Letters To The Editor

IDAHO VIEWPOINTS

Forest Service offer a good one

Our teenagers need rescuing from themselves and the U.S. Forest Service has offered to help us do it. The Shoshone Work Center has been offered to juvenile corrections to use to help our children at no cost to taxpayers. What better use of our money can we have?

If my troubled teen were to be able to go there to get his GED and some vocational training he might be able to grow up and make a contribution to society. Right now, his future looks pretty bleak and society will be footing the bill to house and feed him. Eventually, he’ll be released back into society and then what will he do?

He’s not a dangerous criminal about to shoot someone or do bodily injury. My son, like so many, is just struggling to grow up and be on his own and he doesn’t have the skills he needs yet. He could be your neighbor you’ve watched grow up, your friend’s child or even your own.

We have a lot of good support from our system that’s already in place, but these people can only do so much with the facilities available to handle the many teens struggling to grow up. I’ve done all I know how to do for my child and must rely on the juvenile justice system to continue the process. Juvenile justice needs our support to make it happen. Joan Maine Post Falls

Women’s Center grateful for help

The Women’s Center in Coeur d’Alene provides crisis intervention and shelter for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and rape.

We receive assistance and support for our services in many forms. Staff writer Cynthia Taggart outlined one of our recent boosts in the Sunday Spokesman-Review when she featured our offering of “HMS Pinafore” tickets for the Friday performance at the Coeur d’Alene Summer Theatre.

The Women’s Center would not have these tickets if it were not for the donation of the Coeur d’Alene Summer Theatre. President of the Board Jim Speirs donated 100 tickets to us so we could bring in some extra funding to assist victims of domestic violence.

Coeur d’Alene Summer Theatre has brought quality musical theater productions to this area for almost three decades. Over this time, the theater has consistently given back to the community in the best way of all - sharing the arts with everyone. Holladay Sanderson, executive director The Women’s Center, Coeur d’Alene

SPOKANE MATTERS

Suddenly, there’s money to waste

How many commissioners does it take to screw in a lightbulb - I mean, attend a conference?

Of course Spokane County Sheriff John Goldman should have gone to the conference, if it is a worthwhile conference. And maybe, if the budget permits, one commissioner who could take notes and share with the others, should have gone also.

My taxpaying husband and I see many conferences and seminars we feel could benefit our family, but if it’s not in the budget, guess what? We don’t go, no matter how beneficial.

I hope Commissioner Phil Harris especially enjoys the taxpayer-funded trip to visit his brother.

I hope the taxpayers will remember this at election time. I know I will. Sheri Sapone Spokane

Harris’ wisdom what we need

In recent weeks in your paper, there has been a steady drumbeat of condemnation of Spokane County Commissioner Phil Harris and the changes he is bringing about in our county government. Your staff writers seem to think all expansion of government is good, regardless of the cost, and all contraction is bad, regardless of the savings.

I applaud the wisdom and common sense Commissioner Harris brings to his office. Mr. Harris has taken on a challenge in streamlining a local government bureaucracy. It’s grown both insensitive and out of control.

Keep up the good work, Commissioner Harris. Our entire county will be better off. Ignore the naysayers and their empty criticism. Peter R. Thompson Spokane

PUBLIC SAFETY

Know, follow rules and survive

The Idaho driver’s manual states: “Bicyclists have the same rights to the public roads as operators of other vehicles. They must also obey all traffic laws, highway signs, rules of the road, and safety requirements that can logically apply to bicycles.”

What appears to be needed is an education program for both the bicyclists and the motorists. The driver’s manual provides specific rules and suggestions for bicyclists, and all people who drive on highways should be aware of these rules/suggestions.

I believe motorists and bicyclists can share state Highway 200 - if they both follow the rules. I also recommend that all bicyclists use a rear-view mirror.

If one has a helmet and a rear-view mirror, follows the traffic/bicyclist rules and uses common sense, one can safely bicycle on most roads in the United States. I just rode from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Tijuana, Mexico, this May and shared the road with logging trucks most of the way to San Francisco. Robert Piper Hope

Road menace: oldster driving RV

I’m surprised to see letters about bicycles on the highway when the real danger still hovers over us - the recreational vehicle.

The vast majority of recreational vehicles are driven by older people whose bodies, sight and reactions are deteriorating, but they are allowed to drive a commercialsize vehicle that has the worst brakes, the worst handling and steering. They are not even required to have a special driver’s test.

I would like to see new testing for RVs and our public safety officers to start giving tickets for highway obstruction. Better yet, maybe our older citizens could stay home and impart their wisdom and experiences to their grandchildren and others, instead of hiding in those RV caravan camps. Jim Conachen Sagle

PEOPLE IN SOCIETY

Too-simplistic notions let us down

If today’s Americans seem rude and impolite compared to those of the past, it can be blamed on our own shallowness, our own inability to get beneath the surface of one-line catch phrases that sound great but aren’t.

Take for example this well-worn tenet: “Respect is something that must be earned.” Ouch! It’s a dumb thing to say and an even dumber thing to teach our children.

Implicit in that is a dangerous, damaging precept that young people quickly grasp and extend to its logical limits as they carry it into adulthood. The line effectively emancipates humans from showing respect to any other human who has not had the time or chance to earn it. In effect, a person we pass on the street has had no chance to earn respect, so they therefore receive none.

Certainly, whoever coined the phrase intended the lesson to be something quite different, but that’s not the American way. The modern human wants the aphorism to be quick and simple, like an advertisement. No matter if it’s stupid; it just needs to sound good.

Lots of political candidates have based their careers on lines that sound good. And the sad part is that we elect them.

Even sadder is the fact that we teach these shallow phrases to our offspring as if they are true. The truth is, however, that all people deserve respect until they have done something to prove they don’t. Strangers haven’t had the chance to “earn” respect, but some strangers are darn fine people. Mike Ruskovich Athol

Don’t look now, but ogling is out

I didn’t need coffee to wake me up this morning. An item in the paper brought me to full alert.

A paving crew engineer threatened to discipline his crew for ogling. A woman had complained that ogling made her uncomfortable. Most of the women I’ve met would be uncomfortable if they weren’t noticed.

This item caused me to wonder. If anti-ogling could be enforced it might save us bachelor types from getting tied down. On the other hand, it might cause us Casanova types to remain untied down.

In any event, who is going to enforce the regulation, “Look all you want - just don’t look all you want?” I hope it doesn’t go national. If it did, every sailor in the Navy would be in the brig. Submarine sailors would be the first to go. Waldo Larson Laclede

LAW AND JUSTICE

Vigilantes are made, not born

Regarding D.F. Oliveria’s comments on vigilantism (“Justice from law, not from passion, Opinion,” July 15), I suggest D.F. read his paper’s original article more carefully.

Vigilantism stems from a government unable or unwilling to protect its own citizens. The courts, all the way to the Supreme Court, have been more concerned with protecting the rights of criminals than those of the victims for some time. The laws are there and we don’t need more. Only a court system willing to hold people accountable, and an appeal process that is concerned with justice, not “criminal rights.”

The article stated law enforcement knew of the Binghams’ activities but, because of bureaucratic roadblocks and concerns for the rights of the alleged criminals, law enforcement couldn’t act. We see this time and time again in our society.

What about a 9-year-old girl allowed to live with an already convicted but unsentenced sex offender? Actions like those of Mr. Arrasmith might be deemed inappropriate to pontificating, high-minded intellectuals like Mr. Oliveria, but, until the government chooses to protect its citizens, we’re likely to see more.

As for myself, if my child had been abused in such fashion, 29 rounds would not have been enough. Jim White Spokane

IN THE PAPER

‘Yarmulke’ reference a disservice

I think it is the height of insensitive incompetence for the editor of The Spokesman-Review and reporter Bill Morlin to have printed the detailed description of how Gene Engene improvised a yarmulke, especially in an article that was about hate (“Kicking up a furor,” July 22).

Thank you, gentlemen, for giving the bigots of the Inland Northwest more ammunition to throw at the handful of Orthodox Jewish men who try to live, work and educate in our area.

The article would have been just as good if that particular paragraph had been omitted. In fact, I find no literary merit for it being used in this article. I know that included in the ethnic slurs that are yelled, and the physical intimidations that are endured because we are Orthodox Jews, we will now have to deal with this added bit of blatant anti-Semitic humor.

Maybe if Gene Engene had contacted the synagogue in Boise or the one here in Spokane he would have found not only a yarmulke but actual rabbis to explain its significance. Maybe if Bill Morlin had met a few Jews and talked with them he would have been more sensitive. Maybe if the editor had been doing his job, I would not have to be writing this letter.

But it’s too late for that now. Now we have to live with yet more bigotry, all due to a lack of conscientious reporting and editing. R.L. Leppert Spokane

Paper includes conflicting views

You people are so illogical. One day you publish a big column bemoaning the problems of the homeless in Spokane. In the same paper you publish a big diatribe against the developers. Where do you think homes for the homeless are to come from? C.F. Brenton Spokane

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Anti-conservative charges foolish

First we had state Sen. Mary Lou Reed making the ridiculous charge that U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth is a racist because she questioned why the Bonneville Power Administration should pay the Nez Perce tribe $7.1 million.

The truth is, Reed knows Chenoweth is not a racist. Chenoweth just happens to be financially prudent. Reed was just looking for an excuse to label Chenoweth for political reasons. I think most would agree it was a pretty lame excuse.

A few days later we have Rep. Maxine Waters of California calling the National Republican Congressional Committee racist. She saw a (wanted poster) with her picture along with those of six other female members of the House. Some of those pictured were black or Jewish. What she didn’t say is that the other 21 pictured Democrats were males and most were white.

Waters said their lives were in danger and she was asking the FBI and House security people for advice. Perhaps the FBI could loan Larry Potts to these Democrats pictured on the wanted poster for their protection. I understand he could be available for a promotion.

The only thing these 28 Democrats are in danger of is losing reelection because they are ultraliberals. It has nothing to do with gender or skin color. Ron Vieselmeyer Coeur d’Alene

Minimum wage serves good purpose

Dennis Marx’ letter, “Minimum wage shouldn’t exist” (July 23), was outrageous to say the least. What he was smoking I do not know.

Abolishing the minimum wage would be unjust, unfair and utterly stupid. Being conservative myself, I fully promote free trade and the free market system. But Marx’s view was way off the deep end.

Discontinuing the minimum wage law would only make the rich richer and the poor poorer. If Mr. Marx understood his economic principles he would realize that when people make less they spend less. When people spend less, less money is circulated through the economy and the consumers who are making $2.50 an hour because there is no minimum wage law stop buying consumer goods because they can barely afford to live. Then people stop working and start relying on welfare because they can make more doing nothing than they can working, thus hurting big business and the economy.

The majority of minimum-wage earners are hardworking individuals who need a fair wage for a good day’s work to survive. Views like those of Dennis Marx give conservative ideals a bad name. Tony Cruse Spokane

Formula sure beats skunk poop

Some of us were talking tax reform the other day when one friend simply laid out the whole shebang in plain English. “It’s obvious,” she said, “that there is a number that the nation needs to agree on; the percent of our gross income that we are willing to spend for taxes, all taxes, at all levels - federal, state and local. That number becomes the average income tax paid under a graduated tax on gross income. Those who earn less pay a lower percentage. Earn more, pay more. No exemptions, no deductions, everyone who has income pays. Corporations are treated exactly the same as an individual. All other taxes are abolished.”

Simple and fair enough to gag any politician.

Once we had gotten over the crazy idea stage, we moved right into the “what abouts.”

“What about large families?” one asked. “And what about business overhead,” from another.

“What about them?” she asked. “If one exemption is allowed, then someone will make a case for another and we wind up right where we started, with skunk poop.”

Try as we might, we couldn’t shake her loose from an exemption or a deduction. And the more she stuck the more we began to nod our heads in agreement.

Imagine the savings to our entire country. No more time wasted on tax gobbledygook. No lawyers needed to tell you what the tax laws are. A whole lot less government. Darbie Marlin Spokane

To Chenoweth, ‘fair’ means ‘white’

I am embarrassed and outraged to have a representative in Congress like Helen Chenoweth. Her racist comments regarding the Nez Perce Tribe are appalling.

Chenoweth opposes compensating the tribe for wildlife losses caused by the Dworshak Reservoir, saying, “While we have limited the rights of the white person to hunt and fish, we have not treated all of our American citizens equally,” and continued to ask if “we are giving another nation greater access to our resources than our citizens.”

“White people” destroyed the economic, spiritual, cultural and food base of the Native Americans. Compensating Native Americans for this can hardly be seen as reverse discrimination.

“Our resources”? Whose resources does she think they originally were until the white people stole them? Chenoweth seems to forget that the Native Americans were here before the white people. Her comment about “giving another nation greater access to resources than our citizens” makes it obvious that she thinks the tribes are intruders trying to take rights away from good white folks. It’s actually been the other way around.

Duh, Helen.

Please write Rep. Chenoweth and tell her how disgusted you are with her. And if you find a “Dump Helen” bumper sticker, please affix it in an appropriate place. Natalie Shapiro Moscow