Letters To The Editor
MARKETPLACE CENSORSHIP
Wal-Mart and Blockbuster get it
How pleased I was to hear about Wal-Mart and Blockbuster’s standards restricting what movies and CDs they will carry.
How refreshing to hear that movie and music companies are actually changing their products in order to meet these standards and be able to sell to these stores. This is the best of market economics at work. Pity the poor souls who can’t buy “Rape Me” by Nirvana at their local Wal-Mart.
Thank you to Warner Brothers, which won’t even release an NC-17-rated film. Warner, of course, realized that NC-17 was just a ploy to repackage X-rated fare, and it wasn’t bamboozled.
This is great news. Unfortunately, the reporter writes with a slant, as if there is something wrong with these stores having standards for their products. It is really an editorial disguised as a news story. He assumes that the great pooh-bahs in Hollywood can put out whatever blasphemy, immorality and political correctness they want, and all stores should sell it. To them, free speech has meant to shove anti-family propaganda down our throats and collect millions. But alas, it appears that stores don’t have a duty to sell it, or people to buy it. Oh, sad day for the rich Hollywood elite. The marketplace has spoken.
Could this be why Blockbuster and Wal-Mart are at the top in their fields? Bob Silver Nine Mile Falls
Censor stores set bad precedent
I totally agree with staff writer Anne Windishar regarding Wal-Mart (“Censorship is much more offensive,” From both sides, Nov. 15). If this kind of thing can be done without even asking customers’ opinions, what else will we find censored?
I always thought it was disgusting the way Wal-Mart forced itself into communities that didn’t want it. Now I know they will never get my business. I hope even the people who agree with what’s going on at Wal-Mart would choose to shop at other discount stores. Because, if Wal-Mart can get away with this censorship now, where is it going to end? Lisa Pra Spokane
Culture hostage? Give us a break
Do corporations really hold pop culture hostage by exercising their own freedom to decide what to buy or sell in the open market? Do you really think anything can hold our entire popular culture hostage?
In staff writer Anne Windishar’s editorial on censorship (“Censorship is much more offensive,” From both sides, Nov. 15), she acknowledges as common sense that “any business should have the right to sell what it wants” but - and here is your hysterical thesis - “Wal-Mart is not letting the market decide what’s acceptable. Instead, a faceless corporation is doing the deciding for us.”
And how is this outrage allowed to happen? You darkly assert that “…a mega-conglomerate such as Wal-Mart is in control…”
Wal-Mart “controls” the entire music distribution business? There are no convenient alternatives here in Spokane, much less the rest of the United States of America in which to buy the music we want? We consumers have no taste and preferences of our own? We just buy whatever Wal-Mart offers in its music selection because it might cost a little less? Are you asking to be taken seriously?
Hello up there in the tower beside the weathervane, did anyone consider the lost revenues Wal-Mart or any other business misses out on when it chooses to exercise its freedom to select what it will sell?
This is one more example of a political correctness world view morally harumphing over an area that doesn’t need fixing. Our free enterprise system already allows us to buy and sell not only locally but internationally (the Internet sales boom is coming, gentle reader). We can’t even keep today’s pornography, with its themes of bondage, mutilation, torture, bestiality and others, completely off the streets, even where it is declared illegal.
Corporations hold our culture hostage? Ridiculous! Now, if you would like to take up the theme “media holding pop culture hostage …” Russell L. Johnson Coeur d’Alene
LAW AND JUSTICE
Sex offender should never be freed
Re: “Predatory sex offender released from prison,” Region, Nov. 7.
Why is a creature like Scott Raymond Halverson free to walk our streets? He has been convicted of raping a 10-year old and of molesting a 4-year-old. Do children have no value in this society?
There is something terribly wrong with a society that allows freedom for such as he. Let’s start looking closely at our judicial system. Judges call the shots. Lillian Fleming Spokane
Better schools than jails
Jails don’t work so why can’t we try a different approach to handling our kids.
Why must we always be reading or hearing the same old song of always finding excess funds to build jails, or by a fancier name, detention centers, for our young children.
I think it should read: Spokane County and surrounding areas are willing to spend $5.5 million to build trade schools for our young Americans so they can get their lives back to where they were before they thought no one cared and got into trouble that would tear their young lives apart. It’s so very, very sad.
What’s needed are a few good trades teachers, ones who have a lot of patience with the young people who need a guiding hand and think they don’t have a friend in the world. One little spark of hope and just knowing someone cares and listens makes all the difference in children’s lives. With God’s help and effort on all our part, you young men and women can be the best you can be, and you will not be throwing your life away in jail.
So, learn a trade and be proud of who you are. Let us all put families first - moms, dads and kids. America will stay strong. We just need to save our children and let their theme song be “The River” by Garth Brooks. Ursula Longie Spokane
ENERGY POLICY
Companies require regulating
Northwest residents again are facing an energy crisis. But this time it isn’t a threat of brownouts or freezing in the dark. The new threat is deregulation the utility companies are touting as a great benefit to consumers.
The draft Northwest energy plan being considered by the region’s governors is a thinly veiled attempt by utilities to wriggle out of the debt for their ill-fated Washington Public Power Supply System venture, which is the largest municipal bond failure in history.
Additionally, the draft plan allows the utilities to waffle on conservation efforts, makes no attempt to encourage alternative energy sources and consigns endangered salmon runs to the spinning hydroelectric turbines.
Common sense dictates there must be firm controls on the region’s power industry despite its claims that all will be rosy if regulators just leave them alone.
Remember, it was an unrestrained alliance of the utilities, the aluminum industry and Bonneville Power Administration that gave us WPPSS in the first place. Only an outraged public brought the utilities to heel in the mid-1970s. Now, the utilities are trying to break loose again under the guise of free enterprise.
There are legitimate reasons to keep tight regulations on monopoly industries. Ed Parents Spokane
PEOPLE IN SOCIETY
Black activists don’t speak for all
I am a black American. I wish most people would quit assuming that the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan and the rest of the negative black people speak for all blacks. There is no way the aforementioned people constitute the beliefs and feelings of all black Americans.
I am a veteran and native citizen of the United States. I was born here and have defended this country and any other American citizen. I believe the comments that were said or were supposedly stated in a closed meeting don’t speak for everyone who works for or has a franchise with Texaco.
Jesse Jackson seems to be using his status as a way of life, rather than a way to improve life. If there is a problem with white people and black people, the problem can’t be fixed if you single out one or the other. It has to be a joint effort of both. James Williams Sr. Wellpinit
Such bombast tends to fizzle
Re: M.A. Triggs’ Nov. 13 letter, “Nonvoters non-smart and non-effective.”
OK, Triggs, let’s look at reality for a moment. But not your reality; let’s examine mine. You see, I am a veteran of the United States armed forces, a Generation X member and a devoutly nonreligious person.
My blood line dictates I will not see retirement age. Hence, I will not be a recipient of Social Security, much less a pension. I have seen United States justice in action, in the case of O.J. Simpson. As well, my hopes for the one man I would have voted for were dashed by the opposite pole of race relations.
Here’s the gist, Triggs: What I consider relevant isn’t the same as what you consider relevant. As far as people in my reality are concerned, I am disposable. So, if you want to condemn my apathy, go for it.
Just remember, we disposable ones have the ultimate advantage: We don’t have to put up with people like you for very long. Kirby D. Ulrey Spokane
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
One toke short of valid complaint
Re: The Nov. 10 letter from the disgruntled reader who says President Bill Clinton is (among other insults) an “alleged drug addict.”
Any one of the many millions of people my age who did inhale in the ‘60s or ‘70s can tell you marijuana smoke is harsh. To get stoned, you had to inhale and then hold in the smoke. Some people just coughed it out and never did get the hang of it.
I have no reason to doubt Clinton’s statement of four years ago, that when he tried marijuana as a young man, he didn’t inhale. Nor do I feel the flower children of the ‘60s and ‘70s should have to apologize for the accomplishments our rejection of the 1950s status quo was able to eventually bring about - improvements toward integrating women, blacks, other people of color and the handicapped into the work force. We also focused public attention on the growing environmental crisis.
Marijuana in the ‘60s was part of a broad-based movement of social consciousness-raising that permanently changed the face of American politics for the better.
Betsy Ross made the first American flag of hemp (marijuana cloth), and I agree with Bob Dole that we shouldn’t burn it. At this point in our history, marijuana is more valuable for paper making, as a substitute for killing off our last remaining old-growth forests.
I also want to ask the reader who calls Clinton an ‘alleged drug addict’ if he would think someone who took a sip of whiskey, spat it out and never drank again should be called an alleged alcoholic? Karen Schumaker Pullman
Our president has earned praise
In answer to recent letter writers: I thought in this country one is innocent until proven guilty. After all the investigation, all the money spent and time taken, not one piece of evidence was proven against President or Hillary Clinton.
So where do you get off calling President Clinton crooked or untrustworthy. This is the outrage.
It’s time to start giving our hard-working president some credit for a job well done. Billie Randall Post Falls
Let’s hold Saturday elections
People offer many reasons for not voting, but I think the number of voters would increase if Election Day could be moved to a Saturday. Many people are too tired and busy after working all day to want to stand in line to vote. Voting by mail should be encouraged for people who work on Election Day and in areas where inclement weather is a factor. Sharon Leon Spokane
Draft-dodger claim unfair
There have been several letters since the election criticizing President Clinton for being a “draft dodger.” I do not think such criticism of President Clinton is fair.
Having turned 18 years old in 1968, I remember the VietNam war years exceedingly well. I remember that neither I nor any of my friends wanted to get killed or wounded in an unpopular war that the country wasn’t supporting. Nearly everyone who could get an educational deferment grabbed it. So, I don’t blame President Clinton, then about 22, for taking the Rhodes Scholarship that he earned competitively. Nor do I blame him for looking into ROTC. I myself went into advanced Air Force ROTC primarily to make sure that I didn’t get drafted into the Army and made an infantryman - synonym: cannon fodder. Luckily, I found that I loved the Air Force and made it a career, retiring after 22 years.
My birthday drew a low “40” in the draft lottery system that began in 1969, and Bill Clinton got a very high number. He lucked out in that lottery. The real draft dodgers were the guys who, having received a draft notice, fled to Canada or Europe. Even they were eventually pardoned and allowed to come home.
We ought to “forgive” Clinton for not wanting to go - very few of us wanted to go under the circumstances then - and put behind us his not having served in Viet Nam. Charles Latimer, lt.col., USAF, retired Spokane
IN THE PAPER
Priggee, rejected law both wrong
Re: staff cartoonist Milt Priggee’s cartoon about the hooded wonder of affirmative action. It’s totally wrong. It’s the Spokesman-Review’s liberal, biased view.
Affirmative action was nothing more than reverse discrimination. It allowed less qualified nonwhites to take jobs that more qualified people (white or black) could have had. Affirmative action was wrong because it’s discrimination against whites. But then again, it’s in a liberal paper.
Affirmative action was wrong. Thank God almighty that we are free from it at last. Mark Dana Sandpoint
Cartoon change hits close to home
Now that the elections are finally over, we can focus on a true outrage - The Spokesman-Review’s decision to cancel Close to Home and replace it with Tommy.
Close to Home was one of the wittiest strips in the paper. Its replacement with Tommy - decidedly unfunny and mundane - is ridiculous.
Spokane is a family town. Tommy, it appears, is geared toward children and their parents. But it is impossible to imagine any family enjoying that mediocrity.
Many people are disheartened over this matter. At my workplace, Close to Home strips are posted on almost every bulletin board. I don’t expect to see Tommy posted anywhere soon.
Perhaps to some, this is a trivial complaint. However, to many, Close to Home was one of the few bright spots in an otherwise gloomy news day.
I am usually a proud man, but I realize sometimes groveling can be effective. I am on my knees, in agony, begging for the return of Close to Home. Paul Knaysi Spokane