Letters To The Editor

JAPANESE AMERICANS/JAPAN

Examples from which to learn

Your thoughtful article, “Freedom Fighters,” recalls the enormous sacrifices Japanese Americans made during WWII to protect the liberty of our country. These Americans, whose Constitutional rights were literally erased during a time of panic and fear, carried out their obligations as citizens with courage and honor.

It provides a startling contrast with what we often read in today’s headlines about citizens who have become obsessed with their rights, sometimes at a high cost to the rights of others. Yet, there’s never a mention of their obligations as citizens. Witness the trashing of roadways and waterways, overly aggressive drivers, voter apathy, a community where there’s no obligation to be inclusive.

Maybe we need to rethink how we teach citizen rights and responsibilities. We have much to learn about citizenship from each other as well as from the diverse cultures that make up our national heritage.

The book “Manzanar,” which I believe should be required reading for all civics classes, discusses the concepts of obligation. The book quotes Sen. S.I. Hayakawa summing up his cultural sense of obligation to community and government, to family and parents, and the the dignity of one’s name no matter how difficult or humiliating the circumstances: “One has to do what one has to do, quietly and with dignity.”

Fred Shiosaki, Denny Yasuhara, Col. Spady Koyama and countless others teach us by their actions, and “do what has to be done, quietly and with dignity.” Susan Kaun Liberty Lake, Wash.

No U.S. apology called for

The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki truly was a terrible and tragic happening. Apologize to Japan? Never, Gary Jewell (Letters, Aug. 11).

It was they who brought the war to us. It is they who now say they - and Germany also - were very close to developing the bomb and certainly would have dropped it on America. If there is any apology to be made, Japan should apologize to us.

Mr. Jewell, I do applaud you and your Peace Committee. Your ideals of “life over death and plowshares over swords” are beliefs the entire world should pray for. However, until such time when all peoples of this world think alike and share the same belief, I feel your mission is extremely naive. Lois Wells Spokane

JUNIOR LIVESTOCK ENTRANTS

Cheaters are rare exceptions

This is in regard to the Aug. 21 article, “Pressure to cheat taints junior livestock shows.” I think you owe all the honest 4-H and FFA kids and their parents an apology.

I have showed, judged and now I am a 4-H leader. These kids aren’t out to cheat for big money. There is no big money.

The article says a grand champion steer can bring $60,000 to $200,000. Not around here. At small town shows and fairs, a grand champion is lucky to bring $1-$1.10 per pound. If you have a 1,000-pound animal, that’s $1,000, minus the price of the calf (approximately 75 cents per pound, at 600 pounds), the hay and grain (approximately $550).

What happens to the rest who aren’t grand champions? They usually sell for 65 cents to 80 cents per pound. That doesn’t leave much for them to put in their college accounts, does it?

As for injecting steroids, air, water and beating them. The kids are in these programs for education, experience and a little fun. They take care of their animals and grow very attached. These animals get better care than some of your pets and family. Cosmetic surgery? Who can afford it?

There’s a lot more honest people in these programs than there are cheaters. I think we should support them instead of run them down. They could be doing a lot worse.

There are fairs all over. Maybe you should come out and ask the whys and the what fors for the different classes, before you believe just anything. M. Rosman Creston

Good young people besmirched

I’m writing in response to the Aug. 21 Associated Press article about junior livestock shows and area fair market sales.

I’ve been involved with the Spokane Junior Livestock Show and the Interstate Fair market sale for almost 15 years. I’m also a 4-H livestock leader in Spokane County and I know that on the local club level or at the shows we don’t practice or tolerate any of the abuse mentioned in this article.

What upsets me most is that The Spokesman-Review, which most of the time would rather write about youths in trouble than about youths working hard and doing well, would run this article just as the local fairs in Eastern Washington are getting started.

I personally encourage everyone to attend the youth market sale at the fair in your area and purchase some of the finest meat you’ll ever put on your table. Or just support the rural-interested youths and their animals at the sale. Jim Wentland Medical Lake

YOUTH ISSUES

Child killers get off light here

Some children in Spokane have several strikes against them. Seemingly, their lives have little value here.

Abusive live-in boyfriends or even biological parents can kill or turn a child into a vegetable for life and walk free after a few years. Why the difference in value of a child’s life or an adult’s?

Child abuse is rampant here. What in the world is the matter with our legal system that it places so little value on a child’s life? In other areas they go beyond the standard sentencing range. Are these judges in sympathy with these demented creatures?

I belong to the human race, so I really can’t consider these perpetrators human. But I also hate to demean the animal world by calling them animals. Lillian P. Fleming Spokane

Help to better things for the young

Girl Scouts Inland Empire Council has had troubling times over the past five months. Staff members have been released and accusations made. There has been a rumor of missing funds. Program activities for girls have been canceled. Positive change and healing are on the horizon.

As a lifetime member of Girl Scouting and as an adult in this community, I challenge all of us to take time now to think of the girls, think of youths in need, at risk, out there in a very hostile environment.

I am committed to doing whatever I can do to positively impact the life of a child. Are you? Would you take time now to volunteer your services, either through Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Camp Fire, Big Brothers and Sisters, your school or your church?

The time is now. We must stop pointing fingers and ask, how can I help? Brusan Wells Spokane

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Major parties equally unsatisfactory

I think Stephen Taylor’s reasoning is faulty in his Aug. 16 letter asking us to help the Republicans prevent disaster. Republicans have the majorities, why don’t they just do what they want to do? His letter sounds exactly like what the Democrats would say about Republicans, if the Democrats were still in power.

Taylor feels older Americans’ attitudes about Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are completely selfish. If the Republican lawmakers would just listen, they’d realize that what the senior citizens want most is to be treated fairly. When they object to being unfairly singled out for cuts, the typical response is, “Well, we all have to make sacrifices, you know.”

But we all aren’t being asked to make sacrifices. Entitlements, i.e. COLAs, are always brought up as possible candidates for cuts. But it’s always seniors’ entitlements. Why is there no suggestion to cut the entitlements of actively employed government workers who receive COLAs and/or step increases in pay as pure entitlements? Completely cutting all pay entitlements could save as much as $40 billion per year, and everybody would be treated equally.

I junked my Republican status in 1992 and am now a frustrated independent. In my opinion, neither party has the guts to do what needs to be done. I’d like to join an organized political party again, if we had such a thing. Richard T. Brown Spokane

Keep mining agency in the West

We commend Sens. Slade Gorton and Patty Murray and Reps. George Nethercutt and Norm Dicks for supporting continued funding for the Bureau of Mines. The Senate bill funds the Bureau and requires a Western presence to deal with Western mining problems.

There’s another issue which is critical, if Western issues are to be truly addressed. The House and Senate Interior Appropriations Conference Committee meets Sept. 6 to work out a compromise bill. This committee should add language to mandate the Bureau of Mines to revise its reinvention plan and be driven by input from its customers, advisory panels and field office personnel.

The restructuring plan, conceived by a small group at headquarters, transfers control of most of the research programs to remote Eastern centers and closes most Western centers. The majority of base and precious metal mining, 80 percent of federal lands, 63 percent of coal production and most of the mineral-related hazardous waste sites are in the West.

Currently, the Bureau’s experts are scattered throughout its field center so they can better serve customers.

With current budget projections, less than 10 percent of health and safety research will be conducted in the West. It appears that Eastern bureau managers have little interest in addressing Western mining problems. While this plan may sound like streamlining, administrative overhead, as a percentage of total budget, increases.

The conference committee should include language in the appropriations bill to require revision of the reinvention so Western mining problems can be appropriately addressed. Mark K. Larson, Brad Seymour U.S. Bureau of Mines, Spokane

The clueless should not meddle

The general public, from what I conclude from your paper, has precious little confidence in local production agriculture or the men and women who have dedicated their lives to providing your daily bounty.

Members of that dwindling fraternity are conditioned to deal with uncertainties (i.e. the weather, the whims of distant politicians, outside interference with our markets, transportation and financial systems).

We can always count on certain things: I will sell when the market is down, during a prolonged, damaging dry spell; meteorologists will whine at the slightest possibility of rain; and The Spokesman-Review will seize every opportunity to kick sand in my face.

The problem is that those entrusted with objective ag reporting just don’t get it. Recent opinions expressed completely ignore the obvious consensus of most farmers. We will gladly forgo ag program payments if the government will butt out.

Payments generated by the land only partially offset conservation costs, markets lost due to government meddling (Iran) and other conditions each producer must comply with to “earn” price protection and other program components.

Bartel’s farm program payment ramblings are regrettable yet understandable, for I’m certain his closest encounter with subsidized agriculture is standing in the cheese line at Safeway. Grayden Jones, on the other hand, should know payments are earned by the farm base. If the owner or operator passes on between signup time and payment time, the earned payments stay with the acreage and thus, with the new owner, operator or deceased’s estate. Read Smith St. John, Wash.

OTHER TOPICS

Status change sought for Ritalin

As a parent of two children with attention deficit disorder (ADD) and president of Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Disorders (CHADD), a national support group for people living with ADD, I commend The Spokesman-Review for addressing this important and complex issue (July 30-Aug. 1).

However, the breadth of information you presented may have inadvertently left some readers unclear as to what ADD is and is not. ADD is one of the most studied childhood disorders. Research exploring the hereditary nature of the disorder, brain imaging studies and the recent identification of a possible genetic marker for ADD have led researchers to conclude that ADD is a neurobiological disorder.

It’s chronic, in that children with ADD have difficulty paying attention, controlling impulsive behaviors, following instructions and, in many cases, sitting still from a very young age, to a degree that they experience serious difficulties in school and in family and peer relationships.

With over 35,000 members and 600 local chapters nationwide, CHADD’s mission is to improve the lives of individuals with ADD and those who care for them. In this light, we have filed a petition asking the Drug Enforcement Agency to reclassify Ritalin (methylphenidate) as a Schedule III medication. Ritalin meets the DEA’s criteria for a Schedule III medication. Once classified Schedule III, Ritalin will continue to only be available by prescription but burdensome prescription procedures will be eased and shortages of the medication, such as the one experienced nationwide in late 1993, will be less likely to occur. JoAnne Evans, national president CHADD, Plantation, Fla.

It’s plain where sympathies lie

In reading the article about Smith’s Home Furnishings closing two Spokane stores, the paper dedicated less than one sentence to the 80 affected employees and five paragraphs to the impact of lost advertising on The Spokesman-Review.

I’ll bet the 80 employees who will be out of a job are feeling sorry for the Cowles family tonight. Betty Conner Spokane

Weaver’s right; FBI, marshals wrong

The cartoon by Milt Priggee in the Aug. 20 paper is so unbelievably offensive as to be a hate crime. It’s as bad as skinheads desecrating a synagogue. It seems the liberal left has taken to heart the statement, “If you tell a big lie often enough, it will be believed.”

Randy Weaver wasn’t a criminal. The murderers in this case were the U.S. marshals and the FBI. This material is all available in the 554-page Justice Department Report on the shootout at Ruby Ridge, and it can be gotten off the Internet by anyone with a home computer.

I’m neither a right-wing Christian nor a militia member. In fact, I’m agnostic and a student of history. As such, I’m becoming alarmed at the vilification of Christians by the left. I reminds me of the treatment of the Jews by Hitler. The first step to dehumanizing Christians has been taken at Waco and Ruby Ridge. By saying they were cults and separatists, they have become subhuman and can be killed with impunity. This is the first step to the death camps. Lee Orsborn Spokane