Letters To The Editor

LAW ENFORCEMENT

Car broken into; cop no help

Service. Pride. Dedication. Does the Spokane Police Department follow its motto?

During Saturday’s hockey game, my car was one of eight vehicles broken into. Over the years, it has not been uncommon for us to come out after a game and find that this has happened to “other people.” Saturday, I became an “other person.”

I approached an officer directing traffic and told him what had happened. I was told he couldn’t do anything after the fact, nor would he send someone to take statements; just call Crime Check.

The value of the stolen property and damage done clearly constitutes a felony, if nothing else, an appearance by an officer to take statements would have gone further than telling us to go home and make a call. I realize that the SPD has limited resources, but since this is a recurring problem during events at the Arena, maybe an increase in patrols or taking the time for an investigation is warranted.

How much money does the city spend convincing events to come to the Arena and for people to come see those events? Visitors to Spokane want to be safe in the belief that the cost of their visit is not going to include replacing stolen items and car windows. Local residents would like to think the same. The economic ramifications of Arena events should be enough to demand safety.

Assisting in traffic control or resolving local crimes? The priorities of the SPD need to be re-evaluated. Adrian C. Henegan Spokane

Bragdon qualified to be chief

Re: “Chief should keep ear to ground,” May 3, 1998.

How can acting Chief Roger Bragdon be capable of filling a deputy chief position and not be fit to take the next step up? This logic represents a glaring incongruity in the selection and thought process.

Twenty-five years of experience certainly equates to a bachelor’s degree. Most everyone knows that a degree without experience is worth very little, so how can 25 years of experience not even deserve consideration? Lack of a degree should not automatically exclude one from job consideration when they have a proven track record of experience in the field.

I don’t know Bragdon, but I do know he was well thought of by Terry Mangan, who had a degree, and he had the support of some of the men on the force. He has an established feel for the community and can instantly contribute continuity to Mangan’s COPS program.

These are important considerations, and to remove them and Bragdon from the competitive process is not an educated or enlightened decision. It comes across as a rubber-stamp decision by just another bureaucratic group.

I hope the powers that be will turn this decision around and show themselves to be the fair and flexible thinking leaders they need to be. Mike D. McMorris Spokane

Good collar, Priggee

Staff cartoonist Milt Priggee was exactly right in his cartoon on May 6. A college degree should not be a prerequisite for a police chief, when we could have someone with experience. Lorraine Doulas Spokane

THE MEDIA

Special Olympics overlooked

Your coverage of Bloomsday 1998 in Monday’s paper provided me with all the information I could ever want regarding that event.

I read over Sunday’s paper several times, looking for a shred of news regarding the Saturday Special Olympics East Region Spring Games held at Eastern Washington University. Not one single word was found. Not one single picture was found. I would say the readership of The Spokesman-Review has no idea the Special Olympics event even existed.

The athletes who participated in the Special Olympics games are true athletes. They deserve every bit of recognition that can be given. They have earned it!

To each and every participant, I say, good work! To The Spokesman-Review, I say, shame - you blew it. Charlea A. Schwartz Spokane

Stations, WSU exploit incident

Finally, the local TV media have an issue they can sensationalize in a manner along the likes of those Pulitzer-winning TV magazine shows like “Hard Copy” and “Current Affair.”

For the last several days, we’ve been encouraged to tune in to station X’s in-depth coverage of the “WSU riots.” I recall only one riot, on May 2, but the plural is being used to resemble a “muckraking” form of journalism that local TV stations have mastered to their advantage.

Granted, the actions of several drunken arsonists, vandals and antagonists taunting police is inexcusable; the fascist manhunt being conducted by WSU and police agencies is too much. Too many innocents are being accused and convicted without trial via the Internet. Just because a few low-life, irresponsible morons decided to take on law enforcement is not a reason for WSU to model justice in the form of fascism.

The quotation on the front page of the May 8 Spokesman Review indicates that Sam Smith, the president of a collegiate institution - a supposed model for American society - is slapping the face of American justice. Guilty until proven innocent is the theme WSU is espousing in its search for justice. The quotation states, “No more rush for houses if they can’t prove innocence.”

WSU officials and the Interfraternity Council have a real opportunity to work together to bring about justice and demonstrate the value of the Greek system and what fraternities are all about. But guilty-until-proven innocent is horrible method of seeking justice. Kevin L. Rainey Spokane

Media contribute to wrongdoing

I find the Pullman Police Department’s efforts to identify the participants in the WSU riot by use of a Web site most interesting, but the availability of the photos raises a question of ethics, in my mind.

The police are interested in prosecuting those who incited the riot. I suggest they implicate the media for their coverage of the scene, rather than utilize that coverage as a means for locating suspects.

Just how many of the riot scenes we have witnessed on TV would have actually taken place had there not been a willing camera crew standing in the midst, looking for some “hot footage”? It’s evident from several scenes the kids were just goofing around, trying to get their faces on camera.

I also have to believe that a lot of the other incidents took place due to inebriated teenagers thinking they could make the evening news if they did something exciting, such as roll over a Dumpster.

You have to question the ethics of news crews in these situations. What contribution are they really making when they’re on the scene of such an event? They’re just encouraging the destructive behavior, while they sit back on their broadcasts and criticize the behavior.

I’m not suggesting the media are responsible for the riot. I’m suggesting they may be equally responsible as many of the drunken students for inciting many of the acts of the riot. Next time, they may do society a better turn if they leave the cameras off. Jon K. Alley Spokane

‘Springer’ excuse to invoke meddling

The recent criticism of “The Jerry Springer Show” is just more jaw-flapping by conformist moral do-gooders who think they know best how everyone should run their lives.

Let’s face it, Americans like sex, TV violence, cigarettes, deviance, booze, drugs, guns, money and fast cars. The do-gooders can complain and pass laws against freedom until everyone lives life in a padded cell, but people won’t become more moral.

Those who point the bony finger of morality while wielding the noose of government coercion don’t understand the meaning of morals; even God granted us free will, knowing that without the ability to choose, a man’s good deeds would be empty. Besides, immorality isn’t just an abstract theological or philosophical idea; bad choices have real consequences which are muted by government actions.

Many do-gooders support government programs like welfare, social security, “free” government schools, minimum wage, Medicaid, etc., that excuse the social implications of poor personal and business judgment. Compare the “moral decline” of America with the growth of big government over the last 60 years. Reflect on Prohibition and its consequences. Given recent history, can a thinking person honestly expect more government will solve social problems?

The moral agenda would be better served by adopting a libertarian approach to the role of government in society. It’s not up to the state to decide how we run our lives, and it doesn’t work anyhow. Utopia is never an option, but freedom and complete responsibility would quickly fix many of this country’s social ills. Greg D. Holmes Spangle

SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION

Literature-less lead deprived life

In 1821, Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote “A Defence of Poetry” in response to the admonishment that people should “stop wasting their time writing poetry and apply themselves to the new sciences … which would improve the world.”

Little has changed, for schools are urging students to stop wasting their time exploring literature so they can prepare themselves for their future job.

The replacement of literature classes is tragic, for we will be raising an illiterate generation - not in the sense of reading, but in understanding metaphor and imagery. Metaphors and images are springboards that launch us into the very heart of existence; they make visible otherwise unseen realities. How else can one grasp despair, hope, liberty and wonder? How else does one behold the beauty that only shut eyes see? Poets and authors explore the very heart of life and their works provide glimpses and echoes of what they have seen and heard. Schools are depriving people of becoming fluent in metaphor and imagery, thereby restraining many from crawling onto the shoulders of writers to see perhaps even further than they.

Literature was of little concern to me until my senior year of high school, when such things as despair and hope became pretty important. My English teacher led me to the river of literature to get my feet wet. Now I am swimming and long for others to join me. We need to explore, to ask questions and to listen. We need to swim the currents of literature and sound the depths of existence. Aaron M. Moe Spokane

Trend, yes, but a regrettable one

I applaud editorial writer Rebecca Nappi for her response in “Don’t hustle past Homer’s ‘Odyssey’.” In a time of techno-fanaticism, many students risk losing the opportunity to experience literature as they are sedated by the hum of a fax machine.

True, as we move closer to a world run through cyberspace, literature appears to be increasingly distant in the black hole of English courses.

True, teachers grapple for literature connections to the real world while they sell Shakespeare and poetry to an indifferent audience.

True, students hold some opposition toward thinking critically when they have the opportunity take a shorter route.

Do these conditions alone beg discarding centuries of thought and resistance for that which only appears irrelevant? Take a memo: keep the higher level thinking so these future employees will know what to do when the computer crashes. Stacy Withrow Spokane

Tell District 81 this won’t do

I am responding to your recent article about the revised senior English classes.

I am very disappointed that the school district is allowing business to have an undue influence on curriculum. I want my children educated, not trained. The kind of English instruction described would make a wonderful elective, but an English class needs to stay an English class.

I truly hope that parents and teachers will let School District 81 administrators know that this is not a curriculum change that we can live with. Chiere Martyn Spokane

OTHER TOPICS

The immature reject artistic nudity

Re: the letter of May 7 regarding the “unnecessary nude scene” in “Titanic.”

It’s the same constricting mentality such as yours that keeps society from appreciating the beauty given to us by our Creator. Did your mother quickly cover your body in a black cloth when you were born, so nobody could admire the precious baby brought into the world?

I applaud James Cameron’s depiction of a young girl at odds with her elite status, who, for a moment, gives herself so openly to the talent of a poor boy who can immortalize her beauty into a work of art.

This is not just another nude scene thrown at us by Hollywood. And the focal point of that scene was not the material necklace. It was a moment where a young woman made a firm choice to slap the face of society’s expectations of her as she says, Watch me defy the odds. I’m taking bold, new steps and I’m going to surprise even this boy who has so persistently pursued me.

And, as the older Rose DeBukater clarifies, “I was quite a dish,” yet, “Did we do it? No, he was professional.”

If you ever visit the Sistine Chapel, notice the beauty in Leonardo DaVinci’s work; the spark of life between Creator and humans. I didn’t see denim covering that man’s bare, fresh body! Do you blush at the bare David? If so, you’re sorrowfully missing the point of the art captured by such talented artists. But don’t fret; one day, you’ll mature. Danni Lee Spokane

What unthinking nerve Dobson has

I recently listened to “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” TV program, in which the guest, Dr. James Dobson, president of Focus on the Family, was asked whether he could vote for any presidential candidate who would promise a veto of any legislative ban against abortion in the third trimester. When he replied in a stern negative, I found myself unable to resist a response.

What makes this “learned” man feel that a federal legislative body, made up primarily of men, is qualified to decide whether a woman may have an abortion, particularly when her doctor demands that she undergo the procedure to save her own life? Does he have the remotest idea of how dreadful it must be when a doctor tells his patient that the fetus she has carried for almost nine months, believing the pain and suffering would end when she gave birth to a baby she could love and cherish, would have to be aborted?

What if the pregnant woman was Dobson’s wife, who was told that the fetus, if carried to term, would be born without a brain or hideously deformed, with a life span of hours or days, possibly at the cost of her own life? Would Dodson have the gall to insist that the abortion be denied?

I understand that most of the arguments of the pro-lifers are based on religion. Is it necessary for the voters to remind our legislators that the fathers of our country, in one of their more brilliant acts, stipulated that religion and the government were to remain separated? Fred J. Meyer Coulee Dam

Now smokers know how it feels

Re: April 29 letter, “Do-gooders take a toll on health,” bemoaning the stress that nonsmokers and politicians are placing on smokers.

I do understand how George Valentine feels. Nonsmokers have had stress placed on their health all their lives. My respiratory system is a mess and it has caused many other allergy problems. What Valentine says about cancer caused from the stress that nonsmokers are placing on his life is the very same stress smokers have been placing on our lives for generations. We had nowhere to go to get away from smokers, as they believed they had all the rights to smoke wherever they wanted to. For the first time in history, nonsmokers finally have some rights.

I do believe smokers should have a few more smoking-area privileges than they are now getting, but now you know what the rest of us have gone through since smoking was invented. For the first time, you are in the minority and are experiencing our discomfort. LaNice Korus Spokane