PEOPLE IN SOCIETY

Ready for sound of one hand clapping?

“Oppressed minorities, move over” (Letters, June 21), an attempt at humor by Jim Shamp the MUTT (Member of Unrecognized Theoretical Tribe) falls flat to those who have faced discrimination and daily deal with racial bias. His racial heritage adds up to WASP, despite one Puerto Rican sister-in-law and a biracial niece.

Shamp, have any of your MUTTs been turned away from a doctor’s office, not because of inability to pay but because of name and appearance? Have your MUTTs been called despicable names based on the color of their skin and their accent?

Have any of your MUTTs been treated abominably in a store merely because of their appearance, no matter how well dressed and polite they are?

Have any of your MUTTs been denied credit, jobs or positions within clubs because of their MUTT status?

How easy it is to make a joke and laugh at another’s pain.

There is an old saying about walking a mile in another person’s moccasins before being critical. There is an even older one about judging not lest ye be judged.

You simply have no concept of what it is to have dark skin, to be different in this country. C.A. Vazquez Spokane

Faithful should stand watch

With all the church arsons, why don’t congregations have more policing of their premises with armed watchmen and guard dogs?

Members of the congregation could be watchmen on a rotating basis, with dogs to alert them of approaching arsonists.

If these vandals knew they might be shot for messing around churches in the middle of the night they might think twice.

Defend our churches! Dorothy E. Carter Spokane

We’re too concerned with our bodies

“Pierced pleasures” (News, June 25) highlights the fixation human beings have on their bodies. “From belly buttons to just about every other body part, people are getting themselves pierced.”

The study of human behavior indicates a body-centeredness. Food, sex, substances, decorating of the body, sickness, etc., occupy most people’s attention. We somehow find our security in identifying with the body as our reality. I suggest that our reality is not our body but rather in the fact that we are spirit. To continue to believe our body is our reality is to choose to live in fear, suffering and continual disappointment, especially when the body substantially begins to decline in vitality. Tom Durst Spokane

SPOKANE MATTERS

Tax cross-border commuters

There are potholes in Irv Reed’s plan. This must be another way the Spokane city and county bureaucrats promote homeowners in Spokane County.

Do you people think the housing boom in Post Falls is due to better weather or because Post Falls is closer to the newcomers’ workplaces? No, it’s because of the outrageous taxes in Spokane County.

On any given day you can sit at any east-west road coming into Washington and there is a mass exodus of cars with Idaho plates. These are people who are employed in Spokane County and who use our roads but don’t have to pay exceedingly high license fees or go through emission testing. Also, if you pay close attention these are also the people parked in the fire lanes and handicap zones without proper stickers.

I offer to Irv Reed this option: a road use tax.

If employed in Spokane County and a resident of Idaho you must pay a Washington road use tax.

Your car must pass Spokane County emission standards.

Employers must see that employees meet the requirements or face fines.

Just think, with all this new revenue for road repair, what kind of roads we could have. Scott Messmer Spokane

Sign the Initiative 657 petition

Did you get your county home assessment this month? Are you shocked? Have you found that it has gone up $4,000 to $20,000? Call to sign the petition to put Initiative 657 on the November ballot. It will roll back taxes to 1992 levels and cap all increases to 2 percent.

You only have until July 3 to do this. Richard Menke Spokane

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Here’s first vision Dole better have

Open letter to Sen. Larry Craig: Congratulations on your election as Republican Policy chairman. It is a very important post. Much of what you do will depend on whether Bob Dole is elected.

I’m sure you’re aware that current differences in the polls are due primarily to the women who want to have a choice when it comes to the problem of abortion. Personally, I don’t like the thought of abortion, but I am a man. It is not my choice. It may not be the choice of all women, but there are many unforseen circumstances.

It cannot be my prerogative, nor that of the Republican Party, to tell someone else what they should do. If Republicans and Dole insist on pre-empting this lawful right we might as well give up and save our money, time and effort because Bill Clinton will surely be re-elected. And that would be a shame.

The question is, does Dole want to be president or an anti-abortionist? Aubrey Pilgrim Long Beach, Calif.

Dole courts special interests again

It’s becoming increasingly evident ex-Sen. Bob Dole will distort any story, twist any idea and tell any lie to mislead the American people and solicit huge campaign contributions from greedy special interests bent on harming our society.

In “Dole opposes tobacco rules” (June 14), he said, “Smoking is not necessarily addictive.” He suggested that the way to discourage children from smoking is to eliminate cigarette vending machines.

I’m sure that the tobacco industry will now pour more millions into Dole’s campaign coffers, but the makers of those machines will pay him big bucks if he changes his mind on that. He concluded his kissing-up to the agents of death in Big Tobacco by saying, “Most people don’t smoke at all.” He feels that there is no need to control tobacco products as only a few people are addicted.

Like the CEOs of major tobacco companies who lied through their teeth before a Senate committee last year that “nicotine is not addictive” and is not a drug, Dole asserts that the Food and Drug Administration should have no part in tobacco control and, if elected, he will make sure they don’t.

Equally evident of Dole’s lies was his charge a couple of months ago that President Clinton appoints federal judges who are soft on crime. On the contrary, deans of the nation’s leading law schools say the exact opposite, per the Washington Post National Weekly.

This master of dishonesty is seeking your vote. Walter Byers Coeur d’Alene

Clinton policies weaken security

Some people say Clinton is a good president and that he cut the deficit in half. But does anyone know at what cost? He did it with the largest tax increase in the history of the United States and, what’s worse, with a $170 billion decrease in defense spending.

All this at a time when Russia is leaning toward communism again. Russia, with it’s 20,000 nuclear warheads still intact. At a time when Saddam Hussein is thumbing his nose at the world again and using our petroleum money to develop more weapons. At a time when Red China’s economy is growing by leaps and bounds, and ours is stagnant at 2 percent to 2.3 percent annual growth. Clinton is a danger to this country’s security and a terrible role model for our youth. Katherine O’Sullivan Spokane

Wanted: Just the right phrase

I’m sympathetic with the June 24 letter from Edward M. Devlin, who was outraged by the overuse of certain words and phrases in letters to Roundtable.

For some time I’ve been considering writing a letter about Bob Dole’s campaign, but I want to avoid overused phrases. So far I haven’t been able to think of a more original comparison for the Republican Party than “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.” Perhaps Devlin can offer a suggestion. Jim McDonald Spokane