Letters To The Editor

SPOKANE MATTERS

Now we must guard loved ones’ graves

For over two years my family and I have placed a memorial wreath with flags and two vases of artificial flowers at my parents’ gravesite in Pines Cemetery in the Spokane Valley.

Recently, someone stole all the grave decorations. We are at a loss to explain such a theft. My parents proudly served their country in wartime; my father in the U.S. Army and my mother in the Royal Canadian Air Force.

To the person who stole these grave decorations, you ought to be ashamed. Sad as it is, the Memorial Day message of your theft to all of us is that although we may honor those who helped keep their country fee, we now must try to guard their graves from being dishonored.

I ask that people who see any theft or suspicious activity at any cemetery contact the cemetery managers and police. Let the full extent of the law be applied to those who would steal from graves.

The dead cannot speak for or defend themselves. It is up to us the living to remember and honor our dead.

Now we must protect them as well. Duane Pitts Odessa, Wash.

Sorry I commented as I did

I apologize to the Spokane County Commissioners for responding to Staff Writer Dan Hansen’s request for comment on the news that a resolution to oppose the north-south freeway was on their meetings’ consent agenda in the way I did.

Since such items are normally passed routinely, I was stunned and terribly disappointed. Knowing that Commissioners John Roskelley and Phil Harris had voted to place the freeway on the Three Biennium List of Projects at the Spokane Regional Transportation Committee meeting last week, I should have realized the item was placed on the agenda by someone who had not fully studied the plan.

Incidentally, I agree with Harris that a beltway around the city is needed, and I have actively advocated the concept for over 40 years. However, 18 years of studying the city’s transportation problems have convinced me that first we should use money dedicated by the Legislature for freeway construction to begin building the freeway in the Hillyard corridor.

This route, which was selected by the state Department of Transportation following a three-year, $2 million environmental impact study, will then become one of the very necessary connections from the city center to eventual outer beltways for which we should now be planning. Mike Brewer Spokane

SpokAnimal critics don’t understand

The letter from David and Staci Hagel (“Whose side is SpokAnimal on?” May 16) regarding SpokAnimal CARE’s policy on receiving pets contained many misconceptions.

First, the city contracts with the Spokane Humane Society to house stray pets. Our contract is for enforcement only. Thus, all strays must be taken to the Humane Society. The pets at SpokAnimal are released to us by the owner, and are here until they are placed.

Pets are screened as they are brought in for health and temperament prior to acceptance. Obviously, there are more large dogs turned in than small, so our ability to accept them is less.

SpokAnimal has rescued pets for adoption from shelters all over the Inland Empire, including the Spokane Humane Society and Spokane County Small Animal Control.

Most recently, Okanogan Animal Foster brought 18 pets over for our Adopt-a-Thon with the guarantee to take home those that were not placed. As a result of the Adopt-a-Thon, 37 pets were adopted in 36 hours.

Animals have always been a priority for SpokAnimal. Gail B. Mackie, executive director SpokAnimal CARE

Absent enforcement, forget bike trails

There have been several Roundtable letters regarding installation of bike trails along streets.

From the experience of seeing a bike trail installed, they are nothing but a waste of taxpayers’ money.

If Bob Dellwo or anyone else doubts my word, drive on Eighth Avenue between Park and Thierman roads and look at what was installed as a bike path about 20 years ago. Several years ago the county did install “Pathway, Do Not Block” signs. Did it help? Of course not. You can’t even walk on it, let alone ride a bike on it. It is still a one-wheeled parking lot for the people who live on the south side of Eighth Avenue.

If bike trail proponents want to really do something for the biking public, they should seek active, strict enforcement of a parking ban on this and all other bike trails.

People will ask where they can park. The answer will have to be on their own property. If a sidewalk is installed in front of your home, you can’t park on it. Why should a bike trail be any different? Ed Weilep Spokane

THE ENVIRONMENT

Craig bill greed-based quackery

Regarding Opinion Editor John Webster’s May 22 editorial (“Forest health bill a good prescription,” May 22):

Of course the forests and mills are quiet. Lumber giants use technology that has forced closure of smaller local mills. And landslides from flooding have ruined many forest roads. The principal causes of this flooding are clearcutting and poor forest road construction. These are prime examples of the misguided management Webster mentioned.

Sen. Larry Craig’s “forest health bill,” S391, allows logging or industry representatives to designate areas that are “high risk.” Like the Gestapo’s ominous black list, that forest would soon be clearcut. The fox, then, would be in charge of the hen house.

The only health improvement here would be to the bank accounts of the timber companies and the PAC donations to Sen. Craig’s war chest.

Please consider the quiet people who, without running chainsaws or wearing Birkenstocks, seek personal renewal by strolling in these peaceful deep woods. Humans are unable to duplicate a mature balanced forest. Nature is too complex and too secretive. Virtually every intrusion by man in forest ecology has been a serious mistake. However, to allow timber companies to rob our forests of our trees under the guise of restoring health to forests that then would no longer exist is lunacy. By this definition, a graveyard represents health.

If salvage logging on public lands were done without profit, then maybe I could become a believer. Peggy Burt Cheney

Rational Americans detect rip-off

In his May 22 editorial, John Webster began his defense of Larry Craig’s so-called forest health bill by calling those who care about forests “a herd of Birkenstocked eco-preachers.”

Later, he states, “Rational Americans know that logging methods have improved and can coexist with hunting, fishing and other uses.”

The use of pointless insults pretty much disallows Webster from realistically representing rationality. In any case, he’s wrong.

Industrial forestry destroys forests. Rational Americans pay attention to the indisputable scientific evidence showing industrial forestry has destroyed the Northwest’s fisheries. Bull and western cutthroat trout have been decimated by logging.

Rational Americans know Sen. Larry Craig, whose League of Conservation Voters score is consistently zero, has never done a good thing for the environment, and know the purpose of his forest bills is always to enrich big corporations.

Rational Americans know forest problems are caused by industrial forestry and that it’s absurd to believe problems caused by chainsaws can be solved by chainsaws.

Rational Americans know forests were here, and healthy, long before the Forest Service, Boise Cascade, Louisiana Pacific and other timber transnationals screwed them up.

Rational Americans know the Forest Service has lied time and again (remember phantom forests and “temporary meadows”?), and consistently shows itself to be in the service of corporations.

At some point rational Americans will do whatever it takes to stop big timber corporations, the Forest Service, The Spokesman-Review and bought politicians like Craig from destroying the region that is our home. Julie Mayeda Spokane

Craig just paying off backers

Opinion Editor John Webster must think the public as a whole can be fooled all of the time, to paraphrase Abe Lincoln.

Sen. Larry Craig’s bill to identify dying stands of timber and allow logging by “expediting” appeal processes does nothing more than support the continued rape of our public lands for the benefit of special interests.

Nobody believes Craig is proposing this bill “to prevent firestorms and make inland forests productive again.” He is doing it to pander to the timber industry, including many who have contributed heavily to his political campaign funds.

Webster’s ignoring of reality (“Forest health bill a good prescription,” Our view, May 22) is so obvious as to be comical. He states that nature designed some forest types to regenerate through fire but fire suppression has left forests overstuffed with fuel. Salvage logging would help meet the nation’s need for wood products and (therefore) leave the remaining forests with correct amount of fuel so they can be regenerated by fire. This is ridiculous.

While the Sierra Club has taken an extreme position by opposing all logging on public lands, the continued rape of our national forests over a hundred years by the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Congress and others leaves many Americans believing our government is not acting in our public interest.

Until we are assured that our forests will be managed in the public interest it may be that the only way to preserve these natural national treasures is to stop all logging. Philip Waring Coeur d’Alene

Bad bill for a trumped up crisis

Your unquestioning support of Sen. Larry Craig’s forest bill (“Forest health bill a good prescription,” Our View, May 22) is naive, given the amount of forest abuse we’ve seen over the last year.

Last summer Congress passed a measure to allegedly fix the same forest health crisis Craig’s bill claims to address. Instead, we’ve gotten the clearcutting of oldgrowth forests in Washington and Oregon, and in Idaho the logging of healthy trees under the guise of curing dead and dying forests.

This latest forest bill is more of the same. It uses a drummed-up crisis to suspend environmental laws and it severely limits citizens’ rights to challenge the kind of irresponsible logging we’ll see under this bill.

The public should always have the right to have a say in how the public’s forests are managed.

Are there problems in some places in Idaho’s national forests? Yes. Is there a sweeping crisis across all our national forests demanding this kind of extreme legislation? Hardly.

The Forest Service already has the tools it needs to address problems that do exist, including thinning, prescribed burning and, yes, even logging. The Wilderness Society believes logging can play a role in the sound stewardship of national forests - when done correctly in the right place. But that means obeying basic federal environmental laws and using sound science to guide management decisions. Unfortunately, this forest bill would do neither.

Congress fooled the American public once with fake forest health legislation, and our forests are paying the price. Let’s not fall for the same sham twice. Craig Gehrke, regional director The Wilderness Society, Boise

IN THE PAPER

Heitner’s fine work will be missed

I am saddened by the death of your multi-talented staff artist, Anne Heitner.

I regret I didn’t mail the Heitner appreciation letter I wrote to your newspaper a year ago. I had written how her illustrations often made my day brighter and how I hoped readers took time to enjoy her art. Now it is too late.

I am gratified I saved some of her illustrations, many which have adorned my bulletin board.

Her art will be missed. Carol A. Kelly Spokane

McVeigh is not an ex-Marine

In his May 28 column, Doug Clark states that Timothy McVeigh is an ex-Marine. On the part of all Marines everywhere, I would like to state very clearly that Timothy McVeigh is not an ex-Marine.

I am a former Marine. Thomas LaVigne Spokane

Story placement appalling

I am not one who shoots off letters to the editor, but I must when the article “Armed and militant” (May 24) hits the front page, and the very brief article about Father Coughlin is relegated to the Region section.

I am disgusted! Your paper certainly did not take his challenge seriously to have a community of people who love one another.

Allison Cowles gave the most stirring and heartwarming tribute to Father Coughlin and even what she said was limited to one sentence in the story. The full text of her tribute should have been printed for all to read and begin what Father Coughlin challenged.

When fugitives receive more press than an outstanding community event attended by over 800 people, your paper has hit rock bottom. Helen Shanewise Spokane

HUNTING

Bears OK but society is hurting

It is obvious that Robert Oeinck (“Name calling won’t win sorry case,” Letters, May 21) has been watching too many Disney movies. Make-a-Wish Foundation didn’t help that young boy kill Baloo (the bear). Kodiak bears are practically farmed, and a certain number of permits for killing them are issued every year.

The Kodiak bear is far from endangered. Oeinck’s attitude is an alarmist reaction with no roots in reality. His relating the extermination of herds of buffalo to the killing of one Kodiak bear is a very poor analogy. No one is ruthlessly gunning down herds of bear.

Oeinck, I would think you would be able to find a more worthwhile cause, like those humans you mention who die from “starvation, predation and overpopulation.” Shouldn’t you be more concerned that few children these days are being taught morals and values, that they go on crime sprees and rob and murder? How abut teenager pregnancy, the spread of AIDS, sexual predators stalking our kids, rapists and the murderers filling our jails?

What about “whole learning” producing kids who can barely read? Or sexual deviants being given special rights?

Shouldn’t you be more concerned, Oeinck, with the self-destructive nature of the American populace than worrying about someone killing a bear?

Your heart aches for the bear? My heart aches for you. You are being sadly misled. Sharon Gerlach Spokane

Hunting for sport is wrong

I don’t think the two boys with cancer (“2nd boy with cancer to get hunting trip,” May 24) should have gotten to hunt the bear or moose. We should only hunt animals for food, and we should use the whole animal - meat, fur, etc. - not just skin the animal and then leave the rest to rot.

What we definitely should not do is shoot the animal and take nothing. There should be no such thing as hunting as a sport. Kellie Powell, age 12 Valleyford, Wash.