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Time For One Thing
Silence
Quality time may be overrated -- unless it's with yourself.
By Karen Grigsby Bates
[07/13/99]

Stay-home economics
One mom crunches the numbers on the assumption that quitting work is cheaper than paying for life as a working parent.
By Phaedra Hise
[07/13/99]

You can halve it all
You can get your husband to do his share if you demand it -- or threaten divorce.
By Jennifer Bingham Hull
[07/12/99]

All you need is love -- and a marriage license
If Jesse Helms has his way, new legislation could limit international adoptions for everyone but married straight couples.
By Joan Oleck
[07/09/99]

Column
Prisoners of a crappy war
I don't regret protesting Vietnam, but "Return With Honor" has humbled me before the heroism of our military.
By Anne Lamott
[07/08/99]

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Despite the parade's name, this is really family day, Nazi-style. At the head of the marchers is Richard Butler, a retired airplane mechanic and the 82-year-old founder and pastor of the Aryan Nations Church, so fragile that he spends the latter half of the parade in a plastic lawn chair carried on a flatbed truck. Behind him are Michael Teague, his chief of staff, in full Nazi regalia, and a smattering of women and men. But the crowd of protesters who line the streets has already decided to focus on a much smaller target: Michael Teague's 6-year-old daughter, who is carrying the Aryan Nations flag and marching with her mother, Christian, and 9-month-old sister.

"Come over here with us," the protesters call to her. "We love you. Your parents hate." The little girl, a strawberry blond in a pink dress, hides her face behind her flag, then holds the flag up straighter. "Show them your 'heil,'" her mother urges. The girl turns to give the protesters a practiced Nazi salute.

Originally, the parade had been scheduled to coincide with the Aryan Nations World Congress the weekend before, when Idaho Nazis would be supplanted by tourist Nazis. But July 3 is the date of Coeur d'Alene's annual Kiddie Parade, so it was pushed back a week, after most of the delegates to the congress had returned to their own parts of the world. Then the city rerouted the parade past the old town dump instead of through downtown. The Nazis objected and were given the usual parade route, thanks to the American Civil Liberties Union, an organization that certainly would be eliminated under the proposed Aryan National State.

As it turns out, the march has drawn about 400 protesters, well outnumbering the handful of Aryans. But Butler is not discouraged. For one thing, the Aryans clearly have supporters behind the police line on the protesters' side -- the Teagues' little girl frequently points and waves to them as she passes. And Butler is philosophical. "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world," he says, quoting Margaret Mead.

Although a group of protesters staging a sit-in disrupts the parade route slightly, it otherwise proceeds peacefully, ending in a parking lot. There, as a final gesture, the marchers throw a black baby doll into the air and take turns stamping it into the blacktop with their boots.

This is when the fight breaks out. On the protesters' side of the police line, three young women with babies in strollers salute the Nazis. Immediately, they are surrounded by screaming protesters. One young Nazi mother cradles a baby in one hand and uses the other to punch a young man repeatedly in the face until he is bloody. A young Nazi man who is with her stands back and lets her be the warrior. The strategy works: The man who has been beaten will not hit a woman. The crowd allows them to leave.

If you haven't been to Coeur d'Alene, you might think all of Idaho is redneck country. But Coeur d'Alene is a tourist town dominated by a luxury resort, a bikini-studded lakefront and a downtown with specialty boutiques. The only potatoes you'll see in this part of Idaho are pureed and piped into morels. Emptied of the out-of-town protesters in tie-dye and beards, it returns to its natural state. The women are Aryan: slim, blond, with delicate features and fair skin. Coeur d'Alene resembles nothing so much as it does Southern California, though not the actual Southern California, which has never been white. Instead, it is the Aryan nation that Hitler dreamed of and Hollywood duplicated. The population is wealthy, attractive and 98.6-percent white. People in Coeur d'Alene will tell you that they hate the Nazis, and you will believe them. But then, you might begin to realize that the Nazis are the police who patrol the borders, who keep Coeur d'Alene beautiful. Just the reputation alone is enough to keep out the non-whites; the cost of living keeps out the rest.

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