Idaho Conversation League

A plug in, to rid the world of the word "Howdy!" http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/2007/12/boy_howdy_/

By Tony Evans http://www.mtexpress.com/index2.php?ID=2005118675

Boise State's Renaissance Institute gets a big boost from Osher Foundation http://www.boiseweekly.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A309881

http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=17425

http://www.xenutv.com/int/secretlives.htm L. Ron Hubbard November 19, 1997 A biography of Hubbard's life and the Scientology cult.

http://www.magicvalley.com/articles/2007/12/20/opinion/letters/127115_18.txt After 1986 Kentucky Derby contender Ferdinand overcame 18-1 odds to become champion, he was later sold to stud in Japan. Then in 2002, the victor was evidently sent to slaughter, prompting a “ from winner to dinner ” hearkening slogan, used by the outraged thoroughbred community in their successful campaign to ban the last of U.S. horse slaughterhouses, meant for human consumption. They still kill U.S. horses for food you know. And a bad hitch is that many of these once beloved creatures are beginning to face horrifically longer transports to Mexico and Canada, which excludes federal jurisdiction, from our monitoring for humane treatment. Deplorably overcrowded trailers and more obfuscated slaughterhouses continuing with questionable sanitary practices are hot concerns. Another problem facing new west ranchers are higher hay prices, which coupled with the slaughterhouse closures has impelled some to abandon...

What will life be like if people stop reading? http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2007/12/24/071224crat_atlarge_crain?printable=true Commentary on this by Ran Prieur: "There's a smart piece in the New Yorker this week, Twilight of the Books , about how reading and non-reading affect human consciousness. In ancient Greece, when reading was new, it was a kind of trance or possession -- people had trouble distinguishing between the reader and the text, the actor and the role. You can still see that today, when fans of TV shows treat the actors like their characters, or a cowardly president can be popular by swaggering like a "strong leader," or activists think protests and petitions can change anything. One of the things we're going to have to do, before we get out of this ugly age of history, is to learn to awaken from the trance of the symbolic -- I don't mean we won't go there at all, but that we won't lose focus on what's symbolic and ...

http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2007/12/21/news/local/doc476a99630633e335271152.txt

An essay by award-winning writer Greg Stahl http://www.mtexpress.com/index2.php?ID=2005118550

http://www.idahostatesman.com/history/story/234694.html

http://teamsugar.com/group/30094/blog/277652 "So it dawned on him: If being candid about his flights could clear his name, why not be open about everything? "I've discovered that the best way to protect your privacy is to give it away," he says, grinning as he sips his venti Black Eye. Elahi relishes upending the received wisdom about surveillance. The government monitors your movements, but it gets things wrong. You can monitor yourself much more accurately. Plus, no ambitious agent is going to score a big intelligence triumph by snooping into your movements when there's a Web page broadcasting the Big Mac you ate four minutes ago in Boise, Idaho. "It's economics," he says. "I flood the market.""

How Bruce Willis Romanced and then Jilted a Small Idaho Town http://nancyrommelmann.com/comet.html

http://poetryandpoetsinrags.blogspot.com/

http://www.boiseweekly.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A309454 from the Boise Weekly - Not Your Everyday Newspaper website: www.boiseweekly.com POSTED ON DECEMBER 5, 2007: By Tony Evans Artist Richard Lauran Sample in locker No. 8, otherwise known as "Gallery 8." Tony Evans Richard Lauran Sample and Gallery 8 Just across the highway from the airport in Hailey, where Gulf Stream jets blast off regularly, lies the South Wood Self Storage Facility. Row upon row of identical containers are filled with furnishings and cargo, all except for locker No. 8, otherwise known as "Gallery 8," a space used by artist Richard Lauran Sample. Above the door reads a sign: "Art Patrons Association of Idaho," which Sample refers to as "a group dedicated to the arts, music and literature." Just inside is the face of the Beatles' Eleanor Rigby, "... wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door." A cat named Turpentine studies the ghost-like face in a ...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/20/60minutes/main2830058_page3.shtml#ccmm

http://www.mtexpress.com/index2.php?ID=2005118204 By TONY EVANS When rap music emerged from the inner city in the 1980s, I had friends telling me this new black art form was going to change the world with its explosive power and poetry. Rap threw a light on the realities of growing up on the streets. I tried getting into it but was already partial to reggae and Motown. Soul was too cheesy and jazz too refined. I liked the blues, but these pounding urban chants called rap were just too hard for me to grasp—too culturally specific. Students were "anthropologizing" the new sound, tracing it back to West African "bragging songs," which were once sung around the fire by men after a hunt. I expected it all to blow over in a few months. In 1993 I heard cowboys shouting gangsta rap epithets at a barn dance in Picabo. A few years later I saw children in the South Pacific island kingdom of Tonga making finger signs on the beach. Their parents were mystified. The signals ar...

http://www.illuminati-news.com/2007/0707b.htm