conference but finish somewhere around 33rd in the nation in the final poll. Meanwhile, Idaho is picked for 9th in its final season in the Sun Belt. The Idaho Statesman tells ya all about it here.

8. Bad things in public places don't happen just in faraway places. In Polson, Mont., Friday, a balcony at a popular bar and casino collapsed, injuring 80. The Daily Inter Lake of Kalispell, Mont., reported on the event here and here.

*Steve Massey, the former S-R editor who turned Evangelical padre, sez in his bi-weekly religion column that discerning God's will is about listening here.

*Jamie Kelly of the Missoulian isn't excited about Planet Hollyweird coming to her neck of the woods here.

*The Idaho Statesman opines on the Gem State's new vets cemetery here.

*The P-I sez happy days are here again at the gas pumps, for the oil companies, here.