Letters To The Editor

SAFETY/HEALTH

Information could aid thieves

Re: “Victims of ID fraud express frustrations” (April 3).

Merchants, in the guise of reducing check fraud, may aid in the theft of personal identification. I applaud any merchant that requires signed photo ID in order to write. However, I disagree with the practice of entering my driver’s license number into their computer.

I recently wrote a check for some items purchased from Home Depot. The clerk wanted to enter my license number into the computer. Rather than fight about it and irritate everyone in line behind me, I let the clerk have the number. I didn’t realize until later that both my checking account number and driver’s license number were printed on my receipt.

My understanding is that once this information is entered into the computer, it isn’t asked for again. There are two problems with this scenario.

First, the receipt could fall into the wrong hands and provide access to both my checking account and state records. My driver’s license number is cross-referenced with my car registration as well as my professional engineering license. All of this information in the wrong hands could be damaging to me personally as well as professionally.

Second, if my checkbook is stolen, someone could write a check at Home Depot, and as my information is already in the system, no one would ask for identification.

I willingly show photo ID at any establishment where I write a check, but I will always let the clerk know they are entering my driver’s license number into their system against my wishes. Kirsten G. Wilson, P.E. Greenacres

Ombudsman volunteers needed

Re: “Boarding home abuses spark change” (April 7).

I believe one of the best ways to ensure that boarding home residents are taken care of is to visit often. Residents need their family members, and staff are aware when family is involved.

Long Term Care Ombudsman volunteers visit residents in boarding homes, nursing homes and adult family homes. Our main job is to resolve issues and concerns before they become big system problems which needs licensing intervention. Our volunteers are trained and certified to know what to look for and how to problem solve. This is a great way to assure that everyone has visitors and a way to effectively make improvements rather than depending solely on licensing oversight.

Calling the Eastern Washington Long Term Care Ombudsman Program office (456-7133) will begin the application process so you can assist those who really do need a listening ear. Linda J. Petrie regional LTC ombudsman, Spokane

Problem lies with parents

I applaud the (April 4) letter by Carolyn Carpenter. She addresses an issue that people will deny, because they will not admit that they are a part of the problem.

Two weeks prior to the classroom murders here in Moses Lake, the local newspaper asked: “Teen violence, where will it end?” I am distressed that the blame is cast upon the younger generation.

The problem is a generation of parents who won’t parent, who put childbearing on hold until it was convenient, who placed luxuries ahead of family. Our children know where they rank. Many know that being part of the family is OK as long as they do not interfere with established life styles.

Some parents say that their children have caused them so much trouble, that if they could do it over again they would not have children. They have failed as parents. Let’s put the blame where it belongs.

Two-income families cause people to live too extravagantly. People need to parent their children at the sacrifice of “more stuff.” If you must work to provide for the necessities, you must find the time to give some direction to your children. The day cares will not do it! Children must know where they can go for support in times of need. Otherwise, when they date too young and can’t handle the emotional stress of getting dumped, they may resort to unacceptable actions to resolve their heartaches.

If you cannot pay the price to parent well, you had better not have children. Richard E. Willis Moses Lake

Kids, violence everyone’s problem

Carolyn Carpenter (Letters, April 4) considers that the violent crimes committed by youths are a result of the ways our society undervalues children. This seems a fair assessment of the state of our culture. We undervalue many people: the poor, the elderly, minorities and others as well.

Carpenter then suggests that our current situation is due to the “feminist agenda,” which forces women to work outside of the home for low pay, just to make ends meet or to “get more stuff.”

I’m not sure which feminist agenda Carpenter refers to. Each feminist has her own agenda and issues which she considers important. The common denominator between feminists is our desire that women should be free to decide for themselves the proper course of their lives. For some women, this would mean staying home with the children.

Sadly, many women do not have this option because of the economic realities they face. Carpenter implies this is a new dilemma. It is not. Women were working long before movements for women’s rights. Women have worked in factories, fought battles, cared for the ill, farmed and done many other kinds of work throughout history. Our textbooks largely ignore these working-class women, however, because they were not the shapers of governments, wars and national policies.

Women in our society, whether they work or stay at home (hard work in itself), have enough problems without being blamed for the violence of children. This is a problem that all of us, men and women together, must take on if we are to affect change. Catlin M. Goodrow Spokane

BUSINESS PRACTICES

Severence, not bonus, the answer

It seems to me that a big issue with regards to the bonus request of the Pegasus executive team is being overlooked. There are more questions than just the obvious why should the executives who brought about the bankruptcy of the company receive bonuses, but why does the board of directors think that the executives who destroyed hundreds of millions of dollars of shareholder wealth are the ones to rescue the company?

The question should not be how much bonus they get for staying, but how little severance they get as the board throws them out the door. Retention-based bonuses for on-site managers, and for those whose hands are clean in this wealth destruction, are fine. The company needs the people who can rescue it, it does not need to further reward those who have destroyed it. The real problem may be that Pegasus, like some other Northwest mining companies, has a board of directors whose interests are more closely aligned with the CEO than with the shareholders. Ralph Noyes Hayden, Idaho

SPOKANE TOPICS

Show some compassion for driver

Re: “Bicyclist killed by truck identified” (April 9).

I would like to know who is going to stand up for the poor guy who killed that 7-year-old little boy. Yes, I understand and definitely feel real bad for the mother and father of little Anthony. I also feel that it is time to stand up and say that the gentleman who hit him must feel real bad inside also. I cannot imagine how he feels, knowing that he took the life of a little boy. To think that every time that he drives through that intersection he will be reminded of the thump and the crunch of that little boy. I can only just begin to think of how I would feel.

Yes, I feel real bad for Anthony’s parents, but what about the feelings of the driver? Can we show a little bit of compassion for him, and not only grieve for the little one but also for the older one? Kenneth J. Allen III Spokane

We’re all drifters in our own way

Let’s remember Barefoot Linda, whose body was recently found on the South Hill (The Spokesman-Review, April 4), another missing drifter, drug addict and prostitute.

Let’s remember Barefoot Linda with a special day, just like we honor Martin Luther King Jr., or like the church remembers Saint Francis. Let’s do this not because Barefoot Linda helped reform our society, like King, or because she lived a holy life, like Francis. Barefoot Linda was no role model, nor an example for our children. Let’s remember Barefoot Linda because most of us resemble her more than we resemble King or Francis. All of us are drifters, addicts and prostitutes in some way. We drift from fad to fad, from ideology to ideology, from moral outrage to indifference and back again, and from fantasy to fantasy. We drift because we’re afraid to face the present moment and just be in it.

We’re addicted to our lifestyles, our religions, our careers, our self-images and our toys. We need these things to keep from looking at ourselves honestly. We’re prostitutes when we give up our childhood for social conformity, or our true calling for prestige, or our true self for popularity. We sell ourselves - debase ourselves - because we’re afraid to be ourselves.

Barefoot Linda was one of us. Let’s remember her every year on the day before Palm Sunday. It was shortly before the first Palm Sunday that a prostitute washed Jesus’ feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. Let’s remember Barefoot Linda by letting down our hair and bathing Jesus’ feet with our tears. Edward B. Pace Spokane

Which population figure is correct?

I found an interesting discrepancy in the area population as reported in The Spokesman-Review.

In the Nov. 5, 1997, column by John Blanchette, “Consider the house full,” the table shows a “Primary area population” of 984,725. This source was “schools and staff research by John Blanchette.” It defines “Primary population as those living within a three-hour drive of WSU.” It included 11 counties in Washington and seven counties in Idaho and names them.

A Nov. 6, 1997, column by Alison Boggs, “Downtown movie complex signs on,” quotes American Multi-Cinema, Inc. as saying they were attracted to the River Park Square project because of it’s regional draw. They say that the Spokane primary market area includes 1.6 million people. It doesn’t define that area, geographically.

I wonder which figure is close, because I can’t believe that in a distance of 70 miles to Pullman, that there can be a population difference of 600,000! What is the correct number? I would be inclined to guess that the correct number is close to a million.

If that is true, then is the AMC project headed for disaster because someone supplied them with the wrong population figures? I would have to believe that calculations based on a figure that is more than 50 percent inflated will cause all other calculations to be fatally flawed.

I think that flaw is the difference between success and tragic bankruptcy failure. Sid Bankey Spokane

OTHER TOPICS

Teens need to learn on their own

Teenagers don’t listen to adults. Teenagers know everything, don’t you remember? We can’t give them experience. They have to learn it on their own.

So it doesn’t matter how much you preach, how many Joe Camel pictures you remove from billboards, how much you charge for a pack of cigarettes. They find money for drugs, and they’ll find money for that pack of cigarettes that has $12.78 of extra tax tacked on. I remember my dad saying, “I could have bought a purple Cadillac.” I didn’t listen. I wish I had.

I am an adult now, with a teenager habit. I remember the TV commercials for cigarettes being taken off the air. It would keep the kids from smoking if we didn’t advertise. Right! And the warnings on the packages - big deal! I smoked that first cigarette and almost puked. I wish now that I’d never smoked that second one, but I did. And to be honest, I like to smoke. Of course, I say that because I’m addicted to them. But I was once one of those knowit-all, hormones-and-attitudes teenagers myself. And I have a nasty habit as an adult despite all the warnings.

I know people would like to change the world and make all the bad things go away, but it can’t be done. Perhaps if we could bypass those teenager years, when we know everything, we would abolish teen pregnancy and drug use and smoking and anorexia and acne and driving 105 mph on dark roads.

Gads, those were scary years. Jeannie U. Greene Spokane

Silence of NOW deafening

Ah, what a delicious hypocrisy. Where is the National Organization for Women when one of their gender has a sexual harassment case dismissed in court; when one of their gender stands up for the rights of women to be treated with dignity and respect? The silence is deafening.

Where is the moral outrage, the righteous indignation, the crusading fervor of warriors battling for the oppressed, the exploited, the victimized?

Oh, I imagine they are saying, between sips of victory champagne, that the offenses were alleged, that there never was concrete proof that Bill Clinton acted in a crude, perverse and, quite frankly, from their perspective, a very male way.

Funny, isn’t it, that our crusading Amazons didn’t extend the same courtesy to Clarence Thomas a few years back?

Once again, NOW has exposed itself (an ironic choice of words, don’t you think?) to be the extreme leftist radical organization it is. On their Web page their motto reads, “Fight the Radical Right.” What a sad and forlorn fight, indeed, considering they are battling the remaining 95 percent of the nation. Mike B. Martling Spangle

‘World Peace’ brightens day

Every Tuesday morning, my day is brightened by an unusual sight as I drive up Hatch Hill from Highway 195. Someone has beautifully painted the words “World Peace” on an ordinary concrete road block shoved against the ditch on the right side of the road.

After the surprise of seeing this for several weeks in a row, I was shocked one morning to find it gone. Disappointment and a strange sadness clouded a few of my Tuesday morning trips. I couldn’t imagine who would remove such an innocent beacon of hope.

Then one morning, World Peace was back! It had simply been covered by brush for a time.

Isn’t it funny how a concrete block could mean so much to so many of us? Whoever the giver is, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. When all else is counted, it comes down to the little things that bring quality to our lives. Barb J. Brock Cheney

Please, pick up after your pets

During the month of March, while working on the softball diamonds in the city parks, I observed many pet owners enjoying a walk through the park or playing with their pets.

The city parks are open spaces for serenity and enjoyment for everyone, from the young to the elderly. Spokane is blessed with many community and neighborhood parks. I see young children rolling in the grass or playing games or just enjoying the warmth of the sun while sitting on the grass.

The thing that bothers me most is that some pet owners use the parks as a private pet lavatory. Some of the more responsible pet owners carry a plastic bag and pick up after their pets. Others ignore what their pet does, and even throw trash on the grass.

Our parks should be enjoyed, not trashed. This is a serious health problem which could affect you.

I encourage people who enjoy the parks with their pets to please, please pick up after your pet. Keep our parks clean. John Tuft Spokane

Safe driving practices the key

David R. Brown’s April 2 letter (“Drivers, use some common sense”) strikes an all-too-familiar cord with me. I have been a victim and, truthfully, a violator of the vehicle right-of-way portion of the state’s traffic laws.

In response to Brown’s comment, “It’s not I was here first that applies,” I kindly disagree. Under the Washington Driver’s Guide, Yielding the Right-of-Way section, it states: “When approaching an intersection that is not controlled … you must yield to any vehicle in or approaching the intersection at the same time from your right.” In other words, whoever comes to the intersection first has the right-of-way, unless you arrive at the same time. Then the person/vehicle to the right has the right-of-way. Of course, this requires close attention by the drivers and any small deviation in arrival times should always go to the vehicle on the right. That’s why safe driving practices require drivers at uncontrolled intersections to slow, look left, then right as many times as necessary to ensure it is safe to enter the intersection.

Secondly, on several occassions I have had a problem of recognizing when an intersection is not controlled, especially along major bus routes (e.g Nettleton, north of Northwest Boulevard). My 30 years of driving experience has involved intersections on major transportation corridors having some type of traffic controls. These controls reduce traffic emissions and gasoline consumption by eliminating stop-and-go driving. Spokane seems to be the exception. Major transportation corridors/routes without any controls whatsoever is simply beyond my understanding. W. Dean Crandell Veradale