Letters To The Editor

SPOKANE MATTERS

Shame to see Coliseum scrapped

I cringe every time I see or hear our Coliseum referred to as “the barn.” Just because the city’s lack of maintenance has led to the deterioration of this once beautiful building, it is not a barn. I still believe 38 years is not old for a building properly maintained and that to tear it down is a terrible waste at a time when waste is a naughty word.

The Coliseum was built by the late Henry George, who donated both his time and money to construct this multipurpose facility at virtual cost so the citizens could have as much building as possible for the minimal money available.

Mr. George was an outstanding public-spirited citizen who, way back when the Spokane Interstate Fair was all but finished, put up $40,000 of his own cash to keep it alive. This was back when $40,000 was a lot of money. Look what we have today.

Also, the Hall of Fame Room at the Coliseum was constructed - including the original glass display cases - by the late Hal Halvorson at no charge to the city. Hal was another very generous public-spirited citizen who gave freely of his time and money. Frank B. Herron Spokane

Homeless: Can’t believe numbers

On April 15, Spokesman-Review staff writer Jim Lynch reported on federal money that was intended for Spokane’s homeless population, which was estimated to be 6,000 people.

June Shapiro, city director of human services, had requested the feds give Spokane $5 million to build a homeless shelter to “move from an area of Band-Aid treatment, of just sheltering people, to giving them skills to get out of their situations.”

My opinion is that Lynch and the quoted homeless advocates are way off base about their numbers. I also believe Shapiro is totally wrong about her approach to the homeless situation.

In January, I did a very unscientific study of a majority of the programs in Spokane that are dealing with the homeless. I phoned the following agencies and asked about their programs and the numbers of people they served: the Salvation Army, Spokane Low-Income Housing Consortium, Union Gospel Mission, Anna Ogden Hall, Crisis Residential Center, Lutheran Social Services, YWCA, Single Parent Outreach Connection, Booth Care, Drop-In Center, Transitional Living Center, Miryam’s House, Catholic Family Services, Dominican Catholic Charities and others.

The 6,000 homeless people must be somewhere else. They are not in Spokane. The reported figures are highly inflated.

What I did find was a blanket of well-integrated private care agencies, each involved in providing a unique and specialized service to the homeless population. Many programs were skills oriented.

The private sector can do a better job of serving Spokane’s homeless. Dave Graham Liberty lake

Why play down falls’ beauty?

Downtown Spokane is blessed with spectacular Spokane Falls. Why are they trying so hard to hide it?

It could be a tremendous tourist attraction. Please do not let greedy developers rob Spokane of its inheritance.

Coming into Spokane from the west, I see no signs directing tourists to the falls, to parking spaces or a tourist viewing center.

I have lasting memories of seeing the falls many years ago as a young child.

Washtucna is the gateway to the Palouse Falls. Many people come great distances to view it, picnic in the large park area and enjoy the nature trails. Gladys Sutherland Washtucna, Wash.

Well, it helped in Haiti

Many people in Spokane care a great deal about keeping Walk in the Wild Zoo open at its present location. It doesn’t make sense spending $2 million to move it to a new site when the current site is excellent.

What does the Inland Empire Zoological Society have to do? Call in Jimmy Carter to get the county commissioners and the Cowles representatives to sit down and work out a viable solution? Sharon Leon Spokane

IN WASHINGTON STATE

Tobacco tax exports consumers

In response to Theresa Boschert’s April 15 letter, the reason for the lobbying effort to reduce the cigarette excise taxes is so we can keep business and tax dollars here in our own state. Estimates vary widely - anywhere from $40 million annually (Washington State Department of Revenue) to $87 million and higher.

Many tobacco consumers buy their products from outof-state retailers and mail order catalogs so they don’t have to pay our extremely high excise taxes. The tobacco tax is 74.9 percent. The state of Idaho’s excise tax is just $2.80 per carton and 40 percent on other tobacco products.

So when those consumers leave our state to buy their goods, who really are the losers? The state of Washington and its citizens. Canada had the same problem a few years back, and it reduced its taxes. So why don’t we? Doug Burke Spokane

ECHOES OF WAR

How about some retribution?

Even Clinton, with all of his wacko values and warped lifestyle, doesn’t anger me as much as the admission - 30 years late - by Robert Strange McNamara that the Vietnam War was terribly wrong.

As a veteran and a patriot, I marched twice for victory in Vietnam in Washington, D.C., during the war. I have a stack of letters to senators, congressmen and cabinet members protesting our no-win policy, while 400 bodies a week were returning to sobbing mothers and fathers, and nobody knows how many mangled and wounded bodies and minds are still among these men, even today.

If you and I willfully sent men to their deaths and mothers into depression for an action you knew was morally corrupt and terribly wrong, we’d be tried, convicted and hung. But Robert Strange McNamara will collect royalties, maybe get a movie deal and all of the accolades of President Clinton.

I say, let’s give the Strange one 1,001 nights at the Hanoi Hilton and his yellow buddy in the White House a few weeks on the front lines in Bosnia. Ken Orr Rathdrum

No vindication at all

Tell President Clinton that Robert McNamara’s book did not vindicate anybody, unless he thinks protesters should run the country and follow only the orders they like.

For better or for worse, decisions have to be made by an elected government or else there is anarchy. Somehow, I do not think those who protested would have gone willingly even if the war had been “right.” Judging from the protesters I saw during the ‘60s and ‘70s, I do not think any of them would have heeded the call to harm’s way if the Russians had been invading Plymouth Rock.

All McNamara did was purge his conscience and invalidate all the sacrifices made by those who did go to Vietnam. Thomas Ryan Spokane

No justice to be had in this

Ex-secretary of defense Robert S. McNamara first was on a power trip with his Vietnam War position. Now he gets to make a lot of money on a book saying he was wrong and knew it at the time.

A lot of American soldiers died and more were injured who didn’t need to be. Now, the ones who did return are told it was a mistake and that they suffered for nothing.

Don’t forget that McNamara was part of a liberal Democrat’s presidency. The protesters were still wrong in their treatment of our servicemen. The book does not vindicate them at all. There is no justification for the treason that some of them committed. Lanny Spurlock Athol, Idaho

A-bomb: I’ll say I’m sorry

It is sad that in this democracy even a president must silence his humanity. This compromise offers denial of an apology for a country’s act that is little considered, nor its consequence disputed, nor even thought of as appalling.

In truth, one should be allowed to say I’m sorry, how regrettable, how wrong.

This silence, this lack of kindness to the collective society, does not a friendship build.

Therefore I offer an apology for the deed that has been done, which can never be undone, to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki:

One little apology among the millions that go unspoken.

One thought of regret among the billions never voiced.

One sad tear among the multitude of crying.

One understanding that it must not happen again among the species that calls itself humanity.

A nexus in time, as much as a victim of the times, that splinters reality and sets forth thought and illusion, through the fragments of consciousness and society.

Oh, that birth of ugly truth that still threaten genocide of all mankind, I can only answer: I am sorry. Silvia Blackbourn Otis Orchards

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Republicans enable taxpayer rip-off

As Congress pushes through legislation paving the way for salvage logging in Idaho’s national forests, it is important that we take a good look at the consequences. Boise National Forest is indicative of the situation. According to the Forest Service, from 1988-1994, this forest generated revenues of $62.83 at a cost of $116.15 per thousand board feet. This is a loss of $53.32 per thousand board feet. During the same period, 764.5 million board feet of mostly salvaged timber was extracted; that’s nearly $41 million in deficit sales in six years.

Yet the Boise National Forest recently announced plans to salvage log 263 million board feet in areas burned last summer.

In 1992, timber sales in all national forests in Idaho resulted in $61.3 million in deficit sales, amounting to $136.14 paid by each taxpayer in the state. For citizens to bear the brunt of this while companies like Boise Cascade profit handsomely, as it did this last quarter, is nothing short of corporate welfare.

The Congressional Research Service has reported that “Salvage sales often cost more than the revenues they can generate, because of lower timber quality and higher operating costs for the buyers.”

Sen. Slade Gorton of Washington, Rep. Charles Taylor of North Carolina and our own Sen. Larry Craig are the leading lights of this salvage boondoggle. According to the Environmental Working Group, Gorton received $74,954 in campaign cash from timber companies. Taylor received $71,000. Craig, in his 1990 re-election bid, received $10,000 from Boise Cascade alone.

Need I say more? Don Smith, field representative Alliance for the Wild Rockies

Debt all liberals’ fault

It’s time for liberals to accept the blame for the mess our government is in. We find our nation at the brink of bankruptcy after 40 long years of free-spending, liberal government. Every child born today comes with a $30,000 debt.

Who will take the blame for cutting back government and the liberal programs it fosters? You can bet it won’t be the liberal management that got us here. I wonder how many of those same programs will still be in place after our nation goes through bankruptcy.

Please, cutting spending is the only way to preserve our younger generation and to save our country. We have no choice! Bert Clute Spokane

External gun control fails, too

President Clinton says he’ll compromise with Congress on most things but not gun control. Apparently, he wants to be known as the gun control president.

Meanwhile, we have results available from his international gun control experiments.

The Bosnian arms embargo is gun control on a large scale. It demonstrates what happens when one side - Muslims and Croats - is denied access to weapons, when the other side - Serbs - has virtually unlimited access. The result, of course, is a slaughter.

The slaughter has been so appalling it appears that even the Clinton administration is recognizing Bosnian gun control to be a failure. It is alleged that the president has given tacit approval to Iranian shipments of arms to Bosnian Muslims to defend themselves.

The other gun control experiment is Somalia. There, Clinton had the resources of the U.S. military to try to disarm the Somali warlords. The abject failure of that policy was manifest as the United States had to supply helicopter gunships and crack infantry to cover the withdrawal of the last U.N. peacekeepers. P. Norman Nelson Colbert , End federal tax withholding

Federal withholding tax was instituted in 1943 to finance the termination of World War II, kept in effect for the Korean War, then the Cold War and the Vietnam War.

All of these are over, so why is it still in effect? What if working Americans paid their total yearly tax obligation at the end of the year instead of the current withholding system?

If tax obligation day was moved from April 15 to Nov. 8 (election day), most, if not all, of our budgetary problems would shortly be resolved. There is nothing fiscally irresponsible politicians fear more than an angry voter. R.G. LeFrancis, Jr. Coeur d’Alene

PEOPLE IN SOCIETY

Beating kids a non-starter

In response to Aaron Williamson’s letter of April 14, regarding the idea of corporal punishment in schools:

There is a possibility that the reason a kid is acting out is because he or she is already being beaten at home. Another beating is all they need to increase their selfesteem.

As to his statement that parents play a big role in a child’s behavior patterns, he could not be more correct. The idea of having the parents participate in their children’s discipline is also a good thought. The active role would best serve their children if they be at the receiving end of the paddle.

Let’s wake up, crawl out of the cave and throw the club away. Beating a kid didn’t work, is not working and will never work.

Why do you think kids are on the streets?

It is unbelievable this kind of thinking still exists. Frank Steiner Cheney