Letters To The Editor

FROM LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (Friday, April 17, 1998): Correction A sentence in Frederick K. Bardelli’s April 5 letter was incorrect as it appeared. It should have read: Asarco, the company which would mine Montana’s wilderness, is now raping the once beautiful forest that covers the mountains between Osburn and Wallace.

IN THE SCHOOLS

Students appreciate Easter baskets

My daughter, Nicole, goes to Fernan Elementary in Coeur d’Alene and I would like to express my thanks to the Eagles Club for the nice Easter baskets given to her class. We really appreciate all the hard work that goes into making all of the baskets and it really makes our kids feel special. Elizabeth L. Ricciardi Coeur d’Alene

Now, they need a new school

Re: “Boundary voters pass school levy,” (March 25). I am very pleased to see that the recent levy passed. As a former student in Boundary County, I wish to see current students supported as we were when I was in school back in the mid 1970s. The kids deserve better and people still living there owe it to the kids. Now, pass a levy to build a new school! Bruce C. Nelson Pullman

POLITICS

Serving a higher purpose

In Joyce Meyer’s article “Don’t be offended by the truth,” she stated about John the Baptist: “What did you go out in the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind? A reed is a tender, gentle little piece of grass that the wind can blow all over the place. Or what did you go out to see, a man clothed in soft garments? Behold those who wear soft clothing are in houses of kings. What did you go out to see? A prophet. Yes, I tell you and one out of the common, more imminent, more remarkable, and superior to a prophet.”

Jesus is saying, if you are looking for a soft answer, something that is always going to be sweet and gentle and never confront you, then don’t listen to my prophet because the people I send are going to tell you the truth. I believe God is wanting to send people who are teachers, ministers and pastors to deal with the areas in our souls, to clear out those places to make more room for Him.

Helen Chenoweth is standing up for this truth when things don’t meet this standard. Helen will oppose, correct and straighten out those in error. She has the backbone to stand up for the righteous ways of truth. God has ordained someone like Helen to be there when the time comes. Like Queen Esther in the Bible, “You are here for a time like this.” I believe Helen is here to cause men to think before they act. Byron D. Israel St. Maries

Lance needs to watch his tongue

Idaho attorney general Alan Lance swears his injured innocence after a “vigilant” reporter revealed his reference to Forest Service Chief Michael Dombeck as “Dumback” at the Panhandle Forest open house to propose a road building moratorium in roadless areas in Coeur d’Alene on March 19.

It was merely a slip of the tongue, and insists it’s not his “style.” Lance’s comments were consistent with venomous remarks directed at Dombeck and environmentalists by others in the group organized by the timber industry.

With over 380,000 miles of roads in the national forests, many of them poorly maintained, an 18-month moratorium on road building into shrinking roadless areas is hardly shutting the public out of the forests as Lance claims. Some people like to walk in areas that have values beyond board feet of lumber.

Lance appears to have a double standard where public involvement in public forest land management is concerned. As a member of the Idaho Land Board, he supports shutting the public out of any appeals of timber sales. Only school districts can appeal such devastating timber harvest as has occurred in such places as the Floodwood area near Clarkia. When Attorney General Lance becomes a responsible steward of Idaho’s public forests and grazing lands and learns to control his tongue when he’s 400 miles from home, he might become more creditable to those who wonder about his motives. Buell A. Hollister Post Falls

Keep Crapo in Congress

In reply to a recent article concerning Bill Mauk and his candidacy to replace our current representative in Congress, Rep. Mike Crapo. It would be most advisable for our local citizens to review information available before making any decision.

Our congressman Crapo has been instrumental in finding ways to draw down our national deficit and disallowing Congress to use the apparent savings from programs that have been cut.

This leads to the citizens being the ones to determine what, if any, programs would receive funds. This concept is called a “Lock Box,” and keeps all hard-earned tax cut savings in a special account that shouldn’t be spent willynilly on new programs.

Rep. Crapo also has championed the fight to protect Idaho, water rights issues and has continually pursued his commitment to lower federal taxes. Best of all, Rep. Crapo pursues a balanced budget and promotes the idea of reforming the IRS and reducing the tax complexity.

In short, I believe Rep. Mike Crapo has served the citizens of Idaho very well, and I heartily recommend his re-election. Dick Wandrocke Coeur d’Alene

THE ENVIRONMENT

Panoramic pleasures mutilated

In the early 1930s, newspaper editor John Cox, with undaunted courage and great moral integrity, condemned the mining companies for polluting the south fork of the Coeur d’Alene River valley and Lake Coeur d’Alene. Not satisfied with the devastation that 100 years of mining has reaped upon the land, Asarco, the company which would mine the mountain’s wilderness, is now raping the once beautiful forest that covers the mountains between Osburn and Wallace.

Travel Interstate 90 between these towns, and you will see whole mountain sides mutilated with zig-zag slashes and cuts; the signatures of industrialists who have no more conscience for the rights of others or the land at the end of the 20th century, than their counterparts had at the beginning.

Asarco did not give one ounce of consideration to nursing home patients across the valley, squandering their right to enjoy one of the few pleasures left in life - the panoramic view of the beautiful green forest that once blanketed the area.

Now, with ruthless indifference, it has been slashed to ribbons by bulldozers and chain saws. The issue is still the same as John Cox saw and understood it 70 years ago. It’s about protecting the last of our great natural resources, including Lake Pend Oreille, the Clark Fork River and Montana wilderness from exploitation by a soulless corporation that has no reverence for the earth or respect for the ethical and moral principles of our American creed. Frederick K. Bardelli Osburn, Idaho

Not all GOP women oppose plan

Re: “GOP women move against Superfund,” (March 31). This article is deceptive in suggesting that GOP women are against the EPA involvement in cleaning up the Coeur d’Alene basin. It should read, a few GOP women, connected with mining dollars, are against the EPA.

The small handful in this article, and in North Idaho, does not adequately represent the millions of women declaring themselves Republicans who were not asked, and who may differ.

As a women who voted Republican for 25 years, and may yet do it again, I want federal assistance to stop the corruption of the Idaho politicians in preventing the cleanup to shield the mining industry from the responsibility they have to pay for the cleanup.

It appears as if the mining industry are hiding not only behind Larry Craig and Helen Chenoweth, the two biggest receivers of mining dollar political campaign contributions. Now they are hiding behind the aprons of their wives. Nancy Lynne Coeur d’Alene

FIREARMS

More gun laws not needed

Perhaps Walter Becker (Letters, March 27) should reread Lillian Forster’s letter, for I see nowhere that she states she would rather have defective guns than have them regulated. Perhaps Becker could relate to us one instance where a U.S. gun manufacturer put out a defective gun and would not recall it.

I can only imagine the glee in the tort lawyers’ community.

Becker’s letter is typical of gun haters. When confronted with overwhelming evidence that the gun industry and law-abiding gun owners are working hard together toward gun safety, they become alarmed and resort to innuendo, half-truths, distortion of facts and figures and outright lies. As for calling for more federal gun regulations, firearms are the most highly regulated product in the country. More regulation is uncalled for. Perhaps Becker could attend The Spokesman-Review-sponsored trap shoot at the Pullman gun club and educate himself as to the recreational use of firearms and thenceforth direct his hateful rhetoric towards the criminal misuse of firearms. Terry Frizzell Chewelah, Wash.

Guns end up in children’s hands

Hold onto your guns, America. Don’t let them take them away from you. Cling to them tightly, please. Keep them in your homes. Keep them in your homes so your children can accidentally shoot and kill their siblings. Keep them in your homes so your children can use them to murder others in the school yard.

You have said that the only way they will take your guns from you is when they pry them from your cold, dead fingers. You were wrong. They will not take them from your dead hands, but from the living hands of your children. Jim L. Thomson Spokane

OTHER TOPICS

Most pollution not from grass fields

Grass burners in the Rockford area are responsible for about 2 percent of the haze, dust and smoke that pervades Spokane in August and September. Their burning lasts not more than three weeks. They never burn if it appears the prevailing wind will blow the smoke toward Spokane.

Ninety-five percent of the pollution and dust comes from the West Plans, the wheat country to the west, our incinerator and our own gravel and dirt streets. Take a trip in late August from Spokane to Ellensburg. You’ll pass the incinerator, putting out its biggest cloud as it labors to burn the incoming yard, garden and field wastes. Near Cheney, look to the south and perhaps see a spiral of smoke threatening again our Turnbull park lands. Farther west you’ll see farmers on large tractors finishing up their summer fallowing and planting fall wheat. Clouds of dust fill the air. Some farmers are still burning their stubble fields.

Near Moses Lake you’ll see field debris being burned on almost every farm.

As you approach the Cascades you’ll see spirals of smoke and large burns. The state, the Department of Agriculture, Boise Cascade and others are burning up the underbrush, slash and debris - cleaning up their forests. As you come back to Spokane through Davenport you’ll see fires here and there to the northeast, threatening to become again the wildfires that have devastated our region.

Then you will again read the publicity putting the entire blame for the dust, haze and smoke on the grass growers. Robert D. Dellwo Spokane

Pitch in and clean up litter

I would like to issue a challenge to all rural homeowners and farm owners.

We spend so much time, money and hard work being good stewards of our lands and resources; saving soil, killing weeds, growing gardens and maintaining beautiful lawns yet every ditch and roadside around our property is full of trash. This is obviously not from us. Who would intentionally litter his own property?

My challenge to you and to myself is to spend a few hours with your family, your neighbors, or even by yourself picking up trash along your rural roads. If each farmer or homeowner would take care of the sections of road that border the pieces of land that he owns, leases or rents, it wouldn’t be long before our roadsides are as beautiful as our fields, gardens and lawns.

Spring is a natural time of cleaning and sprucing up. I urge each of us to go a little farther, past our front gates and field edges, and make our countryside the beautiful place that it should be. Let’s hurry, before the new grasses grow and cover it all up. Just because we can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

There are so many things in our lives over which we have no control. This is something we each can do and really make a difference. Shelly Holling Fairfield, Wash.

Scientists have many biases

In his April 1 letter, “Don’t ignore scientists’ findings,” Tom Rogers Sr. suggests what could only be possible if this were a perfect world filled with perfect people. Unfortunately, we have neither.

He states that “scientists (with rare exception) are without bias, economic or political motives, or any hidden agenda.” Not so.

First of all, we all have bias - try as we might to deny it. It’s not uncommon for people, scientists included, to find what they thought they would find. This occurs because of their bias and disregard, whether intentional or not, for evidence which doesn’t fit their preconceived ideas.

In a perfect world, economics would play no role in a scientist’s work. What happens to a scientist at a statefunded college who brings evidence for creation? First, his ideas are ridiculed by colleagues even though it is evidence. This is not the evidence the powers that be care to deal with, since it might lead people to believe there is more to reality than what the eye sees, namely God, judgment, etc. Scary thought if you have been telling everyone for years that there is no God.

If this scientist persists he will quite possibly be fired and blacklisted and labeled a radical. Economically speaking he is blackmailed by the threat of losing his job so that he will toe the party line.

Look for who holds the purse strings (in most cases it’s the state or federal government) and you can usually find the one who calls the tunes. Mike A. Matiska Spokane