Letters To The Editor
BUSINESS AND LABOR
Isn’t anyone checking the checks?
My sister works for and also volunteers for a senior center. She is a young 78 year old and enjoys every minute of it, plus she needs the money.
On one potluck day at the center she volunteered to work in the kitchen, which took her away from the office for about three hours. Her purse was stolen during that time.
Her canceled checks are coming in from large variety stores for over $300 and a couple for $150. This, of course, before Christmas, when having to make restitution for everything in one’s purse becomes an adversity. And it isn’t over yet.
My complaint, besides what this has done to my philosophy and hers, is: How could any store be so lax not to recognize that the person using the checks was not the same person whose picture is on the driver’s license? If this is the case, then what is the point of having a picture for identification?
No wonder some of the discount houses are going under, when they have to pay for these mistakes.
My sister’s remark was, “I hope they are spending it on their kids.” Pam Yenter Spokane
SPOKANE MATTERS
Lack of “assessment” sank project
Some interesting points were made in Carey Charyk’s letter (“Attraction loss a public disservice,” Dec. 30) in regard to the Pacific Science Center. Phrases like “a very reputable, financially sound institution” and “a fabulous proposal” clearly show her feelings, but I particularly like her comment that “the people … didn’t have a fair assessment of the proposal.”
Aha! That’s the critical word: “assessment.”
We wanted to know what the a$$e$$ment would be. What was to be the bottom-line cost of this marvelous “entertainment and educational facility” that the people “deserve” to have? Proponents were unable or unwilling to tell us.
If the Pacific Science Center is so very reputable and financially sound, why didn’t they just approach the project as a business proposition and build it with their own money? Could they possibly figure it would no longer be financially viable if they had to use private money?
We all know the Constitution requires, in effect, a separation of church and state. I’d like to see that expanded to include separation of church, state and entertainment. Education and recreation might properly include public funds, but entertainment (including arenas) should be funded by private money. Richard T. Brown Spokane
New mascot for council
Re: the Public Periscope:
Where should Spokane’s polar bear go now? It’s time it brought good fortune to the citizens of this city. Bad luck has followed this mighty creature of the north from the oil-spill-closed Davenport Hotel to our fog-laden airport and recently at our Idaho-bound failed zoo.
Please, don’t put more of a curse on us by placing this white beauty in the 30 percent-over-budget arena or, heaven help us, the Spokane Transit Authority’s golden palace. Put this creature in our city council chambers facing our elected spenders. Hang a sign around its neck that reads: We cannot bear any more taxes. Jock Swanstrom Spokane
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
Media lie to benefit Democrats
With the presidential election year here we can count on the media for one thing: unprecedented Republican bashing.
Bad-mouthing Republicans is actually daily fare for the media. They diss House Speaker Newt Gingrich over trivia while ignoring the death of Whitewater player Vincent Foster.
It’s perfectly reasonable that our liberal media have embraced America’s left-wing political party, the Democrats. And, a couple of independent studies confirm the overwhelming favoritism by the media for Democrats.
The media employ a deceptively simple technique to get Democratic candidates elected. They say nothing but positives about Democrats and nothing but negatives about Republicans.
And don’t forget the media’s “polls.” During a couple of recent presidential elections the Democratic candidate has been literally buried. Yet scant days before those elections the media were telling us that the election was “too close to call,” or that the candidates were running neck and neck. The media manipulate polls to their own advantage.
Scores of Americans depend on the media for objective information. Sadly, they’re not getting it. The media need to give us unbiased information about the political candidates and then let us make our own decisions.
Thanks in large part to the media we may look forward to another four years of the vile, corrupt Clinton administration. Curtis E. Stone Colville, Wash.
GOP blackmail caused shutdown
Shutdown of the government is not being accurately reported by the media.
President Clinton did not shut it down. Congress did, through its not-so-subtle blackmail, adding riders to a bill that would allow normal operation of the government to continue.
Simply remove those riders that favor big business - while undermining the benefits to the taxpayers - and that bill will be signed in the blink of an eye.
House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole hadn’t counted upon the adverse reaction to those riders that revealed their true agenda: corporate welfare at the expense of the taxpayers.
Now, if there were only some way of shutting-down Congress, too, the whole nation would really benefit. Andy Kelly Spokane
President oblivious to tax pain
In calling the budget deadlock an “unnatural disaster,” President Clinton seems to miss the point of the 1994 elections.
Today the middle class family of four groans under crushing taxation, while the government fritters away trainloads of money on programs that don’t work or are counterproductive.
For example, in 1993 more than 250,000 people collected federal disability payments of $1.4 billion simply because they were addicted to drugs or alcohol.
Clinton says budget cuts would hurt the poor. We should remind the president that there are two kinds of poor folk: those who can’t work and those who won’t.
The federal government is unable to make the distinction. The quarter-million addicts it has labeled as “disabled” are proof of that.
So, when the president says budget cuts will hurt the poor, I ask, which poor? Clinton may hold that forcing the idle poor to work is repellent to him and the Democratic Party, but the taxpaying working class appears to disagree.
The tax burden for the average family of four has risen from less than 5 percent in 1950 to 25 percent today. The true “unnatural disaster” that has befallen the taxpayers is the gigantic growth of governmental spending during half a century of the Democrats controlling Congress. P. Norman Nelson Colbert
RELIGION
Christians have just one holy day
Re: Merrily Lowry’s letter of Dec. 23 condemns non-Christians for adulterating the Christian holy days of Christmas and Easter. While I agree that Jesus is the light of the world, she is mistaken in claiming these holidays for Christianity.
Christmas and Easter have their beginnings in pagan celebrations. Christmas was not originally spent celebrating the birth of Jesus, but of the sun god, Tammuz, born out of wedlock by Queen Semiramis of Babylon and passed off by her as a virgin birth. Shepherds weren’t even in their fields in December; it’s too cold.
Easter was a pagan fertility festival in honor of Semiramis, who was worshiped as queen of the moon, or Astarte (Eastre). Babylonians dyed Easter eggs and gave rabbits as gifts in celebration of fertility.
These pagan holy days were brought into the Christian church by the church fathers in order to make the pagans feel more comfortable as they converted to Christianity.
There is only one Christian holy day today. That day is mentioned throughout the Bible. The creation story in Genesis says God “blessed the seventh day and sanctified it” immediately after the act of creation. This day was set up in Eden as a perpetual memorial to remind people that God is our creator.
The day of Christian worship was changed from Saturday to Sunday, however, by the Roman Council of Loadacea in 336 A.D. Sadly, most Christians worship on the “venerable day of sun” instead of the seventh day (as the Jewish people still do). Elizabeth Staeheli Spokane