Letters To The Editor

IDAHO VIEWPOINTS

Hunt story should’ve gotten away

I read your (Dec. 13) article that glorified New Yorkers for shooting two runaway cows in Idaho for sport. You, in turn, chide Idaho hunters for not joining in. Something is mighty wrong with this story, which makes me ask the following questions: 1. Why should two hunters travel across the country just to take home cow ear tags when they could have stopped in Chicago at the stockyards?

2. Will these so-called hunters qualify for Boone and Crockett points?

3. Can the remaining herd seek protection as endangered species, along with the caribou and grizzly bear?

4. Will Outdoor Sportsman feature the video shot during the hunt under the title “Wild Cow Encounter”?

5. Are North Idaho cattle ranches being converted to private hunt clubs with trophy Herefords for out-of-staters?

6. Could it be that this herd came across the Canadian border, smuggling grass?

7. Out-of-state hunters have in the past shot at most everything, saying that they thought it was a deer. Will they now rely on the explanation that it may have been a cow?

8. Were the two white-tail deer, taken at the same hunt, also baited in with hay?

Your story is about as sharp as the described three-inch jackknife used in the butchering. Most North Idaho hunters wouldn’t want any part of this “hunt.” Dean Yongue Blanchard, Idaho

SPOKANE MATTERS

Trains tie up intersection

I realize the work on the rail line at Trent and Argonne is finally happening, but this is ridiculous.

On a recent morning there were about 15 long toots at 6 a.m., and during the lunch rush hour a train was blocking Trent and University for more than one hour.

Why? It surely doesn’t take more than an hour for one train to wait for another train going in the opposite direction to switch tracks. What were they doing, taking a lunch break?

What if someone had to use the intersection at Trent and University? They would have had to go to Pines or Dale and would lose precious minutes. Mary Emtman Spokane

It’s all in the timing

After reading the article on the passed city budget, I realized that our mayor gave himself an out to give those “top” (in one respect, a debatable adjective) city managers a raise in the next few months by calling the budget “a flexible document that will change in the next few months.” “The next few months” meaning by the time the next property tax increase falls due?

Speaking of the property tax, how can the city lose $212,000 of revenue it has never had its mitts on? That was a proposed, daydream-type, revenue. To be more factual, you should have reported that the 5 percent tax increase will bring $1.06 million to the city coffers from the shallow pockets of Spokane’s hard-working property owners. If you had written that up front fact, it would have been a nice change from the usual skewed reporting of the Spokesman. Marlene Brazington Spokane

Council not so quick on the draw

City Council members, remember the James brothers of Old West fame? Nowadays, it’s Terry Novak and Roger Crum.

Do you recall their past heists of the pension fund, when both were in your employ? Now, Crum has been caught again. When will you learn that this man is too devious to be in his position? Bill Luck Spokane

SPOKANE COUNTY

Let’s have a careful accounting

Before we raise golf fees in the county, why not have a committee find out how our three courses are operated and where the money goes? Examine the bookkeeping, records of who played, what was paid by who and where all the fees go from extras such as golf carts, driving range, food and beverage service.

Find out if they are following the same procedure used on private and public courses in other cities and counties.

We are supposed to check to see if there is a need or if this is just another way for those who are able to afford a little more to eliminate the not so fortunate so they can get the tee times they desire.

We used to support the county courses on golf fees alone. If there has been a change in the last few years let’s hear why and who caused this to happen.

I hope this is not a way for those who cannot afford or who can’t get into the country clubs to see that the county gives them their courses for a few dollars more. Jack Grier Spokane

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Doc Gingrich prescribes snake oil

Why is House Speaker Newt Gingrich so enthused over the newly proposed medical savings account plan to replace Medicare? He, with the majority of his GOP House and Senate colleagues, wishes to slash Medicare funding by $270 billion over the next seven years. This would dramatically reduce Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals, forcing them to curtail health care to lowerincome groups.

The Republican proposal will be a boon to the health insurance industry as those most affected by Medicare cuts will be forced into the grasp of Pat Rooney whose “Golden Rule savings accounts” inspired Gingrich, benefitting mainly those who stay healthy or can afford unforeseen medical costs.

Why has Rooney’s Golden Rule Insurance Co. caught Gingrich and cohort’s ears? Could it be the $1 million contributed to Republican congressmen - $200,000 to Gingrich alone?

Will MSAs actually reduce Medicare spending? The GOP’s own Congressional Budget Office claims otherwise. It estimates they will actually increase taxpayers’ costs about $4 billion over the next seven years.

Harvard health care expert Dr. Steffie Woolhandler says, “A lot of its right-wing appeal is that it ends up being a big reward for affluent, healthy persons” - many of whom are PAC contributors.

Incidentally, Golden Rule health care policies were forced out of Vermont as over 20 percent of its policies had too many escape clauses in the fine print. And this is Gingrich’s fair-haired firm being touted up to shape the future of our nation’s health care system? Andy Kelly Spokane

Republican hands in cookie jar now

Carlton Gladder (Letters, Dec. 22) stated that Tom Foley was instrumental in stealing $439 billion from the Social Security reserve. This is unconscionable. Foley should be brought to task for this.

However, to his credit, Tom Foley, while stealing from the trust fund to lower the national debt, did not tell us he was using honest numbers and would balance the budget in seven years. This is what our current representative, George Nethercutt, is doing. And all the time he, too, is stealing from surplus Social Security funds.

In the year 2002, the year of balance, Social Security will be owed another $626 billion plus interest. According to the national headquarters of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), Social Security already owns 25 percent of the national debt. It seems more than ironic that Republicans, in their zeal to balance the budget and provide tax breaks for the favored few, will systematically steal one man’s tax to provide for another man’s tax break.

All working people should figure up how much they pay every year into FICA and then double it to account for their employer’s share. This is, in cold, hard dollars, what they are contributing to the Republican balanced budget and their neighbor’s tax break.

Everyone should wake up to what happened and what is happening.

Gladder, who will you blame in 2002? R.J. Jones Spokane

Revolution runs afoul of lies

Your recent front page headline proclaiming “Republican revolution grinds to a halt” is another example of liberal media bias.

Republicans are doing nothing less than standing firm on the most crucial issue of our time - getting runaway government spending under control, balancing the budget and freeing our children from the enormous burden of paying our bills.

The polls are not favoring the Republican plan to balance the budget because the average person has not been told the truth - by the Democrats or the media.

President Clinton accuses the Republicans of “gouging the elderly” with Medicare cuts. The truth is that under the Republican balanced budget plan, Medicare continues to increase beyond inflation, only the rate of increase is reduced.

It is interesting to note that the rate of increase suggested by the Republicans is the same rate suggested by Hillary Clinton during her universal health care hearings - and no one accused the Democrats then of “gouging the elderly.”

Behavior that President Clinton is exhibiting used to be called lying. The business of the press, the moral mandate guiding the principle of free speech, is to speak the truth. The future of our country is at stake here. Denise Graves Hayden Lake

RELIGION

Reconsider Christ’s birthday

In response to Merrily Lowry (Letters, Dec. 23), wishing non-Christians would not commercialize Christ’s birthday, it would be nice if she knew what she was talking about.

Dec. 25 was not Christ’s birthday. All research shows that Christ was born sometime in the fall, most probably around mid to late September. This has been repeatedly acknowledged by many historians and biblical experts.

Christmas became Christ’s birthday to appease the Romans and their celebration of the Saturnalia, a pagan observance. This is how the Christian church got the Romans to accept their religion.

You can’t take Christ out of Christmas because he was never there. This is further justified by saying yes, it might have been pagan then, but now we celebrate Christ’s birthday on that day.”

However, if you look in the Bible, in Deuteronomy 12:30-33, it tells us not to worship God as they worship their gods and to only do what He commands. Show me where Christmas is in the Bible.

Finally, in Ecclesiastes 7:1 it tells us that the day of one’s death is better than the day of one’s birth. Christ never told us to celebrate his birthday; that’s why he didn’t tell us when it was.

So Merrily, open your Bible and put down your condemnation of others. Joe Robinson Coeur d’Alene

Late December days long meaningful

There have been a couple of letters recently about Christmas, X-mas and secular gift-giving. I mean no disrespect to anyone’s religion, but gift-giving in late December is a custom older than Christianity.

Most cultures north of the equator hold celebrations to mark the return of the sun to a higher position in the sky. Primitive man, unaware of celestial mechanics, had no idea that the sun might not some year just keep on sinking. Hence, the Roman Saturnalia, the return of the invincible sun. The Saturnalia was a weeklong festival culminating on the date equivalent to Dec. 24. In the Julian calendar, the winter solstice falls on Dec. 25.

Compton’s Encyclopedia states, “When the date of Christmas was set to fall in December, it was done at least in part to compete with ancient pagan festivals that occurred about the same time.”

There is no historical record of a celebration of Christ’s birth until about the year 354. Again, Compton’s: “For several centuries the Christian church itself paid little attention to the celebration of Jesus’ birth… Only gradually, as the church developed a calendar to commemorate the major events of the life of Christ, did it celebrate the birth.”

One other point: “X” as a symbol for Christ is about 2,000 years old, so there is ample historical precedent for X-mas meaning Christmas. Also, an earlier form of “X,” written sideways, was the fish symbol. The fish both in ancient and modern times has been used to indicate Christ. Fred Glienna Coeur d’Alene

OTHER TOPICS

Better priorities do exist

Reading the front page on Dec. 20 made me realize again just how backwards our society has become. What a better world it would be if:

Our leaders would place compassion ahead of blame.

Thousands were “laid-on” at Christmas, and corporate profits (and stock prices) fell.

People would give anonymously to charity, rather than use it for advertising or to teach their children that charity gets your name in the paper.

Instead of determining “whether the family has grounds for a lawsuit” they were to determine there was grounds for forgiveness;

Instead of fabricating heroes, we were to assist real ones with their work.

At this time of year there’s an awful lot of talk about doing good and helping others, but our actions are so loud no one can hear the words. Dave Knecht Spokane

Only some schools in bad shape

U.S. schools are not falling apart.

This argument never ends. All districts experience problems from time to time. But to blanket charge that “U.S. schools falling apart,” as your Dec. 26 story did, is ridiculous.

First, what districts did the General Accounting Office look at? Exclusively, it was huge, inner-city, East Coast districts. Unfortunately, those districts do not usually have a sufficient tax base to sustain the best programs or environment.

Second, the U.S. government must get out of the business of schools. It is an area delegated to the states, which alone are responsible for maintaining schools.

Third, we must seek to keep older school buildings in repair and limit exorbitant expense where possible. Schools are almost 100 percent tax funded. They are a huge drain on the economy and must be accountable for their operations.

Americans enjoy the most expensive educational system in the world. What we produce can be suspect, or as the old biblical axiom says, ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth. Bob Spaulding Post Falls

Senate panel’s concern one-sided

I saw in the Dec. 21 newspaper that a Senate panel has concluded that an FBI sniper’s shot that killed the wife of white separatist Randy Weaver was illegal. I find it fascinating that the Senate would go ahead and do this while I do not recollect ever hearing the Senate panel say that the shot that killed the deputy U.S. marshall was illegal.

As an American, I find it a disgrace that this Senate panel is protecting and defending white separatists such as Randy Weaver. William Lind Post Falls

Point not well taken

John Michels’ Dec. 2 letter (“What kind of diversity qualifies?”) completely misses the point of V.J. Zimmerman’s letter of Nov. 29 (“Jettison this Reichwing zealot”).

Zimmerman advocates the acceptance of diversity, not the vilification of certain groups of people by an ignorant county coroner. Michels’ attempt to draw a parallel between Zimmerman’s plea to promote diversity and Nazi Germany is overreaching and ridiculous. Daryn Reid Spokane