Letters To The Editor

SPOKANE MATTERS

Need for progress undeniable

Spokane people should wake up to the fact this is no longer a little farming community. Spokane is a large city and major player in the state. It’s time for those in power to step up to the plate and start playing ball.

Spokane cannot afford legislators who “don’t feel it’s right” to wheel and deal tax money for major projects here.

The city cannot afford local politicians who can’t see their way clear to approving more and bigger industry, more freeways to accommodate population growth and bigger and better convention facilities.

This city needs to develop the entire downtown area into a pleasant, attractive area that will attract tourist dollars. Riverfront Park is not large enough or used enough. It should be expanded.

Something has to be done for all Spokane children, be it a science center or something else. There’s very little for kids in Spokane.

We must let go of what was and look to what’s going to be. New people must be elected and appointed to positions where their experiences in other cities having growing pains can be used. The power of old families, old buddies and the select elite should be broken.

This seems like a lot to swallow, but until all these things change, Spokane is going to stay a dingy, poor, going-nowhere-fast community. Our children will continue to move away, wages will stay $2-$5 an hour below national average and Spokane will continue to be the butt of West Siders’ jokes.

It’s time for us to decide. John W. Heple Spokane

Good to see Pupo’s work recognized

Thank you, Opinion editor John Webster, for your excellent comments (Nov. 23 editorial concerning City Manager Bill Pupo).

Too often, it seems we only take time to bash those who work diligently on those problems of our community and never take time to be positive. Whiners seem to get more note than they deserve.

I also appreciated seeing a list of the pressing problems we face. Hopefully, some will appreciate the diverse and complex opportunities that a person hired to solve these problems faces.

Those pesky situations involving personnel can become sensationalized and are the toughest to handle quickly, correctly and uniformly. Pupo has handled, and probably will continue to have to handle, more of these with the large, important staff he leads. Thanks again for recognizing his performance and these issues. We all need to wish him well, for his sake and ours. Greg Kreshel Spokane

Easterwood friends’ ideas are their own

Re: “Teens hold wake for friends,” Nov. 8, on Alicia Easterwood.

Easterwood had a loving and stable home. Only she really knows why she chose the life she led the last year of her life. Please do her family right and make clear that the opinions of those kids are not based on overall facts. Linda Ann Loos Spokane

PEOPLE IN SOCIETY

Septuplets’ birth less than a blessing

I may be the only one in America not celebrating the “miracle” of the McCaughey septuplets.

The No. 1 problem in our society, on which all the others are contingent, is overpopulation. Having seven children at once may be great fodder for the news media, but the true impact, the cost of keeping these babies alive, the medical complications and the tabloid sensationalism are frightening.

According to most fertility specialists, it’s not a success when a woman has more than triplets, and there are procedures to avoid this before fertilization, or afterwards, as a last resort.

It’s laughable that Bobbi McCaughey would not abort any of the fetuses, sacrificing their chance for health, because she called them a gift from God. They were a gift from modern biological technology. Perhaps God meant for her not to have children. Creating babies artificially is just as morally questionable as terminating an unwanted fetus. Children are beautiful, precious and deserve to be loved. Reproduction is a gift but needs to be done responsibly. Sara Kendall Spokane

Child’s anger easily understandable

In the Nov. 17 parenting column, a grandmother asked about a 3-year-old girl who was angry and disrespectful toward her and her mother.

Part of columnist Kathleen Brown’s reply was, “Your granddaughter’s behavior is puzzling. Her attitude toward her mother and her anger toward you is not typical 3-year-old behavior.” Then, she suggested having the child evaluated by a physician.

The answer lies in the facts as presented: “She’s had several caretakers since she was an infant … and mom and dad are getting a divorce.” R. Paul Unger Spokane

WELFARE

Generalizations can get out of hand

Re: L. Jim Shamp’s Street Level column (“Real poverty war is fought and won by individuals,” Nov. 2) and recent letter (“Damage of system, abusers plain to see,” Nov. 24).

It is always dangerous to generalize your own personal experiences to an entire population.

I have spent 18 years alternating between welfare and minimum wage. Finding adequate and affordable housing was impossible; I could tell horror stories about the substandard housing and vengeful landlords my children and I experienced.

After 18 years, I could generalize my experiences, just as Shamp has, to include all landlords who rent to welfare recipients. Obviously, that would be grossly inaccurate.

Shamp is viewing the issue through emotion, not facts - much as I tended to view most landlords.

The facts are that the majority of welfare recipients in Washington state are in that situation because of domestic violence or divorce, not lack of ambition; the average stay on welfare for a family in Washington is 2.5 years, not a lifetime; the typical job available for a welfare recipient in the Spokane area is a service industry position at minimum wage, with no medical benefits.

I challenge Shamp to raise his family on less than $900 per month while providing a home, food and child care, and then pay medical expenses as well.

If Shamp still has a job opening for a welfare recipient, does it include a livable wage and medical benefits?

We should all beware of making sweeping generalizations about any group of people. Our own life experiences do not always reflect the facts.

And, Shamp: Like many others, I’m a former welfare recipient who put myself through college and became a successful professional! Debra Greenwood Spokane

OTHER TOPICS

Fur isn’t fashionable, it’s fiendish

As department stores display holiday decorations and warm winter clothing, I’m reminded of those whose lives are lost for luxury items.

Holidays are suppose to be for giving, but all fur does is take away lives. Fur trim - on coats, gloves, hats and shoes - is responsible for so many killings. Millions of animals are made to suffer and die each year for a status symbol that has come to represent insensitivity and greed.

Untold suffering and pain goes into the making of a fur coat. Animals killed for their fur are obtained either by trapping or from fur ranches. Animals caught in leg-hold traps will endure a slow and excruciating death. Some chew off their own limbs in an attempt to escape. Others may freeze or bleed to death. The traps used kill not only their intended victims but also injure or kill endangered species, domestic companion animals and other animals accidentally caught.

Fur ranching, just as inhumane, is characterized by barren cages, isolation and environmental deprivation so severe that animals often go insane. To compound their suffering, they are killed by cruel and painful methods.

As people learn the truth about fur, more and more furriers are going bankrupt. Some department stores and mail order catalogs have stopped selling full-length fur coats, but continue to perpetuate the pain and suffering of animals by selling items with fur trim. Please don’t be fooled by the amount of fur. Just for a small patch of fur on a coat or glove, an animal’s life is lost.

Please let your clothing reflect compassion. Don’t buy or wear fur. Anne Groeschel Spokane

Snow shovels ‘total garbage’

Syndicated columnist Tony Snow certainly knows how to muddy the waters. His commentary denouncing President Clinton’s proposed tougher new laws on hate crimes did absolutely nothing to clarify the issue. Obviously frustrated trying to use pertinent and rational arguments to support his obvious contempt, he resorted instead to a bunch of off-the-wall, irreverent rhetoric. How sad that the Review would even print a snow job of such complete and total garbage. Richard McInerney Spokane