Quotes & amp;amp; Notes

by Inlander Staff
The Lion's Den -- Mayor John Powers snubbed TAG (Taxpayers for Accountable Government) earlier this week when he declined their invitation to participate in a candidate forum. TAG collected money and ran anti-Powers ads in the last mayoral election, but forgot to tell the state's Public Disclosure Commission about it.


The whole thing had the feel of Ken Starr inviting Bill Clinton out to grab some coffee, so it's no surprise he declined. What is surprising is that he waited until the last minute to tell them. Guess that's one endorsement he can write off.





Still Rising... -- Remember the homeless newspaper The Rising Times? The one that started as a student project at Gonzaga? The next issue comes out at the end of this week, so don't forget to look for a vendor.


When the paper started a little over a year ago, its circulation was about 750 papers. Today it's printing 1,500 copies, and Editor Stephen Wiest says they're going like hotcakes.


The paper is now an AmeriCorps project, says Wiest, but the purpose is still the same: to give the poor and homeless a voice in the community. For every copy a vendor sells for $1, the vendor gets to keep 80 cents, and many of the stories and articles, poems and illustrations are done by homeless or formerly homeless people.





Explanation No. 17 -- In the ongoing search for weapons of mass destruction, the United States (that's us) has been trying out a variety of explanations, apparently hoping one will stick. As for the latest one, our two cents says it won't. That is the argument that crafty old Saddam destroyed his WMDs before we got there. While most newsfolk regurgitate this one as if on cue, we've just got to wonder: Would a guy who is being invaded destroy the only weapons that he might use to defend himself? Like so many things these days, it defies logic. Or maybe he was just trying to be nice to improve his place in history.





Define "Everyone" -- According to Republican National Committee propaganda, Bush's new $330 billion tax cuts will benefit "everyone who pays taxes." After the law passed, however, and members of Congress actually started to read it, that statement turned out to be false. (Careful -- in D.C.-speak, circa 2003, it's a "false statement" not a "lie.")


Or, if your definition of "everyone" means "everyone -- except for 50 million American households," then it's no longer a li... uh, false statement. Oh, and another 20 million households will get less than $100 out of the Bush economic recovery plan.





Publication date: 06/05/03