mac IDLE problems

[7stud]

Hi,

In the IDLE, I can't get most shortcut keys that are listed next to
the menu items to work.  For instance, under the Format menu item only
the shortcuts for "indent region" and "undent region" work.   If I
highlight some text and use Shift+3 to comment out the region I
highlighted, the code is erased and I get the # symbol.   When I use
the option(alt key) and type a character, I get things like this:

ƒ,¢,º,˚

I looked under Options/Configure IDLE/Keys and tried the various built
in key sets, and none seem to work.

I also can't use my mouse to copy(or cut) and paste.  When I highlight
something and right click(in an attempt to bring up the context menu
that has copy, cut, paste, etc.), the text that is highlighted is
doubled when I right click, e.g.:

     some text

becomes:

     some textsome text

And, sometimes when I try to highlight a line, the line 7 lines below
the cursor gets highlighted.

intel mac, os 10.4.7, python 2.4.4