Letters To The Editor

SPOKANE MATTERS

Skip questionnaire and use a broom

I thought why bother when I read the Review on Aug. 6. Then I read the edition on Aug. 10 and can’t ignore it any more.

The Aug. 6 request for citizen input on the budget is plain silliness. The town hall meeting at Ferris High School is pabulum for the populous.

Anyone who understands budgeting knows you can’t list a few categories and ask the uninformed where and how much to cut. Intelligent budgeting requires rolling up you sleeves, digging into specifics and arming yourself with the facts. It’s work, hard work. This is why we elect people to the council.

Now, we’ve identified the problem. We’ve no leadership. We’ve a mayor who was elected on an oxymoron slogan, “Reinventing city government.” We have a council which is either too lazy or too incapable to do the job. If the citizens want efficiency they’ll have to make a clean sweep in the next election. Joe Johnson Spokane

Arena manager’s comments annoy

Re: “Arena folks fail to land big name.” (Aug. 10):

I think the person in charge of the arena is pretty arrogant to voice his opinion he couldn’t get a big name into the arena. John Michael Montgomery, The Mavericks and the Tractors are big names.

I feel bad the people of Spokane had to read this article and know the person in charge of the arena thought Van Halen would be a better pick to open up and tear down the Coliseum in one evening. Rick Kubesh Colville

BLAME-FIXING

Don’t confuse terms of abuse

We’re compelled to write in response to Dr. Dexter Amend’s assertion that the tragic and apparently lifelong sexual abuse of Rachel Carver was a series of homosexual acts. As practitioners and experts in the field of sexual abuse prevention for 20 years, we must challenge Dr. Amend’s assumption, as such assumptions serve to perpetuate one of the more pervasive myths about child sexual abuse.

Our extensive casework, along with that of other professionals in the field, reveals some sobering truths. The tragic fact is that child sodomy is common. Rarely, however, is it a homosexual act. Rather, as in Rachel Carver’s case, sodomy and other child sexual abuse is most frequently perpetrated by heterosexuals who are family members or close family friends.

We must differentiate between pedophiles and homosexuals if we expect to progress in our prevention of child sexual abuse.

We’re responsible for our children’s safety. In order for us to prevent such horrific experiences from happening to our children, we must understand clearly the facts about child sexual abuse, its perpetrators and its consequences. Susan Fabrikant and Marcia Gallucci Spokane Sexual Assault Center

Wrong to exploit tragedy

Dexter Amend is sincerely troubled, I’m sure, by the scores of sexual molestation cases involving minors, including that of Rachel Carver. But, should a public official use her coffin as a soapbox to preach a personal vilification campaign against people who have statistically no connection to the disturbing trend he discovered? Adam Karp Spokane

‘I’m completely appalled’

I’m completely appalled that Spokane County Coroner Dexter Amend would say such a thing as he did about homosexuals in the Aug. 9 paper. How could such an ignorant man be elected to such a high office or any office, for that matter?

Sodomy is most certainly not just a homosexual act. I know more heterosexuals who participate in sodomy, or anal sex, than homosexuals. I’ll gladly join a recall effort against Amend. Flaun Cline Spokane

Amend unfit, must go

I think we’d better get Spokane County Coroner Dr. Dexter Amend out of office, quickly.

Not because he’s a raging bigot, although obviously he is. Not because he’s using his position to jam his malignant opinions down our throats, although he is doing that. Not because he’s using the body of a murdered child for his own vicious purposes, although he’s doing that, too.

I think he’s unbalanced and out of control. His public remarks, blaming homosexuals for destroying Rachel Carver, tell me his irrational hatred is controlling his thinking processes. I believe this for two reasons. First, there wasn’t a shred of logic in his opinion. Second, a rational person would have realized how self-destructive these remarks would be.

A person out of control can’t be trusted to make rational, logical and objective decisions. If he’s mentally ill, he’s not responsible and we can deal with him sympathetically. We’d best be getting him out of office. Sarah Schoenfeld Spokane

PEOPLE IN SOCIETY

Violence breeds violence

I may only be a 22-year-old kid, but the violence in Spokane disturbs me. I believe strength comes with achievement, not with control.

It seems to me, the few gang-related problems I’ve met with in my life have one thing in common: recognition. Sadly, many people die in the United States because someone disliked their views. There’s got to be more to life than killing the peace we all strived for in our country in the past and present.

I hope someone out there understands violence only creates more violence. The pain of this vicious cycle won’t end until we learn to achieve strength and recognition through peace, not anger. Dorothy Jacobs Spokane

We’re on the path to hell

We’re existing in a morally bankrupt society. Everyone needs something to believe in.

A few hundred years ago, some concerned citizens designed a set of governing standards for this new country. They’re known as the Constitution. The Constitution was intended to set a standard for the United States of America, which is a joke. We’re not remotely united.

Our politicians fight for prestige and personal gain while our country goes down the drain. You can’t separate church and state and still honor the Constitution. The Constitution declares ours to be a Christian nation. This same Constitution doesn’t sanction murder by abortion.

If social conditions almost 2,000 years ago were the same as they are now, there wouldn’t be any hope for this world because Jesus Christ would have been aborted. Someone once said, “If there weren’t a God, it would be necessary to invent one.”

There’s a lot of that going on. Many groups set rules having nothing to do with God. They are designed to justify their own morbid, twisted ways of life. These groups have nothing in common with Christianity.

There’s no provisions for man’s so-called changing lifestyle in God’s rules. Any departure or rationalization of these divine laws reduces a man-formed religion, church or ministry to nothing more than a social club.

The downward plunge of this morally bankrupt society can only be stopped by living by the standards set forth by our true leader, Jesus Christ. The word of God doesn’t allow for any buts, maybes or conditions. We either live by his law or go to hell. Ira Lee White Spokane

We cheapen value of life

I found reading The Spokesman-Review on Aug. 11 very heart-rending. I’ve felt for a long time the issue of abortion is the symptom of a larger problem. I hear people constantly arguing their views on one side or the other, both feeling they’re right.

I say abortion is a symptom of societies downgrading the value for life. We either value life or we don’t. Kenneth Comeslast was arrested for the murders of Cindy Buffin and Kendra Grantham. Jason Wickenhagen is the accused killer of 9-year-old Rachel Carver. Do they value life?

A doctor enters the birth canal and kills the fetus. Does he have a value for life?

As parents, what are the messages we’re giving our children? Is it a clear message we value life? Or is it a mixed message we believe in value for life after birth, but don’t give any value to life before birth? Susan Smith got rid of her children after she had them for a few years. Somehow society thinks she values life less than a mother who would have an abortion at seven or eight months.

It’s a lack of value for life in either case. We have to get back to giving our children clear messages. We have to start valuing life from conception. Our children will be quick to catch on.

Norma McCorvey, a.k.a. Jane Roe of the landmark Roe vs. Wade decision that legalized abortion, has realized it takes away value for life. We don’t need a law to make abortion legal. We need people to understand it takes away the value for life.

Without value for life, murder will increase. Dan Meckel Veradale

WAR AND REMEMBRANCE

Japanese asked for comeuppance

Underlying today’s controversy over dropping the bomb on Japan in World War II is pity over the deaths and injuries of noncombatant civilians.

Those civilians never protested against their military dictatorship when it invaded helpless, peaceful China, leading to Pearl Harbor and finally the bomb.

Did Japanese civilians really think they bore no responsibility for their government? How bitterly they - and their innocent children - suffered for that mistake.

They’ve only themselves to blame for taking the road to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese military dictatorship depended on the acquiescence of the populace - whose soldier sons committed terrible atrocities on civilians and prisoners of war. Similarly, the Chinese people could have modernized and armed, as they since have. Japan wouldn’t have dared to invade.

I lived in Shanghi during two Japanese invasions, visited wartime Japan before Pearl Harbor, served in the Navy during the war and saw what the Japanese did. They brought their troubles upon themselves. Had their citizens chosen to control their government instead of choosing to obey their military, they could have prevented the war from starting. Waste no tears on them.

Let us Americans remember that we too can make mistakes and will bear the consequences of our government’s actions. We had better be strong, realistic and intelligent when we vote. Fred Richardson Spokane

Boomers should appreciate bomb

Do the youthful writers of The Spokesman-Review who composed the headline “Vets say bomb got them home” appreciate what it meant to those writers?

To me and to hundreds of thousands in my shoes, it said it all: If those vets came home, they could and did have families. The original baby boom was recognition of that fact. For many, the bomb made your conception and birth possible. This was the case with my husband. He was receiving intensive training in the Chinese language, in preparation for duty instructing and in liaison with Chinese national troops using American-supplied weapons against the Japanese. Thanks to the bomb, he was spared that danger and we have two fine sons! Janis M. George Pullman

God sees killing as killing

This is in response to the Aug. 10 letter (“We wish to apologize”) by Gary Jewell.

I too am a Christian, but was troubled by the Peace Committee Shalom Fellowship’s beliefs regarding God’s view of nuclear weapons. While few if any of us know what God thinks on such matters, I doubt killing through the use of nuclear weapons is any more despicable in God’s eyes than is killing by any other means.

Would the committee feel more at ease if the American army had invaded Japan armed with rusty teaspoons, eviscerating the foe in hand-to-hand combat? For that matter, will God judge the men of the Manhattan Project and the crew of the Enola Gay any more harshly than the Japanese pilots of Admiral Yamamoto’s fleet, which attacked Pearl Harbor.

God has told us killing is a sin regardless of how it’s accomplished. Thus, it would seem that when confronted with war, the best possible action is to end it quickly with the least possible loss of human life. Many people, Christians included, believe the atomic bombs dropped on Japan did just that. Graham Whitehouse Spokane

Japanese opened Pandora’s box

Protests over the Smithsonian Institution’s display of the Enola Gay exhibit and debate about the morality of dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima will go on. To my friend, Herbert Kent, the right decision was made.

On Aug. 6, 1945, Sgt. Kent was a prisoner of war doing slave labor in Japanese copper mines. As a POW for 40 months, he was happy to be alive and see the war end. (His brother, Robert, also a prisoner, died earlier in a torpedoed Japanese ship).

Herb and Robert were stationed on Bataan when it fell to the Japanese. They escaped to Corregidor, then became prisoners when it fell.

The ravages of prison camp took their toll on Herb as he and fellow prisoners lived on a diet of fish heads and rice. Health problems have plagued him ever since he returned to farm in Adams County.

Herb is quick to remind us of the atrocities of imperialistic, expansionist Japan. Most ignominious of its atrocities was the infamous Rape of Nanking, in which Japanese soldiers slaughtered 200,000 Chinese civilians in the takeover of the southern capital.

Protesters and history revisionists enjoy pontificating about the morality of our past acts. Let them pound their gums all they want. I consider the whole morality question about the bomb moot. Like Herb says, “The Japanese started it, didn’t they?”

Let’s let the Enola Gay exhibit remind the Japanese of the high cost of military imperialism and remind Americans the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Merle R. Craner Cheney