Letters To The Editor

WASHINGTON STATE

Affirmative action benefits everyone

The use of racial quotas in hiring, benefits or education is already prohibited by state law. It’s already illegal to hire, fire, allow applicants into a school or withhold admission to a school based on a person’s race. Affirmative action, as it exists in this state by law, instead simply widens the pool from which prospects are taken. It does not specify who is chosen for a job or enrollment.

It’s worth noting that white Washington males have actually benefited from affirmative action. How? Affirmative action calls for a diverse body of prospects, including people of each race, each gender, people with disabilities and veterans. Having been given a chance to compete, many white male Vietnam veterans, for example. have been hired for good jobs for which they are qualified - because we made sure we looked at their qualifications.

Affirmative action gives us the best possible pool of applicants from which those in power can pick the best students or employees. It helps our state. Rex J. Rempel Spokane

Affirmative action is not the way

Re: Dave Broom’s guest column of Sept. 21.

If we are to become a truly colorblind society, we must change the way people think. My lifetime work experiences proved to me how ridiculous it is to judge a person by their race or gender. Society needs to help underprivileged people achieve their potential.

Unfortunately, affirmative action attempts to remedy this problem by implementing by law discrimination. I respectfully disagree with Bloom’s assertion that persons in the majority seldom fail to procure the job. affirmative action and similar remedies often bypass more qualified persons to hire/promote a minority person. Preferential treatment for a particular group or groups will only disillusion the other groups. In this way, affirmative action contributes to racial and gender hostility.

We haven’t found the solution to discrimination yet, but we must recognize the present system is inherently flawed. I do not have an alternative to offer, nor do I see one on the horizon unless the repeal of affirmative action forces our leaders to readdress the problem.

Finally, we must fight the notion that being against affirmative action means you’re a racist, discriminatory or mean-spirited. Pat Schaffer Spokane

SPOKANE MATTERS

STA bus routes a joke that’s not funny

My son rides the bus from Gonzaga University to the Indian Trail neighborhood. Last week, he told us it took him nearly two and one-half hours to get home. By car the drive takes 20 minutes. By the former bus routes, it took about 45 minutes.

I figured he exaggerated and called STA to double-check. In my first few calls, I got disconnected after receiving a taped message to call back later (great if you’re trying to catch a bus). When I finally got through, I was told there was a new, better bus route home and it would only take two hours and 15 minutes, but you couldn’t leave Gonzaga until after 3 p.m.

So the new, improved bus route would take an hour and 15 minutes longer than the old one but was only available before 8 a.m. and after 3 p.m.

Hello? Am I missing something?

My son was right. STA propaganda about new and improved bus service is a lie. Does the city really want to increase bus ridership? My son, who usually prefers to ride the bus and has no car, now sees it is virtually impossible to ride the bus because of his other commitments. He has two night classes that don’t get out until 9 p.m. Sorry, no bus service after 7 p.m.

We share the frustration of all those who’ve written to complain about the new routes. John Caputo Spokane

Lincoln Street bridge - not

No Lincoln Street bridge. Yes for continued open-space green belt on both sides of the Spokane River.

Expo ‘74, supported by the late William Cowles, encouraged the elimination of structures along the waterway - for the people.

No high-speed traffic route through the heart of the city. Yes for the north-south freeway, as the Washington State Department of Transportation has planned; Interstate 90, Greene Street, north toward Kaiser. Federal highway dollars - our gas tax money - are now headed to Olympia. Local politicians will need to rally to this or once again lose out. Marc Ramsey Spokane

LAW AND JUSTICE

False reporting of rape devastating

In reply to Darby Stewart’s letter (Sept. 19), I do not disagree that rape wounds its victims and that rapists should be punished. However, on the other end of the spectrum, the victim who has been falsely accused of committing rape also has their life irrevocably changed.

If not convicted, there is, at the very least, emotional upheaval, the expense of attorney fees and loss of time at work or school. If convicted, not only does he have to waste part of his life in prison, but for several years after must register as a sex offender, possibly have his name and picture displayed in the newspaper because he has moved into a neighborhood and, often, loses the opportunity of finding employment for which he has been educated. In addition, if a rape occurs, he is always suspect and often questioned.

Not only is the falsely accused a victim, his family and loved ones are too. He may have a wife and child(ren) who had to spend several years without his emotional, physical and financial support. It is a continuing nightmare for all concerned. This is their “reality check.”

False rape reports also hurt genuine victims, making it that much harder for them to win their cases against real rapists.

Justice is something we all hope for. For justice’s sake, we cannot condone the false reporting of rape. People who do this need to be held accountable. Judith J. Cannata Spokane

IN THE PUBLIC EYE

Gossip poor substitute for real news

I come to the defense of Rep. Helen Chenoweth and to journalistic ethics, and I am a Democrat in doing so. I’ve worked with her on several occasions and testified before her House Veterans Affairs Committee. I know her as a hard-working representative.

I differ with her on several issues, but that’s how our system of government was meant to operate. It’s about listening to opposing views.

If my father was still the assistant managing editor of the former Spokane Chronicle, none of what is being reported would have passed his desk. It would have been spiked and the reporter would have been reminded of the standards the newspaper and publisher held inviolable.

None of what we read in the paper these days would have been in print because it isn’t news, it’s gossip. Gossip wasn’t important to anyone but the people involved. He understood the difference between hard news that emanated from the actions or statements of public figures and that their private lives should remain private. Gossip ran around the newsrooms about many of the headliners in Spokane but it just wasn’t news. It was gossip and left to lesser publishers.

I mourn the loss of this aspect in publishing. I grew up on it. I won’t comment on my father’s feelings about this as he’s still very much alive. I don’t indulge in gossip. I’ll stand by any politician who does a good job in office. John K. Savage Coolin, Idaho

Clinton, Chenoweth both lied

Excuse me, but Helen Chenoweth, just like Bill Clinton, denied over and over again that she had been in an adulterous affair. Chenoweth, just like Clinton, only admitted it when she had to. In this regard, they are certainly like two peas in a pod. Richard McInerney Spokane

Righteous have convenient priorities

Re: “Righteous indignation” (Sept. 19).

Pat Robertson claims he and his buddies are the trendsetters in American morality. Yet rarely, if ever, do these charlatans hold to the same standards issues like education, child hunger and poverty, homelessness, infant mortality rates, health care, discrimination, welfare and the continual oppression of the working class and unions in this country by corporate profiteers. Not to mention destruction to the environment and world humanitarian issues.

Aren’t these “moral” issues as well?

I cannot understand how or why infidelity should take precedence (or religious, for that matter) over some of these more pressing matters. One would think Robertson and the so-called leaders of righteousness would feel just a little more warmheartedness toward such endeavors, pursuing them as vigorously, instead of the discontent resulting in the political crucifixion of one who has. Things really haven’t changed much, have they?

Maybe we should be asking ourselves why? I think John F. Kennedy said it best when he said, “The great enemy of truth is very often not the lies, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myths, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.” Scott A. May Spokane

Buttafuoco clone should resign

I am a mother with a daughter who is 24.

President Bill Clinton should be ashamed. Was it necessary to have a dalliance with a girl not much older than his daughter? Is it too much to expect the then-48-year-old leader of our country to have practiced mode of decorum and satisfied himself with someone other than a young, star-struck, conniving and not-very-nice girl working as a page in the White House? Do we not require dignity, honor and loyalty from our president any more?

Compare Clinton to Joey Buttafuoco (the adult man who chose to have sex with the 15-year-old girl and denied it) and let’s apply the statement used to describe Buttafuoco to Clinton. If it looks like a snake, acts like a snake and crawls like a snake, it is a snake.

The issue isn’t that he had an extramarital affair. It’s that he chose a girl close to his daughter’s age, committed the act in the White House with an employee and lied, lied, lied.

Let’s hope Clinton will give thought to the very important official in his late 40s that may give his daughter a chance to earn such coveted knee pads. Food for thought, Clinton!

I’m sick to death of Clinton’s pathetic judgment and poor conduct. He should follow the advice he offered Nixon in 1972: resign and save the taxpayers the pain and expense of an impeachment. Bonnie J. Algar Liberty Lake