Letters To The Editor

IDAHO VIEWPOINTS

Trail committee ought to ask, listen

Julie Titone’s article on the proposed Rails to Trails program was disappointing to those of us who live along the former Union Pacific Railroad line. My wife and I live in Cataldo, approximately 60 feet from the trail.

No property owners other than the Waldens in the Harrison area were contacted for the article. No one who lives near the trail has been invited to any meetings with the trail committee in order to make our objections officially known. Apparently, because the rails-to-trails conversions are allowed under a federal program, the trail committee feels it can cram the trail down the throats of people who live along the route.

The reason the residents object to the trail in their front yards are: 1) lack of privacy, 2) loss of wildlife, 3) human pollution, 4) material pollution, 5) noise pollution and 6) the intrusion of the human element.

People cannot walk from Plummer to Mullan in one day. They have to have a place to sleep. We’ll have the threat of trespassers and the opening of wildlife areas to human spoilers. Any more, when we tell a stranger to get off our place, we do not know if we are going to be shot.

There are many unanswered and pertinent questions.. If the trail committee members were earnestly interested in our opinions, they would find we are polite people and would be willing to listen to their proposals. John C. Pickard Cataldo

‘History’ story came out wrong

The Nov. 9 article, “Building on history,” by Laura Schireman contained several statements attributed to me that were taken out of context and meaning.

First, as for the statement about the big city, my mother was born in 1899 and raised in the town of Elk, Wash., the daughter of pioneer timber cruiser Will Mason. In the early 1900s, Priest River was the big city to a 10-year-old girl. Hard-working and prominent people were on the streets, not prostitutes.

As for the statement about schools and churches, this was a suggestion to read Anne Seagrave’s book, “The Soiled Doves.”

In general, I feel the entire article was offensive to the city of Priest River and all the past and present men and women of timber. John A. Hunt Ponderay

Women in big hats not prostitutes

On Nov. 8, the Spokesman-Review sent staff writer Laura Shireman to Priest River to cover the open house held at our recently opened museum. Although we appreciate the coverage and exposure, several misconceptions regarding our town appeared in the article.

Priest River does have a colorful past, as do most cities in the West, but our churches and schools were not built by prostitutes, they were built by our pioneer families. The ladies in the “big hats” were not prostitutes, they were our ladies of society. Many of our loggers were family men who worked in woods at the camps during the week and returned to their families on weekends. The purpose of our museum is not to change the past but to honor those who contributed to our community. The timber educational center is just what the name implies, a perspective of logging in past, present and future.

We thank you for the coverage, but these corrections are important. Diane E. Mercer Priest River

HEALTH AND SAFETY

We’re putting lights on more kids

This is to update everyone on our Light-A-Child Program and to send thank all those who have been so generous.

Last week we handed out another 300 lights and reflective tape to Post Falls Middle School students who are traveling to and from school in the dark because of double-shifting. The students have been more than enthusiastic about wearing the lights. I have received many reports from drivers about the increased visibility provided.

Although donations have been coming in at a regular rate, our need continues. To get the best price for the new lightweight, multifunction light, we had to order 1,000. That was good because now we have enough lights for next year. But we also have a large outstanding balance due. Because of this, we were unable to purchase enough batteries to power every light we gave out.

If your child did not get a light or tape and you would like to have one, fill out a request form at the office in the Middle School or stop by the Post Falls Ambulance to pick up a light. Debbie C. Mykkanen Post Falls

Immunizations seem unwarranted

Did you know hospitals are routinely injecting newborns with the hepatitis B vaccine even though the mother is not infected? Hepatitis B is primarily an adult disease transmitted through bodily fluids. Those most at risk are the highly promiscuous (heterosexual or homosexual), needle-sharing drug addicts, health care and custodial workers exposed to blood.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, there were only 10,637 cases of hepatitis B in the United States in 1996, including only 279 cases in children under the age of 14. Hepatitis B is not fatal for most who contract it, and is not epidemic except among those high-risk groups.

Then why are millions of school children being forced to submit to hepatitis B shots when it affects such a small percentage of people? Tanya L. Turner Coeur d’Alene

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS

Content matter of students’ wise choice

I am replying to complaints about the Planned Parenthood advertisement in the Lewis and Clark student newspaper.

Student newspaper means student newspaper. Students raise the money to produce the paper. As a result, they have total control over what they publish, within the limits of the law.

The U.S. Supreme Court has said that independent student newspapers, such as ours, have the same legal rights and limitations as commercial newspapers, with only a few additional limits. For example, student newspapers cannot print anything that promotes illegal activity or causes significant disruption of the school. The Planned Parenthood ad did not cross any of these boundaries.

The administration at Shadle Park High School has received similar complaints regarding these ads in our student paper. As the newspaper advisor at Shadle, I have the privilege of watching our student newspaper staff respond. They discussed this issue at length and discovered that they disagree on the issues touched upon by this ad: teenage sexuality, birth control and abortion. However, they strongly agreed that their newspaper was an open forum and that denying Planned Parenthood access to that forum would be wrong.

These student journalists stood up for the rights of those whose opinions differ from their own, protecting the newspaper’s ability to create discourse and debate. American democracy in action. Demonstrating 21st century values. What better measure of a successful educational opportunity could you have? April Bresgal Spokane

PEOPLE IN SOCIETY

Abrasive assumptions unwelcome

Paul and Bonny Peterson make some very bold assumptions in their letter, “Voters made un-Christian choices” that are not true. They assume that all of America is Christian. The truth is that much of America is not Christian. They also assume that the only good values are Christian. In my experience, people of any faith or no faith can have what I believe, and what I think the Petersons believe, to be “good” values.

Their last assumption is that their letter “will fall mostly on deaf ears.” I am sorry they feel that unless people agree with them that they are “deaf.” Many people, including myself, looked at the issues presented in this election and then at their value system and made a conscious decision about what to vote for.

What I voted for happens to be different from what the Petersons voted for. That does not mean I am deaf. In fact, I would find it “hard to be optimistic” if a Christian like myself didn’t vote for something he agreed with just because it was “un-Christian.” Maxwell M. Ruckdeschel Moscow, Idaho

A measure of deference is in order

Re: Letters concerning abortion and hunting, Nov. 11.

What is with all the drama on the opinion pages? Can’t people give rational discourse without all the name calling and the accusatory tones? But, this kind of thing is encouraged.

People just make up whatever suits them. Patrick Rogers (“Call it what it really is”) decided that pro-choice advocates consider abortion a good thing. Just because we don’t feel his need to decide what is right for everyone and force it upon them like the Gestapo? (Oops - see how hard it is not to use emotional tactics?)

Then you have Ruth Sunde (“Girl’s actions don’t deserve praise”), who plans to cancel her subscription because of a story about a girl who hunts. Even though I may agree that hunting is unnecessary and gross, again, I don’t feel the need to insist that everyone else adhere to my value system.

It’s called living in a free country. Even if you feel strongly about an issue, you still don’t get to decide. It’s up to the majority of voters. Carol A. Carpenter Greenacres

U.S. AND THE WORLD

Military-industrial cabal rides again

Well, it’s deja vu all over again. The present Iraqi situation is a good example of how our federal government wastes its substance and the American taxpayers’ money on the usual sound and fury signifying nothing. Why is it that grave matters of state are continually recycled without cease?

The answer is simple. It’s because our feckless popinjays in government continue to use the same antiquated approach to all our foreign problems - and have for far too many decades.

Years ago, a disgruntled foreign woman stated, “The American people are like children. They are so afraid that someone is going to come along and take their toys away from them.” This statement is reflected by our foreign policy, which I personally regard as myopic, paranoid and falling into the willing clutches of the military-industrial complex.

Those who profit from military activity feel it’s necessary to agitate the waters in just about every foreign confrontation in order to keep the military-industrial complex in vogue. In spite of the fact that the phony arms race between the United States and Russia is over, the Pentagon is still begging for more money for defense. This, in spite of the fact that the Cold War cost taxpayers $15 trillion, of which $5 trillion went down the proverbial drain.

What will it take to get you, the silent majority, to rise up in one voice and shout, “Enough, enough!” Bart Radisson Spokane

Watch for Saddam to take hostages

No American citizen, nor citizens of other countries, are naive enough to believe that Saddam Hussein’s expulsion of U.N. inspectors has not been to cover his constant shifting of weapons of mass destruction to other sites. It appears that when inspectors are about to discover the location of these weapons or the facilities that produce them, he boots them out. Saddam then has several days, if not weeks, to move them to other locations - in some cases, probably back to sites already inspected. With the amount of labor at his disposal, and wide areas available, he can accomplish much in a few days.

What should bother us all is his letting the inspectors back in when he knows full well he is not going to allow full and unrestricted access to all sites and all documents. Because of this, he is well aware that the U.S. will probably strike without warning. I am sure he will not hesitate to make hostages of inspectors and humanitarian workers, placing them in areas he knows will be targeted, all to deter attacking forces. He cares not about their safety or lives. Bennie Benson Elk

Global warming is for real

The Nov. 13 Spokesman-Review carried the story, “U.S. puts its signature on global warming pact.” Our is about the 60th nation to sign. However, the Senate must concur before April 1999 or the Kyoto treaty will probably die.

Is global warming a problem? Who has not noticed the heat waves, droughts and extreme climatic events predicted three years ago by more than 2,000 climate scientists from more than 80 countries? But global warming critics, primarily funded by fossil fuel organizations, tell us there is no problem. A credible approach to many complex issues is to follow the money. In the 1960s, the damage cost of natural disasters, globally, ranged from $5 billion to $10 billion per year. In recent years, the cost, after rising every year since 1975, has topped $55 billion. Although the United States has been spared the really bad ones, such as Hurricane Mitch, the 10 most costly natural disasters ever in the United States have all occurred within the past 10 years.

Science unequivocally shows that as long as humans use fossil fuels at our current rate, global warming will only get worse. K. Julian Powers Spokane

WHALE HUNT

Hypocrisy in anti-whaling sentiment

Regarding the Makah whaling rights.

As a Native American, all of this complaining is making me sick! The Makah Tribe has a right to hunt whales. It was a part of their culture. A lot of people don’t have any idea what that word means.

To have part of your way of life ripped away from you is unbelievable. Most people never experience this feeling. Many of my ancestors were beaten or killed because they didn’t believe certain things or speak the English language.

To have people say they should not be able to hunt whales is preposterous and hypocritical. The whales wouldn’t have been on the endangered species list if it wasn’t for certain people. These people know what race they belong to. These are the people preaching against whale hunting. I’m almost positive that killing a couple (at most) of whales a year will not put them back on the endangered species list.

As for the gun to end the hunt, how else could you do this procedure more humanely? I’m sure they could go back to the old way of doing things and just exhaust the whale until it dies. But then you would have animal rights activists declaring cruelty and psychological abuse or something of that sort. I guess there is just no pleasing some people. Lyle D. Redthunder Elmer City, Wash.

Toll on whales would be negligible

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is being extremely arrogant in attempting to block the Makah Indians from hunting the gray whale. More often than not, I side with environmental causes. But this, time the environmentalists are woefully misguided.

Ironically, what they are doing calls to mind our old ethnocentric policy of manifest destiny. That policy was dreamed up to legitimize what most every 1800s American felt was their right - the plundering of lands and their indigenous inhabitants.

With total disregard for a culture hundreds of years older than ours, environmentalists are revisiting the sins of the forefathers. Sins that environmentalists purportedly exist to redress. It wasn’t Indians’ consistent harvesting of whales that brought the whales to the brink of extinction. The white man’s insatiable greed and need for whale oil were responsible.

Likewise, the taking of 20 great whales over the next four years will have little effect in reducing the number of grays. Enough is enough. Let the Makahs reclaim a once vital aspect of their tradition. Tom Bellinger Spokane