Letters To The Editor
IDAHO VIEWPOINTS
What’s in a name change? Plenty
The decision of the North Idaho College Board of Trustees to change the name of Boswell Hall Auditorium to the Barry Schuler Auditorium is an affront to the fine name of Joyce Boswell and a blight upon a great institution like NIC.
Such action would be akin to renaming the Washington Monument the Richard M. Nixon Memorial.
If such a name change is warranted, it should be awarded to one of the many fine former teachers, administrators or students, rather than to a former NIC president forced to resign under the cloud of a noconfidence vote from the faculty.
The Faculty Assembly deserves strong support in its attempt to reverse the trustees’ unwise decision. Dar Cogswell Sandpoint
People land in jail for a reason
Regarding “Help offered to inmates’ families” by staff writer Winda Benedetti (Dec. 18), I found the article interesting, but isn’t something missing?
To say “the Kootenai County Jail alone has already locked up more than 8,000 people this year …” do you suggest these are innocent, law-abiding people, jailed without justifiable cause? And isn’t it standard practice for all defense lawyers to tell their clients to plea not guilty?
To say “as they watch the penal system swallow their loved one” sounds absolutely horrible. It reads as if there were no victims of the crimes allegedly committed by the 8,000 jailed. There is at least one victim in every crime and if any people need a support group it’s the victims of the crimes.
Where does responsibility for one’s behavior start? Where does pampering end? If people in prison sincerely cared for their loving families, they wouldn’t have committed a crime.
There will always be criminals from all walks of life. If people knowingly wish to live outside the law and commit a crime, they must pay the piper. No civilized society can endure where lawlessness abides. Let’s face facts. The criminals in the Kootenai County Jail put themselves in there; they locked themselves up.
Yes, I sympathize with victims of crime and families of those incarcerated. In a true sense they are both victims of a crime. Ray Aleman Osburn
SPOKANE MATTERS
Valley city: Renters deserve no vote
Here we go again. The looney tunes want to carve up the Valley into five cities, none of which has a tax base to support any sort of city administration.
What is it about the word “no” they don’t understand? Valley citizens have rejected this idiot idea three times! What really gripes me is the number of people trying to shove this bad idea down our throats and who have no financial interest or obligation if by some fluke it passes. Property owners will get the shaft if this insane idea goes through. Renters, though registered voters, will have no financial responsibility.
To vote on this critical issue you must be registered and should have to own property and pay taxes. That is the only fair way to settle the issue. Donald L. Pearson Spokane
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
Blame Clinton if revolution aborts
“Republican revolution grinds to halt” So proclaims a headline in the Sunday Spokesman-Review.
The source is not the Review itself but Knight-Ridder. Who wrote the headline I’m not sure, but the Review published it on the front page. Impartial political analyses? Hardly.<
Why is the Republican goal of balancing the budget going down the tube? Simple. Because the Republicans refuse to meet President Clinton’s terms for compromise. Compromise indeed.
Clinton claims, for example, that federal expenditures for education must not be cut. Has anything that the federal education program has ever done improved education in America? Are high school graduates who can’t spell but have self-esteem going to make our country strong and prosperous in the 21st century? Or are they just going to return our glorious leader to office in 1996?
Under the Constitution the president has the right to veto any law Congress passes, but Congress is charged with enacting laws and thereby establishing national policy in those once-limited areas of federal power.
Rep. George Nethercutt was elected in 1994 as part of the Republican revolution that espoused the Contract with America. In the 5th District and throughout the country the people spoke at the polls, electing Republican majority in Congress.
If the program on which Nethercutt and many others were elected doesn’t get past the president, so be it. But let’s put the blame for a lack of progress where it belongs, and that’s not on Congress. Paul J. Allison Spokane
GOP-think regurgitated on demand
Every time dittoheads write letters to the editor, falsehoods unfurl like knapweed seeds in a windstorm.
This time, it appears as though Ed Davis has fallen victim to Limbaugh-logic conclusions based upon partial facts and superficial knowledge.
In his Dec. 12 diatribe (“Poll evidence media slant news,” Letters), Davis parrots the corporate party line that says the media are spreading lies about Medicare cuts, when in fact the Republican budget calls for increased Medicare spending. What Davis apparently doesn’t know is that those spending increases are earmarked for health care company fee raises, while patients would end up with fewer benefits for their money.
Given a chance, the Republican Party always turns populist programs into corporate welfare, while those susceptible to simplistic slogans cheer them along all the way. Chris Farnam Spokane
Foley guilty of malpractice
It’s too bad we can’t charge our politicians with government malpractice. We hear a lot concerning health care, crime, youth gangs, abundant welfare and a number of burgeoning illnesses that are downgrading our country.
While it is considered tasteless to downgrade those who are no longer in office, it might be well to consider some of the sins committed during the years that America has been going downhill. We have Tom Foley in mind, our congressman for 30 years.
Our former representative tends to leave his new deluxe home in Washington, D.C., to take over a branch office in downtown Spokane. The rent is high, there are three employees on the congressional payroll and eligible for pension benefits. All that Foley gets is his generous pension, plus slush funds.
Back to the malpractice: He was instrumental in the stealing (borrowing?) of nearly one-half trillion dollars - $439 billion - from the Social Security reserves, transferred to lower the national debt total. He won’t be on the scene when Social Security folds up, which will be a time of revolution in America.
He steered his own pay raise, along with the raises for other congressmen. Democrats controlled Congress nearly the whole time since Foley was elected 30 years ago. Is he by any chance planning a comeback? During his time in office, he used our credit card. Our children will be stuck with the exorbitant final bill. Carlton Gladder Spokane
Clinton, his fans all shady characters
Now that President Clinton has again refused to surrender subpoenaed documents and information relating to Whitewater, people should ask themselves what he is trying to hide and just how dirty he is.
Whitewater is just one incident from Clinton’s past. And now he has refused to hand over material that has been legally subpoenaed. Does he feel that he is above the law of the country he governs? How can we condemn the practices of Fidel Castro and Saddam Hussein when we have Clinton?
Who could even consider re-electing this man of such questionable character? Only those of like character could support Clinton’s bid for presidency.
One has to wonder how our servicemen and women in Bosnia will vote next November - provided they’re still able to do so. Kim Utke Spokane
Somehow, I’m being shorted
Re: Opinion editor John Webster’s remark that welfare recipients make $9.75 per hour:
Let’s see, motherhood is a 24-hour-a-day job and I bring in $810 a month on welfare. I totaled it up and I make $1.12 per hour. Exactly where do we get this $9.75 an hour? If that were true I wouldn’t be going to college, and when I’m not going to college I wouldn’t be working to support my kids. I’d like to know where this $9.75 an hour is because I really could use it right now. Lori Belnap Spokane