Letters To The Editor

SPOKANE MATTERS

Hoopfest experience awful

I participated in Hoopfest this year for my first - and probably last - time.

During our game on Sunday, I was hit in the face on the first shot of the game. A few minutes later, I went up for a rebound and came down with the ball and a broken nose.

This was the second time within two minutes I was struck in the nose by the same person’s elbow. There were no medical personnel on my block, so my friend’s mom and I ended up walking from the Washington Water Power building across downtown to the first aid station at Riverside and Wall.

In our search for the first aid station, we saw a policeman. We asked what we thought should be an easy question: “Could you tell us where the first aid station is?” The police officer simply replied “no,” turned around and started talking to another man.

Someone else standing there saw me bleeding and told us where to go.

I hope that in the future there will be a lot fewer flagrant fouls and more medical help.

Around 1 p.m., at the emergency room, they told us there were already more injuries from Hoopfest than for all of Bloomsday and that the injuries from Hoopfest were more serious. For Bloomsday, you have a tag with personal information and an emergency contact. There is no such thing for Hoopfest. This is something organizers could look into for the future. Matthew Fechter Spokane

Division focus: Keep looking

This is in regard to the article “Division focus on safety project” (June 29).

I am originally from Connecticut. In that state, they banned signs and advertisements along the highways and roads, due to the fact the signs caused severe accidents when drivers’ attention was placed in reading these advertisements, instead of keeping their eyes on the road.

I don’t think the proposed intensive police enforcement is a very good way for us to solve the problem of speeding along that stretch or accidents in that area. I think we should look at different ways of solving the problem. Catherine Orr Spokane

Hasson career in for a downsizing

So, Commissioner Steve Hasson is at it again. Evidently, he ran out of windows to jump out of or hasn’t found a new cornbread supplier. So now, according to the June 27 newspaper, he’s “putting the fear of God” into our county employees.

How sad for Spokane County that we have to endure yet another year of his antics. Worse yet, Commissioners Phil Harris and George Marlton are either blind or don’t have a clue as to what this absent-minded commissioner is doing to Spokane County.

Yes, changes need to be made in county government, but what happened to good management skills, common sense and leadership - things the commissioners were elected to provide?

Do your damage now, Hasson, because the smart voters of this county will not give you another opportunity to manage this county by fear, intimidation or egomania.

Get a clue, Harris and Marlton, and get control of this guy. You have two votes; he only has one. V.B. Shively Spokane

LAW AND JUSTICE

Leonard Peltier rightly convicted

I note in letters to the editor and Associated Press stories that Free Leonard Peltier is in full swing.

June 26, 1995 is the anniversary of the date when Peltier murdered two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. One of the murdered agents was Tim Williams, with whom I served in March 1973 at this reservation, attempting to stem the illegal hostage-taking by members of the American Indian Movement.

I could go on at length to show Peltier was the guilty party. Peltier used an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle fired point blank at Williams and Agent Jack Coler. Peltier fled the scene. He was extradited from Canada after almost a year of legal proceedings, tried by a jury in North Dakota and convicted.

Appeals that he didn’t receive a fair trial have been repeatedly heard and rejected by the Eighth U.S. Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court. Peltier’s well-financed legal team is led by radical luminary William Kunstler.

Also notable is that Peltier admitted to FBI agents in Canada in 1976, after his capture, that he killed the FBI agents because he was afraid they were going to arrest him. He had been charged in Milwaukee with attempted murder, skipped bail and was a hunted man at the time he murdered the two FBI agents.

I ask you to keep this in mind as you read byproducts of the international frenzy to free this murderer. Donald H. Head, FBI, retired Spokane

Peltier story one more injustice

The June 26 front page article on Leonard Peltier (“Europeans see Peltier as America’s Mandela”) was puny journalism.

It’s not surprising the byline said only Associated Press. I wouldn’t have wanted my name on a piece that could have been written by an apologist for the worst of the U.S. judicial system. On the 20th anniversary of the incident at Oglala, it was appropriate to have a major article. The Spokesman-Review might have offered one that would respect your readers.

Many of us are aware of government misconduct in every aspect of the case, from the goons at Pine Ridge to the whitewash of FBI perjury, the judge’s bias at trial and the efforts to downplay the outrage from abroad.

One reason for having a locally produced article is that Joe Stuntz was from the Spokane area. Joe Stuntz is the almost forgotten man, the Indian who was shot and killed by federal agents, whose death has never been investigated.

Leonard Peltier may have been a rather ordinary person when he decided to leave Seattle and join the American Indian Movement (AIM) at Pine Ridge, but since his sham trial and unjust incarceration, he has shown the insight and dignity of a leader and a role model for oppressed people everywhere. More is the shame for each president who has failed to release him, and the frustration for each of us who longs for justice in this land.

Before you next criticize another country for holding political prisoners, learn the facts of the case against Leonard Peltier. Rusty Nelson Spokane

Drug testing supremely worthwhile

In response to sports columnist John Blanchette (“‘Just say no’ has become ‘go prove it’,” Sports, June 28) and other critics of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on school drug testing, I must agree with the position on the importance of deterring drug use by school athletes.

As an athlete from junior high through college, I completed an annual physical exam, like nearly every school athlete today. Filling the “proverbial cup” was as routine as towel fights and gang showers. I had no clue as to what was done with the contents, nor did I give a second thought as to the loss of “dignity” I might have suffered for complying.

Now that the court has stepped into the locker room, we want to make an issue of the fact that, “mass, suspicious searches” will somehow diminish the true value of school sports - teamwork, self-esteem, physical fitness and the sportsmanship that comes from competing on a level playing field.

We hear about the negative effects of drugs when Ben Johnson is stripped of an Olympic Gold Medal or when the message of just say no comes from a dying Lyle Alzado.

What about the danger of drug experimentation by the kid who wants to make the starting line-up? Is the loss of dignity that comes from asking a kid to pee in a cup not worth the stronger statement made by reinforcing the idea that drugs and sports don’t play well together? Unfortunately, school drug testing may be the only way to get this point across.

With just say no becoming more and more of a cliche, Pat Pfeifer is right in his support for “giving them a reason to say no.” Kevin Swaim Spokane

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Meat safety: Time for a boycott?

I am both shocked and amazed at the House Appropriation Committees’ amendment - backed by Rep. George Nethercutt - to force the Agriculture Department to deal with the meat industry in setting up a new meat inspection system.

The move for a tougher inspection system, which the Agriculture Department oversees, was prompted in large part by an outbreak of food poisoning in the state of Washington in early 1993. As a result of that outbreak, three children died and hundreds were sickened from eating hamburgers tainted with E. coli bacteria.

During a hearing before the vote, the House was warned that an estimated 7,000 people (young children, I would think) die in the United States each year from food poisoning.

Nethercutt said after the vote that the meat industry deserves more of a role in formulating a safety plan and that giving it more of a say would not undermine public health.

If we the people, who have precious young children who love to go to fast food shops, can’t convince Rep. Nethercutt to vote with us instead of with the meat industry, then perhaps we can get the job done by not taking those precious children to such places until we get results. Irene Garner Walla Walla

Prevent rip-off of Hanford Reach

What ever happened to the efforts to save the Hanford Reach of the Columbia River?

The National Park Service proposal to designate the Hanford Reach a recreational river and the public lands of the Wahluke Slope a national wildlife refuge are still alive. Yet our county commissioner and “Doc” Hastings still shortsightedly oppose these proposals.

Benton, Franklin, and Grant county commissioners attempted to cut a deal with Washington state officials and the federal departments of energy and interior to turn the Reach, and our public lands, over to them. This was soundly turned down by these agencies.

Still, the commissioners ignore that over 87 percent of their constituents support the Park Service proposal. The commissioners continue to support plans by a select group to turn our public lands over to private developers.

If this happens, the public will be locked off the land and we would lose badly needed outdoor recreational opportunities. The extremely important fisheries of the Reach would be threatened.

Let your commissioners know you want the Wahluke Slope and Hanford Reach preserved, for you and for your children’s future. If they are “privatized” they will be gone forever. Bob Wilson Richland

PEOPLE IN SOCIETY

Allow time to work through pain

There was an article in the June 29 paper in which a statement was made by a day care operator suggesting “It’s time to move on; we want them (the children) to just forget it,” referring to Rachel Carver.

This deeply concerns me.

Grief takes time, and as adults, professionals, mothers, grandmothers and friends, I believe the greatest gift we can give our children is permission for them to have their feelings, grief, pain and anger. I feel we do them an injustice and create only more serious issues by encouraging them to just go on.

I feel we do this not for what’s best for the children, but what is easiest for us.

It is painful for us to watch people we care about suffer. We want to fix it. I see people every day who come into therapy to process deeply repressed emotions that have been postponed, often for many years.

I encourage people to stay in the pain with the grieving children and adults during this tragic time and create a safe place for this natural healing to take place. Connie Greco Silk Spokane