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Produced & Maintained by Idaho Mountain Express, Box 1013, Ketchum, ID 83340-1013 
208.726.8065 Voice
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Copyright © 2001 Express Publishing Inc.
All Rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Express Publishing Inc. is prohibited. 

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For the week of July 4 - July 10, 2001

  Opinion Column

These are ‘environmentalists’?

Commentary by PAT MURPHY


The nearly 20,000 followers of the Rainbow Family expected at Bear Valley Creek in Boise National Forest this holiday dare call themselves environmentalists.

What’ll they call themselves after trampling all over the Shoshone Indian Tribe’s sacred ground, threatening salmon and trout spawning grounds, and probably leaving a counterculture mess for others to clean up?

Suggested site for next year’s Rainbow Family camp out: Death Valley in July.

While on the subject of gall:

The mentor to conservative political thinking, radio’s bombastic Rush Limbaugh, is in a snit.

He’s upset with the American Medical Association for opposing the Boy Scouts ban on gay members, and on top of that in an uproar about Republican Sen. John McCain’s support of the Democrat patients bill of rights.

The AMA, Limbaugh storms, is playing "politics" on an issue he complains has nothing to do with health care.

Well, now. . .

Limbaugh seems to have forgotten the turnabout of Republicans who once railed against entertainers and clergymen getting involved in politics because, they said, it was none of their business.

But when actor George Murphy became a U.S. senator, actor Ronald Reagan became President, TV star Sonny Bono a congressman, actor Charlton Heston head of the National Rifle Association, and the Rev. Pat Robertson founded the Republican-leaning Christian Coalition ¾ all of them Republicans! ¾ suddenly it was dandy for entertainers and clergymen to be in politics.

So, with other professions (including pompous radio commentators) involved in politics and social issues, why not physicians, who devote more time to the well being of more Americans than any other group?

As for McCain, Limbaugh performed a searing on-air imitation of a growling, narcissistic McCain, mocking him as craving attention and thus willing to cozy up to the likes of the liberal devil incarnate, Sen. Ted Kennedy.

How laughable. As America’s reigning egocentric, self-adoring media ham who calls himself "a gift from God," talk about a limelight hog.

Quote of the Week: "I’m trying to recruit Republicans (in Blaine County) with a fairly high environmental ethic." — Maurice Charlat, Ketchum city councilman and Blaine County GOP chairman.

How refreshing. A pity the Republican Party’s pick for President of the United States doesn’t have "a fairly high environmental ethic."

Months ago, Scott Parker blistered me in a Letter to the Editor of the Express for a column I wrote beseeching him to launch a radio station with music that doesn’t torture listeners like his stations KECH and KSKI.

Well, Parker has done it. Here’s a tip of the hat.

His new station at KYZK (FM 107.5) features soothing oldies that are ageless ¾ the big bands with big sections of brass and strings, the big singers, songs that endure for generations, many from the age of the bobby soxers, movie sound tracks.

Sure, it’s the stuff that appeals to the over-50 generations, who danced cheek-to-cheek to it, listened while parked in a lover’s lane.

Some younger people like music that sounds like a jackhammer digging up a concrete sidewalk; others prefer it softer and gentler.


The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.