Letters To The Editor

LAW AND JUSTICE

Way to go, Hearrean

Cheers to Deputy Prosecutor, Dave Hearrean for allowing no sympathy and pushing for maximum sentencing for Jeremy Johnson’s violent crime. I feel it’s imperative that our community and justice system stand together to demonstrate intolerance for violent crime offenders.

The victims in these crimes aren’t the only ones who suffer. Their families, friends and employers are all affected by the violent nature of the crime. It creates a sense of suspicion, distrust and apprehension for the victim, which in turn affects all who are around them. Often, these victims have to live and deal with these feelings for the rest of their lives, while the culprit serves an insignificant sentence in a jail with too many benefits.

As for Operation Doughboy ringleader Clarence “Cip” Paulsoe, III crying about feeling that his jail sentence is longer than his cohorts’, I say: Quit your crying; the boss always gets more. Kevin Uphus Spokane

Controlling the out of control

Before you get too far along in the process of bleeding all over yourself about the supposed injustice being done to three-time-loser Larry Stapleton, consider the following facts.

The overwhelming majority of crimes and major misdemeanors are committed by a very small minority of citizens.

Most crimes and major misdemeanors go unsolved, so no one is held accountable for them. Locking up multiple offenders forever protects us all.

Despite Stapleton’s protests that his life sentence results from his latest conviction, he is, in reality, being sentenced for 19 years of unrepentent criminal behavior. He has had ample opportunity to modify his behavior and get his life under his own control. Incarceration is the way society controls those who cannot control themselves. Stapleton is where he belongs.

There are two blessings here. One, Stapleton will never again be able to terrorize innocent store clerks. Two, nobody was killed or physically harmed. Most violent criminals increase the level of violence as time goes by.

Thank goodness Stapleton was put away before he killed someone. Timothy Ward Coeur d’Alene

Keep victims, criminal straight

Let’s make it perfectly clear. Larry Stapleton in your three-time loser story is not the victim.

The victims are the four store clerks (that we know of) who had to fear for their lives, and all the others who work each day in fear that some person will come in and murder them for a few dollars. People who get caught the first time they commit a crime don’t usually do it again.

We really don’t know how many other thefts this person might have committed. If he’d gotten $1,000 or $10,000 would he then have merited life without parole?

Maybe life without parole is too harsh. Maybe the first time should be two years, the second five years, 10 years for the third offense and 20 for the fourth - years that have to actually be served.

Certainly, Larry Stapleton has shown that two years is not nearly enough. Susan Jones Spokane

WASHINGTON STATE

Republicans want to bolster families

If love is to permeate society, it will begin in the family. No social agency is equipped to raise a child.

Because of its vital importance to us all, we must help the family that is aching with frustration. Share your positive parenting skills; invite the one-parent family over for dinner; volunteer to baby-sit just to allow an overburdened mother to have free time. Lots of good people in the community have excellent, practical parenting skills to share.

Unfortunately, there exists a process of undermining parental control. This is wrong. We must work within the parameters of the family.

We must not undermine the parent’s moral code. If the parent says sex before marriage is wrong, we must respect that. If the parent says it’s wrong to get pregnant at 14, that should be respected. If the parent says their child shouldn’t lie, that should be respected as well.

An agency can come along and say, It’s OK to deceive, to not talk to your parent about your pregnancy. What your parents think is unimportant. Let us make it easy for you.

How sad! Doesn’t anyone consider that a girl is more likely to get pregnant again if she’s given the easy way out instead of facing the hard reality of a parent’s displeasure?

The moral code, which comes primarily from parents, shouldn’t be compromised. The love that comes from the family should be celebrated as vital.

The Republicans’ parental rights proposition is right. Parents should have every right and opportunity to be good parents.

We’ll all benefit if they achieve this goal. Phil Stack Medical Lake

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

D’Amato - Duracell bottom feeder

Killer bees we don’t need with senators like Alfonse D’Amato, R-N.Y., whose own past has many shades of gray.

It’s disgusting the way he has tried to find something - anything - to impugn President Clinton and Hillary’s character.

Whitewater, or Wastewater, was nothing but a bid to cause personal aggravation. I doubt the senator remembers everything he did 15 to 20 years ago.

The president has done a good job, considering the messy plate he inherited from the Republicans. It takes more than three years to try to correct all those things.

It’s obvious freshman House Republicans only want power and control of the whole government. They think everyone demanded some kind of mandate? Baloney!

Reform is right, and the president has always said that, but just being ornery won’t accomplish anything.

If words are repeated over and over, many people will believe them. D’Amato has spent over $27 million trying to assassinate the president’s character. We’re paying for this. There are better things to do with this wasted time and money.

When D’Amato’s committee didn’t like the results of the first Republican independent counsel investigation by Lloyd Cutler (who they agreed to accept), they appointed another Republican, Kenneth Starr. The committee didn’t like that result, either. So they keep going and going until they can find the results they want.

Travelgate is nothing, either.

I say, shut up, Sen. D’Amato, you won’t fool everyone. Nobody’s perfect - but you? Enough is enough. Pam Schwartz Spokane

Congress’ double standard wrong

I have read letters commending the Republicans for sticking to their budget cuts. No one seems to be aware that there are no cuts in the Congress members’ health care, which they get for free for the rest of their lives - treats on the taxpayer.

When either party puts their own health care and million-dollar pension on the chopping block, that party will get my vote. I have always voted Republican, but no more.

We are being forced into HMOs where the doctor gets paid more for sending us home than for treating us. But the Congress members get coddled and treated to the best of care that our tax money can buy. And if they finally get too crooked or foul to be tolerated by the public, they retire with a million-dollar pension, with no deductions for wrong doing.

How about d’Amato spending millions chasing after Hillary Clinton? I don’t think anyone involved in the savings and loan fiasco, which cost us billions, should be spending more of our hard-earned taxes on dirt digging.

It’s all a case of pots calling the kettles black anyway. Irene Cossett Ione, Wash.

Spare us from Republican ‘relief’

Republicans have a special way of spelling and applying it to the average citizen.

Ronald Reagan began by relieving the taxpayers of the need to keep track of or to store their medical, hospital and doctor bills, of accumulating their receipts for interest paid on loans, credit card accounts, car payments, charitable contributions, etc., to use as tax deductions. He just eliminated them as deductions!

However, to balance out that “benefit” to us the GOP began to relieve business and industry of responsibilities: for the health and safety of the employees in their plants and factories, of having to bother with food inspectors in the fish, meat and poultry plants, or of having to worry if their plants polluted our air, soil or water.

Now Republicans want to relieve us of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security as well as educational opportunities, law enforcement agencies and COLAs for both us and military retirees.

They seem to overlook the fact that as they continue to bleed us dry for the benefit of the top 7 percent - who already own over 93 percent of the wealth - we won’t be able to purchase the products of big business and industry, if the majority of us are working for the minimum wage.

Relief is great, but even it has limits. So won’t someone please tell the GOP it’s time to slow down all this relief before they relieve us all into the poorhouse? Andy Kelly Spokane

States’ rights answer to oppression

It was a close one! The recent government shutdown was only 20 days in duration. Too bad!

Psychologists tell us it takes 21 days to break a habit. We were very close to breaking our addiction to the excesses of big government. Unfortunately we’re back at the trough again and nothing has changed. We’ll continue to send one dollar in tax money to Washington, D.C., and get 30 cents back in “aid and entitlement programs.”

Wouldn’t it make more sense to keep the whole dollar at the state level and take care of our own elderly, the education of our youths, and the health of all Washington citizens?

I believe the federal government should exercise only those functions set down in the Constitution and leave the rest to the states. Unfortunately, over the years, through the use of a cradle-to-grave promise of security, we’ve come to rely on a strong central government. This has made our people servants of government, not the government as a servant of the people.

Like businesses are doing, we must downsize the federal government, returning the power to the people. We proved in the 1994 elections that we can change our government at the ballot box. We simply must all get involved in the political system and elect people to do what we want them to do.

Let’s address our addiction to big government — an addiction that will affect us more drastically each year that we indulge ourselves in national fiscal irresponsibility. If we bite the bullet now, our grandchildren will thank us. Merle R. Craner Cheney

Trickle is as trickle does

Sounds as though the veterans of our country have quite a deal.

If you’re a surgeon who doesn’t operate, just plays golf, or you’re a bureaucrat who chuckles when there’s talk of budget cuts, I might agree. But if you’re the hospital worker who doesn’t even have basic job benefits or the disabled veteran who cannot work and has nightmares about his benefits being cut, then I can’t.

Our veterans deserve all the help they can get. They didn’t ask to be in their situation, but thank God there’s a nation that cares when a person is hurt in the service of their country.

As with a lot of government programs, the Department of Veterans Affairs is bloated and topheavy. Some of its policies are just plain crazy. Who knows why it does some of the things it does?

The trickle-down theory is a crock, because it never trickles down to the people who really need it. Who wouldn’t be in favor of a trickle-up theory of economics? It’s well known that when it comes to bureaucrats and politicians, all the little guy who needs help the most will get is trickled on. Wallace Baucom Colville, Wash.

OTHER TOPICS

Burn wood hot and clean

I am concerned about poor local air quality caused by residential wood burning. Unlike secondhand smoke, I cannot evade the odor and health hazard imposed by smoking chimneys.

I have nothing against wood burning. I do have strong feelings and opinions about the caustic smoke I am forced to breathe. It affects my lungs, making it difficult for me to breathe, and I suffer from chronic sinusitis all winter. This is a miserable time of year for me, as I am sure it is for many others. I love to walk but poor air quality makes walking hard to enjoy during the heating months.

I plead with everyone who burns wood to please burn hotter and cleaner. Please be considerate of your neighbors and friends by limiting the amount of heavy smoke coming from your chimney.

If we don’t regulate ourselves, the government will step in and do it for us. Deanna Taylor Kettle Falls, Wash.

If you won’t listen, why ask?

Why did you bother to poll your readers on their preferences for the comics when you had no intention of honoring them? Alice Wolfinger Osburn, Idaho

Idle judging worth little

Re “Sentence sets bad precedent,” (Letters, Jan. 15)

I knew Cookie Birnel and I know Rick Birnel. He’s a loving father and I commend him for trying to get his family back together.

Charles Bowman, unless you knew Cookie and what she was like when she was on drugs, you have no reason to judge. You weren’t in the house at the time of the killing, so sit back and relax. Debbie Rowe Spokane

Story does justice to brave friends

What a wonderful tribute to Mike Taylor and his friends who shaved their heads in honor of him (“Bald is beautiful,” News, Jan. 13). It was so heartwarming to see this act of love and friendship. What wonderful friends.

“Mikey” is also a very dear friend of ours. He stood up with us when we got married and we have shared the good and the bad of each other’s lives. He has a very positive attitude in regard to his battle with cancer, and we know he will win that war. We feel very lucky to have such dear friends as Mike and Cheryl.

Thank you, Spokesman-Review, for sharing this wonderful story with the world. Gary and Sharon Buck Davenport, Wash.

Caribou policies pure folly

Restoring grizzly bears, wolves, and caribou to Idaho is an environmental issue? Wrong! The dictionary defines an environmentalist as, “one concerned about the quality of human environment;” the operative word being “human.” Restoring these species is not an environmental or ecological issue, but an illogical, emotional issue.

Consider the woodland caribou, trapped from their natural range in British Columbia and moved to the Selkirk Mountains in North Idaho. About 12 years ago, 24 caribou were transplanted at an estimated cost of $10,000 to $12,000 each. Several were killed or maimed in the process. The remainder were released into a “protected” area away from hunters and loggers. No one convinced the cougar that the imported caribou were not their winter fare. Now, the Selkirk herd is reduced to six or eight survivors.

Some wildlife managers want to trap a few more caribou from British Columbia and move them and the diminished Selkirk herd west into Washington. Do they believe the cougar will not follow the herd west?

I am a wildlife advocate, and enjoy viewing and photographing nature’s creatures. But wake up to reality; woodland caribou are not an endangered species. If you want to photograph them, travel 160 miles into British Columbia, put on your backpack and hike to their high, forest-manteled range and view them in their natural habitat. Leonard C. Brant Coeur d’Alene