Letters To The Editor

SPOKANE MATTERS

Local option gas tax not unfair burden

Re: Local option motor fuel tax.

It is time to take responsibility for our roads. No reasonable person would dream of driving their car without properly maintaining it. Roads require the same consideration.

Like cars, roads have a life expectancy. They wear out.

The harder you use them, the sooner they wear out. Pavement life can be significantly prolonged with good care.

Blaming government for the current road money shortage is unfair. The public demanded improvement in fuel efficiency. The EPA forced Detroit to change. A 3,000-pound car on a mile of road has the same effect it always did.

Gas taxes are charged per gallon pumped, not per mile driven. At 24 miles per gallon, that 3,000-pound car produces one-third the gas taxes that its eight-miles-per-gallon predecessor did 15 years ago. Fuel efficiency, together with inflation, has thrown road money into a serious decline.

Users of roadways need to pay their fair share of maintenance costs. Every major industrial nation in the world pays substantially more gas tax than we do. Their roads are generally in much better shape as a result.

Please do the right thing. Vote yes on the local option gas tax. Mike Taylor, chairman Spokane Area Chamber of Commerce Transportation Committee

Grandparents, become tutors

Congratulations for the Oct. 16 front page report, “Tutors.” Such an important message for our community - that action and participation are needed, now!

As a volunteer, there are no dues, fees, committee meetings or assignments. All that is asked is a bit of time. Spend a few minutes with some youngster who may be struggling with reading and needs some one-on-one encouragement.

How many of us grandparents have time that we could share with a child in a nearby grade school? Certainly, there is a huge reservoir of literate, life-experienced and compassionate seniors in this area. Those of us who can look back to the great teachers in our lives and realize how fortunate we have been to have had the tool of reading in pursuing our livelihood.

Believe me when I say you get back more than you give. A day of two in the presence of these shining little stars will bring a new purpose into your heart.

There are some requirements, but all that’s necessary to get started is to call or visit a grade school near where you live. It’s that simple. If you can schedule some time, along with a commitment to spend a short time in the instruction program, you are one.

Now in my third year at Jefferson Elementary I have a wealth of happy occasions among teachers, students and parents whom I have come to know.

Sure you are young enough! I’m 76. Just think what a wonderful gift for life you can share with our future citizens. Roger C. Cochran Spokane

It’s a shame we need stop light cameras

What a shame that Spokane, a city notorious nationwide for lousy drivers, finally has to install cameras, at the taxpayers expense, for something as simple as stopping at a red light or slowing down in a school zone.

Hang your head Spokane, for we are pathetic. Pat J. Soderquist Spokane

WASHINGTON STATE

Incident shows rights initiative needed

What a pity that Joanne McCann didn’t know all the rules of political correctness!

She didn’t know it was offensive, when speaking to any group, to say “you people.” She didn’t know a person may be considered a racist if they are against government discrimination and/or preferences for any group. She didn’t know it was wrong to suggest that government adopt a policy which would not consider a person’s race or sex with regard to hiring, contracting or college admissions, i.e., she dared to express concerns about the effects of the government policy known as affirmative action.

Martin Luther King dreamed of a colorblind society. Rodney King asked if we all couldn’t just get along. I wish we could. But it won’t happen so long as the government determines whether an individual will or will not be hired, will or will not be awarded a contract, will or will not gain admission to a university, etc., based solely on what group they belong to.

When government grants preference to any group of individuals, it discriminates against others. Such policies are wrong and, rather than uniting Americans, they fuel feelings of anger, distrust and resentment between the races and sexes.

The Washington State Civil Rights Initiative (I-200) seeks to end government-sponsored discrimination and preferences. By supporting this initiative, people can tell the government they are tired of being lumped into groups and being treated differently on that basis. With a little luck and lots of hard work on the part of volunteers, this initiative will make the ballot in November 1998. Janice M. Moerschel Spokane

HEALTH CARE

I-678 will run up costs, inefficiencies

I am a licensed dental hygienist concerned about the future of dentistry, should Initiative 678 pass.

I received a letter dated Nov. 6, 1996, from a group of radical hygienists organized under the acronym SHOUT (Support Hygienists & Oppose Unequal treatment) trying to raise support for the initiative. A few quotes from the letter reveal a different motive than reduced costs and increased access to care:

“Join us in the right to end years of oppression and unequal treatment. … We have been treated as professional property by them (dentists). … Passage of this initiative will allow us control of our own professional and financial destiny.”

The current team concept of dentist-hygienist provides comprehensive care. One appointment provides a complete exam, with a doctor’s evaluation, X-rays and oral prophylaxis using two sets of eyes and two bodies of knowledge and experience. Only one set of records is needed.

Supporters of this initiative advertise that fees for dental hygiene services will be cut in half. The logic is flawed. The capital and supply costs will be at least the same. Employee costs will be equal or greater because of needing to coordinate with the dentist of record. The insurance companies will not pay for duplication of services.

Proponents argue that the poor, elderly and indigent will have better access to care. There will be the same number of care providers. The greatest identified need of those two groups is treatment for cavities, which a dental hygienist can’t address.

Is the risk to your health worth receiving only partial care? Nancy A. Randall Clarkston, Wash.

Prompt Sunday care is available

I am responding to Charles T. Conrad’s Oct. 20 letter, “Don’t get sick on a Sunday.”

On a recent Sunday, I was awakened with a terrible muscle spasm in my neck. At 7 a.m., my husband called Group Health and we were given a 9 a.m. appointment at the Urgent Care Clinic.

It was a busy place, but I was put into a treatment room and seen within 10 minutes. It was two hours before I left, but I was not ignored. I was treated in that time; first with acupuncture and then an on-call chiropractor came in to adjust my neck. I was always informed of what was happening and what to expect.

I walked out in much better shape than I was in when I arrived.

HMOs are always getting a bum rap, but I am confident that I will get treatment no matter what day I am sick. JoAnn M. Allison Spokane

Let me tell you about socialized care

Molly Mitchell (Letters, Oct. 20) obviously hasn’t experienced health care in Europe.

I lived in Denmark for a year. After a sports accident, I waited for an ambulance at the gym for an hour, crying with agony.

At the hospital, I was placed on a gurney in a hallway for four hours. This wasn’t a big Copenhagen hospital, but a tiny community hospital outside a small village. It was torture. Finally, someone came and took me to X-ray, which revealed a dislocated elbow and shoulder.

Much later still, an intern started jabbing my veins with a needle full of muscle relaxant. Even though I was a strapping young woman who’d never taken drugs in her life, he couldn’t seem to figure out how to find a vein. I had needle pricks in six places on my hands and arms.

They then sat me in a chair and left me alone. I passed out from the relaxant overdose, pain and exhaustion. As my arm relaxed, the needle punctures bled about a pint of my blood onto the floor before someone came.

My joints had been dislocated for so long that it took six weeks in a sling before I could use my arm. The muscles and tendons had been so severely compromised by the delay that, for 10 years afterward, they would go out again every time I climbed a ladder. If I played on my hands and knees on the floor with my children, my shoulder would suddenly give way, ditching me face-first onto the floor.

Socialized health care? Yikes. Over my dead body. Teresa T. Keene Spokane

Initiative 685 gets my vote

When I get sick, I call my medical clinic. Perhaps I should be calling Lt. Gov. Brad Owen.

It is time to take politics out of medicine. I am voting yes on Initiative 685. Nora C. Callahan Colville, Wash.

WASHINGTON STATE

If incompetent, practice birth control

Regarding Initiative 676 being a safety measure for accidental shootings:

If you are not intelligent enough to keep your gun out of the hands of your child, do the rest of us a favor and don’t have children. Nancy Alann Spokane

Gun mishap emergency? Nonsense

Initiative 676 declares a state of emergency. What a crock. Bicycles must constitute 10 states of emergency.

Far more accidental deaths of children and adults could be prevented by simply outlawing bikes. We wouldn’t even have to slither around that pesky Constitution. What are we waiting for? Vote no in I-676. Ed J. English Spokane

I-676 ‘worst can of worms’ ever

I find it hard to believe there are enough unthinking people to even get Initiative 676 on the ballot. If this boondoggle should pass, it will be the worst can of worms we have ever seen.

This is the first step to confiscating your protection and your freedom. Read a little history!

Proponents say law enforcement officers are for I-676. This is not true.

When someone is breaking into your house, time is very precious. You don’t have time to fool around with a lock on the trigger and/or an unloaded weapon. I-676 could cost you and your family your lives.

Think this over very carefully before you vote, and vote as if your life depended on it. Lyle H. Leslie Spokane

Taxpayers fund food stamps

Jerry W. Friedman (Letters, Oct. 17) of the Economic Services Administration in Olympia claims the food stamp program to be financed entirely by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Wrong. The food stamp program is financed entirely by U.S. taxpayers.

Why even 99 cents cash back under a new electronic system? Jon J. Tuning Spokane

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Nethercutt’s Senate decision welcome

It was recently announced by Rep. George Nethercutt that he would not seek the Senate seat. Thank God. But then, he knows not to chance it because we know in his current position his motives are not with or for the common man.

His environmental stances are repulsive and downright scary. One year ago, he was proposing loosening the water pollution standards. Now he’s after the air we breathe.

Whose interests do these serve? Certainly not ours! Leo D. Kenny Spokane

Urge passage of pet protection measure

On February 5, Reps. Charles Tandy, R-Fla. and George Brown, D-Calif., along with a dozen bipartisan co-sponsors, reintroduced House Resolution 594, titled the Pet Safety and Protection Act of 1997.

This amendment to the animal welfare act would close a 30-year loophole that has allowed the Department of Agriculture licensed animal dealers to sell stolen or otherwise fraudulently obtained dogs and cats to research facilities.

Dr. Joseph Spinelli a prominent University of California researcher who uses animals in his experiments, said at a national conference of animal researchers that “So many class B dog and cat dealers have been convicted of stealing animals or at least obtaining them under false pretenses that I believe we must disassociate our enterprises from theirs.”

Please contact Rep. George Nethercutt and ask him to support HR-594. He has an office in Spokane. Laverne R. Kettlety Spokane

OTHER TOPICS

China’s goods tainted by greed, blood

A recent ABC “Prime Time” segment brought the American people further evidence that Red China is in the same business as Nazi Germany was in: using prisoners for economic gain.

The State Department is not ignorant of the fact that China uses slave labor in manufacturing some of that country’s many products sold around the world.

Can anyone now stick their head in the sand when they reach for that cute, inexpensive, “compelling” product made in China and purchase it, knowing that in China, thousands of have been executed for their kidneys and other organs. These executions are supposedly carried out on people who have committed some crime against the state, but that is almost certainly a secondary reason. And there’s no doubt many of these “crimes” have to do with the prisoners being Christians and lovers of freedom and justice.

Living in this generation of mass murders of innocent babies, children, men and women helps me not so quickly condemn and gasp at previous generations’ atrocities. In every generation, self-interest and advantageous economics always blind the lovers of self, the greedy for power and the hungry for fame.

Like Bob Dylan sang, “When you gonna wake up and strengthen the things that remain?”

May we be some who wake up and say no to bloody tyranny and not buy China’s products, even if Washington, D.C., finds it advantageous to allow those products to be sold here.

May we not exemplify the old adage to the next generation: “Vice is of such hideous mien; to be hated is but to be seen. But once familiar with its fact, we first pity, then endure, then embrace.” Margo S. Beal Spokane

Shedding light on shadow side of faith

Some, maybe many, of my fellow Catholics are “discombobulated” by the behavior of the two priests and sister in the weekly TV series, “Nothing Sacred.” However, many others see in them the living out of true, soulful faith; a model, a pattern for viewers.

In soul faith there are always two “actors”: the believer and the disbeliever, the angel of belief and the devil of doubt. Both play a constructive, necessary roll in a full-rounded faith.

“Nothing Sacred” calls us to acknowledge in ourselves, to vicariously experience, the shadow side of our faith, to cease romanticizing our belief and keeping our religion in fantasy, apart from life. “Nothing Sacred” says that if we don’t allow some uncertainty into our practice of religion, we fall victim to neurotic excesses, a neurotic faith.

Father Ray is undergoing mystical experiences: soulful faith is being spawned by the unknowing, by his confronting unfaithfulness. With Father Ray we are led to the difficult point where we don’t know what is going on, or what we can do, in very concrete, difficult life circumstances. But that precise moment is the window of opportunity, an opening to true faith, to trust in God who is Lord and lover. James J. Flynn Spokane