Letters To The Editor

SPOKANE MATTERS

Plaza scene of great things

I’m writing regarding the opportunities that we, the residents of this great community, are missing. We have so many positive events to offer our friends and neighbors that sometimes we miss what is right under our collective nose.

While we may not have endorsed the Spokane Transit Authority’s Plaza complex for one reason or another, it’s here, it’s working and it offers a wide variety of events that I feel one cannot help but enjoy.

The blend of ages, cultures and diverse interests is an added plus. For the most part, patrons are considerate and polite, allowing us to be proud of what we have and, most importantly, what we may share with others.

What did surprise me, though, is that when I asked several merchants close to the Plaza, “Did you see …?” most weren’t aware of what this facility offers.

So, I offer you a great opportunity to enjoy the events offered and to bring along a friend - or at least suggest it to a friend.

Remember, this is our city. Be proud. Use what we have and pass those good feelings on to others. It only takes a second to offer a smile or a kindly gesture, but doing so has an everlasting effect. May the spirit of the holidays last 365 days every year. G.H. Strenge Spokane

Ballet review distressing

While I do not experience the arts on a frequent basis, I was distressed after seeing The Spokesman-Review’s review of “The Nutcracker.” You see, my escort did not let me read the review until after we had seen this beautiful ballet on Sunday, the last day. I’m glad my moment wasn’t ruined by the print media.

I found the ballet exhilarating! The magnificent colors forever will stay in my memory; costumes, as well as stage sets, were marvelous. The symphony performed on cue and goosebumps were heard popping up throughout the theater. It is an afternoon I’ll never forget.

Apparently, I’m to be referred to as not being a purist to the ballet, according to your reviewer. I will grant I am not frequently in attendance. However, “The Nutcracker” was meant for children, which we all are at heart. I found it delightful.

The audience applauded when appropriate (and also when not). Who cares if there was a rabbit with the soldiers or lambs with the shepherdess? “The Nutcracker” is a fantasy, is it not? The children around us seemed not to care. They relished this special afternoon and forever will remember their day at the ballet. Perchance we have new ballet stars from our youthful audience?

Bravo, bravo, bravo to the Alberta Ballet and the Spokane Symphony. I’ll try to attend more Spokane Symphony concerts in the future. I can’t wait! Suzann O’Sullivan Embury Hayden, Idaho

Fox make-over good to see

Thank you, Chuck Caraway and Act III Theaters, for your labor of love in bringing back respectability to the Fox Theater. My thanks, too, go to staff writer Jim Kershner for bringing this to our attention with a well-written story (“Refurbishing the Fox,” IN Life, Dec. 8).

I, too, worked at the Fox Theater in the late 1970s and early ‘80s. I despaired to see such a majestic old theater on a downward spiral toward dilapidation and ruin.

You’ve saved it, Caraway. My husband and I now attend movies there with excitement. We look forward to finding something new that has been repaired that we had overlooked on our last visit. Our only regret is that we have not yet seen a movie in the main theater, so we have yet to see the restorations there.

Thank you for making beauty more important than the dollar. R. Kathi Cook Spokane

THE MEDIA

Forum story socialist garbage

“Radical church holds gulf war forum” (Dec. 11) was nothing more than an editorial masquerading as a news article. I am ashamed to admit I’m in the same profession as the bimbos who wrote the article.

Air Force nurse Capt. Joyce Riley was appearing in the Washington-Idaho area to talk about the one subject that concerns her: the gulf war syndrome, about which issue C-SPAN ran congressional hearings the same night Riley was appearing in Idaho.

The article followed the normal liberal hysteria about radical right minority groups by focusing on the church’s attempt to go mainstream. The article made Riley appear like some kind of right-wing radical, which she isn’t, and it contained minimal content on what she said and on the documentation she provided.

Two years ago, on my drive-time radio talk show in Denver, we had Riley as a guest. We had phone lines lit up for two hours, with veterans from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs calling to verify what she has been saying about gulf war syndrome.

I know the issue firsthand, since my foster son was in the gulf war and while there suffered his first-ever epileptic seizure and has manifested other symptoms similar to those of other gulf war veterans.

Again, this newspaper has upheld its reputation as the Socialist-Review. John Loeffler, Western bureau chief IRN Radio Network, Coeur d’Alene

Cheers, Baker, and thank you

Staff writer Ken Olsen has done a superior job in writing about Vernon Baker, war hero. Sometimes, it takes 50 or more years, but justice in this country will prevail.

We have moved a long way and still have a long way to go before all citizens of this country are afforded equal treatment. So many of our racial and ethnic minority citizens have taken part, and still are taking part, in the defense of freedom all over the world but still are not receiving that full measure deserved from their country.

It is good, however, to see that we are recognizing the problem and are doing something positive.

For Baker, I raise my glass and say thanks for a job well-done. William Roger Zales Coeur d’Alene

Make cable vendor stop ‘signal bleed’

It is unconscionable that our cable company willingly would allow innocent children to be victimized by inadequately scrambled pornographic channels if the technology is available to protect them. Parents increasingly are losing to the profit-driven media in the struggle to shape our children into high-caliber people.

Profit is a legitimate indicator that a business is functioning well, but it is not the only indicator. The financial accounts may be in order, but the firm’s most valuable asset - the people - may be humiliated and their dignity offended in the quest for higher earnings.

The purpose of a business is not simply to make a profit but also to form a community of persons trying to satisfy their basic needs and to provide a service to the whole of society.

Parents are not asking for censorship. We’re asking for citizenship. We’re asking our elected officials to ensure our rights to privacy, public decency and the protection of our basic values.insisting that the cable company secures these channels from “signal bleed,” they will protect the legitimate rights to free expression and free exchange of information for those who want to purchase the channels. But they also will be honoring their sacred duty to protect the common good, particularly as it pertains to youths.

We ask our officials to overcome human degradation with human dignity by using their authority to protect the innocence of youth and to help make straight the path that leads them into the fullness of life. Cindy Omlin Mead

Valid point made offensively

In the Nov. 18 IN Life section under the “People etc.” heading was a quote by Jackie Mason that was blatantly anti-Semitic and very offensive.

The quote was a joke told by Mason making a parallel between O.J. Simpson trial jurors and a Jewish husband who finds his wife in bed with a stranger and believes her when she tells him the stranger is giving her dancing lessons.

I understand the point he is trying to make. It is a common sentiment that those were blind to the obvious truth. But why must this situation be compared with a Jewish husband? This addition is unnecessary and very offensive.

I expected The Spokesman-Review to have more taste and dignity than to publish such a crude joke. Emily Oldenburg Spokane

THE ENVIRONMENT

My points were distorted

On Nov. 27, Robin Wood (letters) criticized my testimony to the Northwest Power Planning Council regarding salmon recovery. Because Wood grossly misrepresented my words, I need to respond.

Fact: Dams kill salmon.

Fact: Salmon long have been central to the physical, communal and spiritual well-being of many regional indigenous cultures.

Fact: Prior to dam construction, the government knew this. One explicit reason they proceeded is that much as killing buffalo helped bring Plains Indians to terms, they knew killing salmon would further weaken this region’s Indians. The public record reveals that one stated reason dams were built was to destroy salmon stocks and thus destroy native cultures (See Bruce Brown’s “Mountain in the Clouds,” Collier Books, 1982).

Fact: This is genocidal behavior under the law, legally defined as a crime against humanity.

Wood complained I had “insulted the audience” by comparing this ongoing genocidal and ecocidal behavior to the Holocaust. Wood should read some history. No less an authority than Adolf Hitler said he based his genocidal Lebensraum policy on the “Nordics” of North America who’d had “the strength of will,” in his words, to exterminate an “inferior” people and appropriate their land. Note that the American Holocaust against Indians reduced pre-Columbian Indian populations by 95 percent and continues to this day.

Finally, Wood details, correctly enough, the importance of dams to the region’s economy. But he fails to ask the next all-important question: What does it say about us that much of our economy is based on structures explicitly and intentionally constructed as instruments of genocide? Derrick Jensen Spokane

Craig’s bill a complete non-starter

I oppose Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig’s proposed Public Land Management Responsibility and Accountability Act. It’s a giveaway to the timber and other extractive industries.

The public should encourage opposition of this legislation by every member of Congress. Most objectionable are the provisions to abdicate control of national forest lands to the states, repeal environmental safeguards and lessen the public’s ability to be involved in the forest management process and to appeal forest management decisions.

I sincerely hope everyone who loves the beauty and recreational opportunities of our national forests and cherishes the right to be involved in management of these forests will urge our elected officials to oppose Craig’s efforts to give our forests away to the highest bidder.

If we are to pass on to our children the same national forest heritage we have enjoyed, the public must support legislation to protect public access to these lands by keeping them under federal control, to preserve the health of our forests by maintaining adequate environmental safeguards, to ensure continued public participation in policy-making and to protect the people’s right to appeal Forest Service decisions. Robert Kerr Spokane

Hatfield got it partly right

Oregon Republican Sen. Mark Hatfield made many good points in his Dec. 9 Roundtable commentary (“Region must address energy policy issues now”) but missed several important aspects.

Industry - Kaiser Aluminum, Hewlett-Packard, Washington Water Power, Boeing, etc. - has benefited from cut-rate electricity since the building of the dams and at the expense of native Indians who lost their land, fish and way of life (genocide).

To hold on to cut-rate electricity and PAC money, industry and senators, respectively, have held the public hostage with threats of losing 100,000 jobs. They used the same tactics to push public opinion when machines were displacing logging jobs. The logging industry pushed harder to get free use and abuse of public lands on public paid-for logging roads (unseen business welfare).

We live in an unfortunate global market where the cheapest way of creating a product wins the largest market share. The process ends up destroying the environment and our quality of life.

There is an answer to these perplexing power problems which includes one of the senator’s four issues: new, renewable energy and energy conservation.

I also would include an end to sweetheart deals for power (or corporate welfare). Some industry will move on, but the people of the Northwest are resourceful. I see a future where millions of tourists come to the Northwest to walk along a river of wild salmon and the dams are rubble in the bottom of that river.

Senator, the region does not depend on hydroelectric dams. Wesley Sweitzer Spokane

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Social Security just a scam

As Opinion editor John Webster indicated in his Dec. 11 editorial, “Social Security needs reform now,” our sole problem is to get somebody to do something about it.

A typical lawmaker will give Social Security a few words and bypass it, thinking that he or she will be out of office when it finally blows up.

Social Security has to be the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time, which promises to pay good returns but pays earlier investors with money collected from new investors.

So now we have congressmen by the hundreds saying everything is all right, that they will take care of it, we may be sure. This is bull.

Tom Foley and his committees stole nearly half a trillion dollars from Social Security reserves and transferred the money to the general fund to minimize the national debt. And we know it won’t be returned.

Webster’s figures are correct; the poorest of us pay more than anyone else. And baby boomers are getting a zero return on what they’ve slaved for.

So, pour it on to the peacemakers, Webster. They need a goring! Carlton Gladder Spokane

Israel not deserving of our aid

The substantial aid the United States annually provides Israel has been extended on the understanding that Israel actively was seeking peace with its neighbors, including those in its occupied territories.

But the Netanyahu government’s construction of new housing for Jewish settlers in Hebron and the Gaza Strip is provocative, and the professed justification that the Jewish population is expanding ignores the concomitant expansion of the indigenous populations.

The United States cannot afford to be perceived as supporting this construction and, in its own long-run interest, should promptly slash the level of its aid to Israel. Frank J. Kottke Spokane

Demand the poor not be abandoned

Our community’s generosity during the ice storm was heartwarming. However, millions face daily crises that go unnoticed by most of us.

The United States has three times the child poverty of other industrialized nations. Welfare reform will add 1.1 million children to that list.

More than half the cuts are to come from the food stamp program - an amount equivalent to three times what is spent yearly by all charitable organizations providing food to the hungry. Will we triple donations to make up the difference?

The $45-per-month allotment for each person will be reduced. All legal immigrants and their children and most jobless adults without children, irrespective of the job market, will be excluded. Eighty-one percent of food-stamp recipients are families with children. These citizens will be completely without a food safety net.

We are facing the largest increase in hunger our nation has ever seen. Meanwhile, profit margins and tax breaks enrich the wealthiest of us and we waste billions on weapons we don’t need that don’t work.

We should not balance the budget by starving our children, legal immigrants and those unable to find work.

Please contact your lawmakers and President Clinton. Tell them to restore $14 billion to the food-stamp program to correct this injustice. We shame ourselves before the world if we who have so much do not provide for one another’s basic needs. Nancy L. Davis Spokane