Letters To The Editor

IDAHO VIEWPOINTS

Market value change unacceptable

After all the double talk and fork in tongue from the courthouse about the mill levies and market value on our homes and property, we get our tax bills. For those of us who have had our designated sites changed after 60 years or even less by the courthouse, you probably received quite a shocking tax bill.

Could this be why people vote against bond levies? Remember, they tell us that the levies are the same or lower and put the reason for increases onto the other taxing entries.

The change in market value impacts your assessment. I will take my tax receipt to the polls in ‘98 and vote against all current incumbents. I also will vote against employees who subscribe to this unjust form of taxation. Dick R. Edinger Coeur d’Alene

Riders, pedestrians must take care

The fact that a Post Falls school boy was killed by a hit-and-run driver is a terrible tragedy. Clearly, the driver violated traffic regulations. However, so do pedestrians and bicycle riders.

It would be an excellent thing if all children and adults were educated to walk on the left side of streets, facing traffic, and while riding a bike, to ride on the right side.

The fact that Nicholas Scherling was pushing his bike made him a pedestrian.

Also, everyone walking or riding a bicycle after dark should wear reflective clothing and/or carry a light, so they can ben seen by drivers.

Lack of school and street lights are not the cause of traffic deaths. Helen M. Johnson Hayden

Christianity has a checkered past

After reading all of Alice J. McWilliams’ blather (“Left wing atheists have said enough,” Letters, Nov. 21), one point stands out most clearly from all her intended messages: The supposed superiority of Christianity to all other cultures and religions, which is was why this country was founded on Christian principals.

That sends up a red flag. The Christians who founded this country used the most brutal of tortures and punishments in response to what they perceived as sin. Ever hear of putting spikes through a scold’s tongue? Yep, that’s what they did.

Personally, I wouldn’t argue the superiority of Christianity because of the barbarity found in the history of Christians. I doubt this nation was founded on biblical principals because some of those biblical death penalties included stoning sinners. I don’t find such barbarous practices in any of our current laws.

No, I am not left wing, socialist or atheist. Any “Christian bashing” comes well deserved. Joan E. Harman Coeur d’Alene

RAPE AND RESPONSIBILITY

Despair softened by a bit of hope

Despair is the word that describes my response to the original editorial regarding the rape of the North Idaho woman. For the past two and a half decades, our cultural definition of rape has moved from the concept of “rough sex” to physical assault. Rightfully so.

Rape is a crime, whether the victim is 8 or 80, whether beautiful or not, whether the assault happens in one’s home or in a bar.

Putting one’s self in harm’s way does not create permission for assault to occur. Using an ATM and getting robbed, crossing paths with a drunk driver, getting shot at because someone deems that you aren’t in the right place are all daily occurrences in our society. None would happen if we would only stay home, out of harm’s way.

Part of my despair in reading that editorial was for myself, my daughter and all women that we are still somehow to blame for the possibility of being a rape victim. Part of my despair is for our sons, brothers and fathers who, seeing someone in harm’s way, wouldn’t act to protect, but to hurt.

An underaged, drunk, sexually provocative young woman needed protection. Her condition did not give permission for two young men to sexually assault her.

My despair has been somewhat mitigated by the refusal of many of The Spokesman-Review’s staff to let this editorial go unchallenged. Bravo! Thank you for sharing your obviously painful process. Sheila A. Collins Spokane

Contrary viewpoints out of place

I believe the editorial board was fair and evenhanded in its Nov. 7 pro-con editorials. Yet the editorial board was wrong and weak-minded in providing staff writer Kelly McBride and the other incensed, militant staffers a public forum for voicing their collective bias - right, wrong, supportable or indefensible.

The fact that they work for someone other than “Mother God” should not surprise them, nor should it limit their personal commitment or obligation to causes that they feel strongly about - outside of work.

However, as long as you allow them to remain with the Review and until they’re part of the editorial board, I hope and pray they will set aside their bigotry and fairly represent the public’s interest - not their own. Marshall A. Mell Spokane

No fault accrues to rape victims

Re: “Act provocatively and you provoke,” Opinion, Nov. 7.

Shame on editorial writer D.F. Oliveria for his ignorance and, worse, for sharing that ignorance with our community. Attitudes such as his keep victims of the heinous crime of rape from reporting what happened to them and getting the help they deserve.

The sexual violation of another human being is barely short of murder itself, the single most despicable act one human being can perpetrate against another. Let’s make this perfectly clear: The young woman on the North Idaho College campus made some bad choices, but under no circumstance does that give anyone the right to rape her. If rape is caused by the clothing or actions of the victim, how would one ever explain the 2-year-old daughter raped by her father or the 87-year-old woman raped by a teen gang member?

So, one more time! My body belongs to me and only me. No one touches my body without my permission. No one. Not my husband, not a stranger, not a family member.

Let me say it again for those who still don’t understand or perhaps truly don’t know. Rape is an act of violence. Victims come in every size, color, gender and age. We must put the blame where it belongs, which is on the rapist.

All of us have the right to believe we can dress as we wish, go where we wish whenever we wish without fear of assault, sexual or otherwise. Robi L. Railey Spokane

Spare us the ‘feminist consciousness’

Re: Managing editor Scott Sines’ invitation for comments on the Nov. 7 pro-con editorial.

I was amused by your wonder at the lack of community response to this non-issue and by your lack of insight. I have two observations.

First, instead of seeking politically correct personnel by choosing “a talented staff of young women,” and generally feminizing The Spokesman-Review, perhaps you should have given thought to staffing your publication with people, regardless of age and gender, who are not slaves to political correctness and who value freedom of speech over the National Organization for Women party line.

Second, concerning your mystification at the seeming lack of reader comment on this issue: Hasn’t it occurred to you and your feminist lobbying group that the people are weary of the “victim defense” used by people who refuse to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions?

The facts, as you report them, are these. A woman drinks to excess with, performs a striptease for and then willingly goes to the bedroom with a man. She then claims that the result constitutes rape? It would seem that the majority of your readers agree that the woman is guilty of incredible stupidity, if nothing else, and that the man is certainly guilty of poor judgment in his choice of female friends, but little more.

I recommend that you cease contributing to the balkanizing of our community and country, and emphasize the need for developing unbiased judgment, not a crypto-fascist feminist consciousness, among your writers. You would be doing your readers and yourselves a favor. Raymond J. Fadeley Spokane

Rush to judgment a disservice

Many thanks to managing editor Scott Sines for airing this paper’s controversy over the D.F. Oliveria editorial, “Act provocatively and you provoke.”

We readers, too, were appalled by the sentiments Oliveria expressed.

Young women in America get mixed messages. TV promotes provocative and seductive behavior. Yet young women, when they emulate our provocative idols, risk getting raped by young men and scolded by the old men.

Rape, everybody knows, is wrong. To sit in judgment - from high atop one’s editorial seat in the region’s largest newspaper - is akin to dressing that young woman in a scarlet letter. Paul Lindholdt Spokane

Editorial represents big setback

I am frustrated and disturbed by the slant of editorial writer D.F. Oliveria’s editorial, “Act provocatively and you provoke” (Nov. 7).

The Spokane Sexual Assault Center has been actively working to dispel myths about sexual violence for more than 20 years. It is difficult to believe that, as we near the 21st century, educated individuals like Oliveria continue to reinforce the myths of sexual assault we have tried so hard to dispel.

No one asks to be raped or deserves to be raped. When a women makes an inappropriate decision, it does not mean she wants to be raped.

Rape is not about sex. Rape is a crime of power and aggression where the victim is humiliated and degraded. The sex act becomes the weapon and means for humiliating and controlling the victim.

No means no. The SSAC teaches young boys and girls to respect each other and understand limits. Blaming the victim for causing a violent sexual assault is unjustified and extremely harmful. The responsibility for this horrific crime falls on the perpetrator who controlled and violated the victim.

The Spokesman-Review degraded all victims and potential victims of sexual assault with its insensitive statements and use of poor judgment. It’s these attitudes and beliefs that discourage victims of sexual assault from reporting the crime or even seeking necessary medical attention. We have yet to realize the full impact from this editorial.

If we are to truly help victims of sexual violence, we must, as a community, embrace the belief that there is no excuse for sexual violence.

The victim is not to blame. Susan Fabrikant, director Spokane Sexual Assault Center

Victim put herself at risk

Perhaps Managing Editor Scott Sines may yet have reason to fear that not enough people care about your Nov. 23 Perspective page. But, I care about it. I deeply appreciate both your frankness and courage in airing the agonizing differences you’ve all been having with each other over your Nov. 7 pro-con editorial, because it publicly confers a more human dimension and an aura of honesty upon your efforts.

I agree that your talented staff of young women are, indeed, an indispensable treasure worth cultivating and that their angst over the question of whether a rape victim contributed to her victimization is not a matter to be taken lightly. As I am fond of several such staffers whom I think I’ve come to know a bit, it is, therefore, not lightly that I venture my own opinion of the rape in question.

I certainly believe that the rapists should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and that victim’s own behavior did nothing to mitigate their offense. As Kelly McBride and Jim Camden correctly noted, nothing justifies having sex with someone who is too incapacitated to properly consent. On the other hand, I do think the victim did have a part in allowing herself to be put in an unfortunate position by not exercising enough judgment to refrain from becoming intoxicated.

In essence, two wrongs don’t mitigate each other. I don’t think the situation fits the analogy of the store owner’s inattention or that of the kidnapped children’s mother because their brief moment of distraction could be more reasonably expected compared with more purposeful self-impairment.

Anyway, I applaud you all for wading into this mess. Philip J. Mulligan Spokane

Opinion was contemptible nonsense

Alas, in the Nov. 23 Perspective page, The Spokesman-Review editorial board has embarrassed itself again.

First, in a misspelled introductory article, managing editor Scott Sines explains at length how complicated he thinks his job is, how hard it was to cope with the rebellion of his better reporters over D.F. Oliveria’s appalling editorial on Nov. 7.

On the same page, Opinion editor John Webster defends printing Oliveria’s piece, which blamed a rape on the victim, as the majority opinion of the editorial board.

Oh, please. Oliveria’s attitudes don’t belong in any newspaper, not even The Spokesman-Review, because they are dangerously ignorant, grounded in adolescent male fantasy.

As staff writers Kelly McBride and Jim Camden point out, the thinking public has long known that rape is not sex but a sadistic exertion of power. Oliveria might just as well argue that small boys with glasses ask to be bullied. His attitudes crawl unexamined from a pit of ignorance; anyone employing him as a writer shares in his incompetence.

Webster, of course, should feel the most ashamed. For him to write proudly of the “range of experiences and opinions” on the editorial board is, well, pathetic. Why doesn’t he include more Elvis sighters? Or people who’ve seen angels? Such people make up a distressing portion of our Inland Northwest population - shouldn’t their voices be heard?

Webster’s mind is not as pinched and provincial as Oliveria’s. Perhaps one day he’ll recognize the difference between “informed” opinions and the rantings of local louts. Anthony M. Flinn Spokane

Rejection of consequences no surprise

Re: Nov. 23 Perspective.

Managing editor Scott Sines need not worry that no one cares. The fact that you received so few letters on the Nov. 7 pro-con is simply because the vast silent majority of Americans didn’t even believe the issue merited a pro-con.

Most Americans still aren’t real shocked when a woman dances nude at a drunken revelry, trips up to a dorm room and then “finds herself” complaining of rape.

Your reporters’ analogy, “The store owner is not responsible for a robbery because he takes his eye off the till” is disingenuous. A more apt metaphor would be the culpability of a jeweler who hangs his diamonds out on the street all night. “Gee, I thought people would look and touch, but not take!”

Of course rape and thieving are both crimes and should be punished. But that’s beside the the point.

I was surprised at the editorial board’s gutsiness in taking the politically incorrect stand that thoughtless behavior actually does have consequences. In the ‘90s, misery we bring on ourselves is always someone else’s fault.

The fact that your speechless-with-anger reporters feel that there are ideas and issues that should not even be openly discussed in the press simply shows how far modern journalism has sunk. Hello, George Orwell! Foster W. Cline, M.D. Sandpoint

IN THE PAPER

Too lazy for haute couture

Re: The Clothesline column (“For a change, try dressing up for a night out”) by Shanna Southern Peterson, IN Life, Nov. 18 .

I read the article with much dismay. Although not surprised, it was discouraging to see it in black and white. Jeans to Patsy Clark’s? The Opera? Formal graduations? Weddings? How pathetic.

Peterson offered a few theories for such casual attire in this region, such as our “pioneer blood” and the prevalence of ex-hippie baby-boomers, but let’s face it, Spokanites are simply lazy slobs. Nadine J. Presta Spokane