Letters To The Editor

WASHINGTON STATE

Teachers deserve 15 percent raise

What happened in Littleton, Colo., has got to make us ask some fundamental questions about societal priorities and our schools. Schools are struggling and now is not the time to offer a 15 percent raise to a minority of our teachers at the expense of our experienced educators. The experienced will dwindle and the new ones won’t return for a second year’s 3 percent.

The issue is much bigger than money. This offer ignores the very teachers who have waited their turn for pay through some lean times. Now is not the time to divide and conquer the very people who offer stability to our schools and our kids.

After training, a policeman is given a gun and assigned a partner in order to get his job done. A teacher, on the other hand, is asked to report to a crowd, teach, turn his back and expect the best.

No, 15 percent is not too much to raise the pay of all teachers for the services required of them and the risks they are taking on a daily basis. We have the right to expect a lot of our teachers only if we given them the incentive to stay. What we need are committed, experienced teachers who can offer our kids a safe, stable educational environment. Let’s not run them off to other fields because we failed to recognize their value us. Bob L. Sanborn Spokane

Keep those `boorish’ letters coming

Congratulations to Brendon K. Hill for writing one of the most boorish and vitriolic letters that I have ever seen in The Spokesman-Review. (“Piece work pay for these slackers,” April 18). With such erudite individuals opposing their raise, teachers are bound to be successful in their highly justified quest for fair pay! Roger W. Erdman Spokane

Legislation backed by faulty findings

I was disappointed to read the April 4 Spokesman-Review editorial endorsing SHB 2091, being considered by the state Legislature based on the Forests and Fish report. This report is a deal struck between federal and state governments and the timber companies that would govern how logging is done for 50 years on millions of acres of privately owned land. It is based on questionable science and is a risky deal for salmon.

Contrary to what is implied in the editorial, the opposition goes far beyond environmental groups. At a legislative hearing on the bill concerns were aired by commercial fishing interests, several tribes and the League of Women Voters of Washington. More recently, a letter to Gov. Gary Locke signed by 28 scientists stated the report “deviates substantially from the findings of readily available scientific literature.”

If the deal is as good as its proponents claim, why is there such pressure to get it passed through the Legislature instead of going through the usual economic and scientific review of the Forest Practices Board, the agency responsible for creating logging rules in Washington for over 20 years? Why are the interests pushing for this deal in the Legislature unwilling to let the board simply do its job, no strings attached?

Finally, the editorial says of buffers along streams, “should they not work as well as expected, scientists could amend them.” It fails to mention this amendment would require the timber companies’ approval. Bonnie Mager, Eastern Washington field organizer Washington Environmental Council, Spokane

VIOLENCE

Make toll-free help lines available

The two predominant themes running through all acts of school violence are that all the perpetrators complained of being terribly lonely, and that many of their classmates felt that something was going wrong with the perpetrators.

Both themes could be addressed by the installation of toll-free counseling lines available specifically for students, 24 hours per day, and by the installation of suggestion boxes in all grade, mid-level and high schools. Of course, the anonymity of the student must be guaranteed.

These simple and inexpensive solutions would give the lonely student a place to which to turn for comfort and encouragement, and fellow classmates an outlet to vent fears without feeling like they are overreacting or “squealing.” Additionally, bullying must be actively curtailed, with severe penalties put in place for this vicious and antisocial act. Margaret E. Koivula Spokane

We had better get back to the Bible

How many innocent people have to die before it’s enough? Before we stop feeling sorry for the killers of our children? It’s not the guns that do the killing. It is the minds corrupted by the influences they are subjected to, or are allowed to see, do and hear.

Is “No Fear” really a good concept? Are the vide games that show fighting, killing and flowing blood good for the mind and the soul? Life does not have a reset button. It cannot be recharged or its batteries replaced.

It’s time to go back to the plan of putting fear into the thought process of the human mind. Not by intimidation, but by faith and belief there is a price to pay. You need to ask yourself why there is a faction of our society trying to eliminate the very book that gives us the guidelines to live by. The book that our founding fathers used to create this great nation. The book that has been around for over a thousand years. Why?

If we let that faction succeed, God help us all.

It is time to stand up and say enough is enough. To have the backbone to punish the wicked and be accountable for our own actions. To get back to teaching the value of life, truth, trust and respect for our fellow human beings.Let’s get back to the basics before the punishment is the end of your child’s life or maybe your own! Jim Washko Hayden Lake

U.S. AND THE WORLD

This war is illegal

President Clinton’s legacy war against Yugoslavia is totally irrational, since centuries-old hate cannot be bombed from the parties involved. Moreover, my Internet research shows this aggression is absolutely illegal, in that it is a violation of Article 2 of the U.N. Charter, which prohibits the use of force against a sovereign state not involved in aggression against other states; and the U.N. Security Council did not sanction the use of force. The U.N. Security Council would certainly have vetoed this action.

Knowing that, NATO bypassed it. It is a violation of NATO’s charter, which defines it as a defensive organization, committed to force only if a NATO member is attacked. No NATO member has been attacked.

The so-called Rambouillet “agreement” is a violation of the 1980 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which forbids coercion or force to compel any state to sign a treaty or agreement. Serbia is being compelled to sign this “agreement” through force.

It is a violation of the Helsinki Accords Final Act of 1975, which guarantees territorial frontiers of the states of Europe. The Rambouillet peace plan rearranges sovereignties by threatening severance of Kosovo through NATO force and occupation.

It violates international law, which prohibits recognition of provinces unilaterally declaring independence against the wishes of federal authorities. The inevitable result of bombing is recognition of Kosovo as an independent state.

Congress should immediately de-fund this illegal war, end the death and destruction, and redirect resources to refugee assistance. Donald R. Graham Spokane

Just so the economy’s OK, right?

Last month at a dinner and roast attended by nationally syndicated journalists, President Clinton made several jokes about Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr and the theft of nuclear secrets by the communist Chinese from the Los Alamos facility in New Mexico. The correspondents yukked it up, obviously enthralled by the president’s sense of humor.

Here’s one they might think is just as funny.

The stolen nuclear technology now makes it possible for China or one of its allies, such as Pakistan, Iran or North Korea, to manufacture suitcase-size hydrogen bombs. One or more of these bombs could then be loaded into the bay of a Third-World-registered freighter, then floated into the harbor of Seattle or Vancouver, British Columbia. It could then be detonated without anyone knowing where the bomb came from.

The resulting explosion would kill two to five million people instantly and create a radiation cloud, which would follow the same path the dust from Mount St. Helens did in 1981.

The radioactive particles, which have an active toxic life of over 40 years, would then affect the bone marrow of any human or animal they come in contact with. The particles would then, over a period of several weeks, destroy all of the white cells in the body, resulting in an AIDS/cancer-type of agonizing death. Millions would die from Seattle to Chicago. So what’s the punch line? As James Carville might say, “Who cares? It’s the economy, stupid.” Richard Le Francis Coeur d’Alene

PARTING SHOT

Accident cause for larger concern

Please excuse me for being naive, but when I read the article about a sheriff’s deputy who may seek compensation for a self-inflicted gunshot wound, I just had to wonder: Is it wise to have someone who managed to shoot himself with his own gun carrying a firearm in public? Daniel J. Schaffer Spokane