Letters To The Editor

SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION

Kirihara does hard job well

I worked for Shari Kirihara for seven years at Finch Elementary School, before she left for Madison Elementary. It was disconcerting to read the accusations printed in the July 2 paper regarding Kirihara and her job performance.

The position of school principal is a challenging one, a job that requires constantly meeting the concerns and needs of a diverse community, staff and student body, while educating our young in an ever changing world and school system.

Kirihara has accepted this challenge with dedication and professionalism. I offer my support to her and wish her the best as she continues her work in education. Angela Lefler Spokane

District 81 will do right thing

I don’t pretend to know any of the facts of the situation at Madison Elementary School. I know no more about the problems than what I have read in the paper and heard on television.

But, let me tell you something I do know. I have been involved as a volunteer in School District 81 for many years in a variety of committees, etc. Through that involvement I have had the opportunity to work with or be associated with many of the staff and management people in the district. This includes Superintendent Gary Livingston and board President Terrie Beaudreau. I have never worked with such dedicated and caring people from top to bottom of an organization.

Obviously, I am not an expert in what it takes to run a school district properly. But I think I have a pretty good idea. From my viewpoint, one would be hard-pressed to do a better or more conscientious job than the folks at District 81 are doing.

Whatever the problems at Madison Elementary might be there is no question in my mind that District 81 management will aggressively determine what ought to be done and do it it in a fair, unbiased manner.

We are fortunate to have the folks that we have in District 81 staff and management. William J. Hiatt Spokane

Before DARE there was ‘Aware’

I find it interesting that in today’s age of the so-called “fiscal minded” we continue to repeat past mistakes, and in doing so costing the taxpayers money.

After reading many articles written about the loss of the DARE program (most recently, “Schools, police acting on a DARE successor,” June 29), I have truly become incensed.

The Spokane School District had a drug/social skills/ prevention program: Operation Aware.

In its 12-year existence, this program saw 8,000 students a year between the ages 9 and 12, brought in police and neighborhood resource officers to the schools before DARE ever existed and was more cost-effective and efficient than any other drug prevention program to date (it cost less than half as much as DARE). Four full-time and two part-time teachers covered 37 elementary schools.

The program was lost in June 1995 due to lack of funding. DARE, which Operation Aware students in the fifth grade graduated to, has now seen the last of its program as well.

We are suddenly seeing school officials, police and parents re-creating a program and giving it a new name: TEAM. Why are we again wasting time, energy and money? Most importantly, our youths have missed out on valuable information in the last year. What a waste!

I note also that of all the press DARE has received, nothing has been said about Operation Aware. There was considerable grieving for the loss of this program, as well, throughout our elementary schools and in our community. Connie Woodard Spokane

WASHINGTON STATE

Senn costing companies plenty

How much red ink is flowing among Washington’s individual health insurance carriers? According to the Wall Street Journal, the six largest companies say our state’s health care reform measures have cost them $72 million in losses over the last two years.

Is it any wonder why more than 30 insurers have told the state they don’t want to do any more medical insurance business here?

The health policy counsel for the U.S. Senate’s Labor Committee, according to the Journal, says Washington’s troubles show the danger of trying to make too many changes too quickly. Guess who has had the pedal to the metal the last three years? Insurance Commissioner Deborah Senn’s zeal to protect the consumer has driven some companies to ask for rate increases of 80 percent.

The best interests of the consumer are served by a stable, predictable environment with a regulator who understands the industry she is supposed to monitor. Senn’s aggressive activism has brought the health insurance industry to a crisis, forcing large, reputable carriers to flee the state while the remaining companies plead for rate increases to stop their losses. One can only hope that the damage she has wrought can be undone.

Send Senn home in November. Michael N. Metcalf Spokane

PEOPLE IN SOCIETY

Rudeness spoiled fireworks show

On the Fourth of July, we arrived at the bridge on Cliff Drive over an hour early to get a good spot for our 4-year-old to watch the fireworks show over Riverfront Park. We set up our blanket right against the railing and waited.

When the show started, the bridge was very crowded. One mother and her three children actually stepped on our blanket to stand in front of us and get right to the railing for a better view. We told them nicely that we had been there for over an hour to get that spot, but not only did the children not move, the mother stayed right there with them. We asked them three times to move. They were just some of the people jostling others for position and being rude.

We ended up leaving before the show ended because our daughter couldn’t see. Their behavior ruined what was supposed to be a wonderful show for our little girl.

I was appalled by the rudeness of these people in the crowd and expect better from a town like Spokane. I challenge all Spokane parents to be good role models for their children. Teach them manners, respect, kindness and consideration for others. Not only will Spokane be a better place to live, but we will have children we can all be proud of. Kathleen Parrish Spokane

Judge not, seeker of the grim

So, Mitch Finley is going to “dis” some yet-to-be-determined person by declaring them the “Grim Catholic of the Year.” (“It’s tidings of great joy, remember?” July 4).

One of the top candidates should be none other than Finley himself. To concoct such a scheme places him at odds with Christian charity. And to set up a criterion that most certainly requires a judgmental process would seem to disregard a cardinal rule of Christianity: “judge not.”

Those who don’t possess charity and are judgmental are grim folks, indeed. Bob Runkle Spokane

Thought processes are beyond belief

Oscar Wilde once wrote that by giving us the opinions of the uneducated, newspapers keep us in touch with the ignorance of the community. That explains the publishing of recent Roundtable letters which have argued that belief in the Bible invalidates Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Joseph Campbell once described a fundamentalist as someone who believes that metaphors are facts, while an atheist is someone who believes that metaphors are lies. Only those uneducated in the mechanics of ancient storytelling and literary arts would interpret Biblical metaphor as literal fact. Such stupidity is clearly one of the reasons why priests kept the Bible out of the hands of commoners for so many centuries. Chris Farnam Spokane

Youths should form good gangs

There is a lot of talk about young people and gang violence. A lot of it is just because we older citizens just don’t know or care about the real root problems of young people.

In most cases, young people just want to be someone, to be recognized as real people.

Why can’t some of the more intelligent - and there are a bunch of them - leaders of violent gangs do a lot better by organizing a group of nonviolent young people into a good-guy gang? They could establish their own area (turf) and friendly competition. Just think of the good such groups/gangs could do in this world. The recognition and support by the older citizens and general public would be overwhelming. Give it a lot of thought. Ira Lee White Spokane

FIREARMS

So, is packing heat OK or not?

I have a story to tell about my inability to get a straight answer concerning our right to openly carry firearms.

I have posed the very same question to several deputies and gotten answers ranging from no, you can’t do that to yes, you can.

One incredible answer fell in between: Yes, you can do that, but if anybody doesn’t like it you’ll be charged with a crime.

I have been unable to get the prosecutor’s office to talk to me about it. The office has a very efficient office manager (or somebody designated to take calls from guys with questions they don’t want to answer) who won’t give me an appointment with anybody. I’ve tried to get a response from the sheriff himself - no joy. Randall Jones Newman Lake

Automatic weapon? No problem

All Curtis Stone (“Gun opponents mired in propaganda,” Letters, July 1) needs to do to get an automatic assault weapon is buy one at a private sale, or change a semiautomatic into an automatic, as have members of the Arizona Militia.

It’s great that he wants to join the rest of us trying to improve public safety by making all gun buyers, even those at flea markets and gun shows, subject to the same background investigations as when buying from a licensed dealer.

Law-abiding citizens still could obtain guns for target shooting but juveniles, felons and those with mental illness would be denied access to firearms. It would cut down on easy access in the streets. Walter A. Becker Pullman

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

No GOP wool over most women’s eyes

The GOP has long deluded middle income people while, at their expense, it slowly minimized the share of the nation’s tax burden paid by business, industry and those in the top income brackets.

During the Reagan years, top-bracket incomes drastically ballooned and top-bracket taxes decreased while middle- and lower-bracket incomes dropped proportionately to those increases. But lower- and middle-income taxes did not decrease.

The basics that until now have sustained the nonwealthy, especially working hours, health benefits, job protection, retirement benefits, education, etc., were secured by Democratic legislation that was won over strong opposition from the GOP.

Not satisfied with the damage they had done to the working class, Rep. Newt Gingrich and friends perpetrated their infamous contract on America fraud to further enrich the top 10 percent.

Strangely, while so many men accept the Republican rhetoric, their wives don’t. Polls show a sharp division between women’s support of President Clinton and the men’s - especially among nonwealthy and older families.

This largely male preference has a parallel in the way the military brass supported Reagan. They mistook Reagan’s devotion to the military industrial complex as blanket support of the military itself, never fully comprehending that a large military corresponded to even larger profits for Reagan’s defense industry cronies. The same people are now trying to con the IRS for billions more from Reagan’s contracts.

Yes, men have much in common: misplaced loyalties that were never reciprocated. Again, women have proved the smarter of the sexes, much to Bob Dole’s dismay. Andy Kelly Spokane

Jefferson a Republican’s Democrat

As a History teacher and an ardent admirer of Thomas Jefferson, I must take issue with Sally Jackson’s recent letter regarding Jefferson and George Nethercutt. She irresponsibly misrepresented Jefferson and his views.

First of all, although Jefferson did write the Declaration of Independence in 1776, he was not one of the chief architects of the Constitution. Jefferson was abroad serving as Minister to France until 1790 and therefore did not take part in the Constitutional Convention in 1787 to 1789.

Secondly, Jefferson could not even be remotely considered the founder of today’s modern Democratic party. Jefferson founded the Democratic Republican party, which eventually did become the Democratic party, but in name only. The policies of Jefferson - strong state government and states’ rights - sound conspicuously like the policies of today’s Republicans.

The person most responsible for defining today’s political parties was Franklin Roosevelt. His New Deal programs established the Democrats as the party of social programs and of governmental intervention in the economy.

As a liberal Democrat myself, it is with great displeasure that I mention George Nethercutt and Thomas Jefferson in the same sentence. However, historical facts are more important than political ideology. Matt Sullivan Spokane

OTHER TOPICS

We can coexist with cougars

Thank you for running the June 30 articles on cougars. As an animal lover, it is disturbing to read article after article about hunting and hunters in publications around the Pacific Northwest.

It was refreshing to see articles, for once, that showed alternatives to hunting. I was happy to read about people advocating preserving cougars by providing information about a dog breed that keeps cougars away from humans.

A couple of other articles in that section offered information about humans needing to learn to live peacefully with cougars instead of hunting them.

Cougars are an important part of our ecosystem’s balance. After all, humans are the ones putting the ecosystem off balance. Humans are encroaching on cougars’ land, not the opposite.

It’s time for humans to realize that we are not the only important beings on this planet, that we, not the animals, are the pests. Deborah Peterson Moses Lake

Uncle Sam behind the bombings

Notice how the Saudi bombing looks almost exactly like the Oklahoma bombing. You don’t suppose our government had anything to do with it, too?

I would lay odds that they are the main conspirators in both. I’m sure that Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols could both tell us a lot about working for our government in the conspiracies that have gone on.

Our phony leaders have illegally armed Iran and also footed the bill for training and supporting most all terrorist groups throughout the world, not just ours.

As previously mentioned, our troops have always been in more danger from so-called friendly fire than from any other.

Let’s stop fooling ourselves and start telling our elected officials what to do, what new laws to make and which ones to repeal or ratify.

It would be interesting to know just who presents all the legislation that goes on every year and just who will benefit from it, and just how much it will cost the people in both money and freedom. Art Krebs Sandpoint