So dumb it squeaks
By Ben Olson
Reader Staff
I have an itinerant column I trot out every month or so I’ve dubbed “Dumb of the Week,” which highlights the sheer stupidity at work …
By Ben Olson
Reader Staff
I have an itinerant column I trot out every month or so I’ve dubbed “Dumb of the Week,” which highlights the sheer stupidity at work …
By Reader Staff
Even if you’ve never read any of the works of 19th-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, you’ve probably heard someone repeat his famous line: “A pessimist is an …
By Ben Olson
Reader Staff
For the uninitiated, Festivus is a holiday invented for an episode of the sitcom Seinfeld called “The Strike,” which involves the airing of grievances; feats …
By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff
We’ve all heard the reference to “scary ghost stories” in the Christmas carol “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” but most of us …
By Emily Erickson
Reader Columnist
What if “the holidays” were more than a handful of weeks — a series of events strung together like pearls at the end of a …
By Ben Olson
Reader Staff
There are a lot of hills I’d die on: hot dogs aren’t a sandwich, litterbugs should spend the weekend in jail, those who don’t use …
By Ben Olson
Reader Staff
Television shows have often been filled with cliches, tropes and overt jokes written for a broad audience. Even the plotlines to some shows are so …
By Soncirey Mitchell
Reader Staff
My intense fear of crashing into the ocean and being eaten by sharks has never stopped me from having a good time on an airplane. …
By Ben Olson
Reader Staff
It’s a wild time to be alive.
In an age when information is so readily available, it takes seconds to answer a question with an …
By Emily Erickson
Reader Columnist
Flipping open to a glossy image of Barack Obama, the iconic “Hope” poster filled the page, with the former president’s calm, resolute expression etched in …
The Sandpoint Reader is our town's local, independent weekly newspaper. "Independent" means that the Reader is locally owned, in a partnership between Publisher Ben Olson and Keokee Co. Publishing, the media company owned by Chris Bessler that also publishes Sandpoint Magazine and Sandpoint Online. Sandpoint Reader LLC is a completely independent business unit; no big newspaper group or corporate conglomerate or billionaire owner dictates our editorial policy. And we want the news, opinion and lifestyle stories we report to be freely available to all interested readers - so unlike many other newspapers and media websites, we have NO PAYWALL on our website. The Reader relies wholly on the support of our valued advertisers, as well as readers who voluntarily contribute. Want to ensure that local, independent journalism survives in our town? You can help support the Reader for as little as $1.