Letters To The Editor

SPOKANE MATTERS

Lincoln Street bridge needed

I felt like applauding when I read Fred C. Malstrom’s letter, “Ditzy reasoning behind bridge ruling.” The reasoning used in his letter sure makes sense to me.

Facts concerning the Lincoln Street bridge design and location have not been a secret. After all that has been done on the bridge, and with the public participation the project has had, it seems ditzy to me, too, for the Department of Ecology to now deny a permit. It also seems way beyond the scope of the Department of Ecology to be concerned with the reasons stated for permit denial.

I have been close to the proposed Lincoln Street bridge project for several years and have seen what I perceive as a change in the tone of the publicity around constructing the bridge. Much has been in the press lately about Ecology’s ruling and the Friends of the Falls’ opposition.

The project is easy to oppose now for citizens who aren’t familiar with the facts, when the attention- getting captions point out what looks like a flawed process. The valid reasons for building the bridge are being forgotten.

As Malstrom points out, Spokane is growing and this bridge will greatly help traffic flow. With new development downtown and Post Street becoming a dead end the new bridge will be needed. It will be an enhancement to Spokane’s skyline and is an excellent example of leveraging a relatively small amount of local money with state and federal money to fund the project. Chuck Prussack Spokane

Better off without bridge-type progress

The Earth Day letters page had two strangely parallel pieces in the upper left corner. Both featured the forces of “progress” preparing to destroy an environmental asset. One was a political cartoon. The other was Fred Malstrom’s letter about the Lincoln Street bridge.

I’ll be the first to admit the shadow issue he mentioned is important only to tourists, photographers and the natural area beneath the proposed bridge. After all, does Spokane really need to preserve features that encourage Convention Center visitors to walk to the Monroe Street Bridge?

Of course, Malstrom hints that the Monroe Street Bridge might not be capable of a full rehab, so we should belly-up to the state-federal trough and pig out on public funds. Think of all the money Spokane can save by spending millions it can’t afford. Even more interesting is his apparent ignorance of the impact of the bridge on the North Side. The Department of Transportation favors the project because it supports yet another north-south couplet. This rarely mentioned couplet is an ersatz north-south freeway. Now, I don’t think that Malstrom wants to freewaytize our roads, but I may be wrong.

I hope Malstrom will catch up on his newspaper reading. He might find that the shadow issue has been overshadowed by the fact that the professionals supporting the bridge project may have ignored city and state shoreline policies. Dennis R. Dickens Spokane

Measure limits current landfills

Re: April 17 letter from a local contractor, “Curtail landfills and you’ll be sorry.”

I believe this contractor has been misinformed. What is currently before the commissioners for consideration is an amendment to the Spokane County Solid Waste Management Plan stating that “no expansion of current landfills be allowed.”

Such an amendment would stop the expansion of present dumps which are polluting or have the potential to pollute aquifers in the county.

For example, the Graham Road facility, where most of the contractors in the county are dumping their demolition waste and paying $20 per ton, sits directly over the aquifer that supplies water to the wells for more than 400 homes in the West Plains, including mine. This is the same facility that was featured in The Spokesman-Review on March 1 as having been identified by the EPA for illegally accepting more than 700 tons of PCB-contaminated soil in May 1996.

According to health agencies, PCBs are colorless, highly toxic liquid compounds that pose hazards to human health, including liver damage and cancer if they get into the water supply.

When Spokane County has completed its aquifer protection study, I am sure it will find safe locations where local contractors can cheaply dispose of their demolition waste without endangering the health of the county citizens. Duane E. Johnson Medical Lake

U.S. AND THE WORLD

Stiffing U.N. bad policy in every way

This is an open letter to my Congress members in Washington, D.C., from a chagrined lady.

Didn’t we all give a sigh of relief when United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan’s diplomatic efforts saved lives and taxpayer money because a military strike against Iraq was unnecessary?

Aren’t we all grateful that efforts of the U.N.’s World Health Organization eradicated smallpox from the world and that this organization continues to work to control deadly viruses and disease?

Isn’t it time we de-link international family planning from the issue of paying U.S. debts to the United Nations?

The dues are a solemn treaty obligation to which the United States agreed as it became a founding member of the United Nations. Do we want to lose our vote in the General Assembly?

Having the United States $1.5 billion in arrears undermines respect for the rule of law and undermines U.S. influence and credibility.

The United Nations shares in efforts to find solutions to world problems. We can’t afford to go it alone. Marjorie J. Johnson Spokane

Chinese would get ‘secrets’ anyway

Re: “Clinton let Chinese get secrets” by Gene F. Larson (Letters, April 23).

I am a “true American” and I am not furious. I was born here in Spokane, my father served in several different branches of the military, my grandfather fought in World War II and I am currently considering enlisting.

Secondly, President Clinton did not give out any real big secrets. The truth is, China is a highly developed nation with its technology a close match for our own. The idea that this knowledge was some sort of a huge secret is more of a joke.

Yes, it’s true that Loral may have broken some ancient law. However, since that law was created many things have happened. One such thing is the use of the Internet on a global scale, making censorship of any information very difficult. Another thing one might like to consider is that we are no longer a sworn enemy of China.

Also, if China truly needed the information to launch an attack on the United States, it could just send someone over to get it. Dominic J. Thornberg Spokane

THE ENVIRONMENT

Trend not ours to cause or cure

Evidence is beginning to come in that the forces behind global warming started far earlier than our industrial revolution. That trend is based upon energy fluctuations thousands of times greater than all the energy man has produced in the past 100 years. These are natural cycles over which man has never had control.

Holes drilled 3,000 feet beneath the Antarctic ice show mud at the bottom, providing lubrication which causes that massive ice sheet to flow rapidly into the ocean, gaining momentum year by year. To pretend that mankind is the instigator of this spring-like thaw is to commit the sin of pride. Those who claim that we can “finesse” a change in our climate by varying the percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are the same people who would stand in front of a speeding locomotive in order to flip it off the tracks, because they are skilled in the art of Jujitsu. The controlling force here is nature, not mankind.

Ice core evidence indicates that climate change, when it comes, is an abrupt manifestation of forces that took thousands of years to build. I look forward to a sudden return to those balmy days we experienced between 1000 AD and 1300 AD when wine grapes grew in England. All of us who know in our hearts that we built our homes too far north will rejoice. Edward F. Sawatzki Veradale

PEOPLE IN SOCIETY

To fight poverty is to lose, expensively

Re: “Many inmates began hard time at home,” News, April 27.

Absurd statements should be challenged in general, but absurd statements coming over the Associated Press wire should be challenged with vigor.

Eric Sterling is quoted, with respect to poverty: “It’s a cycle we could break but it involves some expense. As a society, we haven’t put our resources there.”

“Some expense” is an understatement. Our country has spent $1 trillion on poverty since 1968, yet poverty has increased. A strong argument can be made that anti-poverty programs have made poverty more prevalent. For example, a child raised by a single, teenage mother is at extraordinarily high risk of poverty. Fatherlessness, in fact, is the strongest predictor of poverty, a stronger predictor than race or education.

Prior to the so-called war on poverty, single teenage moms gave up their children for adoption, with the result that these children were spared poverty’s cruel cudgel.

In more recent times, single teenage moms keep their babies and sign up for welfare, thus ensuring poverty for themselves and their children, and a lamentable dearth of adoptable babies for married couples.

Besides the poverty risk, the male child of a single teenage mom is at high risk of a life of crime. The female child is at high risk of promiscuity and of becoming a single teenage mom herself, perpetuating a malignant cycle.

Our society cannot be faulted for not spending money on poverty. Perhaps we should be faulted for squandering money on programs that have proven to be counterproductive. P. Norman Nelson Colbert

Inmates come from many backgrounds

Your recent article on inmates was very deceptive and prejudiced. The subheadline reads, “Poverty, abuse, broken families are common to many criminals.” Yet, that is not what the article really says.

Using the numbers given in the article, it says 64 percent of those arrested had jobs. About half of the nation’s inmates come from two-parent homes and two-thirds of them reported that neither their parents or guardians abused alcohol or drugs.

Seventy-six percent of the inmates were not on Social Security Insurance, welfare, unemployment or workers’ or veteran’s compensation. Does this mean working for a living will drive you to crime?

Your reports on the recent school shootings show that poverty has nothing to do with them. Not one of those kids is psychologically normal, and mentally impaired people come from all classes and walks of life - including the very wealthiest.

Trying to bias people against the poor and those who divorce people who are abusive or psychologically impaired does no service to anyone. Misbehaving children are no more likely to get help in middle- or upper-income families than they are in poor families because of the social stigma we put on the parents of these children. People are born with anti-social personality disorders and all the wealth in the world will not hold them back. Remember the Menendez brothers? Judith M. Jones Spokane

Take care helping panhandlers

Panhandlers - should we really be giving them money?

The problem with giving panhandlers money is that you don’t know how your money will be spent. Aren’t there better ways to help the homeless than by giving them money? Can’t we just offer to buy them a sandwich or a gallon of milk?

Other ways you can help are by volunteering with organizations that assist the homeless or by purchasing coupons for food at local restaurants and fast food places.

When you give the homeless money, they can buy anything they want. They can buy cigarettes or alcohol, or both. If we, the public, help support their habits that will keep them on the streets, are we truly helping them at all?

The next time you see someone on the street asking for money, don’t ignore the problem, think of other ways you can help. Jaclyn Harrington Spokane

School counselors not the answer

In a the April 25 Your Turn column, Kathryn Hinds, a teacher who “loves her job,” asks taxpayers to be more generous and fund at least one full-time counselor for every public grade school. This, she believes, would keep many from becoming criminals later in their lives.

In a front page story, “Many inmates began hard time at home,” “expert” Eric E. Sterling makes an even stronger point. Parents of the “kids in trouble” are not to blame but, “a kid acting out in an underfunded school system is less likely to see a school psychologist.”

First, parents are responsible for their offspring. By not blaming them, Sterling proves he’s not an expert at all. Secondly, one or 10 full-time counselors and psychologists have no impact on kids who live in a criminal environment. The only solution is to move them out of there. That, however, is not possible because the only players in this game who have responsibilities and who can be blamed for everything are we, the law-abiding taxpayers. Everybody else - so-called experts like Sterling, neglectful parents, young criminals - have only rights. Until this changes, we should refrain from throwing money on unsolvable problems. Peter C. Dolina Veradale

Parents, keep tabs on kids’ TV habits

A lot of our schedules involve TV, but how much TV should be too much? Statistics show that in 1949, the percentage of American households that owned television sets was 2.3. By 1960, 88.8 percent of American households owned televisions.

How often do you monitor how much TV your child is watching? I recently conducted a small survey on eighth graders to get an idea. Out of the 32 kids questioned, 11 watch 0-60 minutes of TV on an average weekday; six of the 11 watch less than a half hour of TV because of extracurricular activities. Five watch one to two hours, eight watch two to three hours, three watch three to four hours and five watch more than four hours a day.

How much TV your child watches may have an impact on his or her studies. Younger children who watch a lot of TV might be influenced by violent behavior that is commonly displayed on many TV programs, including cartoons. If your child is young enough and cannot read the recommended viewing ages, then there will be no stopping them from watching it, unless they are being supervised.

Now that you are more aware of some television watching statistics, I strongly encourage you to observe how much time your child spends watching TV and what kinds of programs your child watches. It may benefit them. Melissa Fiorentino Spokane

Quitting smoker victimized self

Congratulations to Betty Von Heydrich on her efforts to quit smoking. Although I never smoked, I have several friends and family members who do. I have lost some dear family members as a direct result of cigarette smoking. I applaud Von Heydrich’s actions and pray that she will succeed.

However, I disagree with her statement that the tobacco companies should pay for an individual’s expense to quit smoking, “since the tobacco companies go us hooked on smoking …”

The tobacco companies did not “get you hooked.” You got yourself hooked. This I’m-the-victim attitude is like demanding that car manufacturers pay for your speeding ticket because they built and forced you to buy a vehicle that will go faster than the allowable speed limit. You choose to speed and therefore must pay the consequences.

You chose to smoke, gullible in the beginning most probably so, but for at least the last 25 to 30 years it has been widely and universally accepted that cigarette smoking is at least deadly and most certainly hazardous.

At least Von Heydrich is now choosing to do something, before she pays the ultimate price.

Have the tobacco companies deliberately mislead their customers as to the hazards of smoking? I believe so. Are the tobacco companies scrambling with new hip ad campaigns to win over the young and gullible? Yes. However, the choice has always been the individual’s. The attitude that everyone is a victim of some conspiracy has got to stop. We need to take control of our own actions. Kenneth E. Galland Spokane