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When the ghost of Christmas Past visits my dreams, it takes the form of a frog Santa left me when I was seven. Big and ugly, this stuffed animal frog was designed to hold the pajamas of innocent children in its gaping red maw. The frog wa
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I awoke this morning to a show on NPR interviewing people on how they have dealt with the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. I awoke to an interview of an obstetrician, a real matter-of-fact kind of woman with crying baby sounds in t
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I love fantasy books. I love kids' books. So why haven't I jumped on the bandwagon and read Harry Potter? Perhaps because it seemed rather full. And not just full of kids either -- full of people of all ages in silly costumes and waving w
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This will be my first holiday season without my father; he died in May from complications related to Alzheimer's Disease. Six months have passed since then, and my friends will tell you that I'm pretty okay on most days now, although the
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Improvised comedy shows have a reputation for raucous cynicism in the manner of Saturday Night Live. They're not for the Martha Stewarts among us, we assume, but the mean-spirited cynics -- those who deride anything that could be described
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News flash: The Spokane British Brass Band is not British! It's true. Nevertheless, the local 30-piece brass and percussion ensemble reproduces in theme, makeup and execution the look, feel and, most significantly, the sound of a classic
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Not a few families gathering at the holidays have a flash point, something they alternately feud over, fuss about and unite around. Maybe it's opening presents on Christmas Eve versus Christmas morn, or the color of tree lights.
Ours ha
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What do you get when you blend classical symphonics with rock riffs? If you said Emerson, Lake and Palmer, then you and I are in the same ballpark. In the hands of composer and lyricist Paul O'Neill, founder of the Trans-Siberian Orchestr
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Every year the Singing Nuns of Mount St. Michael perform at the Met, their concerts ballooning right along with their ample blue sleeves. The single December concert of 1996 has grown into four this year; they're about to release their ei
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I've felt like a centipede in tennis shoes since the article in the Nov. 1 edition of The Inlander came out about PEACH (People for Environmental Action and Children's Health) Safe Food co-op. The response has been nearly overwhelming from both folks who
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In the crush to find the perfect gift, it's easy to get stuck in "inside-the-box" thinking. Specifically, "inside-the-box" in terms of big boxy malls, big-box retailers and pre-packaged gift packs. Blehhhh! This year, why not go with somet
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For all those feeding squirrels and living under a 1971 Audi-sized rock for the last couple of years, we bring you this breaking news: The Gonzaga hoops program has arrived and put its feet up on the couch. Get used to it. They're going to
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The Cathedral and the Arts annual holiday offering, the Candlelight Christmas Concert at St.
John's Cathedral, is a perennial favorite that's anything but predictable. "It's the same format
each year," says Cathedral and the Arts Exec
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The long-awaited media recount of disputed ballots from the 2000 presidential vote in Florida has provided only a little new information regarding the election result. Despite investing almost $1 million and 10 months of effort in a review
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I've always been a little funny -- I mean funny peculiar, not funny ha-ha -- about Christmas gifts. My mother would tell me to make a list for Santa, and I'd spend three days on it, belly down on our orange shag carpet with the Sears Wish B
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As the Washington State Cougars enter the third year of their trial membership in the Pacific-10 Conference... hey, joking, just joking... c'mon now, where's your sense of humor?
If you've been a Cougar basketball fan or well-wisher for the
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Ants scurry around underfoot, lugging bits of fluff, proud of their efficiency, contributing to the anthill, swearing allegiance to their leader. Little symbols of insignificance and futility. We laugh ruefully, feeling an urge to rub out
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I moved to the United States from Denmark in the summer of 1991. I'd never been here before but expected my stay to be of some length -- as in at least a couple of years -- and to be much like a long vacation. The Immigration and Naturaliza
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You can almost hear the twinkling suspense of Tchaikovsky's ballet in the far wintry hinterlands of your mind, just as you can almost see the dancing sugarplum fairies, the genuflecting mushrooms, and even the rather alarming nutcrackers th
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Although many people have already made Coeur d'Alene's "Fantasy In Lights" part of their holiday traditions, this year's festival is going to be more extravagant than ever. In addition to the annual parade and festivities that take pla
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It is so often the case that while driving through the countryside and on the periphery of cities, we find ourselves struck by the brash expansion of ill-conceived suburban developments. Our sense of confusion is further exacerbated by the
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Leave it to my sullen, anti-social adolescent self to subvert the true meaning of Christmas. Not that I'm completely sure -- now or then -- what the true meaning of Christmas actually is. But I am fairly certain it does not involve smugglin
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You've gotta love the fact that one of the most beloved Christmas stories of all time deals with misanthropy, hauntings, death, cynicism and poverty. And yet that's no doubt part of A Christmas Carol's charm. You wouldn't think the s
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At first, no one thought that it would be a problem spending the fall semester in Florence, Italy, and returning home for the holidays only a few days before Christmas. We were, after all, a group of friends from New York City who, we th
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At every corner in the darkened village, guards stood with their Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers at the ready. Sitting on rugs spread on the dirt floor of a mud-brick and wood house, two men ate a meal of rice, grilled mutton and vegetabl
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A federal judge rules that "wild" in-stream spawning salmon aren't endangered.
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SPOKANE -- Ah, the winter air: crisp, clear, clean -- not. Not, that is, according to several Spokane area health and transit groups behind AirWatch, a seasonal education program.
AirWatch members, like the American Lung Association
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The car was a beater, the last thing you'd think anyone would steal. It wasn't the car that caught the thief's eye, though, but the belongings inside. He ripped out the stereo, of course, but also everything else of easy value: backpack
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How can you not love these guys? Okay, so they were skirt-chasing boozehounds with thuggish reputations, but man, could they belt out a tune. Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. shine on this release, noteworthy for bringing toge
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Every Sunday evening in Dempsey's ground-floor lounge, chanteuse ABBEY CRAWFORD takes the stage and engages the crowd -- sometimes a handful of family and friends, sometimes a packed house -- with her charm, wit and extraordinary set of pip