Letters To The Editor

GRASS BURNING

Small price to pay for lawns

Five years ago, my husband and I built a home in the country, in a grass field. We live there with our three- and five-year-old daughters. Frankly, I’m saddened every time I see a grass field near our home being plowed up to be used for other crops.

The grass field sits there all year long keeping the soil in place. It’s then harvested so it can be used in yards, parks and golf courses.

One day a year the farmers burn the field so the grass will produce seed for the next year. I close my windows on that day to keep the smoke outside.

My heart goes out to all moms with children with health problems.

However, I believe the news media has misrepresented grass burning for numerous years. People who choose to live in an area, where farming was the basis of the economy long before they were born, need to remember the farmers were here first.

This is one more thing to think about. I love my lawn. Do you really want to live in a place where there is only blacktop, cement, stones, dirt and sand available for yards. If there’s no grass seed, the alternatives don’t look so green and feel so cool on a hot summer day. Cathie Brandt Valleyford, Wash.

Don’t believe grass burners

I get very angry when the grass burners say they aren’t hurting anyone. Their burning has ruined my life. When I grew up in Spokane, we had beautiful, unpolluted summers. There may have been a few grass growers, but they didn’t pollute the air.

After spending an active 30 years in Arizona, I returned to Spokane to have the grass burning damage my lungs so badly that I’m now limited to one or two hours of semiactivity per day. Unless I leave town, the smoke limits my breathing and puts me down in bed for several months after the burning has stopped. Thousands of other people are also suffering, so these greedy people can make a bigger profit.

Telling people there will be a cure for asthma in two or three years is cruel. The medical profession is always making promises of cures in two or three years, but they never happen.

The only way asthma can be cured is to clean up the air. It’s the constant irritation of pollutants that keep it progressing. More and more people are getting asthma. Air pollution is the cause. Leo K. Lindenbauer Spokane

Grass burning should be banned

Once again Spokane is blanketed with smoke from grass farmers burning their fields. Over 20,000 thousand acres will be burned this year, putting thousands of tons of particulate into the air we breathe.

The grass burners lobbied the Legislature to expand the grass-burning season under the promise that an unlimited burning season, including weekends and holidays, would eliminate the huge pollution problem by allowing farmers to self-regulate their emissions.

This promise of self-regulation is a farce. The city of Spokane is again saturated with grass smoke pollution and our state senators and representatives have been fooled again by empty promises from grass burners.

Obviously, the grass burners can’t be trusted to regulate themselves or to really look for alternatives to burning.

The only solution is to totally ban grass burning forever. Douglas J. Edwards Spokane

CHILDREN

Don’t allow children to be enslaved

The Sept. 19 story “Millions of children enslaved” points out that “to make consumer products for western nations,” more than 100 million Asian children work 6 a.m. to midnight in sweatshops, without regular meals, subject to rape, beatings, brandings and forced confinement.

The report by the world’s oldest human rights organization didn’t disclose names of companies whose products are made by exploited children, but stated that the United States, Canada, Australia and the European Union received the goods which include clothing, toys, car parts, rugs, and jewelry.

Who buys these products? All of us, everyday. Where are they sold? Walk into any store and you’ll quickly find many products from the major violators - India, Pakistan, Philippines, China, Indonesia, Thailand, etc., better yet, just check your clothes closet. These things are made by workers paid sub-poverty wages.

What to do? The article says many companies are unaware how their products are manufactured. It’s inexcusable (and frankly hard to believe) in this day and age that no one in these globe-trotting corporate structures is aware of exploitative labor practices by foreign trade manufacturers. Clearly, awareness and education still are needed. Please support international, national and local groups which act based on awareness of the global interconnectedness of our economics, environment, societies and human rights.

No man is an island. Yet, millions of children are enslaved still. David Brookbank Spokane

Children should come at right time

In response to the article by Ellen Goodman on Sept. 19: I think she’s missing the point, in reference to welfare reform. I, for one, believe mothers should be at home with their children. However, the issue here is changing the way people think about the right time and circumstances to have children and who should pay for it.

Many people won’t change unless forced, and money is a strong force in our society. It’s not right to expect people to pay for others decisions to have children out of wedlock or for people who can’t afford it to to have children.

This may sound cruel, but I’ve personally know families who have abused welfare for years, by having more children to get more benefits. This isn’t new, it’s been going on for years. I also know young girls who know that if they get pregnant and keep the baby, they’re entitled to medical care, food stamps, help with rent, etc.

Is this what we want available to our children, or do we want them to have to make the hard decisions that turn them into responsible, accountable adults? I’m not talking about abortion, but the loving thing to do, adoption.

Motherhood and staying home is making a comeback in our society. Within the diversity of our beliefs there’s a right and wrong way to do it, if we consider what’s best for the child first and not our own desires and if we, as parents, counsel our children, should they make mistakes. Karen Rubio Spokane

Cartoonist ignores the truth

In his usual mean-spirited and misleading style, Asay (Sept. 11) attributes all hunger of children in America to parental neglect.

In this manner, he can conveniently ignore the real factors facing an increasing number of families struggling in today’s economic environment: low-wage jobs, lack of benefits (including health care coverage), scarce and expensive childcare and rising housing, energy and food costs.

While parental neglect is a tragic factor in the lives of too many children, it can’t be the sole scapegoat for a broader problem affecting millions of children.

A new study of more than 5,000 households in 10 states found that when low-income families confront hunger, the first impulse is to protect the children. Parents take action to cut their own food intake before they ever let hunger affect children.

As Congress contemplates dismantling effective child nutrition programs, which have improved the health and nutritional status in American children for 40 years, it’s important to understand the real factors behind childhood hunger, not just the convenient scapegoats. Linda Stone, coordinator Spokane Children’s Alliance

OTHER TOPICS

American sovereignty being lost

A delegation of observers from the United Nations visited Yellowstone National Park this month to determine whether the international community should protest a gold mine proposed to be built just outside the park’s northern border.

The U.N. team next will submit its findings to the World Heritage Committee at its meeting in December. The group could choose then to designate Yellowstone a site “”in danger.”

Yellowstone Park is a natural heritage area, considered a “priceless and irreplaceable possession, not only of (this) nations, but of mankind as a whole.” Deterioration of Yellowstone “constitutes an impoverishment of the heritage of all the peoples in the world.”

UNESCO heritage sites are areas deemed to have cultural, historical, scientific or natural value to all the people of the world. At which point the world has the say, not the country in which the site exists. The United States has 18 “World Heritage Areas” and 47 “United Nations Biosphere Reserves.”

Along the same line - The NAFTA treaty created a North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation as an environmental arbiter. They will referee any environmental disputes in the United States. Pacific Northwest forests logging is being challenged using this treaty.

Those are only the tip of the iceberg. Americans sovereignty has been and is being signed away left and right. Most of the American citizens are completely unaware of what is going on. At what point in time do you think you should go to the effort of paying attention to how much of America sovereignty will be left for future generations? Betty L. White Tonasket, Wash.

Every citizen should speak English

I really think that Edward B. Keeley (Sept. 13) has completely missed the point of Sen. Bob Dole’s proposal.

You may still speak to your grandmother in Gaelic, Egyptian, Swahili or any language to know. You may even write to anyone in the world in any language you so desire. However, the law has ever been that in order to become an American citizen you must learn the English language.

If all citizens can speak the same language, it’s not necessary to print all the voting materials in anything but English. Much money is spent by school libraries in the purchase of literature and other academic materials in other than English. As a school librarian in California, I was required to try to provide materials in every language represented by a single student in the system. What a ridiculous demand.

When people choose to live in this country, it behooves them to learn the American way and to conform their lives to the American culture. This doesn’t mean that you and your relatives, or even your neighborhood, would not be allowed to have your own celebrations. It simply means that the rest of the American population wouldn’t be forced to foot the bill for your convenience.

If you were to move to a country where English wasn’t taught in schools, you would be hard-pressed to have materials printed in English for your benefit. They would tell you that if you wanted to be part of their country, then you need to learn their language and conform to their ways. Carol Wollweber Edwall, Wash.

Handicapped deserve better

I’m writing in response to Norma Stewart’s letter about the need for us to look around for the problems of the handicapped.

Last year, I was a senior at Mead High School and witnessed many discriminations and maltreatments of the handicapped students there. The program requires the special-education students to work two hours a day, four days a week. The jobs they do include scraping gum off the carpet, cleaning garbage cans and lockers and other menial, mindless tasks. One day, my best friend and I observed a fellow student on a wheelchair struggle to get through a hall, because she had a broom and dust pan laying across the armrests of her wheel chair.

I talked to two of the administrators at Mead and state Rep. Larry Crouse. They all told me one of two things: that this was a good program or there was nothing they could do about it. I was outraged by these replies. Handicapped mentally, physically or not at all, each student deserves the same education.

These students aren’t integrated into any classes that normal students attend. This is blatant discrimination and subordination in a government institution, which we should not tolerate.

Norma, I’ll tell you why there aren’t enough wheelchair ramps. It’s because people don’t care. If the problem doesn’t directly apply to us, we won’t bother with it. For any problem in this country, the underlying one is that of apathy. Chrissy Strick Mead

Quick death for Legal Services

I see from the Sept. 19 headline that Legal Services may be getting its budget cut. This, we are told, will devastate the rights of the poor to defend themselves against those out to victimize them. Let me tell you about my experience with Legal Services.

During our student days, my wife and I bought a low-income rental. Several months later, the renters alcoholic ex-husband moved in and she stopped paying the rent. Three months (and no rent) later, we hired an attorney. She got an attorney from Legal Services. Our attorney made several calls to this man, who never returned his calls, so we started the eviction procedure.

At 4:30 on the last day to answer our complaint, the renter did so, thus kicking the action into Superior Court. The day before the sheriff was set to evict, she moved. The process took eight weeks and cost us $700 plus lost rent. Meanwhile, she threw her trash in the back yard, knocked man-size holes in the walls, ran up a $200 water bill and left us with several thousand dollars in damages. The irony is that we were supporting two kids and going to school on part-time incomes that were lower than our renters income from welfare and food stamps.

The welfare state is not about protecting the poor and helpless. It’s about enabling politically correct special interest groups to use government to stick their hands into other peoples pockets. Legal Services is a very important part of this process. Hopefully, its demise will be quick and permanent. Jim Shamp Cheney

Hate only breeds hate

In response to Steve Daly’s Sept. 13 letter attacking the S-R for failing to promote hate, it’s necessary to recognize the folly of the attitude endorsed.

He suggests using hate to combat those he labels as “deranged self- and Satan servers.” By condoning hate, even of those one believes to be evil, a person merely breeds more evil and hate.

In order to change the world for the better, it’s imperative to use methods that aren’t inherently counterproductive.

Hate serves only evil and itself, it’s not the solution our troubled world needs. Matt Beaulieu Newman Lake, Wash.

Cartoon was the real headache

It’s not clear whether the cartoonist Wilkinson is male or female, but I’m assuming by the flavor of his Sept. 19 comic that this person is male.

The cartoon very eloquently depicted a caricature of the globe emanating the effects of the Beijing Women’s Conference. A marquee declaring “the great cry of women’s liberation rises after the Beijing Conference” was sublimated by a balloon which housed the apparent words of women all over the world - “I have a headache, dear.”

Is it really possible that there’s someone in this nation who still thinks that he who controls the joystick controls the world? The only power women have (or should have) is whether or not they feel like declaring “not tonight dear”? How can it be, after all that both genders have been through, that there is still one who thinks it all comes down to the bedroom? We won the right to vote. We can dictate when we do and don’t have babies, but apparently we can’t convince everyone that we are human first, gender second.

I’m confounded and offended by the banality of Wilkinson’s comic, and horrified that The SpokesmanReview would print it. Most of my male friends don’t even get it: “No one thinks that anymore,” one proclaimed. Several female friends offered, “That’s why I don’t buy the Spokane paper.” Well, guess what folks, now that’s why I don’t buy the Spokane paper.

I have to wonder who controls the bedroom in Wilkinson’s relationships… Paula M. Hathaway Mica

Editor’s note: The cartoon was drawn by the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Signe Wilkinson of the Philadelphia Daily News. Wilkinson is a woman.

Volunteers the base of United Way

I would like to clarify a statement quoted in the Sept. 14 article concerning United Way. My comment regarding the United Way being “asleep at the wheel” was made with reference to our organization’s awakening to the need for acquisition and use of new technologies in fund raising and the need to maximize our efficiency and effectiveness. These changes are now occurring through the implementation of our five-year strategic plan.

There are hundreds and thousands of volunteers over the past 74 years who’ve dedicated their time and resources to raising funds that support essential human-care programs in our community. These individuals and their business partners have laid a solid foundation for assuring that the needs of people of all ages are met, because dollars are there to fund them. Today, the efforts of our volunteers continue to keep alive the spirit of people helping people. United Way is and continues to be an organization which relies on the strength and vision of its volunteers. Jose C. Pena, President United Way of Spokane County