Letters To The Editor

SPOKANE MATTERS

Beltway can strangle urban center

I grew up in St. Louis, Mo. There and in the East, I’ve seen what happens when beltways are built around a city. A large, empty hole is usually left in the middle - the heart of a city’s downtown.

Do we want or need this? How much land must we pave and how many families, businesses and areas do we have to impact? Can the county maintain existing roads, before there are more?

Is this visionary? Are roads our only means? Seems to me it’s just another Band-Aid approach, instead of thoughtful,long-range planning.

Be sure to express your concerns on this matter to our commissioners. A.P. Biggs Spokane

Gangs - a clear and present danger

People of Spokane, wake up! You should be very concerned about the increasing gang population.

I once believed I was safe in my nice neighborhood, like you. I was wrong. A gang moved into a rental house on the block and set up shop.

They’re quiet at first. Then the traffic increases on your street. Cabs start dropping off the buyers on the corners. Gang members intimidate the homeowners, who are now afraid to be outside in case of stray gunfire. It’s not something you want to experience.

The people can make the difference. If you ignore the problem, it will only get worse. If you take a stand and get the help of the Police Department, we can clean up this mess. They may becoming to your neighborhood next. Carrie L. Porter Spokane

Bravo, Spokane String Quartet

Four fine musicians provided music lovers with an excellent program recently at The Met. Spokane can be proud of the Spokane String Quartet that gave a really solid performance of the demanding Mozart, Prokofiev and Beethoven.

How delightful, too, to see and hear the young musicians perform prior to the main program.

A memorable musical afternoon shared, I’m sure, by most everyone in attendance. Howard B. Davis Spokane

IN THE PUBLIC EYE

The law is the law

If we lie under oath, our church may forgive us. However, the law cannot. Therefore, we must pay the price - regardless of who we are.

Martin Luther King Jr. may have said it best: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Didn’t our president take an oath to uphold the law? Congress has no choice but to take an impeachment vote. Pat D. Kilpatrick Post Falls

Clinton must not get away with this

For the future of our country, President Clinton must be impeached. How can we claim to care for the less fortunate, even the middle class, and judge Clinton by a different law, a different punishment?

The less sophisticated, powerful and affluent have the moral and legal obligation to go before any court and swear to tell the truth and do so or suffer punishment. Why even debate that the same law applies to our president, who has lied to the independent counsel, the people, his colleagues, friends and family? Clinton has clearly shown he has contempt for his presidential vow to uphold the law.

The youths of our country need to see that integrity and honesty do still matter and are of basic importance to our future. How can we ask them to respect their elders, their leaders and the law, and excuse Clinton’s flagrant nose-thumbing at truth and the people he’s supposed to lead?

There is one law for everyone. Manipulation and charisma are not substitutes for honesty and integrity. Patricia M. Clark Spokane

Clinton defenders flout the law

The following passage, taken from a book by John T. Flynn, “The Roosevelt Myth,” first published in 1948, is very instructive for what it reveals about the low estate of the American body politic a half century later.

“At the top, the White House is held to the highest standard of all. It must be so. The standards of conduct of the president and his family will inevitably shape the conduct of all the orders and levels of public office below them. The nation … does not elect his wife or his children. There can be no such thing as the president putting his conscience in his wife’s name. This canon of noblesse oblige extends its reasonable requirements over the president’s whole immediate family.”

Today, the Clinton defense team (i.e. the Democrat Socialist Party and its willing advocates in the dominant liberal press), with their public image represented by the likes of James Mad Dog Carville, apparently have succeeded in establishing the principle that the president is to be held to no standard of conduct at all, including the rule of law. Leonard C. Johnson Troy, Idaho

Let military in on judgment

Impeach President Clinton? No!

When Clinton was sworn in, he became the commander in chief of our armed forces. His actions and performance should be held to the same standards as those of the soldiers he commands. We have seen and heard that he has not lived up to the expected standards of moral integrity in his actions.

Many soldiers under his command have been court martialed for improper sexual activity similar to what he has done and lied about. I propose that he be tried before a special committee composed of four military persons and three civilians. The penalty to be imposed would be removal from office and stripping of all pensions and Secret Service protection. Ivan Whitney, Lt.Col., Army, retired Othello, Wash.

WAR AND REMEMBRANCE

Nothing ‘quasi’ about it

Re: Interactive editor Doug Floyd’s Dec. 4 editorial, “Better to honor day of war’s end.”

I was floored by the description of Pearl Harbor Day, in his words, as a “quasi-holiday”! How could one stand before the families of those who sacrificed everything and call it a quasi-holiday?

I would venture a guess his father, mother, brother or grandfather did not die at Pearl Harbor - the “quasi” beginning of a massive Pacific war the cost of which cannot even be counted by all participants. To compound this belittlement, the struggle and exploits of real patriots are used to lead into the insult to those families.

Freedom of speech, paid for in blood, is what allows everyone to print their opinion. It is plain this editorial of Floyd’s seeks to diminish the sacrifice of America’s veterans with the lame catch phrase, “Let it go.” George Edward Knapp Jr. St. Maries, Idaho

Arguments defy comprehension

I take issue with Doug Floyd’s comment in the editorial, “Better to honor day of war’s end” (Dec. 4).

I wonder if Floyd was alive on Pearl Harbor Day, Dec. 7, 1941, when 3,700 of our men and women were left dead after the surprise attack. Floyd stated that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared war to rally national support that would deliver the country from the Depression! His rationalizing is beyond my comprehension. Mrs. George Richmond Hayden Lake, Idaho

OTHER TOPICS

TV stations make a mess of the news

This is to local television news stations that cannot seem to find any worthwhile stories in the Pacific Northwest to talk about. It appears they must sit in their warm newsrooms all day watching the network feed and getting their stories from them. On top of that, if there happens to be something local, they won’t tell it until “More at 6” or “in the next half hour.” Why do they even try to report the national news? The only thing they know about it is what they get from the feeds. They don’t even get that correct most of the time. It will be on ABC, CBS or NBC in the next half hour anyway.

I change the channel and never watch the following half hour of local news. If they’re too lazy to tell me now, forget it. I will switch to another channel or to cable.

Just watch the Seattle feed on cable to see how local news is handled there, and it’s to the point. Also, what is with the weather that so much time is spent rehashing it? KREM, KXLY and KHQ should have 30-minute news shows at different starting times, after the national news. John DeBauw Spokane

Renton clinic does late-term abortions

Re: “Abortion decision is woman’s alone” by K.M. Johnson (Letters, Nov. 24).

I’m not sure how hard Johnson looked before claiming there are no places in Washington where a partial-birth abortion has been performed. Cedar Rivers Clinic in Renton is one place where this infanticide has been carried out.

No Spokane facility performs partial-birth abortions, so Planned Parenthood, through our tax dollars, will arrange for transportation to and from Cedar Rivers, including board and room for the three-day procedure, for any woman who wants to get rid of her late-term baby.

Johnson stated, “I am fed up with the involvement of government … that tries to run my life.” If Johnson really means that, he or she is on the wrong side of the fence. Our government is heavily involved in promoting abortions through our tax dollars. Our tax dollars give Planned Parenthood more than $37 million a year through Title X family planning programs. Diane N. Brown Veradale

There is no excuse for hunting

To love wildlife means to not kill. Cheryl Gilmore’s (Letters, Nov. 14) 11-year-old daughter and Charlene Monson’s 14-year-old daughter do not need hunting classes to teach them how to kill, as the permissive parents are good at it. I wonder how these children react to their own pets?

Jill Herman’s letter on Nov. 21 was exemplary in that she pointed out the contradictions that these two young girls have a hunter’s education. I wonder just what this training to kill is comprised of. It seems to me you just shoot and kill, get your prize and eat it or mount it.

These kids have a great love and respect of wildlife but maintain excitement in killing - things that do not belong together. Ladies and gentlemen do not take pleasure in spilling blood. Mary E. Cosentini Spokane

‘Rebel,’ her story, encouraging

Re: “She’s a rebel without a pause,” (Dec. 5). It’s nice to see a thorough article on a young activist. Too often, idealists are dismissed, possibly since they make squishy non-idealists squirm a bit too much. Unfortunately, idealists also end up as targets for victimization, which is probably why the squishies prefer their comfort zone. Lorraine Marie Northport, Wash.

Breathing homes are nothing new

I had to laugh about an article in the paper recently. It was a new concept in homes homes that could breathe. Mentioned was trapped-in bad air that can make us sick.

Sure enough, it reminded me of Ma and Pa’s house. Only theirs wasn’t a new house idea. It was known as a “drafty, old farmhouse.” And it breathed, all right. They swore by their “air pockets.” That is why, even up into their 70s, they never had colds.

Many years ago, we went to stay with them. We got the upstairs bedroom, the room with a view. The view wasn’t through the frosty window pane, it was through the fourinch hole in the wall! Gads, it was the old woodpecker’s hole! Plug it up? Why, Pa looked at me as if I was daft.

“That’s fresh air. Are you crazy?”

Perhaps we are all crazy, in our “energy efficient” homes. A good thing could be too much. We are breathing in our own dirty air. So I’ve decided to not fix my busted kitchen window. I am going to let Jack Frost paint his curly, leafy ice crystals on the glass. I only have one problem. Now, which wall should I let the woodpeckers dine on? Jeannie U. Greene Spokane

Gambling not worth its costs

I couldn’t help but catch the irony of a Dec. 3 story, “Gambling pays for new judge.” To put it bluntly, gambling will likely need to pay for two or three new judges, just to keep up with the gambling-generated crimes and related problems these establishments bring to a city.

In his book, “The Economic Impact of Legalized Gambling Activities,” author John Kindt writes that for every dollar a state receives in gambling revenue, the state pays out at least $3 for increased criminal justice, social welfare and other costs. If Kindt’s figures are even near to being accurate, gambling revenue will never come close to paying for the damage it brings to Spokane’s marriages, children, economy, health care system, etc. Any way you slice it, gambling is a deadly drain on a community. Isn’t it time for our community to pull the plug on legalized gambling? Jim Harper Spokane