Letters To The Editor

Rose Bowl unselfish

I was shaking my head in disgust after reading Jack Odea’s letter, “Rose Bowl selfish” (Jan. 14). He says: “Rose Bowl officials are doing the Pac-10 and college football fans everywhere a disservice by denying them a legitimate national college Division I-A football champion.”

Hello? Excuse me? As long as we have sportswriters and broadcasters deciding for us who the Top 25 teams in the nation are (via the polls), we will never have a legitimate national champion. I must congratulate the Pac-10, Big Ten and the Rose Bowl for their integrity and effort in trying to maintain some tradition in college football. Don’t give in to this idiocy. The alliance is a sham. Until we have a true playoff system, there will never be a “legitimate” national champion. Andrew Patton Spokane

Norman Chad is a joke

I wish to comment on your coverage of the NFL. Specifically, regarding your Sunday morning game previews and selection of the columnist, Norman Chad.

Chad is possibly the most uninformed, or the least informative, journalist I have ever read. His humorous anecdotes are rarely funny, except in his own mind, I suppose. The information he offers concerning each game is usually irrelevant and unclear. And his comments are full of references that only regional fans could understand, rather than useful information a national reader requires. There is more to football than Chad’s incoherent rambling has to offer.

I am aware of the NFL coverage you provide throughout the week and find it complete. The only problem is that I, along with many others, do not have sufficient free time to spend sifting through every sports page, every day of every week, to gather the details of every game. I rely on the Sunday morning paper to provide a complete and thorough overview of the games. An NFL game preview should contain several simple and obvious things. It should list each game, where it is being played, what time it starts, and which network is providing coverage.

It should also include factors that might affect play, such as injuries, weather conditions, team records, matchup history, and importance of the game. Before I turn on my television to relax and watch a day of football with my friends and family, I look for pertinent facts from game previews. In this regard, Chad simply does not deliver.

Maybe next year, when selecting an NFL columnist, you will think about what your readers want and not what you think your readers might find funny. I want information from the paper, not jokes. For jokes, I can turn to the political pages, but that is another letter. Doug Karlson Spokane

Let’s hear it for CV basketball

I normally don’t let statements by other people made in the letters section bother me, but the one by Susan Holcomb, “No excuse for CV rout,” (Jan. 14) really did. Perhaps Holcomb would prefer CV teach its athletes to play up to their potential only when behind or when their lead is less than a certain number of points.

Or maybe she doesn’t understand the mechanics of the rules.

Examine the score (girls basketball, 113-22) strictly by the numbers and she will find they play with a 30-second clock which, when divided into the total time, requires, assuming no turnovers, a total of 64 shots. CV’s field-goal percentage is more than 50 percent, which means those 64 shots would produce 64 points.

If 50 percent of those are 3-point shots, add another 16 points for a total of 80. Factor in 20 points for free throws and then, given CV’s style of play that produces at least 20 turnovers per game, another 20 points for those and you have a score of 120, which is more than the Bears scored. Chuck Richardson Greenacres

Eastman teaches self-destruction

What a tragedy for the future of Washington State Cougars basketball. The program had an excellent opportunity to draw on a metropolitan population base in Spokane and pick up a huge following.

Nobody expected the Cougars to beat UCLA (Jan. 4 in the Spokane Arena) with Mark Hendrickson injured. However, the tremendous effort resulted in the Cougars leading by nine points, with 4 minutes to play.

In basketball, when you have the lead coming down the stretch, you put the ball in the hands of the best ballhandler and go to the basket, forcing the opponent to foul out of desperation. WSU coach Kevin Eastman doesn’t seem to employ this strategy, and it costs the Cougars severely.

Eastman inherited one of the best Cougars teams in WSU history and has proceeded to erode it to one of the worst. They should have had far more success last year than they did. They actually got worse as they went. With the talent and experience this year, they could have been a serious contender for the Pac-10 championship. Instead, they are contending for the cellar.

A Kelvin Sampson trademark was that he always recruited impact players that came into the program and made an immediate contribution.

Eastman has done no such recruiting - after the top five players, there is no talent. So what does Eastman bring to Cougars basketball?

It will likely be a long time before Spokane fans fill the Arena for Cougars basketball again. Certainly not for a coach that teaches self-destruction. Allan Le Tourneau Spokane

Landers right on the mark

I would like to commend Rich Landers for his article pointing out the lack of true fiscal responsibility in the sale of resources from publicly owned lands.

It is ironic a government that forged a “Contract with America” to cut government waste is selling below cost our most valued national treasures.

A few simple questions we must all ask ourselves and each other are: Is it fair or even desirable to sell publicly owned natural resources for less than their true value, or in many cases at all? Does the American public agree that we should sell national forest timber or minerals below their true value or costs? Do we want our land cut, dug, or drilled over every square inch, no matter what the costs?

The Copper Butte Salvage timber sale, located in the Colville National Forest north and east of Spokane, was originally projected to sell at $141 per thousand board feet (mbf). The Forest Service’s justification for the timber sale was to recover the economic value of the timber that had partly been killed by fire. On Jan. 12, this timber sold for $22.50/mbf.

Conservatively, this will lose the taxpayer $500,000 when costs are compared to revenue. Here again we have a case where an area important to wildlife and recreation has been given away with the public footing the bill.

The “Contract” is on us. Fiscal responsibility, ha! What a hoax! TJ Coleman Republic

Congress poses threat to wild

Thanks, Rich Landers, for your defense of wildlife areas under attack by the Republican Congress (Jan. 18).

Trees and creatures cannot advocate on their own behalf. They need more articulate defenders to point out the way politicians are running roughshod over them.

The political games being played on Capitol Hill are the most radical in many decades. Radical Republicans, finally in the majority, are paying back businesses and industries who bankrolled their congressional bids.

Payback time means rolling back environmental laws. Payback time means the few intact remnants of wildlife habitat get put on the auction block.

Congressional radicals are asking taxpayers to pick up the tab so business and industry can buy minerals and timber at cut-rate prices.

You and I must pay to build the roads to cut down trees and clean up streams. You and I are being forced to subsidize the destruction of our own water, air, forests, and fields by those same industries whose campaign contributions and political action committees slid candidates into office.

But the congressional radicals are not playing such games openly. They are effecting the wreckage of wildlife habitats in the name of a balanced budget. They are practicing bribery by attaching anti-environmental “riders” to budget bills. They know the American public would not agree to subsidize big corporations openly. They know they have to practice subterfuge in order to get their way.

Landers points out one of the most egregious regional examples. Rep. George Nethercutt, cowed by pressure from Wise Use groups, wants to pull funding for the Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project. Again, the interest groups that would benefit from this action are - you guessed it - agribusinesses and forest products corporations, mining and oil companies.

Do you value abundant wildlife and clean water and air? Let your voice be heard. Paul Lindholdt Spokane

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