Letters To The Editior

WASHINGTON STATE

Safety claims just a smoke screen

Let’s put the hype over the firearms safety issue into perspective with figures from the National Safety Council. (Remember, the figure for gun fatalities represents all types of firearms, not just handguns). Look at them carefully, then decide whether all the emotion is consistent with facts and reason.

For instance, there are 31 times as many deaths from motor vehicle crashes as there are from firearm accidents. Are we seeing 31 times the negative media attention, regulation, fear, revulsion, hysteria, background checks, waiting periods and banning of cars as we do guns? Are people who love fast cars portrayed as twisted, sick extremists? Are car shows portrayed as demented celebrations of death and destruction?

NSC accidental death figures for the United States in 1995: Motor vehicle crashes, 43,900; falls, 12,600; poisoning by solids and liquids, 10,000; drowning, 4,500; deaths associated with fires, 4,100; suffocation by ingested object, 2,800; all firearms, 1,400; poisoning by gases and vapors, 600; all other accidents, 13,400.

Initiative 676 contains far more than we’re being led to believe. It’s a confiscation measure, with broad new powers given to state authorities. It is disguised, all too predictably, as safety.

If I-676 backers cared about my kids, they wouldn’t be trying to scare us into voting away our rights. They would be researching the facts for themselves instead of reacting emotionally to something they do not understand.

Please read the complete 10-page text of I-676 at: http://www.initiative676.org/676text.html Lyle J. Keeney Moscow, Idaho

I-676 is about taking away rights

Initiative 676 is a very bad law for any law-abiding citizen. If firearm safety is really the issue, I suggest supporting one of the underfunded existing programs such as Eddie Eagle.

Registration of guns and gun owners is a failed concept that has already been tried in the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Cuba, China, etc. Transferring people’s rights to the government bureaucracy is no way to reduce crime or improve firearm safety.

I would much rather spend my money on supporting valuable causes such as the Vanessa Behan Crisis Nursery. Please, don’t make me spend all my donations on protecting our constitutional rights! L.A. Coppock Spokane

SPOKANE MATTERS

Cooney dedicated, forthcoming

Spokesman-Review reporter Dan Hansen’s article (“Assesor’s claims puzzle postal workers,” Sept. 20) pitting the Spokane County Assessor’s office against the U.S. Postal Service served as a wake-up call for both agencies and made us realize that all it takes to get help is to ask the right questions.

In a five-minute telephone conversation with an assessor’s staff member, we realized how we could help each other.

Assessor Charlene Cooney and two members of her staff visited the Deer Park Post Office. Cooney is nothing like the way she was portrayed in the article. She is very dedicated, as are her staff.

Cooney has over 30 years of public service and was more than willing to get their mailing lists updated. She also was willing to contact the elections department and see what could be done to correct its list, which was very time-consuming to get delivered.

I hope Commissioner Kate McCaslin realizes that we can’t help each other unless we communicate that need. Cooney has been most cooperative in helping us to help her.

McCaslin’s comment, “Bureaucracy at its most ridiculous,” indicates she doesn’t understand the workings of the Postal Service. We no long return mail to a sender because it’s improperly addressed. If we know where it goes, we deliver it. Sure, we make errors. But when you consider the Postal Service delivers a billion pieces of mail every three days, even a 1 percent error rate is still a lot of mistakes.

We are changing. Can our elected people change? People are so quick to criticize and not find out why things are they way they are. Les W. Newell, postmaster Deer Park

Beware of raising fuel taxes

The Spokesman-Review gave us a shallow report about the upcoming Kyoto conference on global warming in its Oct. 6 issue. What it didn’t tell us, but something that has been revealed on some televised political debates, is that the scientific representatives to the conference are asking that a carbon tax of up to 80 cents per gallon be imposed on U.S. drivers.

The Clinton administration wanted a ceiling of 50 cents per gallon, but the president has recently spoken of 25 cents per gallon.

In light of what may be coming in the form of federal taxes, a raise in local gas taxes would only add insult to injury. Larry D. Tucker Chattaroy

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Urge health coverage for the needy

Washington state residents should be concerned about health care. Inadequate health care is a serious societal problem.

While preventative health care is important for saving lives and the quality of life, it is also an economic benefit to society. An illness that can be prevented with immunizations or treated in the early stages is less expensive than hospitalization or surgery.

People who cannot afford medical insurance often go without preventative medical care. If their health deteriorates, their financial resources can be wiped out. Often, the public sector ends up paying the bills through bankruptcies, the medical community absorbing the costs or the welfare system picking up the bills.

According to “Economy leaves poor in dust” (Spokesman-Review, Sept. 30), 10.6 million children in America have no health coverage. Washington State Basic Health Plus provides for free insurance coverage for low-income children, low-income pregnant women, state-contracted individual home care providers and licensed foster parents.

The state has offered reduced-premium coverage to 81,580 families. Over 51,000 families are currently on the reservation list, with hundreds more applying each day. This volume of need should send a strong message to the state Legislature for additional funds for this subsidized program.

I urge you to contact your legislators to request increased funding for subsidized family care. Rose Marie Watne Spokane

Yielding right of way is imperative

According to what was written in “Bicyclists should follow car rules” (Letters, Oct. 9), K.L. Osborn is willing to share the road with a bicyclist “as long as he obeys the same laws that I have to obey.”

Would Osborn fail to brake to avoid an accident should a fellow motorist run a stoplight? If a 13-year-old is walking in the road, is Osborn really saying that it would be the pedestrian’s fault if struck by Osborn’s car?

Both of these examples are situations that are encountered daily by motorists and dealt with without incident. As a motorist, it’s difficult for me to understand why motorists like Osborn make an exception for bicyclists.

Of course bicyclists should obey the laws. So should motorists, motorcyclists, truckers, pedestrians and anyone else who uses a street or highway. That’s not the point.

The point is that when a situation arises that calls for a motorist to relinquish their right of way in order to avoid injuring or killing someone, the motorist must do so. That’s not just because the law says so but because it’s the right thing to do - period.

If we could have a bit more common sense on the roads and a lot less posturing, we would all be a lot safer. Gordon A. Johnson Colville, Wash.

‘Bicycles have their place’

Bicycles have their place: trails, bike lanes, wide roads with shoulders - not narrow, two-lane roads or highways and especially not in groups strung out for miles on narrow highways. Peter G.H. Jensen St. Maries, Idaho

FDA exhibits Nazi tendencies

Re: the Oct. 8 article, “Asthmatic lawmakers decry inhaler phaseout.”

It’s nice to know the Food and Drug Administration wants to sentence all asthma sufferers to death. What next? Are they going to line us all up and send us to the gas chambers? That would be more humane - at least we wouldn’t be gasping for breath.

I need my inhaler, the one that works for me. Helen A. Sanger Spokane

SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION

Barlow’s qualifications exceptional

In the race for the Spokane School District 81 Board of Trustees position 1, I urge voters to mark their ballots for Don Barlow.

Barlow has excellent academic credentials for the position but more important are his people skills. Barlow is a listener, a mediator, a peacemaker. His background in guidance and counseling, his experience as a widower and a single parent, his community service experience as past chairman of the Chase Youth Commission and participation in many other public service areas make him well-qualified to help lead our school board into the 21st century.

No one can predict the exact issues that the board will have to consider over the years ahead but Barlow will consider impartially all sides of issues before the board. He will use his background as a counselor to ensure that parents, educators and the public feel they have been treated with respect, and that their concerns have been heard. He will bring his wealth of experience to provide the very best service for the citizens of Spokane.

Please vote for Barlow for school board position 1. Geraldine G. Sombke Spokane

Barlow attuned to reform preferences

The two Spokane School District 81 board candidates appear to be miles apart as to the direction of our schools.

Dr. Don Barlow supports the recent direction of District 81 in restructuring the curriculum to better match the state’s new testing program, which makes students more accountable for their learning. He also supports teacher training to accomplish the task as quickly as possible.

The other candidate, Joanne McCann, opposes the state’s movement to reform our public schools.

In 1993, our legislators supported legislation to begin the task of reforming our public schools. Since then, hundreds of meetings across the state have involved thousands of business people, parents, grandparents and educators in discussions as to what they want for our public schools. The new testing program reflects the input from all these meetings.

McCann is saying that the Legislature and all the thousands of citizens involved in the meetings are wrong.

Chris Peck’s Oct. 5 column, “New tests will help students make the grade,” is an excellent comment on the new school testing program.

McCann certainly has a right to her opinion but I am voting for Barlow. His position on public school reform, his community involvement and his public school experience will help lead our students and staff forward to meet the needs of jobs and careers in the next century, not the last century. Jerry J. Hopkins Spokane

OTHER TOPICS

We so readily accept the carnage

Recently, the evening news casually announced another ambush of two Israeli soldiers by a Palestinian sniper and the daily death toll. The religion of the men, the location, the century - it doesn’t matter. The story has been told so often we hardly bat an eye.

I usually go into the kitchen when the inevitable Middle East report begins. But tonight I stayed put and saw what I had stopped seeing for a long time: the body of a dead boy. At first it was just a soldier in the background of the television screen, a limp figure on a stretcher, just like the others. Then, for a brief moment, I caught sight of the face of a boy about the age of my son, with cheeks retaining the life so recently crushed. A strand of his hair ruffled in the wind.

That life dropped out of the world’s consciousness as the news went on to lesser things and grander tragedies, and what’s for dinner tonight. Elizabeth P. Templeton Coeur d’Alene

Bishops’ thought too little, too late

The Oct. 1 article, “Bishops advise parents to love gay children,” brought a song to my heart and a tear to my eye. I was happy to hear that my mother could again love her son. Unfortunately, he died Dec. 28, 1994, of AIDS.

It was thoughtful of them to give her their angelic blessing. Now, will the benevolent bishops tell the wind to stop blowing, grass to stop growing and a mother’s tears to stop flowing because her son has died and she turned her back on him?

Many parents feel they have to choose between love for their children and love of God. For the bishop to tell parents to love their children first is to assume they have the power to tell them not to love their children. It was impossible for my mother not to love her son. She believes to stop loving your child goes against the laws of nature, which is after all the law of God. And it’s only natural for gays and lesbians to love and have intimate relationships with same-sex partners.

Some colleagues have said this is a big step for the church. No, the church has promoted homophobia for centuries, causing violence, rejection and death. A big step is for the pope to come out of his ivory tower and condemn bigotry in all forms and to help build a society where all of God’s children are loved by their parents, whether they approve of their lifestyle or not. Beverly K. Riley Spokane

‘Mob mentality’ pervasive, wrong

I attended a church rummage sale recently that was advertised to open at 9 a.m. The crowd was growing rapidly when I arrived at 8:45. It was cold outside and people pushed to get inside the foyer.

I moved to an empty spot in front of me to close the gap for those waiting in the cold. A man next to me suggested I move away from behind the door so I wouldn’t get trampled in the crowd. Several of us were asked by an employee to move away from the doors so they could be locked. I became locked inside the church, so I moved to the open doors to my left.

I was suddenly verbally attacked by several people, a few whom I had become acquainted with from garage sales over the past few years.

Finally, the employee who had locked the door told the abusers that if they didn’t stop the assault on me, he would have to ask them to leave. After he left, however, the verbal assaults continued.

I am writing this letter to point out the mob mentality which has become a part of our lives. It’s frightening to realize that people you think you know can turn on you over such insignificant incidents. Kaye Morehouse Porter Spokane

Image choice ‘unfortunate’

I enjoyed coverage of the Promise Keepers event in the Oct. 3, paper, especially staff cartoonist Milt Priggee’s cartoon.

As a Christian, I support Promise Keepers goals of being a man of God, working toward racial and interdenominational harmony and being a good husband and father. But my reading of the gospel tells me that Jesus himself would support the goals of the women’s and gay rights movements. Therefore, so should we. This is why I agree with Priggee’s message.

However, as a Catholic Christian, I believe we should respect all religious traditions. My reading of the catechism tells me we should treat the symbols, clothing, rituals and traditions of all religions as sacred. Therefore, it is unfortunate that Priggee had to resort to using the images he did to make his point. Edward B. Pace Spokane