Letters To The Editor

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Thanks to transplant donor families

On the 29th of April, I will celebrate my seventh re-birthday. I call it that because it is the anniversary of the day I received my second chance at life a heart and double-lung transplant.

This week is National Organ and Tissue Donor Awareness Week. With this in mind, I personally offer my thanks to my donor family, as well as to all donor families. Their courageous acts in times of such personal tragedy have given me and many of my friends the gift of life.

Over the past seven years I have experienced so many wonderful things that I sometimes used to take for granted. I have learned to appreciate each day as it comes and accept this bonus time as a blessing.

I encourage everyone to think about organ and tissue donation, and discuss it with your family.

And remember, organ transplants work. I’m living proof! Gaye A. Davis Spokane

Second Chance critic misstated facts

Key facts in Patty Marinos’ letter of April 14, “Hold Second Chance accountable,” are in error.

Marinos states that the young man accused of a Spokane murder was an escapee from a Second Chance facility. In fact, he escaped last fall from Maple Lane, an institution (not a work release facility) owned and operated by the state of Washington. He has never been a client of Second Chance.

Marinos also alleges that we changed the name of one of our facilities “to hide the negative press.” Turner House is a new facility, replacing Cornelius House, which closed last fall. As she knows, we named our new facility after Jim Turner, one of our long-time employees who died last fall.

Second Chance is accountable. Turner House is jointly operated with the Department of Corrections, whose full-time staff have offices in our building. We are frequently audited by state, federal and local agencies. We report regularly to our community advisory committee, on which Marinos has agreed to serve.

We voluntarily comply with the national standards of the American Correctional Association. Cornelius House and Eleanor Chase House have both been accredited twice. Turner House will be reviewed later this year.

Second Chance clearly wants to be accountable to the community and is committed to the community’s safety. However, the community needs accurate information on which to base its concerns. Marinos seems committed to creating (or just believing) false information which would support her personal position. This is unfair to Second Chance and unfair to the community. Bruce Kuennen Second Chance, Spokane

Things are not the problem

What has happened at the schools recently concerning children and guns is shocking, tragic and pitifully sad. It isn’t, however, the gun that kills, it is the person behind the trigger. Likewise, it isn’t cars that kill, but the irresponsible person behind the wheel, especially when drunk driving is involved.

I just got off the phone with Mothers Against Drunk Driving and received some shocking statistics. In 1997, there were 17,126 deaths in our country from alcohol-related crashes. Of those killed, 2,338 were age 19 and under. That’s 45 children each week killed because of alcohol-related crashes - six children each and every day - snuffed out in this country.

There were 1,058,000 injured in this country in 1997, resulting in an injury every 30 seconds due to alcohol. Of those injured, 30,000 suffered permanent work-related disabilities resulting in a $45 billion direct cost due to alcohol-related crashes. This does not include the $70.5 billion cost lost in quality of life for 1997.

What happened with the tragedies at the schools recently concerning kids and guns is devastating, but it makes me wonder why don’t the 53 people (of which six are children) who die each day because of alcohol-related crashes make front page headlines each and every day? It isn’t the gun or the car that kills, it is the person behind the wheel and the trigger. Cindy J. Greever Spokane

Quitting smokes difficult, costly

After smoking for 40 years, I ended up in the hospital on “the patch.” I tried for years to quit smoking and couldn’t. I’ve been on the patch for 30 days now, with three more weeks to go. My doctor and family can’t believe I’m doing so well. I still have the shakes, sweats and hard days. Now I know what it feels like to go through withdrawal, like I’ve read about.

Now, the real problem is this: If the tobacco companies got us hooked on smoking, why can’t they pay for this treatment? It costs $250, and low-income people can’t afford this patch. I couldn’t, either, but it’s better than the hell of doing it cold turkey. All those big shots putting out all their concern over our health problems - can’t they help with the cost of stopping smoking?

You teens who think smoking is “cool,” as I did in the 1950s, stop now. Sooner or later it will get you hooked. If I had known when I was 14 what smoking would do to me, I never would have taken the first puff. And I will be honest, I did inhale. Betty Von Heydrich Spokane

LAW AND JUSTICE

Restrict independent counsel

So much is written daily about the operation and actions of the independent counsel.

In the past, that office served the people and the nation quite well. However, Kenneth Starr has taken his duties far afield of that office’s original purpose: that of investigating any possible illegalities in connection with the Whitewater incident.

Failing to find any such illegalities that would connect the president with that affair, Starr has now switched to personal witch hunts into the personal lives of the Clintons, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinski, etc. In fact, as one national magazine has stated, “It cannot be doubted that Starr’s behavior extends far beyond the usual practice of the criminal prosecutors.”

The original purpose of the office, as objected to by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, was “that the independent counsel was accountable to no one and very dangerous.” Several members of the Republican-dominated Congress stated they felt the counsel could become preoccupied with one dominant target of investigation and possible abuse of power.

After more than four years and $40 million, it appears that Scalia and those Republican congressmen were right in their concerns.

Public investigations, under that act, have deflected public attention from serious issues.

The announcement by the independent counsel that, to date, no crime has been committed or that no crime can be proved, looks like a confession of failure - as well as the waste of over $40 million that could have been put to better use.

Isn’t it time that more-strict boundaries be established for the office of independent counsel? Andy P. Kelly Spokane

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

We’ve been rolled over, all right

I found Washington state House Speaker Clyde Ballard’s comments revealing regarding the Republicans’ about-face on the term limits issue. Ballard said, “You need people who know the system so they don’t get rolled over by the full-time state employees and full-time lobbyists.”

That’s funny. I feel we have all gotten rolled over by the GOP. I guess it will be up to the voters to implement term limits this fall. Craig A. Peterson Spokane

I don’t share Peck’s satisfaction

We need more good citizens like editor Chris Peck. He obviously is a satisfied client and eloquent defender of the IRS. Peck apparently feels that working through May 10 for the IRS is more than fair.

If giving away one-third of your paycheck to a wasteful, unaccountable government seems fair to you, Peck, then by all means, enjoy yourself. With any luck, you may be asked to give away 50 percent of your paycheck next year. But please, don’t insult the intelligence of your readers with your specious arguments for its equity.

Our tax rates may be relatively low, but more importantly, we are surrendering a higher percentage of our income to taxation than at any time since World War II. This is partly because when our tax rates were lowered in 1986, most of our deductions were taken away from us. The Social Security deduction has also risen steadily, although the system is on track for bankruptcy. It alone claims over 15 percent of our income.

You claim, “It is impossible to simplify the tax code without affecting its fairness.” Give me a break! What could be more fair than a simple flat tax? Everyone would pay exactly the same percentage of their income.

Most of us work very hard for our paychecks. Isn’t it offensive to you that the government feels it is perfectly within its rights to confiscate one-third of our money with virtually no accountability on how it’s spent? Joel M. Novin Spokane

U.S. AND THE WORLD

Blood on Uncle Sam’s hands, too

Re: “Pol Pot, architect of Cambodian genocide, is dead” (April 16).

From the early 1970s to mid-1975, the United States carpet-bombed inner Cambodia, causing 750,000 deaths directly, 1 million deaths from starvation and peasant support from the Khmer Rouge. There was virtually no coverage of this in the U.S. media. Immediately after Pol Pot assumed power, accusations of genocidal acts committed by the Khmer Rouge flooded the Western press, meriting 1,175 column inches in the New York Times alone.

Also occurring in 1975 was the U.S.-backed invasion of East Timor by the Indonesian military. This genocidal campaign, massively supported with U.S. arms and orchestrated by U.S. military advisors, was at least as devastating as the Cambodian atrocity, but merited only 70 column inches in the New York Times.

A neutral bloodbath is when nobody in the West cares about the victims. A nefarious bloodbath is when a U.S. enemy commits the crime. A constructive bloodbath is one the United States or its allies conducts. There are sins of omission as well as sins of commission. We should all take a good, long look in the mirror. Margaret E. Koivula Spokane

Closet bigots outnumber neo-Nazis

Those who seek to ethnically cleanse the Pacific Northwest of neo-Nazis ignore reality.

Disfranchised groups with similar views will persist as long as the real neo-Nazis continue to ethnically cleanse Christians and Muslims from the Holy Land using American money and weaponry, bureaucratic and policing policies they learned firsthand from Hitler, and America’s gutless media and politicians. Today, Israeli scholars lament the degree to which their countrymen have come to resemble the fascist regime they fled, while most American Christians remain blind to the fate of their brethren in Jerusalem - almost all of whom have been driven out before church-razing bulldozers and cemetery-paving machinery.

With American taxpayers over $50 billion complicit in the ethnic cleansing of the Holy Land, the rage against the confused of Idaho rings hollow. Bigotry, it seems, is offensive only when it is nearby and overly publicized, and progress in human relations has yet to go beyond the lip-service of denouncing those who announce, rather than hypocritically deny, their racist attitudes.

The outspoken bigots in Idaho are vastly outnumbered by the closet bigots who occupy positions of public power and influence. When will it become politically correct to examine one’s own prejudices before denouncing another’s? Shaikh Dawud Ahmad Springdale, Wash.

OTHER TOPICS

Put-down of top students offensive

Re: Jim Kershner’s April 18 column, “Perfection isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

As a proud parent of a graduating valedictorian from Mead High School, I take offense at Kershner’s “I-never-fall-down” syndrome label that he attaches to 4.0 grade-point average students. Although it is typical of a parent of a student who can’t or won’t achieve a 4.0 GPA to criticize the grading system, berating these students by grouping them as “Machiavellian,” “kiss-ups,” or “drudges without real lives” is extremely unfair.

Could it be that Kershner just cannot understand that there are kids in high school who are academically challenged and motivated to excellence in their studies as their own personal goal? Most of these students have not only finished at the top of their class, but have braved a more difficult schedule of the advanced placement and honors programs every year of high school.

My son’s accomplishment of a 4.0 GPA gives me renewed faith in the potential leadership quality of the next generation and also leaves me with as great a sense of pride in him as if he were a star quarterback on a winning football team. Paul J. Cardella Spokane

Belly dance is a serious art form

I feel it necessary to respond to Doug Clark’s April 19 column on belly dancing, to defend my art form against progressively more frivolous portrayals and also to discuss a few of the many misconceptions put forth. I feel qualified to do so since I am a “full-time professional” and an authentic dancer with 24 years of experience.

Like ballet, belly dance requires years of training. It has precise movements based on fundamental techniques and is not merely creative and improvisational, as implied by Clark. It takes time to learn the proper techniques and even more time to fully grasp the concept of the dancer as the physical manifestation of and visual compliment to certain kinds of Middle Eastern music. This dance has inherent qualities of ethnicity and must follow certain guidelines.

Furthermore, I coach one of the most famous male belly dancers in the United States. Contrary to implications in the column, he does not have to have long hair or wear “plenty of large beads and jangling coins.” He is a dancer who has mastered the technical skills and has the emotional and spiritual savvy necessary for proper interpretation of the music, which is, after all, the job of the true belly dancer. A’isha Azar Spokane

Hasty drivers kill the enjoyment

In today’s driving of automobiles, it is a sad fact that the time consumption of literally seconds makes the difference between toleration and total frustration for the entire existence of humanity.

This is a hurried and stressed society, where I think people frequently use their cars psychologically to express their feelings. They do not tolerate being forced to wait or slow for another person. The vehicle shelters them from being identified as “pushing” another person who is getting in their way. I will reluctantly admit that when there is difficulty entering a stream of traffic, it is more often women who pause to allow another’s entry.

Four-way stops are nice and usually refreshingly polite. It’s the other stuff, like you are not going quite fast enough or, in the other driver’s opinion, you are in the wrong lane, obstructing his or her ability to proceed - for up to as much as one or two seconds’ delay!

Imagine the same people on foot in corridors, instead of in cars on streets or roadways. We would rarely get upset that one of us caused another a delay of one or two seconds in our journeys to work, home, shopping, etc.

Some say it’s the camouflage of the machinery (cars) that causes people to act unhuman-like and lose their politeness. Maybe so. Most people are OK. It’s just a few who make the rest of us bitter. And so, many drivers become paranoid, not just to the point of driving defensively (which we need to do), but unfortunately, this problem can make driving completely without enjoyment. Dan L. Settle Spokane

Aryans’ event should be haunted

Adolf Hitler did exist, and because of him millions of people died. Americans died fighting Nazism in World War II. Yet today, Aryan Nations people twist facts to their own narrow way of thinking.

Aryan Nations people attempt to explain away the deaths of millions of men, women and children. These people distrust everyone; probably in the end hating each other.

If the Aryan Nations people want a parade, let them face the ghosts of people killed at Auschwitz. Let them face the ghosts of innocent people along the parade route. Let silent ghosts march with them. Michael T. McGuire Spokane

Deer rifles quite different these days

Curtis E. Stone has a very interesting description for a deer rifle. It resembles an M-16 or Uzi, or even a street sweeper. It has a specially designed bolt. When the banana clip is slapped into it, the special bolt can be drawn back, then slapped forward and a bullet is automatically chambered. Then, with each round fired, another bullet is automatically chambered. Must be a new deer rifle; the ones I saw around my house never had that capacity. Joan E. Harman Coeur d’Alene