Letters To The Editor

Sat., June 17, 1995

THE MEDIA

Beans and weiners won’t cut mustard

Staff writer Mike Prager’s biased report on EWU and WSU presidents was clearly written to make these men look like they regularly throw giant toga parties and have roman orgies complete with vomitories all at the expense of their universities’ libraries and other worthy causes.

I’m in business and very sensitive to the vast waste that goes on in the various bureaucracies in this country. In this case, however, I have attended a few of the functions that Mr. Prager wrote about in the “Presidents live like kings” article (June 11, 1995). The fancy parties and events that these guys attend 10 to 15 times every week, 50 weeks a year, rapidly lose their glamour and stretch their days into 14-hour workathons and 80-hour-plus work weeks.

If I was one of these university presidents with the demanding social calendar that they keep (not to mention their wives, who receive no salary), I wouldn’t do it for twice their compensation.

The fancy luncheons, receptions, private clubs, symphonies and $125,000-plus salary is the exact profile of any high-powered person in the public or private sector who must solicit money for their foundation or customers for their business. This is exactly what the president of a university is supposed to do! You don’t have people of high profile and means over to your two-bedroom apartment in Cheney for beans and weiners and then ask them for a $250,000 donation.

Mr. Prager needs to understand that there is a cost of doing business: the bigger the prize, the larger the investment. David J. Britt Spokane

TV violence not source of crime

I have a very hard time believing the idea that violence on television causes people to become violent. Nobody I know watches a “violent” show and then wants to go out and attack someone.

The only reason parents should be concerned about letting their children watch “violent” programming is that the children might have nightmares.

Sure, kids may try to imitate martial arts after watching “Power Rangers,” but they’re not going to turn into criminals.

People should just stop being paranoid about imaginary violence on television. G.W. Darigol Spokane

Please, hold the bimbo characters

I am 10 years old, and think the Native Americans are right. Those skinny bodies that Disney makes are telling girls, “Hey, be sexy like me.” I think it’s repulsive.

They should make girls’ bodies look more natural. They should put a longer dress on Pocahontas and have her look kind of pretty, but not like a glamorous bimbo!

Disney makes women look like they always need help from men. Disney always has boys saving girls. Why can’t girls save boys? Women aren’t weaklings like they make us out to be. We’re strong, and they should make us that way, not like Barbie’s twin.

When I grow up and have baby girls, I don’t want them saying “Mommy, mommy, look at the girl on television - I want to look like her.” Pocohantas’ body is like a sex machine. Disney should make her look more real. Sophia Mattice Aldous Gifford, Wash.

Your ‘stupid’ is my precaution

Many of us who regard ourselves as reasonable, decent, law-abiding citizens have acquired concealed weapon permits, guns and the proper training. We exercise intelligent caution around children, don’t run through the woods decked out in camouflage gear with our faces blackened.

Most of us also dismiss the idea that the right to carry Uzis is part of our birthright.

However, there are those who no longer feel any place is safe. We hope it will never happen, but when the proverbial 300-pound gorilla accosts us in our car, on the street or bursts into our home, we want a more-level playing field, which might prevent hideous indignities and/or death to our persons, not to mention the loss of our belongings.

Therefore, if you think I’m stupid, Milt Priggee, I can live with it, even though I do seem to remember a time that educated, respectful adults generally did not so freely use name calling to denounce the opinions of others.

Then again, there was also a time when it would never have occurred to me to acquire a weapon for self-defense, and I frankly resent that our society has disintegrated to the point that many of us feel compelled to take this action. J.K. Pearson Spokane

Slice critic should just skip it

As a subscriber to The Spokesman-Review for many years, I felt compelled to write in response to James T. Kane (Letters, June 10). He stated that the “Slice” was inane and is “nowhere.”

As the old saying goes, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

I enjoy the Slice. It’s one of the first things I read. It is short, light and whimsical. I contributed once myself.

I don’t care for the comics, so I don’t read them. A very simple solution. Darlene L. Ponack Hope, Idaho

More to worry about than movie

I am a Native American and I believe that we, and other people, have too many other problems to worry about besides “Pocahontas.” Everyone knows what went on, or they should, anyway.

We need to worry about the bigger things in life, not such trivial things. Conrad Jim Nespelem, Wash.

Gap in cartoonist’s education

Milt, Milt, Milt. You have yet to learn the lesson most youngsters in grade school know. Walking up to someone and calling them stupid can often lead to a bloody nose.

Fortunately, 90 percent of gun owners in this area, unlike Milt, have grown up and no longer do that sort of thing. Call someone stupid, that is.

Educating someone requires the application of patience and logical persuasion to put across the point you wish to make. Comparing a gun owner to someone who suffers from the disease of alcoholism is not the way to do that. Presentation of logic is.

Gun ownership is undertaken for many, varied reasons (hunting, sport target shooting, collecting and protection from criminals). I include protection because the time lapse from instigation of the crime to arrival of law enforcement officers can be as long as an hour. In that length of time a vicious criminal can murder a family, leaving no living witnesses officers could take testimony from. In such a case, a gun in the hands of a well-trained gun owner could mean the difference between life and a gruesome death.

Please try to remember that cars kill far more people than guns. Should we outlaw cars? Doing so would also stop drinking and driving, although, it might be a little harder for us to get from point A to point B. But think of the lives it would save.

Restricting ownership of either guns or cars is not the answer. Education as to their use is. Dwight Hamilton Couer d’Alene

Film character perfectly valid

I wish to comment on the appearance of “Pocohantas.” I cannot agree with Martina Whelshula and Faith Spotted Eagle. Disney is only making a fun movie, not a lesson in Indian history. Who can say that Pocohantas wasn’t a beautiful, shapely, sexy girl in Disney’s eyes? She was his Pocohantas in the film, so she looks the way he wants her to look.

In all reality, there are beautiful Indian girls. I’ve seen them. They are not all dumpy, overweight, shapeless squaws. I hope that Martina and Faith would discover somewhere along the way that “Pocohantas” is a beautiful movie. Waldo Larson Laclede, Idaho

CREATURES GREAT BUT SMALL

Thoughtless drivers inhumane, too

So, you think being a driver in Spokane traffic is dangerous, try being a pedestrian. Think being a pedestrian in Spokane traffic is dangerous? Try being a lost dog.

I witnessed the most appalling display of uncaring, compassionless behavior imaginable by Spokane drivers. A lost dog was caught in rush hour traffic at Second and Monroe, and not one person stopped or even slowed down. Several drivers almost hit her and never batted an eye.

Fortunately, she jumped into my car when I called her.

Kudos to Spokanimal CARE, which responded with a truck and helpful officer within 10 minutes of my phone call.

Shame, shame on every one of you behind the wheel who did nothing to help “Annie.”

Please, readers, spay/neuter and have an address and phone number on your pet’s tag. Judith Brown St. John, Wash.

Be responsible for and with cats

I was at the Spokane Humane Society Saturday and there were at least 100 kittens and almost that many adult cats, waiting to be adopted. This is a sad testament to the fact that most people - even those who own cats - still consider them expendable “things” instead of living beings.

If you lose a cat, contact the Humane Society and the other shelters as soon as you realize it’s gone. If you get a kitten from someplace other than a shelter, have it spayed/neutered as soon as possible. (Some places are doing this as early as eight weeks.) If you know someone who is getting rid of kittens, ask them to have the mama cat spayed.

Altered cats make much better pets. They stay closer to home and don’t add to the pet overpopulation problem. Remember, for every child born, 45 kittens are born. Be part of the solution rather than adding to the problem.

June is Adopt-a-Cat month. Visit the Humane Society and take home a new friend. Louise Long Spokane

LAW AND JUSTICE

Argument against execution incredible

I am 42 years old and, like Dawnya Calbreath, I was anti-capital punishment 20 years ago. Through the years I have reversed my opinion.

Sadly, Miss Calbreath never had the opportunity to change her opinion. She fell victim to an animal, Blake Pirtle, who not only deserves the death penalty, but should also be required to go through the brutality of torture that his two victims endured.

Then we have we have Joan Fisher, his attorney, crying out that this animal be granted clemency from his sentence, citing a paper that Miss Calbreath wrote while she was in college. This all arose three years after this horrible deed.

Maybe I’m missing something, but wasn’t this lawyer overlooking the fact that even if this girl was anti-death penalty, what about the other victim, Tod Folsom? What about the surviving victims, family, relatives and friends? Most of us will never know the horror and trauma these people suffered. Time is one vehicle in which these unrecognized victims must depend for any kind of recovery. Then, three years after this terrible act and two years after the trial, this animal’s attorney stirs up the coals of sadness so deeply planted in these surviving victims. I question this lawyer’s real intent. Is it really to get this animal off death row or just to grab a headline? Mark Erickson Spokane

EDUCATION

SAT slant not against minorities

For some time now we have been reading statements that low scores by minorities were due to the “cultural bias” of the SAT test.

I therefore checked out of the local library a preparation booklet, including the past 10 SATs, to see how much of this smokescreen might be considered valid.

Half the test is math of a sort. Forget that half; pi is pi no matter what your culture. The other half is “reading comprehension.” It’s immediately apparent that anyone who prefers MTV to reading is going to consider it biased against them.

Pursuing the matter further, bias is in fact apparent, but not in the way usually cited. It’s quite the contrary.

Of the 51 reading selections in the 10 sample tests, 26 concerned technology, with no obvious political slant. Just one had a - faintly - conservative flavor. Twentyfour were so far left as to constitute, in some cases, a socialist manifesto. Six extolled African culture as superior to European culture. Three were supportive of minority groups, in any case. One apologized for the behavior of the “urban poor.” Two were anti-religion. One celebrated a lesbian love affair. One heavily supported civil disobedience. Two supported “humanities” in education, as opposed to “mere facts.”

The rest varied, from praising Margaret Mead’s long discredited work on sexuality to advocating limitless government spending for everything imaginable to damning Shakespeare and taking the Japanese side in World War II.

The conclusion is, yes, there is cultural bias is the SAT program, but not of the sort one reads about in the mainstream media. H.B. Porter Kennewick, Wash.