Letters To The Editor

PEOPLE IN SOCIETY

Teach your children well

From the time people came to this earth, someone has been conquering someone. Atrocities are committed. Injustice is done. Looking back at all historical records there appears to be no race that is exempted from carrying out these evils.

Don’t be confused; there have been groups within most if not all races that have practiced beneficial, positive interaction with others. These examples can be learned from and emulated.

We spend a lot of time and energy crying about what your ancestors did to my ancestors and demanding compensation from you for past acts that you had nothing to do with. Let’s not forget the past but instead learn from it and use our knowledge to promote fairness, justice and harmony for all.

Wake up, people! What we spend our time and energy on is who we are. Decide what you want to be: a victim, victimizer or a benefit to yourself and society. Those who remain victims or victimizers do not benefit anyone. So let’s promote healthy, positive values and teach them to our children, for the benefit of everyone. Brad Brougher Mead

Single rose actually much more

Have you ever had someone give you a gift that money couldn’t buy?

On Mother’s Day, going to meet my family for breakfast, I stopped at Safeway at Mission and Argonne to buy roses for my daughter and granddaughter. As I was paying for the two roses, the lady in the floral department asked if one of them was for me. I told her no, they were for my family.

She went over to the roses and brought back a beautiful peach-colored rose and said, “Have a nice Mother’s Day.”

With the gift of the rose, it was a perfect day. Norma Smith Spokane

Pro-life people not as depicted

The letter from Carlos Landa (“Christian duty drops in,” May 24) makes several not only erroneous but bothersome statements.

He said that those in the pro-life movement here in Spokane “regularly harass the clinic.” On the contrary. If any harassment is done, it is by the Planned Parenthood staff people who videotape our every movement.

Mr. Landa complains about the tax dollars used to have many police officers there, insinuating that the pro-life movement is responsible for their presence. Again, it is Planned Parenthood that requests their presence. He’s right, it is sad that the police are called because people are praying and singing in public.

Landa exhorts Flip Benham to “get a life.” Mr. Landa, Flip Benham, along with millions of others, is trying to save a life.

“Words of hatred” were not spoken. Had he been there, Mr. Landa would have heard prayers for the Planned Parenthood staff, its escorts, the police and the city of Spokane, of which he is a part.

The most disturbing statement made is where he compares the pro-life movement with the lunatics who bombed the Oklahoma City federal building. We are against violence, which is why we speak out against the killing of millions of children.

I urge Mr. Landa and all who follow his warped image of us to attend one of the rallies at Planned Parenthood to see us for who we really are: people who care about all life and who want changes to occur legally, not by force. Jill C. Simmons Spokane

SPOKANE MATTERS

Call parade sponsorship what it is

I am a junior at North Central High School and I participate in the marching band there. After marching in this year’s Lilac Parade, I found that this parade is something that Spokane as a city should be very proud to host. Keeping that in mind, I have a question.

Around town and on buses, on all the signs that were advertising this parade, the name of the parade was “Tidyman’s Armed Forces Torchlight Parade.” Why have we renamed the parade after Tidyman’s? Was it just because it was a major sponsor? This parade belongs to the city of Spokane and to its people, not the Tidyman’s grocery store chain.

This was my third year marching in this parade, and I enjoyed marching and providing entertainment for the people of Spokane and its visitors. But do we really want our visitors to believe that our Lilac Parade is actually Tidyman’s parade? To me, that would give people the idea that Tidyman’s started the parade and is part of the reason for having it.

If we want to recognize Tidyman’s for its contribution to this parade, why don’t we put it as “Spokane’s Armed Forces Torchlight Parade sponsored by Tidyman’s”? If we would do it that way, people would still know that Tidyman’s sponsored the parade, but they would also know that it belongs to Spokane and its people. Elizabeth Winters Spokane

Almost all made Lilac event great

A great big bunch of purple balloons to Dick Totten, Tidyman’s and everyone else who made the 1995 Lilac Parade the best ever. The floats were beautiful, the bands peppy, and the horses - well, horsey.

However, a great big plop of Icelandic pony poop to RiverPark Square and Crescent Court. which, in the ultimate downtown revitalization statement, closed the public restrooms of their malls at 8 p.m.

A gold star to Taco Time for keeping their restrooms open for anyone, paying customer or not. Rita Valentine Spokane

Dental care access a shared concern

In reply to Abigayle Murray’s letter of May 22 concerning access to dental offices by Medicaid patients, I can assure her that the dentists of this community and state are as frustrated as she is with the present system. We want to provide dental services for all the citizens of our community.

We have actively lobbied the state Legislature to increase funding to facilitate access. We have set up a free dental clinic at Spokane Community College that has been in service for over 10 years.

This summer a new mobile dental clinic will travel the state providing dental treatment to people in need. The new ABCD program begun this January will ultimately treat 15,000 of this county’s neediest children. Onehundred Spokane dentists will provide the treatment.

And, despite the difficulty welfare patients may have in making appointments in some offices, over 70 percent of the dentists in the state treat patients covered by Medicaid.

We regret the present system that would allow patients to experience the negative encounter Ms. Murray described. John T. Little III, D.D.S. President, Spokane District Dental Society

Let’s put error in perspective

Courthouse jester County Commissioner Steve Hasson wants to hire a manager to oversee the assessor’s office.

Assessor Charlene Cooney, a competent professional, is administering the major revenue-producing office in county government. Hasson thinks $96 million in valuations equals $96 million in spendable revenue. The fact is, only 1.5 percent of $96 million was lost.

Using Hasson’s formula, he would have to pay $117,000 in property tax each year on his $117,000 home. I don’t think so.

Charlene Cooney is doing her job and taking the media heat, and she doesn’t have to jump out any windows. Kathy Reid Spokane

IN THE PAPER

Parade all but passed you by

I simply cannot believe the coverage your paper gave the Lilac Festival - one picture and one article! You did the same thing with the Junior Lilac Parade - one picture and one article.

The Junior Lilac parade drew over 7,000 young people. The Lilac Festival had well over 100,000 people on the streets, plus all the entries. That’s over twice the number of people in Bloomsday, and I’m sure it brought twice as much money into Spokane as Bloomsday ever did. You had Bloomsday all over the paper the next day, plus a big single edition.

When you think of the number of people in every community who spend hours working on their floats, all the practice that the bands and drill teams put in and the big effort the Lilac Festival Board put into carrying this all off, it seems to me that they should be rewarded with a little more coverage than one picture and one article.

I didn’t know Willard Scott of NBC was going to be here until I just happened to read in very small print in the TV news that he was coming. Jeane Greene Spokane

Paper’s news worse than hotel’s oil

Your May 12 article, “State places Davenport on pollution list,” left me discouraged and dismayed about what should be an important Spokane institution. But not the Davenport; rather, The Spokesman-Review.

My list of complaints about this negative, slanted article, which is typical of The Spokesman-Review, is long. To cite just a few:

Why the prominent article about a potentially polluted site that may present a possible hazard, that is only one of 90 such places in Spokane County?

Why say the Davenport is currently open for “weekend functions” when - surprise, surprise - it is available any day of the week?

Why describe the Davenport as “the ornate centerpiece of Spokane for several decades in the middle of the century,” when anyone with more brains than a cuckoo clock knows the Davenport was and is much more than that to Spokane?

With its constant barrage of twisted “news” and bizarrely-chosen subjects for articles, The SpokesmanReview is a far worse polluter of our community than any underground oil. As one who cares about Spokane, I hope one day it will have what it currently lacks and desperately needs: a newspaper that helps the community move forward through accurate, insightful and constructive articles. Stephen J. Franks Spokane

Good news most welcome

Thank you for printing so much good news on the front page of the May 23 Spokesman-Review.

A little boy fishing.

A bear in a bear-friendly neighborhood.

A tribute to our own piano teacher - and more.

It made the walk to the paper box a pleasure, and gave a wonderful start to the day. Keep it up. Kay Harris Spokane

Cartoon with truck offends

This newspaper displayed poor taste in publishing the editorial cartoon of May 6.

The drawing shows a truck with the words “Wenatchee sex ring scandal” printed on the side. The truck is parked in front of a multi-storied office building labeled “Washington state Child Protective Services.”

This cartoon apparently suggests some relationship or similarity between the bombing of the federal office building in Oklahoma City and the multiple arrests and subsequent convictions of a number of individuals charged with sexually abusing children in Chelan and Douglas counties.

The cartoon’s purpose is open to broad interpretations, but the horror of the Oklahoma bombing taints any view of its meaning.

Child Protective Services workers acted properly, responsibly and in full cooperation with local law enforcement officers who brought these tragic situations to the department’s attention. CPS workers did not make up these charges, as is shown by some of the parental admissions in court documents open for public inspection. In fact, the professionalism and exhaustive efforts of CPS workers have helped dozens of children avoid further abuse and to find safety and treatment.

Sexual abuse of children is not amusing. There’s nothing funny about endangering the lives of hardworking, committed state employees. The humor, political satire or any political significance whatsoever of such a depiction eludes me. So does any connection with the horror of the Oklahoma bombing where innocent children and adults were slaughtered.

I’ve always considered The Spokesman-Review a reliable source of accurate, timely news and opinion. I hope your future endeavors will allow me to preserve that view. Jean T. Soliz, secretary Department of Social and Health Services, Olympia