Letters To The Editor
SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION
Help my students to value books
Twice a year, when I begin a new term teaching English classes at Kettle Falls High School, I encounter a number of students - many of them juniors and seniors - who claim never to have read an entire book. They say books are stupid, irrelevant, boring.
Not only is it shocking that they’ve advanced this far in school with such a record, they’re actually proud of their accomplishment, or lack thereof. Of course, these comments launch a discussion of reading and education; however, I’m seldom satisfied that I’ve managed to win them over to my point of view. I offer them the best books I can and hope my enthusiasm for the sport will somehow rub off on them.
To assist me in my mission to foster literacy, I make a request of the reading public: Please write to my classes and share with us your most memorable experiences with books.
I clearly remember my first encounter, in high school, with “Cyrano de Bergerac” and the concept of integrity. I was deeply moved by Melville’s protagonists, Bartleby and Billy Rudd, and their innocent and tragic alienation of others. I’ll never forget the power of Shakespeare’s “Othello” and its unflinching look at jealousy, love and treachery. Books continue to influence my view of the world. Like nothing else, books force us to confront and understand our own humanity.
Please, let my students know how books - any sort of books - have affected your life. Just a short note will help me build my case for the value and pleasure of reading. Lynn Rigney Schott Kettle Falls High School English department
Bands deal with weather, logistics
I am responding to Andy Kelly’s letter, “Bring on the bands” (March 11).
I am drum major of the Chase Middle School band, one of the few school district bands in Saturday’s St. Patrick’s Day parade. Our band was very excited about participating this year.
I appreciate Kelly’s eagerness to include more school bands in the St. Patrick’s Day parade, but I also understand why most bands do not accept the annual invitation.
In order to look our best as we march the parade route, it is essential that the band practice playing and marching as a unit. Our 200-piece band was lucky to find the time, space and reasonable weather conditions to practice in. We attended rehearsals both before and during school last week in order to adequately prepare. We competed with the school basketball team for the gym and endured 20-degree weather while practicing in the parking lot.
Uniforms, permission slips and fund raising were just some of the challenges we faced. We are lucky to have a band director who is willing to stay up late and wake up early to help us.
It is not that there is no appreciation for Irish roots in school bands. Weather conditions this early in the year do not allow bands to prepare in time for the parade. When horns freeze as we march, there’s not much we can do. Kelly Guilfoil Spokane
Demonstration raised vital issue
When I first heard of the anti-abortion demonstration at Rogers High School, I was outraged. Then I got to thinking of when I was in high school. Everything was black and white and boring. I didn’t know that the reason I was there was to learn to make decisions. I didn’t understand that I had a choice in matters. If I had, I would have taken education more seriously and made something of my life. There would have been a challenge.
Perhaps if we bring more controversy to the school yard, children will understand why they are there. They might become curious and want to study different aspects of the issues.
In this case, they might want to find a solution for a dilemma that will face them in their future. When medical science solves fertility problems and everybody who wants children will be able to have their own, who will take care of all the unwanted babies if abortion becomes illegal?
It seems society’s most serious problems are a result of unwanted children or parents not fully committed or devoted to loving and preparing a child with the best tools to take on life. As fast as medical science is advancing, this dilemma could come as early as tomorrow.
Come on, kids, this is your challenge. Are you ready for it? Adoption may not be an option in the future. Allan Le Tourneau Spokane
Some learn value of education late
Again, I have read a letter by a welfare recipient stating, “Right now I just want to get the education to qualify me for a good enough job that I never have to be in this situation again.” (Your Turn, March 12).
Please allow me to point out that such an education, an education that so many people who are “trying to get back on their feet” say they would do almost anything to get, is available in every town in the United States at no charge.
This education is available in every high school. It is completely free to any student who attends class every day and makes an effort. Robert Crabb Colbert
HIGHER EDUCATION
Raw deal at two-year colleges
Of the 11,000 instructors in Washington’s two-year colleges, 65 percent do so for wages averaging less than $14,000 a year. They are the part-time instructors.
“Part time” may evoke the image of a full-time professional who occasionally teaches a community college course. But most of these teachers have the same credentials as full-time teachers, the majority with virtual full-time teaching assignments, and they are expected to develop curriculum, serve on committees, attend faculty meetings and hold conferences with their students. These duties are identical to those of full-time instructors whose average salary is $39,000. But part-time teachers fulfill them for free.
Part-timers carry heavy student loads and yet are called “adjuncts,” as if they were additions to an otherwise workable setup. In truth, many departments would fail without them.
These instructors have no job security from quarter to quarter. Meanwhile, they go on performing essential instruction while living in poverty and having the morale of a marginalized worker.
This unfair exploitation spanning three decades was finally addressed by the 54th Legislature. But although legislators passed a “best practices” bill, Gov. Gary Locke has essentially scuttled the program.
The 7,000 part-time teachers often cannot afford to join the union. Therefore adjuncts, many without telephones or mailboxes let alone offices, lack the community spirit and dialogue a union would provide.
The underpaid majority teach grades 13 and 14, now understood to be part of basic education. When will academic sweatshops be replaced by fair workplaces? Willene Goodwin, part-time faculty representative Association for Higher Education, Community Colleges of Spokane
NUCLEAR WASTE
Enough wrangling - just do it
I was pleased to read Lois Heglin’s opinion piece about the closure of the Dawn Mining Co. mill site (Roundtable, March 8). Finally, we are hearing from the people who have the most at stake in closing the old uranium mill near Ford - those who live near the site.
Up to this point, we have heard from an environmental group that is being supported by an out-of-state business whose owner is under criminal investigation for bribery. On the other hand, Heglin, like me, is a local resident who knows the truth about efforts to clean up the mill.
Many Ford citizens have spent the last 10 years working out a safe and timely closure plan. We know the plan is no more harmful to people or the environment than what we already live with every day. In addition, this closure plan will actually take place, rather than become bogged down for years in the courts - the most likely outcome of the scenarios suggested by plan opponents.
Ford-area citizens will be active participants in the closure plan through the local citizens’ monitoring committee, which I chair. As Heglin pointed out, no material will be brought to the site without the community’s approval.
Finally, as Heglin noted, we have taken the time to learn about the issue and participate in developing a solution. We know this is the best alternative available. It’s time to stop playing politics and get this cleanup done. Randy Humbert Tum Tum, Wash.
Corporation made do-it-or-else offer
Regarding Lois Heglin’s guest column on closing Dawn Mining:
At a recent meeting, Randy Humbert, chairman of the Ford group, said Dawn is bankrupt and would pull out if the people of Ford did not approve a plan acceptable to the company. Heglin’s observation that some companies “declare bankruptcy, leaving the state taxpayers to foot the bill” seems to apply to Dawn Mining Co. also.
As I read it, the company Heglin claims felt “obligated to the community” has coerced the people of Ford into accepting a plan that will cost taxpayers $20 million.
Bob Nelson, Dawn’s site manager, has declared that a clean-fill option would cost $3 million. In a recent $2.5 billion hostile merger, Newmont Mining, Dawn’s parent company, has become the largest gold mining company in North America, yet it refuses to pay anything for a safe, clean-fill solution, preferring instead to burden the taxpayer. Gary Millica of the Ford group, has even offered to give them free fill.
Dawn Watch opposes using public funds to make Ford a nuclear dump. We oppose running 75,000 truckloads of radioactive waste down our roads, through our towns and along our school bus routes.
Dawn Watch has always supported the clean-fill option. We support the Spokane County commissioner’s resolution asking the governor to rescind Dawn’s license. We support Sen. Lisa Brown’s efforts to bring bipartisan legislative oversight to this issue.
Call the legislative hot line (1-800-562-6000) and tell your legislators how you feel. Michael Irving, Dawn Watch Springdale, Wash.
Risks from project understated
I object to points made by Lois Heglin in her guest column, “Ford people crafted a safe, fair nuclear waste disposal plan.”
It’s appalling that Newmont Mining, one of the world’s richest gold mine companies and owner of Dawn Mining, instead of considering public health, chose to close Dawn with hazardous material and not non-radioactive dirt. It’s Another blatant example of corporate brainwashing sold to the public.
This makes one wonder who will have to pay the tab in years to come, once they find out this material is leaking into the water table.
Second, if this hazardous material is so safe, supposedly no threat to anyone, why are only two facilities in the country licensed to handle it? Since it’s being shipped in from the East Coast, someone must be paying a lot to get rid of it, to make shipping it this far worthwhile.
It appears this hazardous material is more dangerous than we have been led to believe.
Finally, how nice it is of Dawn Mining to say it would pay its share of road costs. I wonder with whose money, since taxpayers already subsidize mining companies.
Contact Gov. Gary Locke and tell him to revoke Dawn’s mining license. Reject this plan. Let’s not turn Eastern Washington into a hazardous waste dumping ground. Jean E. Johnson Mead
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
Bashing Clinton a career for some
Do I have memory loss? I keep hearing the Republicans say President Clinton is going to take credit for their programs. Very strange indeed.
It was he who cut the deficit in half during his first term. It was he who made the rich pay their share of taxes for the first time. Do they ever complain about that? You bet.
It was Clinton who created 10 million jobs. It was he who asked all businesses to give jobs to welfare people. He is responsible for so-called motor voter registration, which helps many people vote. It was he who put many police on the streets, reducing crime.
He was responsible for the Family Leave bill. He fought hard to get money for education, and they are taking credit for it. Oh yes, I hear it all the time.
He worked hard to bring about peace in Bosnia and other countries, and his life was at risk in doing so. He has received no credit or praise for what he has done, only criticism. If a Republican had done these things, he would have been praised to the sky. Never has a president done so much for his country and received so little credit as he has.
All the Republicans, including the press, do for him is try to dig up scandal on him, even resorting to lies to do so. Please quit calling the president a Republican. Ernestene Becker Clarkston, Wash.
Wanted: less hypocrisy, more reform
Republicans are up in arms because Vice President Al Gore has committed the heinous political sin of calling (with a Democratic National Committee credit card) rich political patrons to solicit political contributions from his White House office.
Republican outrage has shown in the recent spurt of letters to the paper. One demanded Gore be impeached.
Republicans feel they can hurl political stones from the moral high ground because their representatives cross the street from their congressional offices to the Republican National Committee offices to call rich political patrons to solicit political campaign contributions.
It terrifies me that these Republicans and their representatives are so wrapped up in their partisan warfare that they don’t seem to even realize that the focus of the scandal should be that anyone is forced to debase themselves to this level of political begging. The issue should not be just where the begging occurs but that it occurs at all.
In 1992, the Republican Party held a dinner to raise funds. Individuals and corporations paid up to $400,000 to attend. Marlin Fitzwater, a spokesman for President George Bush, told reporters, “It’s buying access to the system, yes.” When asked about people who didn’t have so much money, he replied, “They have to demand access in other ways.”
Isn’t it time to change the system? Vern Stevens Moscow, Idaho
Another reason for term limits
It’s my understanding that we elect our political leaders in Congress to look out for our interests, not theirs. How naive can I be? Can you imagine how much time, effort and money is being spent by each party investigating the other? I am referring to the most recent money scandal to hit Washington.
I knew it was only a matter of time before countercharges would surface against the Democrats over campaign money issues. Too bad these politicians can’t grow up and do their jobs instead of slinging mud at each other.
I know I speak for most voters, but try as we might, we cannot stop partisanship. It’s always been there and always will be until term limits are imposed.
If we had term limits, our elected officials would be in and out of office before falling victim to the good-old-boy syndrome and you-scratch-my-back, I’ll-scratch-yours policy. They would still be idealistic enough to put the voter first and their own political well-being on hold, where it should be. After all, they should represent us, not all the lobbies and political cronies they come in contact with.
Term limits would go a long way toward putting citizens’ wants and needs in their proper perspective. James A. Nelson Spokane
First Long Beach, then the nation
Here’s irony. China will reclaim Hong Kong, which was acquired by the British in 1841 with 3.5 square miles and expanded to 409 square miles, this July. Meanwhile, a new Hong Kong is being established in America at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard in California by the China Ocean Shipping Co., a communist government-owned entity of China.
I consider this Trojan horse facility invasion of our country by a foreign nation. John Sullivan Spokane