Catch `em if you can
Commentary by Pat Murphy
Someone who shall remain unidentified for obvious reasons
the other day uttered one of the best ad-lib wisecracks heard around here
in years.
When the Ukrainian women’s and men’s biathlon ski
teams began training at Lake Creek trails north of Ketchum, their
translator, Laryssa Temple, noticed to her chagrin the trailhead sign
requiring each user to have a $9 trail pass.
She mentioned this to an appropriate authority, and said
the nine-member team and its coaches didn’t have the necessary passes.
"Don’t worry about it," said this perceptive
and understanding person, who knew the Ukrainians are among the world’s
fastest skiers. "Nobody could ever catch up with them anyway."
#
Bankrupt and stripped by court order of the 20-acre
compound where he brewed hate for 30 years, Aryan Nations founder Richard
Butler still has one weapon in his arsenal to keep his Hitlerian venom in
circulation.
Publicity.
Butler is threatening to stage more parades in Idaho.
Whenever Butler rounds up a handful of like-minded minions, and they march
down a street flinging Nazi salutes and anti-Jewish and anti-black
invective, Butler stirs up just enough reaction requiring police
protection and thus attracting media coverage.
But Butler will fade when he’s ignored and runs out of
his ability to attract attention, and simply becomes a pathetic footnote
in Idaho history.
#
What Greek dramatist Euripedes wrote 400 years before the
birth of Christ might well have special meaning for George W. Bush and his
dilemma for dealing with Iraq’s treacherous Saddam Hussein.
"The Gods visit the sins of the fathers upon the
children," Euripedes wrote.
While conduct of the Gulf War by Bush Sr. wasn’t a
"sin," his decision to quit pursuing Iraqi troops to their
Baghdad lair has allowed Saddam to survive and renew his mischief and now
challenge Bush’s son, the new American president, George W. Bush.
Bush Sr. insisted when he called a halt to the Gulf War he
had no authority to pursue fleeing Iraqi troops.
But many critics believe (a) Bush could’ve legally
employed the doctrine of "hot pursuit" to shred the Iraqi forces
all the way to Baghdad and that (b) Bush Sr. instead was persuaded to call
it quits by advisers who feared a successor to Saddam might be worse.
There’s something of a parallel in the world’s failure
to stop Adolph Hitler when it had the opportunity: Saddam Hussein now
thrives on squabbling and weakness among the coalition that once stood up
to him but seems to have cold feet.
#
For months, western states have been stressed out with
worry over electricity shortages and soaring kilowatt-hour costs.
More important: has anyone yet begun to worry about what
Idaho’s drastically below-average snow pack will mean to water supplies
this summer for household, industrial and agricultural needs?
