Letters To The Editor

SPOKANE MATTERS

Look around revitalization works

Recent articles and letters regarding the future of Spokane, advocating renovation of the downtown area as a key to future growth, have hit the nail on the head.

I was raised in this area but left for San Diego 14 years ago. I have re-relocated to Spokane, but in my many visits to Spokane over the years I have noticed that the heart of this city has remained relatively unchanged.

Spokane’s leaders need look no farther than the major “nice” cities along the West Coast as their model. San Diego’s downtown was a decrepit, decaying home for winos and X-rated theaters.

I’m not sure of the municipal mechanism, but the city’s leaders saw the importance of a downtown convention center and revitalization project that created what is now the Gaslamp Quarter. The downtown region is now a thriving community, complete with residential, commercial and business concerns living side by side.

Portland and Seattle have both undergone similar changes in the last decade or so, with similar results.

Sure, San Diego, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle have seen their share of urban sprawl. But the heart of each is located downtown. Even Pittsburgh and Cleveland, cities once thought of in very negative terms, have improved their image because of downtown revitalization programs.

I live here by choice but am constantly amazed by the status-quo attitude where the city’s future is concerned. Sam J. Thomas Veradale

Garbage in, garbage out, STA

First, Spokane Transit Authority complained about a lower percentage of riders. Now it complains about an overload of people. This makes no sense. Now, many will be stranded without the transportation they need.

Professional experts came from outside Spokane to change the map. They know nothing about how it may affect the ridership. This new plan stinks. Whatever happened to listening to the people of Spokane, instead of making changes to suit themselves and not the public?

Eliminating routes the public uses is unreasonable. Steve M. Ferrera Spokane

City should address tree trashing

Apartment owner Ron Wells and arborist Ron McIntire deserve the support of all of us Spokane citizens, as published recently in your article, “Trees suffer unkind cuts.”

I will never understand why the Asplundh Tree Expert Co. claims to be “expert.” Of what? It appears to me to be expert only at butchering our priceless trees that require 100 or more years to re-grow.

During Washington Water Power’s review of the November 1996 ice storm, the company asked for input from the public. I made the same points then as I’m making now. But apparently, WWP chose to ignore the importance of butchering vs. real and expert pruning.

WWP and its subcontractor are responsible for the degradation of our priceless resource, tree splendor.

Only the City Council can control WWP’s blatant tree degradation and restore a true pruning process that will preserve visual beauty and protect us from potential power outage and fire. John D. Brown Spokane

People’s Gallery needs wash job

What year did The People’s Gallery get painted on the wall near the Maple Street Bridge? I realize that the splash from passing cars in wet weather does lift the dirt up against the wall. But we’ve been driving from the North Side to town for seven years, and now it would be interesting to see what those pictures would look like if washed off. So much for the People’s Gallery! Elisabeth P. Fuller Spokane

WASHINGTON STATE

Flawed laws reflect public attitudes

When alcohol is sold to a minor, that minor, the cashier and the store have broken the law. But the law allows the cashier and his or her proprietor to be fined 10 times as much as the minor - the one with the clearly demonstrable criminal intent. What does the law do to enable the cashier to live up to that responsibility?

The law makes the proprietor responsible for training his employees. But many proprietors won’t live up to that responsibility until after a cashier has been caught selling to a minor.

The law requires signs that tell both the cashier and the customer everything about alcohol sales except the cashier’s responsibility to refuse sales to minors, that he can be punished for making such sales, and that many minors look old enough to purchase.

The Liquor Control Board helps with free training and a good manual but does nothing to make sure that the cashier knows of the training until after he or one of his fellow cashiers fail a “compliance check,” nor to make sure the cashier has that manual in his hands.

When the police go out on a compliance check, known as sting operations to you and me, they assume the cashier is not only knowledgeable but fully trained and capable of never making a mistake.

Since those who write, enforce and interpret the law represent you and me, I guess this is how we want things. E. Arthur Seaton II Spokane

PROMISE KEEPERS

Feminist response based in myth

The wildly excessive response by feminists to Promise Keepers really amazes me. The latest example is staff writer Jamie Tobias Neely’s editorial (Oct. 3). The charges she levels against Christian teaching about marriage are a caricature.

Had genuine Christian teachings been followed consistently, neither the feminist movement nor Promise Keepers would have been necessary or even begun.

Jesus Christ was an enemy of the sort of false, supposedly Christian teachings Neely cites.

Note, please, that subservience and submission are not synonymous, although characterizing them as such serves the purposes of the Bible’s critics. One is suppression that demands silent acquiescence from the wife. The other is giving authority for final decisions to the husband. It is not given to the husband to make her obedient. She is urged to choose this way.

If the husband is self-sacrificially loving, as scripture requires of him, willing submission of the wife can be most comfortable for her. The submission of a resentful wife to a tyrant husband describes a most un-Christian relationship.

G.K. Chesterton said it well, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting - it has been found difficult and not tried.” Marlene B. Olson Spokane

Overstating the obvious, for what?

I’ve read a lot about the Promise Keepers in the paper. They seem to want to pull all of us guys back onto the right track.

I try to treat people as I would like to be treated. I don’t need the Promise Keepers to tell me that. I try to be truthful (even though I am a fisherman), and I don’t need the Promise Keepers to tell me that. I try to be a person of integrity (it’s difficult); I don’t need the Promise Keepers tell me that. If I were a woman, I would be very cautious of this organization. Timothy L. Bircher Kettle Falls, Wash.

They’re not knuckle-dragging ogres

Staff writer Jamie Tobias Neely, do you know any Promise Keepers? (“Some promises best left unkept,” Opinion, Oct. 3) Have you ever asked one what he stands for, or do you just base your assumptions on the National Organization for Women’s anti-Promise Keepers propaganda? I challenge you to dig deeper before writing about something you know little or nothing about.

It’s unfair to suggest that Promise Keepers may next call for silent women in church, head coverings and backyard huts. Those are cultural things and there were good reasons for them in their time. However, husbands and fathers loving their families and fulfilling their proper role as moral, spiritual leaders in their homes is a timeless truth of God that is universal, not cultural.

That “text of ancient patriarchal societies,” as Neely refers to it, is the living, breathing word of God. Yes, it does contain the cultural issues of its era. But the basic underlying principles go beyond culture. They are spirit. They go to the heart of what makes a family and what produces people of moral character.

I know many Promise Keepers. They are relatively harmless - hardly the type of knuckle-dragging, club-toting ogres Neely makes them out to be. They are only a bunch of tender-hearted men who love Jesus and their families, and are committed to being the best fathers and husbands they can be. How can this be wrong in any way?

Please don’t demean them for this. There’s no hidden agenda. Really. Talk to a Promise Keeper before you make judgments. Michele K. Martin Spokane

Seek spiritual answers within

I was encouraged by the Promise Keepers rally. I hope men will realize how lonely they are without the deep human connection to their families, God and others, and take the steps necessary to correct those relationships.

However, I hope they don’t feel the need to have some local pastor (who is fallible) tell them how high, how far and how much. Find yourself. What do you need? What does your family need in order to be a healthy family of loving individuals? Family and spiritual life is not a one-size-fits-all situation.

I would hate for this movement to be one of someone else (Bill McCartney, local pastors or the head of one household) to be saying how to make our own families work. Marriage is like a cart built on the wheels of mutual love and respect. I wouldn’t trust the local pastor with the job of pulling it.

Men, connect yourselves with the God within and seek your answers there. Ginna Maus Sandpoint

Critic obviously doesn’t get it

Staff writer Jamie Tobias Neely’s Oct. 3 editorial reeks with ignorance. Promise Keepers is all about putting men back in their place of responsibility for the family.

I suppose Neely doesn’t feel today’s societal problems are partly due to the breakdown in family.

Promise Keepers calls men to love God, their wives and children, and to support them. It even addresses the infamous deadbeat dad.

The Bible also says (a few more lines down from the scripture Neely quoted), “Husbands love your wives as Christ also loves the church and gave himself up for her.” (Ephesians 5:25.) One more thing: O.J. Simpson, Marv Albert and a host of others are reasons we need Promise Keepers. Kevin B. Mulligan Spokane

Actions, not promise making, count

Editorial writer D.F. Oliveria fails to recognize a critical fallacy inherent in the premise of the Promise Keeper movement: It assumes that but for the affirmation of certain “promises,” a man is simply unable to exercise devotion and faithfulness.

Isn’t it so that a relationship built upon mutual respect is one that does not require one party to travel across the country with hundreds of thousands of people to do what should be tacit and assumed?

Perhaps I am fortunate to have a husband who does not find it burdensome to express his devotion and respect. Nor do I believe the men who are part of my sphere of influence (such as my father, friends and co-workers) are so oppressive. (I don’t find it difficult to uphold my end of the bargain.)

Some Promise Keepers have said the media bombard them with sex and temptation, which fosters this environment of promise breaking. Thus, some kind of revival is needed to make our “country a little bit stronger.” In this I see the ultimate irony: the movement is not merely a gathering of well-intentioned men trying to stop some moral decline. Rather, it’s a harbinger for a strong political movement, one which as we have seen in the past, will work toward diminishing funds for public television and radio, and to support causes such as the tobacco industry. I wonder then if they will still be keeping promises. Carol J. Hunter Spokane

Editorial so much fearmongering

Staff writer Jamie Tobias Neely’s editorial on Promise Keepers fails to include a single actual abuse by any living person. Yet, this fearmongering implies that at any moment, the men of Promise Keepers will adopt a repressive lifestyle simply because some cultures in the past have. What’s next? Do we fear that someone visiting Germany may become a Nazi? Perhaps if you read “Helter Skelter” you might turn into a mass murderer?

The only way to stop fear is to stop fearmongering. Rick H. Cleigh Spokane

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Thomas’ prescription: soak the not rich

Syndicated columnist Cal Thomas strikes again! The income tax (merely “soak the rich” class envy) can be junked for a more egalitarian national sales tax supporting leaner (and meaner?) government. He even gives the reader some history for his case - but not quite enough to expose too much of the truth.

Given how powerful concentrated wealth was back then (striking Colorado miners fired on by machine guns comes to mind), maybe “liberals” like Theodore Roosevelt (or William Howard Taft!) perceived their own era a bit more clearly than do pundits safely astride decades of hard-won social reform.

The sales tax approach Thomas champions is another fast ball bereft of detail. Why should we believe such an inherently regressive instrument (where a retired grandmother and Bill Gates pay an equally stiff tax on a new toaster, so the government can afford another B-2 bomber) could possibly generate enough revenue to sustain even a significantly reduced federal budget, without transferring the burden too heavily to those least able to bear that burden?

Thomas is long on advice (such as last year when he suggested Bob Dole emulate Calvin Coolidge, a president whose economic inattentiveness so greased the skids that disaster overwhelmed his successor, Herbert Hoover). But he is short on the historical or analytical depth to make honest sense of the matter beyond what his ideology dictates.

I’ll keep that salt shaker handy, thank you. R. James Downard Spokane

There’s a backlash from me

“Congress gets raise, no backlash” by Sam Fulwood III of the Los Angeles Times (Oct. 2) really starts my blood boiling.

First, members of Congress don’t put their pay raise out in the open where all can see. They hide it in other legislation that causes little or no controversy.

Then, the media give it little or no coverage. How can people express their rage when they are not informed of what is happening?

Congress members are not about to tell us that they can’t get along on a mere $130,000-plus per year. But they are quick to tell senior citizens that they can get along on less. Meanwhile, the senators and representatives take surplus Social Security funds and replace them with worthless bonds. I’ve asked my representatives what the due date is on the so-called bonds and what the rate of interest is. Never has my question been answered.

When people who can’t balance their own checkbooks or the country’s budget tell me they are underpaid and need more money to do the job, I get sick to my stomach.

The unfortunate part of all this is that the Congress members are right when they think it’s unlikely very many voters will remember the raise when next they vote.

Well, I will not forget, and I’ll tell everyone who will listen that we should turn every member of Congress who voted for the raise out to pasture.

We should take away their exorbitant pensions as well. Floyd H. Stewart Loon Lake

PARTING SHOT

Physics will always win out

When mixing bicycle and automobile traffic, you can make all the laws you wish, but the laws of physics will always prevail. Thomas M. Ryan Spokane