Letters To The Editor

Thu., July 3, 1997

WASHINGTON STATE

Think of it as King’s ransom

We have friends in King County who are indifferent to football and will never attend a game in Paul Allen’s new stadium. Nevertheless, they voted in favor of the stadium for one reason. In the complex funding package just approved by voters, the more than $100 million debt remaining on the soon-to-be-demolished Kingdome, formerly an obligation of King County alone, is now an obligation of the entire state of Washington.

Our friends’ county (and Paul Allen’s) instantly has $100 million more in bonding capacity for projects like street repairs, sewage treatment plants and fire and police equipment. Robert Barcus Spokane

Monument to impatience, excess

The West Side power brokers and big money will have a new Seahawks stadium, thanks to a 2 percent margin of “yes” votes.

The picture on the front page of the June 19 Spokesman-Review of billionaire Paul Allen playing his guitar with the Beatnicks in a premature victory celebration is a fitting metaphor for the steamrolled sham we Washington citizens have endured over the last few months. The caption should have read, “Allen plays while the Kingdome falls” (with apologies to the Roman emperor, Nero). Maybe a more fitting caption would be, “Kingdome rock falls while Allen bankrolls.”

This unprecedented aberration (of the stadium craze) in our lives and the consequent hurried-up $4.2 million mail-in election epitomizes the United States today as a hedonistic nation with an insatiable appetite for pleasure and entertainment.

We are driven by a “me” generation that has a “now” manifesto which demands instant gratification. We can’t be encumbered with silly election laws and election cycles when our desires can be met by spending staggering amounts of money. Our self-centered national demand principle should move us to ask God and the rest of the world to forgive us for our excesses.

As we prepare to tear down the mere 20-year-old multimillion-dollar Kingdome, we’ll also have to apologize to the Romans history recorded also as being a hedonistic people prone to excess. At least part of the Coliseum they built in A.D. 75-80 still stands. And it didn’t even have the advantage of a retractable roof. Merle R. Craner Cheney

Look what our representatives did

I’m irate over the Seahawks stadium vote. Most of us will never see that stadium, let alone ever use it.

Approximately 39 counties voted against the Seahawks stadium, and most were at overwhelming percentages. If all those counties had had good representation in Olympia, this never would have come to a statewide vote. I hope everyone will remember this when incumbents come up for re-election. It’s like, “With friends like this, we don’t need any enemies.”

If all these “yes”-voting people believe the propaganda that this won’t take money from schools, roads and various other badly needed items, I have some good timber land on Mount Baldy I’d like to sell them.

Next time, let’s vote for people willing to stand up and represent us, not ones who cave in to demands for what benefits only the west side of this state. G.D. Davis Spokane

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Arrogant busybodies can stop now

They have done it again. The arrogant do-gooders and keepers of the Holy Grail have whipped up on bad old tobacco under the guise of protecting us poor victims and our ignorant children.

Where will it stop? I am convinced that we poor victims must now be protected from the evils of the alcohol, gun and unhealthy food merchants. Remember, as Christine Gregoire says, it’s not the money; it’s for the children.

But as those of us who have been around a while know, it’s always the money and the power.

I, for one, do not want my family “protected” by the arrogance of a bunch of statist busybodies. We, as well as most people, will make our own choices and protect ourselves. We may choose to use tobacco, guns, liquor or eat unhealthy foods - or we may not. But it will be our own informed choice and we will live with the consequences, good or bad.

So, Gregoire and her ilk from the various other states should be reminded that not all of the citizens of Washington state are on the politically correct bandwagon Gregoire hopes to ride into the governor’s mansion. Some of us still believe in individual freedom and personal responsibility for those over 21 years of age - not state-controlled morality.

Sorry, Gregoire, but you cannot fool all of us. Most of us are not helpless victims of corporate greed or irresponsibility. James E. Prokop Moses Lake

Why make it an either/or thing?

U.S. Rep. Thomas Coburn’s June 27 “Roundtable” column confused me. I don’t understand why the “cockroach study” made no mention of pesticides’ role in asthma and other respiratory ailments, when pesticide and other toxics literature is full of references to toxics-induced and exacerbated respiratory problems, from sinus congestion to respiratory failure - asthma, too.

I do not understand why Coburn and others are using the reality of indoor air pollution and the miseries created by it to undermine the reality of outdoor air pollution and the miseries created by that.

Information presented from the study leaves out a multitude of factors about synergism, bioaccumulation, genetics, nutrition, deprivations and toxics, etc. Coburn’s column neglects consideration of many chronic pollutant and toxic-related chronic immune system disorders.

I would love to be able to open my windows to fresh air, but it frequently is not fresh or wholesome. Our bodies do not start free of toxins every day and ready to fight off the onslaught from everything from lawn chemicals to diesel and incinerator fumes.

I hope work on indoor air pollution continues and addresses all the challenges we are dealing with in safe, nontoxic, more effective ways. That would impress me. Peggy L. Winkel Spokane

LAW AND JUSTICE

Hang McVeigh for all to see

In his June 28 letter (“McVeigh eligible for mercy, too”), Friar William Sisk states that “every civilized country … except the United States” avoids the death penalty.

How does Sisk define civilization? By number of cars per capita? Number of abortions? Number of murders?

I talked recently to some people from Saudi Arabia. Going by what Sisk says, that is an uncivilized country because it has the death penalty. But jewelry can be sold on the market, as nobody steals it. Would you bet on the same in the civilized United States?

Catholic bishops can express their opinion and liberals can hold vigils for executed murderers but the function of our government is to protect us.

We can’t bring back Oklahoma City victims. We can protect potential future victims by sending a clear message to terrorists. If we show leniency toward any murderer - McVeigh or a drive-by shooter - the message we communicate to potential followers is one of weakness. For a coward, that’s an invitation.

We should not only execute McVeigh soon; we should do it publicly, by hanging and not lethal injection. We should speed up all pending executions and make them public, as they are in Saudi Arabia. Peter C. Dolina Veradale

Death matter of situational ethics?

I was very disappointed with the Supreme Court’s decision to not allow physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill. This decision was based on the fear that we would embark on a “slippery slope” whereon the aged, depressed and infirm would be pressured to commit suicide to save society the burden of costly medical treatment.

The irony is that Roe vs. Wade allows us the right to kill babies during pregnancy and for any reason one chooses. The court certainly didn’t think about the slippery slope where taking the life of a viable, unborn baby is concerned. Physicians perform this inhumane act by the thousands.

Physicians seem to feel good about patients not having the right to die with dignity. An American Medical Association spokesperson says they now have more freedom to use stronger pain medication for the terminally ill. They can now medicate to the point that “a patient can be put into a comatose state, if needed, to alleviate their pain.” For all intents and purposes, are we still alive once we have no awareness? I think not. The process of dying is big business in our society. Mary L. Tinnell Twin Lakes, Wash.

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Don’t lock up Hanford Reach

I support HR 1811 and urge Congress to enact it forthwith.

Spotted owls, coyotes, rattlesnakes and steelhead do not grow food for a hungry world, pay taxes and send kids to school; farm families do.

The Hanford Reach area could be excellent farmland. It would be a sad and tragic waste of Hanford Reach resources to close it off as a “wild and scenic” area where development is banned.

Control of any area should in any case be left to its local people. They are familiar with it and better informed about it than central government officials and bureaucrats. Paul H. Adriance Moses Lake

Clinton should cooperate with Starr

President Clinton’s supporters on Capitol Hill were outraged that special prosecutor Kenneth Starr wants to interview women with whom President Clinton might have been intimate.

These defenders respond with, “No one’s personal life should be subject to a desperate dragnet by a prosecutor with unlimited resources” and similar sentiments.

Keep in mind that this is the same liberal crowd that tried to ruin Robert Bork, Edwin Meese and Clarence Thomas, but now they are concerned with privacy issues. They absolutely humiliated Clarence Thomas - his de facto trial was on national TV. He is now a justice of the Supreme Court and doing an outstanding job. He was a very credible man with outstanding moral character. The people who knew him and worked with him every day spoke highly of him.

If Clinton is accused of wrongdoing, why is he above Clarence Thomas or anyone else? You are innocent until proved guilty and should not stand in the way of the system.

Clinton should have his day in court. That’s not intolerable, not outrageous or sickening. That is something important to the integrity of the office of president of the United States. He should cooperate with the Whitewater prosecutor. If he is innocent, he has nothing to hide. Sandy J. Ogle Chattaroy

THE ENVIRONMENT

Columbia Basin plan underreported

Why haven’t we seen much coverage of the Columbia Basin project? The federal land managers have released this huge plan of how they want to manage millions of acres of public lands in Eastern Washington and Oregon. But I have seen no discussion of it in the news. People need to be aware of this plan and how it would affect our rural communities, forests, grasslands, fish and wildlife.

This federal plan suggests that we should double current levels of industrial logging. It calls for logging in fragile watersheds and cutting new roads into the last untouched and intact back country areas in the Northwest. It also fails to stop cattle from wrecking streams and does not adequately address how rural communities can diversify their economies away from a dependence on resource extraction.

The public comment period for the Columbia Basin project is open now. I encourage everyone concerned with a healthy environment and healthy economies to send their opinions to: Eastside EIS Team, 112 E. Poplar St., Walla Walla 99362 and to Secretary Glickman, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 14th and Independence Ave. S.W., Washington, D.C. 20250.

And let’s see more discussion of this in the news! Wesley D. Sweitzer Spokane

Demand better of Forest Service

We all ought to take a look at what poor Forest Service management has done to our national forests.

How many people realize that the Forest Service has allowed construction of over 370,000 miles of roads on land within its control? That’s twice the miles that exist in the federal highway system.

How many people realize the incredible impact this has had on watersheds? Take a good look at our own Coeur d’Alene National Forest, where the North Fork Coeur d’Alene River drainage has nearly 11 miles of road per square mile. Many areas are unraveling due to landslides and heavy sedimentation. Combine this with continued clearcutting and floods have become unavoidable.

The Forest Service finally acknowledges this problem. But the mess is so great, it doesn’t even have a fraction of the money it needs to maintain current roads, let alone the new roads being planned. Yes, more miles of roads are still being added every day.

To give you an idea of the problem, the Forest Service estimates there are up to 400 areas in the Coeur d’Alene River basin in need of repair, but currently, only four are being addressed.

We should let Mike Dombeck, new chief of the Forest Service, know that we have had it with old management practices. Our national forests face a precarious future if change is not demanded. We the public own this land the Forest Service has been entrusted to responsibly maintain. Lola K. Frederick Spokane