Letters To The Editor

Tue., Jan. 27, 1998

SPOKANE MATTERS

Instructors damned with faint raise

A 1 percent raise! How insulting.

How you would feel if your employer gave you a 1 percent raise, effective for two years, when you were expecting a 10 percent raise because of media attention and a cost of living raise?

When the state-allocated money was divided up by the administrators of our Community Colleges, it was decided that part-time community service instructors were to get only a 1 percent raise. Someone deemed us not as worthy as the instructors who teach credit classes, even though noncredit classes offer a valuable service to the Spokane community and we save taxpayers money.

I teach specialized fitness classes to senior citizens through the Senior Program of the Institute of Extended Learning. Many come to these classes seeking help with back and joint problems. One student started taking a class in lieu of knee surgery. This was four years ago. Last summer, she out-strawberry-picked her son and still has had no surgery.

In a recent course evaluation, many seniors commented on their improved sense of well-being. If helping people improve their life isn’t enough, think about the money you are saving.

Life Skills/Woman’s Program instructors also got a 1 percent raise. Here, we train women to re-enter the job force. How important do you consider helping women get off welfare? Obviously, our college leaders do not value it or their instructors.

Please contact community college administrators and show your support of community service instructors’ work. Altari Sunra, M.A. Mead

Hospital should come to terms

Re: ongoing contract negotiations between Sacred Heart Medical Center and the nurses’ union.

As we understand it, one of the hospital’s primary concerns is the higher wages being requested. Apparently, Sacred Heart is letting this issue overshadow the most important issue and mission of any health care facility: patient care and safety. From day 1 of the negotiations, the union has stressed this point to no avail. Wage and benefits increases requested are mainly to cover the continued increase in personal licenses and insurance required of each individual. Adequate patient care must not be compromised at any cost.

We challenge Sacred Heart to get back to the basics of health care and come to terms with the union. Since 1992, members of our family have undergone five major surgeries at this fine hospital and always felt we were in the best of hands.

Stay the course, Sacred Heart. Don’t compromise patient care and safety over a modest increase in wages and benefits. Lauren and Martha Perry Priest River, Idaho

Homemaker-only tax cut? Nonsense

Re: “Homemakers deserve tax break” (Letters, Jan. 18).

In yet another attempt to further separate people, Cheryl Tower calls for a tax cut, but only for “victim” homemakers. Only women who choose to stay home will get a tax break, punishing the millions of moms who are homemakers and career women. She says, “Someone who chooses to give up a salary, paid vacations, medical insurance, etc., is entitled to something.” What the person deserves is to live their life as they’ve chosen, without middle class welfare.

Tower calls for “an estimate of how much it would cost for someone to come to your home and baby-sit your children, do your laundry, clean your house, cook your dinner, play with your children, do your grocery shopping, etc.” This amount would be Tower’s basis for a “victim’s” tax cut. The quote implies that women have only two choices in life: stay home and perform these tasks or work outside the home and pay for them to be done. Evidently, if Tower worked outside the home, she would contribute absolutely nothing to running the home other than to pay for it to be done.

When comparing the homemaker-career woman choice with the homemaker-only choice, Tower has the easier of the two lives. So, does Tower’s family deserve a tax cut? Yes, just as all working families that pay taxes do, across the board. Why try to put one lifestyle choice on a pedestal above all others? Michael G. Wiman Spokane

SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION

Vote for win-win proposition

We can do this for our future and we should. By voting yes on Feb. 3 to continue our Spokane School District 81 operation fund levy (no change in the status quo), and yes on a multi-year, $74 million bond issue to update and upgrade virtually every school in our public system (a big change in the status quo), we take the children of Spokane into the 21st century with intention.

It is a clear and right statement of our values. It is a vision that emphasizes opportunity. It is a direct investment in our economy, both near- and long-term. It translates into more good-paying jobs now and still more higher-quality jobs to come - a very critical win-win for our fine city.

Vote yes on Feb. 3 for the levy-bond issue. Chris and Katie Mietus Spokane

Might as well go whole hog

I read that Sen. Harold Hochstatter, R- Moses Lake, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, wants to insert language into the public school science curriculum knocking the theory of evolution. Why doesn’t he just endorse a bill requiring his own textbook be used instead?

If Hochstatter insists educators say what he wants them to say, he might as well give them material to quote. The senator can then insert as much text from Genesis as he likes - the alternative to evolution favored by most anti-scientists - and thus kill two birds with one stone. Paul L. Yost Spokane

WASHINGTON STATE

Sommers is messing with wrong voters

Re: HB 2440, concerning driver testing for older drivers.

I am an instructor for the American Association of Retired Persons’ 55 Alive program. It’s obvious that Rep. Duane Sommers is unaware that older drivers are safer drivers, that they have fewer accidents and recognize their capabilities.

I am alerting the statewide AARP membership of this pending legislation. It would appear that Sommers is hard pressed to accomplish meaningful legislation, so he picks on the elderly.

If he thinks the elderly are helpless, he’ll find out at the next election. R. Stuart Kirk Creston, Wash.

Do teach God-based morals

I don’t think I am following Mary A. Naber’s logic (“Power Team inappropriate at school,” Letters, Jan. 19).

A local school brings in a group of young men who teach the children how to set high goals, and that through hard work and dedication they’ll achieve those goals. They teach that by following the strong examples these young men provide, they, too, will be able to achieve maximum physical and mental strength.

Naber, as a teacher and example to our children, finds this shocking and a matter of concern?

Please take a look around. We don’t have to look too far or listen very hard to see what keeping morality and God out of our schools has done for society. Our schools are a mess and our kids have less direction and discipline than ever before.

I thank Assistant Principal Karl Ota. Evergreen Junior High students and their parents are fortunate to have him working for them. I ask that Ota continue to lead his students in the direction of a godly based morality. He is doing them and society a huge favor. Gerry D. Bassen Spokane

Beware of dental care measure

It will be interesting to see if the Washington Dental Association submits the bill it has drafted to allow dental assistants to place fillings and clean people’s teeth.

It is amazing that the organization that paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for the ads to undermine the expertise of licensed dental hygienists would then turn around and work to allow dental assistants to do many of the same procedures hygienists are”unsafe” to perform.

The proposed bill requires that the dental assistant have only 12 weeks of training, with no examinations or licensing procedures to ensure competence.

Dental hygienists have three and a half to four years of education followed by one written and three practical examinations before they can receive a license to care for patient’s gums and teeth. Many dental assistants are very qualified individuals but no one is qualified, nor could they ever be, to perform dental hygiene procedures after just 12 weeks of training. As a dental hygiene educator, I know the challenges in becoming a competent dental hygienist.

Phone your legislator to ensure that you receive competent dental hygiene care provided by a licensed dental hygienist. Peggy L. Ellingson RDH Spokane

IN THE PUBLIC EYE

Hypocrisy not becoming, either

I do not believe adultery is beneficial under any circumstances. That being clear, I am amazed at the uproar, on moral grounds, over President Clinton’s alleged affair(s).

Those who claim a president needs to be our nation’s moral leader display little understanding of our society. A president, and any elected official, is our political leader. I’ve never heard anyone name a politician as a personal role model. I constantly see actors, athletes, and musicians held up as major role models by young and old alike with no sexual morality expectations placed on them at all.

If all politicians had been held to a lifetime of sex only within the bonds of marriage, we would’ve not had at least half of our past presidents. The halls of the current Congress would sit nearly vacant. Sexual philandering while in office is stupid, but not necessarily on moral grounds. It’s stupid primarily because of the sexual hypocrisy and double standards of U.S. public opinion.

Hold us all, including yourself and your friends, to equal moral standards or quit casting stones at one group. Brett Robie Spokane

Real concern is president’s honesty

A person on television recently stated that if we were to expect to find a president with a pure background, we’d never find one. This appears to accept and dismiss the president’s “alleged” behavior making headlines these days. The issue is not the libido of a president. The issue is the honesty of the president. JoAnn L. Gemmrig Spokane

PEOPLE AND ANIMALS

Rodeo experience good for young people

Re: “How must children grow up in the rodeo environment?” (Letters, Jan. 16).

I thank God every day that my husband and I are able to give our sons the opportunity to experience rodeo. I’m proud to be a part of my American heritage.

If the people who wrote the Jan. 16 letters were educated in the sport, they would know that stock contractors and contestants take the very best care of rodeo stock. The stock contractors love and respect their stock. These people have a passion for this sport. Rodeo is their way of life. Why would they jeopardize it?

Look at any sanctioned rodeo association rule book. There you’ll see what the industry’s priorities are. The Junior, High School and Intercollegiate rodeo associations would strongly disagree about children being “forced to enjoy this sport.” Not only does rodeo teach our youths responsibility, sportsmanship, acceptance, commitment, accountability, adversity and honesty, they also learn to care for their animals - a year-round commitment. The parents of these youths know their children will grow up to be responsible adults. Debra Gray, president Eastern Washington Junior Rodeo Association, Cheney

Better things for know-it-alls to do

Reading with amusement how Sojourner-Love equated rodeo activities with domestic family abuse and Stephanie Swan’s plea that we stand up to protest and write letters to save animals, it occurred to me that in this day and age, especially in this country, we have a lot of people with way too much time on their hands.

Too bad some of the time and energy spent on learning to be experts on subjects such as domestic violence, child psychology, animal suffering and parenting (talk about suffering), isn’t put to better use.

Surely, Love and Swan are quite learned in all these fields, because they know how to advise on them. Perhaps they can share some of their time and do volunteer work at the Children’s Home Society or similar organizations, and do something constructive with the most needy in our world, who are the abused and neglected children, not rodeo animals, for crying out loud. Bruce Foster Rathdrum