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Column By Joan Opyr: Acceptable Bigotries

I don't like Mitt Romney. The ex-governor of Massachusetts was once pro-choice, pro-gay, and a moderate on gun control. Now he's anti-choice, claiming that he changed his mind after learning more about stem cell research. He's anti-gay, calling for a Constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage and, last year, he purchased a lifetime membership in the NRA. Flip-flopping? Please. If Mitt Romney were an egg, he'd be over easy.

This craven, blatant, vote grubbing hypocrisy should be reason enough to deny Mitt Romney the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination, but that's not why he won't make the final cut. Romney's campaign is doomed because he's a Mormon. In recent polls, a third of all voters have said that they would not vote for a Mormon candidate. Among Republicans, the number is even higher, closer to forty percent.
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A Common Sense Vote on Latah Health Services

Today, Latah County voters are being asked to decide whether or not to approve the sale of Latah Health Services to Moscow’s Gritman Hospital for $1. That’s right -- one dollar. Sound like a bargain? Think again. Latah Health Services is in dire straights. It costs the county $10,000 a month to operate and maintain, and it needs an estimated $1.5 to $1.8 million in upgrades and repairs. If Gritman purchases the facility, it will continue to provide home and community health care services, including adult day health. [more]

A Truly Western Experience

I'm often asked where I learned to write like I write. How did I come to trust my own voice and my own sense of right and wrong? Or, if the questioner is a critic, how did I get to be so damned ornery? Why am I so mean, so unforgiving, so sharp-tongued and, God help me, so unfeminine?

The answer is simple. My late grandfather, Charles Randolph Watkins, taught me to trust myself. He taught me that I shouldn’t be afraid to speak my mind, to be brutally honest, and to damn the consequences. “There’s nothing I hate more than a goddamned chickenshit,” he’d say. “So don’t be a goddamned chickenshit.” My grandfather also let me wear his shiny cordovan Florsheim Imperial wing-tips to high school, so I think that answers the unfeminine question as well. But where did I learn to write? Molly Ivins taught me. [more]

Meet Moscow's Ugly Stepsister

On January 7, Moscow City Councilman John Dickinson was apparently killed in an accident on the John Day Bridge in Oregon. I say “apparently” because John’s body has not yet been found. He had stopped to help a stranded motorist. A third car crashed into the scene, and John either fell over or jumped the highway barricade as a consequence of the impact. He fell thirty feet into the cold, swift river below.

John was a friend of mine. He was a smart, funny man, and I liked him a great deal. Politically and socially, we agreed on most issues. We also disagreed on a few, most notably Moscow’s dog ordinance; I believe that Moscow’s dogs should be fenced or leashed, no exceptions. John was concerned that requiring fences would disrupt some of Moscow’s historic neighborhoods. This disagreement, though strong and intractable, didn’t bother either of us. John was a retired college professor. He handled ideological differences and respectful debate with grace and equanimity. In other words, he was a true political gentleman.

Not so the man who would replace him. [more]

Instant Video Classics

This morning when I opened my email, the first message was an offer from Amazon.com to download the 2007 Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, an "instant classic" football game between Boise State and Oklahoma. For just $2.99, I could relive football history. Meanwhile, over on YouTube, I can watch the hanging of Saddam Hussein for free. [more]

A Tragic Loss

Moscow City Councilman John Dickinson is missing, presumed dead, after an accident that occurred Sunday night on Interstate 84 in Oregon. Councilman Dickinson, 62, had stopped his car to assist another motorist when a third car crashed into the scene. Dickinson either fell or jumped from the bridge over the John Day River where it meets the Columbia. The waters at this intersection are swift and cold, and the drop from the bridge is some thirty feet. It is unlikely that Dickinson could have survived the fall or the 40-degree water temperatures. What began as a rescue effort was, by Monday afternoon, being described as a recovery.

John Dickinson was a friend and a political ally. He was a retired University of Idaho Professor and the founder of Sirius Idaho Theatre. John was a strong advocate for smart growth, the environment, and the people of Moscow. I will miss him personally. The community will miss him even more. We have a lost a compassionate and caring man, and an important and outspoken voice for justice and equity in Idaho.

When It's the Thought That Stinks

Chanukah, Christmas and Kwanza are over, and Eid passed long ago. Is it safe now to tell the truth? Because if it's true that in gift giving, it's the thought that counts, then some of us need a CAT Scan. I propose that here, in the safety of the New West blogosphere, we name our worst gifts. Let's clear the air and forgive our thoughtless friends and relatives (mostly relatives) before we begin the new year. White Elephants never forget, but we can try to minimize their impact on our fragile psyches. Let's talk about what we got, why it was awful, and how we would all prefer never go through another holiday season again -- not if it means get a putting green, complete with putter, ball and cup, that fits around the base of the toilet. [more]

Don We Now Our Invisibility Cloaks

The sacred imagination is an ancient thing. An archaeologist in Botswana recently uncovered evidence that seventy thousand years ago, the Sanpeople worshipped a snake god. The archaeologist, Professor Sheila Coulson from the University of Oslo, found a stone, six meters long by two meters tall, in the shape of a python in a cave in the Tsodilo Hills. Buried in a pit beneath the snake’s mouth were more than 13,000 artifacts, mostly red spearheads that had been trekked to the site from hundreds of miles away and burned in some kind of ritual.

On these ritual occasions, did Mr. and Mrs. Snakeworshipper expect their daughter Patience and her girlfriend Sarah to pretend that they only shared a hut back in Pythonburg to save on wattle and daub? Probably not. Homophobia is a comparatively recent phenomenon. We know that in the animal kingdom, mammals, birds, fish and reptiles often engage in same-sex relations. Ten percent of rams have no interest in mating with ewes. They prefer to consort with their fellow rams. Male penguin couples have raised borrowed eggs; same-sex swan couples have mated for life. So much for the homosexuality is against nature and the barnyard argument. Birds do it. Bees do it. Sheep, dolphins, and giraffes do it. Why are human beings expected to pretend that we don’t? [more]

My Self-Indulgent Birthday Blog

I had a birthday last week, a big birthday, and I'm afraid I have some disappointing news for all of you 39-year olds. Are you ready? Are you sure? Okay, here it is -- forty is not the new thirty. I'm sorry, but forty is just forty, same as it ever was. I know. We've taken this milestone birthday, tarted it up, given it a shot of Botox and a public relations makeover, but the truth is as plain as the gray hairs on our heads. Forty is the grand entrance to middle age. There is an exit, but if you're the optimistic sort, you'll recognize that there's really no need to take it. Being forty is not that bad. In fact, so far, it's been pretty good. [more]

Ah, the Smell of Eau d'Eucalyptus

All around Moscow, the short days and dark nights have been morphing into short tempers and dark grudges. Thanksgiving wasn't all turkey and gravy. In fact, it felt more like a scene from The Shining. When the news broke that University Place villain and former University of Idaho Financical Vice President Jerry Wallace had received three years probation for his part in bringing the school to its knees, mashed potatoes turned to ashes in quite a few mouths. The University of Idaho has been hamstrung by the University Place disaster. Wallace was accused of misusing public funds, and he was investigated by state and federal prosecutors. On November 23rd, Wallace entered an "Alford plea" in Latah County's Second District Court, meaning he denied any criminal intent but admitted that he had created a university account and authorized spending from it without securing the necessary approval of the Idaho Board of Education. That unapproved university account, which never had more that $600,000 in it, recorded total expenditures of more than $8 million. The money tossed down a rathole by a couple of rats, and the University of Idaho has been struggling to regain its footing ever since. [more]

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