Armoral Tuttle Public Library

By Teresa Shipley.

Abortion-rights backers want quick action from the president-elect, although they may not press for sweeping changes. Obama has said he is looking to find common ground on reproductive health issues.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Sen. Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, said there may be additional e-mails that could have tipped off law enforcement or military officials to the alleged Fort Hood shooter before the deadly rampage.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Having moved to Boise in late 2007, I’ve only known the monolithic Capitol building as the gated structure that sits between Sixth and Eighth Streets, always with a watchful security guard and bevy of construction activity. Boise natives have often told me of their fourth grade trips to the Idaho Statehouse, and their lessons on the architecture by John E. Tourtellotte.

So when I found myself staring straight up into the oculus of the 208 foot tall Rotunda of Idaho’s most stately building, I was overcome with vertigo. I craned my neck to capture all of the gleaming marble. I believe my simple statement was something like: “Wow.”

Robyn Lockett, capitol services coordinator, guided me through the new underground legislative hearing rooms that replace the old fashioned ‘Knight of the Round Table’ style rooms that were used in the early part of the century.

After we descended the outside staircase into the basement, we walked down a long marble hallway. Robyn told me, as we passed an antique 20’s roll-top desk, that we’d just entered the original basement. A few short steps seamlessly blend the new with the old.

The additions are capped with skylights made of a special glass that keep the basement from roasting, but allow both an excellent natural light source, and provide a view of that impressive dome.

The Idaho State Capitol Commission released a statement this week, deeming the Capitol building “substantially complete.”

The Legislature will begin moving in, selecting chamber seats, and finalizing furniture arrangements this coming Monday, with the executive following within the next month and a half. The building will open once more to the public on Jan. 9, “on-time and on-budget” as Robyn put it.

[slideshow-1]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Our question of the day off Questionland is more of an answer of the day. In a lengthy response to A&E editor Amy Atkins' question "Do raccoons hibernate?" user Trespasser somehow slipped in the following oh-no-you-didn't raccoon cutdown:

"If La-Z-Boy made a recliner out of half-eaten bacon, you can be sure a raccoon would never be chivalrous enough to offer that seat to a lady."

Geeeeenius.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

The Justice Department intends to drop manslaughter and weapons charges against one of the Blackwater Worldwide security guards involved in a deadly 2007 Baghdad shooting, prosecutors said in court documents Friday.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Yesterday, TMZ.com reported that an agent for BMI—Broadcast Music Inc.—was doing a little desert recon and found Lewiston bar Boomers' Sports Cellar in violation of playing music without having paid licensing rights.

A case, filed in Idaho District Court in September against TTJ's Inc., d/b/a The Sport Cellar, a/k/a Boomers' Sports Cellar and Club 301 and The Garden, a/k/a Boomers' Garden, Jay B. Starnes, lists among the plaintiffs, Songs of Universal Inc., EMI Blackwood Music Inc., Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp., BMI and Taylor Allison Swift, an individual d/b/a Taylor Swift Music.

Boomers' Sports Cellar owner Jay Starnes couldn't be reached for comment, but a daytime employee at the bar said she'd only learned of the allegations after someone from Georgia kept calling repeatedly asking about the story, so she looked it up online.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Narseal Batiste, who faced a maximum of 70 years in prison, was convicted in May of conspiracy to provide material support to al-Qaida, plotting to blow up buildings and conspiracy to wage war against the U.S. Officials acknowledged the plot never got past the discussion stage and the group never acquired the means to carry it out.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Two fingers and a tooth removed from Galileo Galilei's corpse in a Florentine basilica in the 18th century and given up for lost have been found again, a Florence museum said Friday.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

When the Marines of "America's Battalion" first arrived in Afghanistan, they were eager to get into the fight against the Taliban. Now, as they wrap up their seven-month deployment — and after the loss of a dozen comrades — they see warfare in a different light.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Is it common for a Sex Worker to fake an orgasm or to fake an emotion with a "Trick"?

You mean my desk is a bed and I get paid to orgasm too?

Who ...

Fake it? Why fake when you can have one.

Focus ... focus ... here it comes ... here it comes and

WHAM

What!? You're done, I was almost there. There's no time. I'm gonna get my call.

Oh well, can't be selfish. I'll just play with the perfect man—the one with attachments.

Trick: Did you?

Kitty-Cat: Umm ... yeah

Trick: How many times?

Kitty-Cat: Umm ... two times

Trick (Scratching his head): Are you lying?

Kitty-Cat (Slipping on her heels): Couldn't you tell?

Was that apart of the negotiations you really want

to pay me to please me? I thought you were paying

me to please you. Oh, the confusion.

It's just sex.

You pay

we play

we both go our separate ways ...

It's just sex?

For some, there is always that one that can make

a pro—Working Girl fall in love ...

With Love, Sex Guidess

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

This week two panels of medical experts recommended fewer screening tests for breast and cervical cancer. The idea of evidence-based medicine is that the decisions made between doctors and patients should be based on studies that sometimes conflict with previous wisdom on treatment options.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

News from Yemen has been dominated recently by an escalating rebellion along the border with Saudi Arabia. But the country has been making news for decades because of its severe overuse of a rapidly disappearing water supply, the result of natural and political causes.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Levies on liposuction, breast augmentation and other cosmetic procedures would generate billions of dollars to help cover the uninsured.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Raging floods engulfed northern England's Lake District on Friday, killing a police officer and trapping dozens in their swamped homes. In Ireland, more than 3 feet of water shut down the center of the country's second-largest city, Cork, and more than a dozen other towns and villages.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Police arrested three members of a gang in the Peruvian jungle that allegedly has been killing people and draining fat from the corpses to sell on the black market for use in cosmetics. Medical experts expressed doubt about an international black market for human fat, though it does have cosmetic applications.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

The Ohio school has a 20,000-seat stadium, a $3 million indoor practice facility and a live tiger for a mascot. Massillon teams have won 22 state championships and they're in the running for another one. It's football "sunup to sundown," the head coach says.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

The Senate Ethics Committee on Friday admonished Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill., for making "inconsistent, misleading or incomplete" statements about the circumstances surrounding his appointment to the seat once held by Barack Obama. The committee didn't recommend any punishment.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Democrats will need to vote in lockstep to overcome GOP opposition in a key procedural vote to move the $848 billion measure to full debate. But it's not yet clear whether Majority Leader Harry Reid can round up enough support.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

As I prepare to make not one, but two turkeys this upcoming week, I think back to a column I wrote in 2003 about Thanksgiving in Lingo Yarns, once upon a time when I was editor of this fine rag.
As I read through it now, I reminisce about my girl spawn who was so innocent and young six years ago. My how time flies. Perhaps I'll have an update on Squanto from her next week.

Here is the 2003 column for your pleasure...
—————————————————
When you sit down at the dinner table over this next week, first eating the big turkey, then the myriad of secondary dishes made from the leftovers, it might be food for thought to contemplate these Thanksgiving facts and myths.

Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November as established by the United States Congress in 1941. This was a compromise between tradition and a non-binding presidential declaration. Two years before, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared that turkey day should be celebrated on the next to last Thursday of November rather than the last Thursday of the month—to lengthen the period of time for the Christmas shopping season. In those years, you see, it was uncool to shop for Christmas until after Thanksgiving but coming out of the depression the middle-class merchants needed all the help they could get. Today, big corporate stores start setting up after Halloween and holiday catalogs begin arriving just after we’ve thrown out all the back-to-school catalogs. “Oh come, all ye faithful…”
Before Roosevelt’s declaration in support of America’s merchants, Thanksgiving had been recognized for only 76 years as an annual event. In 1863 president Abraham Lincoln declared a national day of Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November in an effort to help forge a national identity during the tumultuous divisions between Americans resulting from the Civil War. It was also a way to welcome the huge influx of immigrants coming to America by involving them in a common, American holiday.
Several other presidents had proclaimed days of thanksgiving. James Madison declared the holiday twice in 1815. John Adams proclaimed it in 1798 and 1799 and George Washington in 1789 and 1795. The only thing was, none of these days of Thanksgiving were in the fall. George Washington, while leading the revolutionary forces declared a day of Thanksgiving in December, 1777, but it was a victory celebration for beating the British at Saratoga.
Prior to that, communities would hold Thanksgivings which were primarily glorified harvest festivals. There was no particular day, differing from colony to colony and in unfavorable harvest years some celebrated with a fast. Algonkian tribes in the area held six thanksgiving festivals during the year. The first pilgrim’s Thanksgiving was actually the local tribe’s fifth celebration of the year.
We can thank the American Public School system for teaching us that in 1621, the Wampanoag Indians and the Pilgrims who settled in Plymouth celebrated their friendship through a fall feast, which actually was a three-day event. We are taught that the Wampanoags tutored the Pilgrims how to grow foods, how to harvest the native flora and fauna and various survival tactics. It took the Pilgrims two years to get it right because it wasn’t until 1623 that they had enough food to hold another feast.
Today, the USDA estimates that 269 million turkeys were raised in 2003, with a good portion allocated to the annual gorge fest. Most families enjoy turkey, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, yams or sweet potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and for desert, pumpkin pie. These, most Americans believe (like they believe that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11), were the dishes served to the Pilgrims by the Indians. Historians believe that turkey was probably not served at the first Thanksgiving. Nor was corn on the cob, mashed potatoes or pumpkins in any form. What they agree on is that cranberries were most likely served in some fashion, as well as venison, other fowl like geese and ducks and probably some kind of squash and breads made from ground corn, but not on the cob.
I asked my daughter, age seven, what she knew about Thanksgiving.
“I know about when they first celebrated it, they celebrated it with Indians. They were celebrating thanks to people for helping them,” she said.
“What did they eat?” I asked her.
“They ate turkey, mashed potatoes with gravy, cranberries, cider, fruit, cider sauce…” she said.
Her eyes lit up when I asked about Squanto. She told me this tale.
“Squanto, um, he was hunting for food and then he saw this place with the pilgrims and they were talking and then they became friends. And then, um, Squanto came back and brought another friend and that other friend was very nice and he taught them other stuff too. And then Squanto came back with a bunch of Indians and then his second friend, um, he came and told them stuff that he needs to know. He needed to know how the Indians were doing.”

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]