Letters To The Editor

WASHINGTON STATE

I’m buying the fox his chicken coop

Your April 30 article, “Insurance industry calls shots,” reads much like the review of a comic stage play. The only actor left unnamed, the butt of this joke, could rightly be called the fool.

Surely the insurance industry and its lobbyists wouldn’t qualify for the part. After all, they wrote and produced this delightful comedy. And of course our incorruptible legislators, with all their honest and profound wisdom, would never qualify as fools.

So it seems I, being stupid enough to bother voting, stupid enough to think politicians are there to protect the public interest, and believing my insurance premiums should be used to buy health care rather than fund political prostitution, am well cast in the role of the fool.

Even a fool may wonder, who needs elected officials? It is much simpler and cheaper to just have the industries or companies involved write their own laws and regulations.

But of course, foolish me, it’s already happening that way. Robert Rogers Spokane

Privatization - ultimate boondoggle

John Webster’s April 30 editorial was interesting. He points out the lunacy of the House education bill.

Instead of laying off teachers as a penalty for student absenteeism, why not spank legislators? That is more in line with conservative Republican philosophy.

I fail to understand Webster’s continued call for privatization when he is always criticizing the results. Hanford is the ultimate privatization nightmare.

Spokane’s composting venture poses the question of which stinks worse, the compost material or the management that sponsored the project? And how about that bus terminal? He forgets that the people who brought you these fiascos are the people who would supervise private contractors. They are not competent now. Imagine the waste and incompetence if you hand them privatization on a platter.

Webster proposes state workers contribute $32 a month toward the cost of health insurance. State employees used to contribute to their health plan. In the 1980s, the state backed out of legislated pay raises because of a budget crisis. To compensate for no raises, the Legislature picked up the health plan.

The state has saved millions because of that move. A pay raise would have cost about $1,400 per year per employee; picking up the health insurance cost about $350 per year per employee.

I believe in fairness. If you are going to take away a minuscule increase given several years ago, I am sure you would not object to a raise being taken away from you. Think how much healthier your employer will be. Tom McArthur Spokane

Budget cutting efforts too tame

Well, there they go again.

Those who feed at the state trough are complaining that state House Republicans “submitted a budget that would produce the largest state rollback of spending in the state’s history.”

This is simply not true and anyone who can read knows it.

The fiscal year 1991-93 state budget was $15 billion.

The 1993-95 state budget was $16.3 billion.

The state House proposal for fiscal year 1995-97 is $17.3 billion - an increase of $1.1 billion. That hardly sounds like a rollback to me.

Because the citizens of Washington state were outraged by the 1993-95 pork-laden budget of $16.3 billion, they elected Republicans to the state House and Senate. Remember the $708 million in cuts we were promised in that budget?

The citizens have every right to be disappointed in the performance of this Legislature. Democrats and Republicans had better watch themselves in the next election because real budget cutters will get the support of citizens of this state. It’s past time to downsize this bloated state government. Dorie Clark Spokane

IN THE PAPER

Half pages ‘a royal pain’

I’ve been waiting semi-patiently for some thinking adult on your staff to re-evaluate the use of half pages for the apparent purpose of attracting a reader’s attention to the advertiser. The person responsible for this royal pain should be returned, posthaste, to the mop and bucket from whence he or she came.

I am asking that everyone who, like me, lacks the third hand that it takes to deal with this piece of flotsam to jerk out the offending page without looking at the advertiser who encourages this inane junk.

Sorry, but I am really tired of being bombarded with stupid marketing ploys. Leonard Maiani Athol, Idaho

Don’t stigmatize teenagers

I would like to remind the people of the Northwest that not all teenagers drive drunk and crazy. The way you write some of your articles about teenagers is not right, because not all teenagers are like that.

I am not saying teenagers are angels; even the goodygoodies once in a while have a little fun. But don’t say “some tipsy teenagers” did this and that. Please mention names, not “teenagers.” Mary Lindburg Newport, Wash.

Event for children deserved story

I’m wondering where The Spokesman-Review reporters were Monday when most of the caring leaders of our community were down at Riverfront Park flying a May Day flag, saying: “May Day! May Day! We need help for our community’s children.”

There was nothing in The Spokesman-Review Tuesday and I’m disappointed because our children do need that help.

Please tune in, Spokesman-Review, and be out there so that you can relay the concerns of our leaders to everyone. Dora-Faye Hendricks Spokane

Tip presented as iceberg

I was at the town meeting in Colville with Rep. George Nethercutt. Your reporter appears to have been somewhere else (“Rein in Reno,’ Nethercutt told at Colville meeting,” Apr 26 SR).

For all but the last five minutes of that town meeting, the discussion centered around local concerns dealing with jobs, businesses and other workaday matters.

During the last five minutes, several people expressed concern that Congress was not acting quickly enough and publicly enough to prevent more wackos from perpetrating more violence. Nobody threatened violence at the town meeting. We were expressing concern about it.

But your reporter seems to have turned it around and made the meeting sound as if the last five minutes was all that took place - except for a couple paragraphs at the end of the article that covered the first hour.

This is why people don’t believe you. Sheikh Dawud Ahmad Springdale

FRINGE GROUPS

Limbaugh, clones share responsibility

Remember that giant sucking sound Ross Perot warned us about? It is the sound of legions of ditto-heads sucking up to their mentor, Rush Limbaugh.

Ever since the suggestion was made that the inflammatory style of government bashing practiced by certain radio talk show hosts might in some way contribute to the aberrant behavior of anti-government extremists, Limbaugh’s disciples have been clamoring to absolve him of culpability.

After all, how could anyone whose talent is on loan from God possibly be involved in anything other than responsible political debate?

Reasoned dissent is a hallmark of our democratic way of life. But anyone who portrays officials of the federal government as enemy hostage takers, who vilifies the office of the presidency in the most disparaging of terms, who refers to those concerned about the environment as “maggot infested dope smokers,” etc., is not interested in constructive criticism. He is interested in only one thing: increasing ratings amongst those who have become so overdosed on hateful invective that they are no longer responsive to civilized discourse.

If Limbaugh looks carefully, he will find not only the proverbial nicotine stains on his hands, but traces of blood of the victims of the Oklahoma City disaster as well.

No one is denying him the right to protest governmental polices. But if he and his ilk do not moderate the bellicose rhetoric by which they mount those protests, they are likely to discover even more blood on their hands in the future. Jack DeBaun Sandpoint

Militias ‘last bastion of defense’

In response to David Calvert’s letter of April 27, I’m shocked to hear that Bo Gritz, a recent presidential candidate, would express such approbation toward the Oklahoma City massacre. I’ve heard that his description, “a Rembrandt of science and art,” was taken out of context.

Calvert says he is incensed when he sees these militia movements calling themselves Minutemen and using the symbol of the U.S. Guard and Reserve units on their letterhead. He says he “serves our government.”

The U.S. Constitution sets forth the rules our forefathers thought necessary to protect the people from harm by foreign and domestic sources, including bad government. I’d have preferred to hear Calvert claim that he served the people, instead of the government, as therein lies the danger. He seems to be a patriotic and well-intentioned man, but given his attitude, he’s in danger of being used against his own countrymen.

I see the various militias as also well-intentioned and patriotic men whose eyes have been opened to government injustices and who are aware that attempts to undermine the rights of the people might presage an effort to control us all.

Calvert accuses the militias of “serving no one but themselves.” I think they’re probably our last bastion of defense against a federal takeover which would enlist the services of Calvert against the people.

There always will be men who hunger for power and care nothing about the well-being of individuals, and who would be willing to pre-empt government authority to serve their ends. Are they doing it now? Dee Lewis Spokane

I find president’s word troubling

The president has done it again. Only this time his postulation far surpasses the usual party line rhetoric.

I have a real problem with his call for a broad national discussion of “what is causing the United States to commit the whole range of violence we see,” as stated in the article by the Washington Post in the May 2 Spokesman-Review.

By substituting the phrase, “a lot of these groups,” with the word “people” (example follows), you can see why my concern becomes especially clear:

I don’t know that there is another country in the world that would by law protect the right of people to say what they want to say … to assemble over the weekend and do whatever they want to do and to bear arms…

The last time I checked, I lived in the United States, where our rights to free speech, to assemble and to bear arms are guaranteed and protected by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

I guess President Clinton thinks these rights apply to only some of the people but perhaps not all. I find his statement very dangerous. I hope I’m not alone. Tracy Landon Ritzville

New life for an old retort

The talk from the right these days seems to be discontent with the government of the United States of America - a general fear about where the U.S. government is leading us, too much control, government oppression, free speech, etc.

I can’t help but note the irony of the full circle. Remember May 4, 1970? Kent State, four students gunned down by the U.S. government. Four people dead in Ohio because they were saying and fearing much of what the right is today.

Maybe we should tell these discontented folks what they told us back then: America, love it or leave it. Dennis Beich Otis Orchards

Just where does militia come in?

The tragic bombing incident at Oklahoma City apparently provided a much longed for excuse for performing an intensive proctoscopic examination of citizen militia groups, plus another round of criticism of the National Rifle Association.

Yet no credible allegation has been made that whoever constructed and placed the bomb was associated in any substantive way with, or motivated or supported by, any citizen military organization. Neither was any firearm used in connection with the Oklahoma City incident.

Whence, therefore, the presumption of criminal culpability on the part of citizen militia groups and the NRA? Can you provide a clear and simple rationale for this presumed linkage?

The most intemperate language I have read or heard in connection with this tragedy has come from the chief executive officer of the United States of America. Leonard C. Johnson Troy, Idaho

OTHER TOPICS

Parents have reason to fear chemicals

This is in response to Ron Lahue’s letter (May 3) stating that we should not fear the effects of perchloroethylene because of the current technology being used by drycleaners. He based his arguments on the exposure standards set by OSHA and others.

What he did not tell you is that those standards are set for adults, not for children. There is growing evidence that children, with their developing systems, are much more susceptible to chemical exposure of all kinds.

As a mother with children already affected by chemical injury, I tell you to be afraid of perc and every other chemical which can change a child’s life forever. Be very afraid. Lana Boone Airway Heights

U.N. treaty threat to family

In David Broder’s April 28 (Opinion) column about the Oklahoma bombing triggering a shift in U.S. politics, he makes a statement about conservatives who “raise the false charge that the United Nations is usurping control of the U.S. military forces…”

Whether or not this is false really isn’t known. However in February, President Clinton announced his intention to send to the Senate for ratification the U.N. treaty on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).

I believe UNCRC is not in the best interest of the American family.

Although many provisions are positive, such as a child’s right to be free from abuse, Article 13 provides the child’s right to free expression, giving a child access to any information, no matter how objectionable it is to the parent.

Article 15 declares a child’s right to free association with anyone they wish, regardless of the parents’ objection. Parents would risk being prosecuted for preventing their children from joining a satanic cult, associating with dopers or reading racist or pornographic material.

The United Nations is usurping control of the American family.

I believe parents have the right to raise their children as they see fit, so long as they don’t abuse them, and that there are already numerous laws against such actions. No government should tell parents who their child may associate with, what TV shows they may watch, what books they may read or what religion they may join.

Maybe the Senate should revisit our fiscal commitment to the United Nations. C.A. Holm Elmer City, Wash.

Viet Nam ‘defeat’ really wasn’t

I commend your Sunday coverage of the 20th anniversary of the fall of Saigon. I particularly appreciate your inclusion of one paragraph in the Boston Globe article that reads, in part: “The North Vietnamese offensive - a violation of the 1973 peace treaty that had removed the last American troops… “

I have long wondered how the evacuation of a press corps and embassy staff, in the absence of any of our own combat units, could have been interpreted as a military defeat by some historians. I well remember celebrating the Paris treaty of January 1973 as a victory. After a reasonable effort to remove the mines we had emplaced, we were home in August.

The enemy, its forces decimated in its April 1972 offensive and suffering at home as a result of an American maritime blockade and intensified bombing campaign, had clearly capitulated. The two years it took it to resume its offense bears witness to this fact. Ben Alexander Reardan, Wash.

John the Baptist would’ve known

In her letter of April 29, Jeannie Greene - in defense of baptism at the church of one’s choice with no questions asked - posed the question: “What would have happened if John (the Baptist) had asked Jesus what religion he was?”

Ms. Greene can rest assured that John the Baptist would never have had any need of such a question, since he had recognized Jesus Christ as the son of God even before their meeting at the River Jordan.

What’s more interesting to me is how so many people I talk to want their child baptized with relatively little thought about what that ritual represents. In fact, it is a uniquely Christian ritual that marks a commitment to live a life centered on Christ and his teachings. Taking on that task, and helping one’s children take on that task, is one way to avoid settling for the “man-made rules” that Ms. Greene finds so frustrating. Maria Zacharias Spokane