Letters To The Editor

WACO INCIDENT

Government not the guilty party

It’s truly sickening to read letters that sympathize with the apparent motive behind the Oklahoma bombing. Even at work, a federal institution, people I’ve always known to be law-and-order proponents say they regret the bombing but understand the reasons behind it, referring to Waco.

For you sympathizers, most of whom undoubtedly get your news from talk hate radio, I’d like to refresh your memory as to what actually happened at Waco.

Federal agents carried a lawful warrant (the first person to die at Waco was an Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms agent trying to serve a warrant) and were not, as suggested by talk radio, government storm troopers.

The warrant was issued because there was ample evidence that David Koresh and his followers had a cache of thousands of pounds of explosives and illegal weapons. This was later corroborated. It was also known that Koresh had multiple wives and there was strong evidence that he was having sex with underage girls.

The siege at Waco lasted 59 days, during which time anybody could have walked out.

No other law enforcement agency in the world would have had the restraint - especially after four of its own were killed - to have waited that long before attacking the compound. When it did, the ATF still showed restraint, trying to keep people in the compound alive.

Koresh had other ideas. The fire that killed those people was started from within, and the bullet wounds to the heads of the children and adults in the compound were inflicted by the Branch Davidians themselves. Terry Neumann Spokane

Senate Waco hearings should help

Hate is dangerous. It usually destroys the hater mentally.

President Clinton put the blame for hate creation on the shoulders of conservative talk show hosts - the same broad-brush group accusations Joe McCarthy was condemned for using by President Eisenhower.

It will be interesting to find out if the mad bombers listen to any talk show.

Their hate could have been fanned by a report on Waco given by Alan Stone, a Harvard psychiatrist and former president of the American Psychiatric Association. His searing report showed the Davidian “cultists” did not deserve what they got.

The jury forewoman who sat on the trial of the surviving Davidians said,”I wish everyone had just been acquitted on all charges. The federal government was absolutely out of control there.”

Thanks to a Republican majority in the Senate, Sen. John McCain will head a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing covering the siege at Waco, where 85 people, including 25 children, were killed. The light of truth on the proceedings should be a great start to ending hate that often flows out of the unknown. Don Reed Spokane

THE MEDIA

Reject obnoxious talk show hosts

Although most Americans have been united and incensed by the outrage in Oklahoma City and are backing the police investigation to find the remaining culprits, others are not.

I recently listened to two radio talk show hosts: Todd Herman, locally; and G. Gordon Liddy, nationally. Both expressed some regret about the federal building massacre, but at the same time gave support to those militia types who like to collect their semiautomatic weapons and evade taxes.

While the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms are attempting to control the type of scum that would blow up a day care center, some talk show hosts continue to bad-mouth those same law enforcement agencies.

If you can bear listening to these “personalities,” and agree that their venom is hurting our country, you may wish to contact the good people who sponsor their programs and give them your opinion.

G. Gordon Liddy is coming to Spokane this month to give a performance to anyone willing to pay $15 to hear him talk his trash. While I believe in free speech, I think we should avoid sponsoring an individual who has blood on his hands. Richard Washington Spokane

Consider ‘labeling process’ origin

In response to “Foster latest victim of labeling process” (May 2):

Isn’t it interesting that the same media are now making accusations such as, “Thomas was accused by a former colleague, Anita Hill, of sexual harassment in sensational nationally televised hearings.”

None of this would be sensational or nationally televised if the media didn’t make it so. Pat Hardin Otis Orchards

Rescuers show media up

Well, it’s been two weeks now since the bombing. Personally, I’ve heard a lot of allegations, accusations, political posturing and sensationalism, but not much coverage.

The criminal investigators must really envy the news media; the facts don’t count, just make up the story as you go along. Take a couple of polls, find out who’s least popular this week, and they must have done it. Oh, maybe it was Rep. Helen Chenoweth - she made a campaign speech in a church, after all, and that must mean she is a puppet of the angry white males. We all know that angry white males go to church to hear campaign speeches.

No, I’m not rambling. I’m not irrational. But the media and politicians sure seem to be.

Coverage of the bombing has been full of arrogant egos attempting to grab the spotlight, political and media personalities who want to be bigger than the story.

Well, my hat is off to the men and women involved in the rescue effort; the regular men and women of America who are pitching in and risking life and limb for people they don’t even know. Those are the ones who happened on the scene and when it’s over will be bigger than the story.

As for the media and political personnel, go back to the O.J. Simpson trial. Your theatrics fit better in that backdrop. Craig Jensen Sandpoint

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Get serious about N-waste

It’s been 35 years since President Eisenhower warned, “Beware the military/industrial complex.”

We spent $350 billion building our nuclear weapons arsenal. It’s going to cost $350 billion to clean up the nuclear weapons production facilities, like Hanford.

The nuclear establishment is self-serving, including the Department of Energy and private business. They are interested in their own employment and profits. The taxpayer can’t win in their game.

In order to minimize the costs of cleanup, three things are necessary.

First, an independent steering committee of scientists and businessmen with oversight powers should be established in order to minimize expenditures.

Second, nuclear waste burial facilities must be developed. The only option with high-level nuclear waste is burial deep underground, out of the biosphere. Until we have burial facilities, we are just moving the piles around and generating more low-level waste. This is very expensive.

Third, politicians must provide leadership and the federal government must provide good management.

The Republicans’ proposal to privatize the mess is absurd, because the only profit comes from billing the taxpayer. Nobody will pay for nuclear waste. S.S. Howze Sagle, Idaho

System there to correct wrongs

Everyone has grievances of one kind or another. Hamlet wondered in his famous soliloquy if he should take up arms against a sea of troubles.

The proper place to correct injustices or inequities in the government - real or imaginary - is at the ballot box. To go off in the woods and make like Robin Hood will only lead to anarchy.

The Lord resolves injustices in his own time and way. What happened to the communist threat? Or as the poet Villon said, “Where are the snows of yesteryear?” Adell Cook Spokane

Foster a killer of babies

The front page of the May 2 Spokesman-Review bemoans the “labeling” process of political nominees. In the case of surgeon general nominee Dr. Henry Foster, the label “abortionist” is too kind.

Whether it was one baby or 100 babies, he has taken innocent life. No matter how great his educational achievements, no matter what his professional track record, regardless of any other “nice guy” characteristics he may otherwise possess, the fact that he has participated in the taking of innocent human life should outright disqualify him for any government position, much less the nation’s highest medical post. The label is useful in identifying his disregard for human life - yours, mine or anyone else’s.

As all abortion providers and other murderers, the label Foster deserves is “killer,” and the position he and his confederates rate is “prisoner.” Steve Daley Spokane

Cartoon’s cleverness escapes me

Somehow, I fail to understand the “Milton Piggee” cartoon of May 2 (Your View, Roundtable): “If every child in America was born into a single mother welfare home, would you finally consider the system a failure?” Then the cartoon pig answers, “No, I’d call that a total success.”

So, just what are we readers to conclude? That Democrat women are single mom pigs while the richer, more sophisticated Republican women get abortions?

Our daughter is a single mom with a 5-year-old son who is in his second year at a private school. She owns her own home on 10 acres, drives a car that is paid for and has money in the bank. She is a college graduate and has never accepted a penny from welfare.

I wonder if Forrest Gump was a Democrat with his mom a welfare pig? Of course, that was just a movie, not a cartoon.

I sure hope your readers don’t take the adventures of Milton Piggee as gospel truth. Me, I just don’t get it. Maybe we all have to fail in order to succeed. Janet L. Forsman Spokane

Story ignored rebuff of assistance

In response to Grayden Jones’ front page story of April 23, “Wheat farmers out in cold”:

Gleaning a few comments from farmers to complete a news story based on your opinion that farmers lost powerful “protection” when Foley was ousted, you missed the most significant aspect of the election.

Farmers gave Nethercutt the narrow margin of victory. They deliberately repudiated a federal entitlement. Although enslaved by New Deal largesse, farmers rejected the infinite power of Speaker Foley. Foley vowed to protect us from additional burdens being attached to program payments in exchange for inevitable cuts in income support and continued limitations to markets. It was a dismal scenario for the region’s farmers. Foley expected us to accept his view as the only rational choice.

With Nethercutt, farmers can take a fresh look at the role of government in agriculture, debate how to effectively liberate the industry, and enact reforms that allow us to produce and market products more freely. He reminds us of our roots. We farm in a land of opportunity, not a land of guaranteed security.

Grayden Jones heard farmers complain that the media and public don’t understand. He had a chance to print a thoughtful analysis given the discussions we had. Instead, he, like Foley, believed he knew better. His narrow reporting is as irrelevant as Foley’s former dynasty. Mary Dye Pomeroy, Wash.

Trouble started with amendment

We should stop referring to money requested of or received from any department of the U.S. government as federal grants. A more correct identification of such money would be national grants.

Our federal government was destroyed in 1913 with the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment that left us with a national government. Now that government is being destroyed by a national debt.

The $6.6 million the Spokane City Council requested from HUD will hasten this destruction.

If we want our federal government back, all we have to do is repeal the Seventeenth Amendment. Then the various states will be represented in the Senate of the U.S. Congress. That is the basic requirement for federal government. Jon J. Tuning Spokane

CUSTODY CASE

Legal system abuses children

The May 1 Spokesman-Review carried an article regarding how the Simpson murder trial shakes Americans’ faith in the judicial system. Above that article was one on Baby Richard, a 4-year-old child being moved from the only parents he’s known to live with his birth parents. That article shakes my faith in the judicial system.

It is a horrendous thing when children can be abused by the system as 2-year-old Baby Jessica and Baby Richard have been been. “Abused” is indeed the correct word.

I do not presume to know what the legal ramifications are but I do know that no custody matters should be allowed to drag out for two to four years so a child can be wrenched from home the way these children were. Make no mistake, they will pay their whole lives through for the disruptions they suffer now.

The courts in this country have to start hearing and deciding custody matters in a timely fashion and put some time limits on how many appeals and continuances are allowed.

No child should go through the pain that Baby Richard was obviously in. How can any adoptive parent feel secure when decisions like these are being made by our courts? Catherine Trembley Spokane

Get bad law changed

The May 1 article about Baby Richard made me both sick and angry. How can our government be so devoid of common sense?

Then, on May 2, you ran an editorial about it which stated how I feel very well. The key sentence in this piece was, “The penalty for mistakes should fall on the erring adults, not on the children.”

John Webster wrote the editorial, titled, “Adoption laws should be changed.”

Anyone who didn’t read it should. All should demand that the law be changed. Jack Ensley Colfax, Wash.

Children treated like things

The unthinkable has happened again.

Your front page story of May 1 about Baby Richard tore my heart out. It shouldn’t have happened to Jessica deBoer and it’s an outrage that another child has been torn from his moorings.

One has to wonder about our judicial system when a child has to endure being treated like a piece of disputed disposable property, rather than as a person with no means of fighting back in his own interest.

I’m terribly grateful that my own adoption took place 49 years ago. I was ever safe from strangers in my father’s arms. Carol Dawes College Place, Wash.

ANIMALS

Abandoning pet never for the best

A gentleman, distraught because he could no longer provide a home for his cat, called me at the Spokane Humane Society. Newly homeless, he insisted that he couldn’t bring his 4-year-old pet to the pound, where she would be killed. He didn’t want his cat in a cage.

I tried to assure him that we would make every effort to find his kitty a home. And since she is sterilized, she would be in the free-roaming room.

After five minutes of futile conversation, he hung up, after assuring me he’d rather put his pet out to fend for herself.

I pointed out the fallacy of this choice. His beloved pet will probably be one of the 600 cats picked up dead on arrival annually in the city of Spokane or one of the multitude that didn’t die outright but were on the losing end of a match with a vehicle or another animal.

All our staff share a love of animals and make every effort to get them returned to their owners or placed in a loving home. Euthanasia, a peaceful death, is the last resort.

No shelter is a no-kill shelter. If they don’t personally euthanize, they just pass the unwanted task on to someone else. All three Spokane-area shelters bear the brunt of irresponsible pet owners who contribute to the throwaway mentality of the ‘90s.

To the young man who called Wednesday, please, before you throw Miss Kitty out to fend for herself, call me. We’ll work something out. Dona Van Gelder, director Spokane Humane Society