Letters To The Editor

SPOKANE MATTERS

Send plan back to drawing board

Spokane has discussed a north-south freeway for 30 years. Now, as it appears freeway funding is available, the Washington State Department of Transportation is planning phase one of construction on the outer limits of the north urban growth boundary in the Wandermere area. The DOT acknowledges the available funding will likely be spent before the freeway ever connects to Interstate 90. Full connection to I-90 will require an appeal to state and federal sources for more dollars. While Eastern Washington waits once again for freeway funding, DOT proposes winding traffic through city neighborhoods by a series of arterials. Will another 30 years pass?

As plans look now, at an enormous cost to taxpayers, we will succeed in promoting sprawl to the suburbs, slice through more neighborhoods with busy streets and be left with traffic congestion in the city’s core. Perhaps this freeway plan needs to be sent back to the drawing board. Mary Jane Thompson Spokane

Preserve rural vistas

I urge everyone to contact the county commissioners and implore them to ban all large outdoor advertising signs in the unincorporated rural areas of the county.

We live in a beautiful and scenic area and we must protect the magnificent views that we have along our roads. I recently have seen the loss of two such views.

Driving down the hill on Highway 395, just north of Hawthorne Road, the recently-constructed billboard on the west side of the highway obstructs a stunning view of Boyer Mountain and the surrounding hills. I could always feel the stress of the city just melt away as I reached that point on my way home - but no more!

The second view is one from my kitchen window, looking through the pines and across the rolling hills of Half Moon prairie. At night, I could gaze at the stars and watch the moon raising over the prairie. Not any more! Now one of those huge, lighted monstrosities sits at the top of the hill. Before, the view from Highway 395 and Half Moon Road had always been a 360 degree view of distant hills and prairie and trees, with a spectacular Mt. Spokane rising in the east.

What a travesty it would be to put more of these hideous, view-obstructing atrocities along the many scenic highways of our county. We wouldn’t think of obstructing the view of Spokane Falls. Should we think any less of our prairies and mountains?

I vow to not patronize businesses that advertise on those signs. Darlene M. Wilder Colbert

Get back to basics to survive Y2K

Spokane will survive Y2K with flying colors because:

The city and county computers are not, and have never been, functional - no matter how much money has been spent on them.

There is no one capable of using them if they did work.

Does anyone remember how to use an Eagle No. 2 soft lead pencil? David G. Darlow Spokane

WASHINGTON VIEWPOINTS

Current petition needs revisions

Currently circulating are petitions to reduce all auto license tabs to $30. Reducing taxes is always a popular notion, but this one would kill the only progressive tax in the state, i.e. those with more money and newer cars pay higher taxes and those with less money driving older cars pay less tax. I urge you not to sign that petition.

The petitioners need to rewrite the idea to retain some of the progessiveness of the current tab tax and to replace the lost taxes to the state. Two associated areas that should be taxed much more heavily are gasoline and studded tires. Our gasoline is the cheapest on the planet and encourages waste. One studded tire over its average life eats up one-third ton of asphalt and concrete with dubious increase in safety. The cost of current tabs could be cut in half with equalizing tax increases on gas and studs. Leonard Butters Spokane

ENVIRONMENT

Kudos for preserving scenic treasure

Kudos to Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Norm Dicks (both Washington) for introducing their Wild and Scenic Bill for the Hanford Reach. And thanks to those who recognize the chance we have to do something right for salmon. It’s time we finally and permanently protect the Reach for future generations and the hundreds of thousands of unique species that make up this rare ecosystem.

By protecting this last free-flowing and undammed stretch of the Columbia as a recreational wild and scenic river, we will not only save critical habitat for the last healthy salmon population in the entire Columbia River system, we will also give a boost to our national image. A wild and scenic river will promote our area in a positive way, bring recreation dollars, and attract new business. It sends a clear message that we have a national treasure right here in our backyard.

Wild and scenic designation will not impact existing water rights, does not involve private property and will not restrict recreation or fishing. The management plan for the Reach will be written by local stakeholders including county governments - giving everyone a say in how best to protect the resources and the river.

Please contact your legislators today and urge them to support the Hanford Reach Wild and Scenic Bill. Guadalupe C. Flores Kennewick

Good to hear young voices

I’d like to thank Joshua Radford, (Letters, March 27) age 16, for his thoughtful, well-written letter regarding the Forest Service’s proposed plan to heavily log or clear cut 25,000 acres of trees to “save” them from a tiny beetle. And, I’d like to congratulate his parents for doing a terrific job raising this young man.

Joshua mentioned he sat through a school presentation on the bark beetle issue and heard two sides of the story, the Forest Service’s interpretation, and the Spokane-based Lands Council’s opposing opinion. In the end, he felt it was clearly obvious the Forest Service was proposing nothing more than another sneak attack on our forests to “make a few people a few dollars richer.”

Many people agree with Joshua. Two years ago we were told our forests were diseased and dying and must be massively clear-cut to prevent forest fires. It came under the guise of “Salvage Logging,” and many healthy forests succumbed to the ax as the Forest Service and timber corporations winked at each other and pocketed the money. The newest scare, the bark beetle epidemic, should more rightfully be called “Son of Salvage Logging, Part Two.” Clinton is not the only one guilty of “wag the dog” tactics.

It’s always heartening for us old-timers to have young people speak up for the environment. They will, after all, inherit this planet. Nancy Lynne Coeur d’Alene

IN THE PAPER

Tale of state worker day brightener

I am proud to be an American when I read about a man like Chang Mook Sohn, state economist (“For him numbers don’t lie,” Region, March 18). It is a good feeling - one I don’t get often from the news. It is a joyful feeling, hopeful for our United States of America.

Sohn, a little man with a big office - who finds power only peripherally interesting, and beauty in logic and Mozart - seeks ultimate truth. Sounds like integrity plus to me.

Thanks, Spokesman-Review, for headlining Sohn’s story. You made my day! Helen E. McDaniel Spokane

Crisis needs some humor

Many thanks to Dan W. Semler for his well-written and very funny letter of March 24, “Those meddling environmentalists.” Since The Spokesman-Review reader is usually faced with anti-environment articles from denialists such as D.F. Oliveria, with his “globaloney warming,” and Jim Kershner, with his strange fondness for his pollution-spewing 4X4, it is a relief to read an intelligent assessment of this crisis.

Semler does have it right, “If we can convince our legislators to ignore the environment, maybe it will go away.” Margaret E. Koivula Spokane

Cartoonist left one out

Steve Benson’s (March 28) cartoon of the round-the-world balloon and the Spirit of St. Louis was a good one, and very appropriate, but there was a significant omission. The Voyager airplane deserves to be included in that montage.

The Voyager’s flight around the world in nine days without refueling was in the same league in every respect. Bob McClure Post Falls

PUBLIC EYE

True peace focus of this season

Holy war?

Those two words contradict each other, like an oxymoron. If this war in Yugoslavia began centuries ago by Serbian Christians fighting Albanian Muslims, then what about what Jesus says in Matthew 5:44, “Love your enemies..and pay for those who persecute you”?

A religious war does not make sense, and we are seeing the consequences. True Christians are to live a life holy and set apart for Christ, not be at war!

Let’s focus on the cross of Christ this Easter and learn about real peace. Jennifer D. Gibbs Spokane

Where is super power taking us?

To those of you who reject our participation in the United Nations war in Kosovo, and to those who accept it, I would like to remind you that we bear some responsibility for this war. Personally, I object to our participation. We cannot police the world.

Consider the alternatives: If we insist on supporting armed conflict, the money being spent on our part of the war could have been used to assist the ethnic Albanians to stay in Kosovo and fight for their homes instead of becoming refugees.

We could, and may soon have to, face the reality that this show of force is getting nowhere.

We might take seriously beating our swords into plowshares. Does any of us have the faintest idea how much munitions and weaponry we export or title as “foreign aid?” We have supported wars all over the globe. Is that what we mean by being a “super power?” We cannot any longer justify supporting the Schools of the Americas, which trains armies for other countries. Without modern weapons, international war might not disappear, but it would certainly be more difficult.

I am old enough to remember a United States which considered foreign misfortunes with compassion, and shrank from foreign entanglments. Beware of catchy slogans! Are you sure we can save the world for democracy? I used to be so proud to be a citizen of the United States. Lately, there are times I would like to hide my face. Where is our leadership taking us? Peggy Faust Coeur d’Alene

Get behind country’s decision

Yes, I say now is the time to drop missiles on the Serb’s capitol. Let them know we are tired of their communist slaughter. This is another Hitler and Stalin in action, trying to wipe out a race of people. If they do not stop their march on Kosovo, keep shelling the Serb cities. Then and only then will it stop.

I say it is time to bring back our assassin squads and get rid of all the dictators of these warring nations.

The United States does not start wars, but we finish them. If we had not stepped into World War II, Hitler would now be running Europe and Russia, and Tojo would be running China and the United States.

So wise up, you bleeding hearts. Get behind your country’s decision to help the Albanians. Harry M. Davidson Spokane

Air more pleasant with a Democrat

See how much more pleasant is the tone of public political discourse when a Democrat president commits the U.S. military establishments to dangerous applications of deadly force in far distant lands for obscure and unconvincing reasons.

If a Republican president had proposed undertaking what our Democrat president is now doing, the Democrats in Congress and in the mainstream media would have a nonstop hissy fit. They would strive with all their considerable might to inflict on the Republican commander in chief the political death of a thousand demogogic cults. The congressional Democrats and their willing partners in the press would endlessly remind us that bombing by U.S. military forces is making refugees of thousands of innocent, helpless people, all the fault of an evil and misguided Republican president. Someone might even point out that the cost of a single downed and destroyed U.S. aircraft equals or exceeds the amount of tax dollars spent by the office of a Justice Department-appointed independent counsel.

How fortunate we are to be spared all of such unpleasantness from congressional demagogues as a reward for allowing 25 percent of the electorate to endow us with a Democrat president. Leonard C. Johnson Troy, Idaho

America the bullies

We wonder how many others feel like we do? That America the beautiful has turned into America the bullies, using a Billy-club. Jim and Margaret Hansen Spokane

PEOPLE AND SOCIETY

A little courtesy can go a long way

I travel daily between the Spokane Valley and Cheney. Each way, I manage to log 25 miles on my car, and on my nerves.

Today as I was attempting to enter traffic from the Sprague Avenue onramp, I was provided the space in front of a 18-wheel semitruck so large that only the “a” and the “c” of the name Mack was visible in the rear window. As the driver slowed down to let me in, I thanked him for his common courtesy with a wave.

This next few months will be a trial for those of us who travel that stretch of road together. I believe we can be nice to each other, and the result will be a calm, relaxing drive for us all.

A few points of etiquette I think we could all try, and be surprised how good it will make us feel in a situation in which we have no control anyway.

Don’t crowd. Leave space in front of you for the maniac who loses it and starts lane changing.

Share your space. We all have to get through that little space together.

Don’t be mad; even the worst drivers get drivers licenses. Just be glad you aren’t the one who gave them out.

Be courteous. Use your turn signal. Although I find traffic in the lane I want tends to speed up when I use my signal, I hope those people will look at etiquette rule No. 2.

Be gracious. Thank the driver(s) who let you into line. Tammy M. Wulff Cheney

Tatoos do not equal drug use

Re: March 26 front page article, “Heroin use rises sharply across region.” I believe I speak for many when I take offense to and disclaim the ignorant and prejudiced remarks made by Toni Lodge, wherein she announced there is a big connection between having tattoos or piercings and being a user of intravenous drugs.

As an individual who is quite visibly tattooed, yet somehow musters zero appetite for either drugs or alcohol, I resent the perpetuation of the stereotype that people who are adorned with tattoos are self-destructive, uncivilized, semi-cognizant, morally impoverished, defiant or any other of the presumed character deficiencies that supposedly manifest into an urge to decorate one’s mind.

Thanks to remarks such as Toni Lodge’s, I can enjoy afresh the suspicious gazes of those who have read and actually believed such drivel. They now feel safe to assume they can size people like me up with a simple reliable “tattoos-equals-junkie equation.” Statements that so broadly sweep a diverse population into a single presumption are socially and personally damaging, and have no basis in truth.

Please readers, don’t assume that tattoos or piercings are a tell-tale indicator of drug use. Some of us are quite vocally opposed to afflicting our precious brains with stupefying toxins. Gail Somers Coeur d’Alene