Letters To The Editor

WASHINGTON STATE

Talent goes where pay is better

What is the value of a good education? Quantifying the value of an education is a difficult task because it affects so many facets of our lives. It affects our social interactions, self-esteem and financial capability. A good education provides a strong basis for success and teachers are an integral part of this process.

It stands to reason that the teaching profession will attract better teachers if we commit to pay them fairly.

Andy Kelly’s April 21 letter, “Full pay for full year’s work,” fails to account for the large number of unpaid hours a teacher spends in preparation and evaluation of their courses. My parents both teach. I’ve seen the additional hours they spend preparing for class. Teachers work a full year in 180 days and should be paid accordingly.

I am a senior at Whitworth College. I strongly considered pursuing a career in teaching but common sense overcame my sense of public service. Instead, I chose computer science as a field and now have a job that pays twice what a starting teacher makes.

Education is so important, yet we want to skimp when it comes to paying for it. The teaching profession yearly loses the best and brightest to higher-paying fields for the same reason I’m not going to teach. Why should I place a great deal of effort in the thankless task of educating your children when my talents will be more justly rewarded in a different field?

If you want the best, you have to pay for it. Tyler Starr Edwards Spokane

BUSINESS AND LABOR

SCC organization’s ideas strange

Thank you for the very fair editorial of April 21. As a Spokane Community College instructor teaching essentially full-time since 1988, I have difficulty with K-12 teachers complaining about “low” salaries beginning at $21,000. Fifty percent of community college instructors sigh enviously. We are paid about $12,000 for 10 or 20 years.

When I fret about my low pay, people advise getting involved with my union. Some union members say, “The adjuncts need to get up off their butts and do something.” As a dues-paying member, I informed my union, the AHE at the Community Colleges of Spokane, that I wanted to run for president. But AHE bylaws prohibit adjuncts from being president. I appealed this decision.

Here are the results: Many AHE senators thought only tenured faculty members are effective faculty advocates. Several thought anyone could be AHE President. Others compared the AHE president position to the U.S. president, saying we need limits.

Since two-thirds of the senate was not present at the meeting, the AHE wouldn’t vote on this issue.

This disappoints me. Some of the senators and executive board have tenure but only hold bachelor’s degrees. I have two master’s degrees, yet don’t argue that AHE officers and senators aren’t qualified. In addition, any citizen 35 years or older may serve as U.S. president. Is the AHE implying I am not a citizen?

Prohibiting adjuncts from running for president is like elections held in communist and fascist countries, and I do think union elections must mirror democratic elections. Terry Boyden Knudsen Spokane

Strike critic doesn’t understand

Anita Moore (Letters, April 11) needs to take time to gather all pertinent information and understand the facts, instead of focusing on one blip of time. I thought that kind of narrow-minded prejudice died in the 1960s.

Certain facts are clear: Kaiser had its most profitable year ever. Its work force was setting production records in all areas with half the people (1,100 vs. 2,500) and a wage the same as it was 15 years ago. While they scream about efficiency, management salaries have outpaced inflation and their numbers are a staggering 3-to-1 ratio (350 vs. 1,100), while industry leaders Alcan and Alcoa maintain 8-to-1 and 10-to-1 ratios.

The picket line is a highly charged arena. It is the only place where my co-workers and I come face to face with the people taking our jobs. You see, none of them proudly displays a Proud to be a Kaiser replacement worker sticker. Remember, we offered to return and the company refused, choosing a less-skilled work force with no long-term commitment.

Walk in my shoes, Moore. Your company comes to you and thanks you for setting records in all areas. But you now stand outside this gate for months and watch as it pays someone with no experience more than you had asked for in money and benefits. Let’s see you being happy as they drive by.

Do your research. Come by the hall on Trent and talk with some picketers or call your mayor. Understand before you judge.

Willful ignorance is dangerous. Dave White Rathdrum, Idaho

Right-to-work laws oppressive

I cannot believe right-to-work laws exist. Many business owners and lawmakers would have you believe these laws benefit the working man. Bull! All these laws do is give corporations the ability to deny employees a living wage.

Do you realize that out of the 21 states that have right-to-work laws, 18 of those states fell below the U.S. median income in 1997, Idaho included? Of those 18 states, 33 percent show a lower income than from 1996.

Out of all 21 of these states, only one had an income of over $40,000 and that was by just $405.

Of those with the 10 lowest incomes in the nation, right-to-work states rank second, fourth, seventh, eighth, ninth and 10th.

Idaho is a great place to live but a terrible place to try and make a living. Minimum wage was created to give young kids and those just starting out a chance to survive; it was not meant to become the standard wage.

The median wage in Idaho is $34,441. This comes out to $17.22 and hour. How many people reading this can say they make that much?

Corporate executives in this country are vastly overpaid for the contributions they make. If there is a law that needs enacting, it should be one that limits the amount executives make tied to the amount the lowest employee makes. Michael J. Hart Post Falls

VIOLENCE

Thank hippie culture for current ills

Recent shootings in schools, which liberals are rushing to blame on firearms and TV, are not the fault of firearms or TV at all.

The problem began in the 1960s, when society decided to allow children to set the standards for our culture. Young people were no longer taught family and moral values. They began to grow long hair, take drugs, mutilate their bodies and live in communes professing to practice “free love.”

The adults of these times compounded this remarkable cultural takeover by reversing their traditional roles and they began to emulate the young people. They began to wear their hair long and wear earrings in their navels right along with the kids.

Until adults resume the responsibility of bringing up their children by teaching and practicing morality, respect and family values, we will undoubtedly witness more of these tragic incidents.

The passage of hundreds of thousands of new laws against legal firearms and TV shows will do nothing to stop it. James D. Tarbert Fruitland, Wash.

Young must learn moral absolutes

The reason that the youths of today are more violent is that they are being taught relativism and evolution.

Relativism, in essence, says that there is no absolute truth or standard by which to judge right and wrong. What may be true for one person may very well be false for another, and no truth is valued as better or worse than another.

Evolution says that we are all accidents in the universe; that we evolved from chance occurrences under chance conditions. It’s time to realize the impact that these ideas have.

In reality, these ideas allow for me to believe whatever I want, do whatever I want, and have no moral obligation to anything but me. If any god is as viable as any other, then I can worship Hitler’s spirit, or Satan, or myself, and it must be accepted as my truth. This applies even if my god tells me to massacre a bunch of people. If we are all accidents anyway, who really cares? If there is no truth, no one can sit and say what is right or wrong except me, even if I feel the need to kill your children.

When you put ideas like this into the minds of angry, outcast young people who are naturally rebellious, it breeds horrors like what we have seen. These young people do not recognize a truth beyond themselves, a moral absolute for judging right and wrong, nor do they value human life. When coupled with the media, videogames and accessibility to firearms, tragedies like we have seen can come as no surprise. Mindy M. Kanally Spokane

Society, not God, responsible

In defense of God, I want to address clergyman who tell their congregations to wait for eternity for answers to why we witnessed the horrors of the Colorado shooting. Does God make guns? Does God ignore and ostracize groups of people? Does God corral so many students into educational institutions that individuals are lost to the notice and guidance of authorities?

We have caused all the problems involved in intentional killing and with the God-given intelligence of mature human beings, we are capable of solving them if we look to ourselves for the answers. We are only taking the consequences of our societal choices. Don’t blame God. Gerri Graber Rice, Wash.

THE MEDIA

Messenger, share the blame

Spokane news media, listen up, for out of the mouths of our future leaders comes some very sage advice, especially in light of the violence at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., on April 21. Among the contributions for the April 19 article, “A safer campus,” teen students have their own ideas. One idea practically jumped off the page: “Reduce media coverage of violent or dangerous incidents to reduce the number of copycat incidents.”

Newscasters, listen to yourselves. Writers, read what you write. The media approach in Spokane is so negative! The blood and guts, gloom and doom, if-it-bleeds, it-leads mentality of media coverage is making all this news become so normalized that it fosters more and more of the same. Is that really your purpose in life, to create more crime by what and how you report?

If I want sensationalism, I can read any number of the tabloids at the supermarkets.

I commend KREM 2 News for a recent piece on a young girl who was a victim of a hit and run. Did they focus on the violence? No. They didn’t have to. We already knew it was a violent crime. They focused on the outpouring of help and prayers of the community, the strength and courage of the girl and her family. What a refreshing approach.

Reporters, start helping the community. Encourage and advance the positive side of the what you report. See what your positive influence can do. Linda L. Rust Spokane

Violent examples must end

Whether or not popular culture vehicles, such as feature film, can be proven responsible for the violence we are witnessing around us, Hollywood and the producers in other media must now be forced to curb violence in their works in respect of the possibility they are even minutely responsible.

While watching live television coverage of the Colorado tragedy, I noticed that while students had for sometime known of the existence as well as the personality of the Trenchcoat Mafia, law enforcement and school district officials knew nothing. How many times have we heard of citizens alerting officials to potential conflict, only to have those warnings ignored? While parents must see to raising their children, these officials are also responsible for keeping society safe.

For many years I have had the privilege of working in numerous Native American communities in Alaska. While not claiming or pretending to speak for them, I humbly feel the elders of those cultures could help us see more clearly the source of our ailment. I believe we might hear them speak of self-pride, spirituality, sense of belonging and purpose. I hope one day soon we “Americans” will open our ears to the wisdom of ancient cultures - cultures that have traveled to the bottom of their spiritual crevasses and scratched their way skyward with the bloodied ends of their fingertips to rise again with a thorough understanding of their existence. Patrick M. Murphy Elk

Example chosen made the real point

Re: Jamie Tobias Neely’s April 23 story regarding violence in the media and its attraction to young people.

Neely says, “On Tuesday evening, television shows competing with coverage of the shooting included ‘NYPD Blue’ and `The Rockford Files: If It Bleeds … It Leads”’ The implication was that these two shows depicted violence while the news aired the reality on other networks.

Evidently, Neely did not see “The Rockford Files” and does not recognize that time-honored press phrase, “If it bleeds, it leads.” The “Rockford Files” that aired on Tuesday night brought me to tears, not because of the violence involved (there was none) but because it showed a press run amok. It depicted a press making judgments that altered and destroyed people’s lives and then not printing or airing retractions. It showed a press rushing to judgment.

It showed the kind of press I saw all day Tuesday as I watched coverage of the shooting in Colorado. I saw a press which aired speculation and rarely backtracked when proven wrong.

I hope the next time Neely writes an editorial and gives examples to prove her point, she researches better. I would like to see if The Spokesman-Review and Neely prove the point of “The Rockford Files”: if it bleeds, it leads. Certainly, your reference to the show as a vessel for violence is more titillating than the reality - and more self-serving. Deborah Lawrence Hale Greenacres

THEATER REVIEWS

Negative judgments a disservice

We recently attended the play, “Fences,” put on by the Onyx Theatre Group in collaboration with the Spokane Civic Theatre. Based on the reviews by your paper’s Jim Kirshner and Jerry Kraft of The Inlander, we almost decided not to go. Luckily, we changed our minds.

Instead of witnessing an “embarrassingly inept and unconvincing production” (The Inlander), we were treated to a sensitive and well-acted performance which was significant and timely, successfully portraying the essence of the “black experience” at that period of the nation’s history. It was warmly received by the audience.

While the play obviously had some problems in its initial performances (one of the key actors withdrew), the Onyx Theatre Group came through with flying colors in its efforts to correct those early glitches. The drama reviewers might be well served to take another look.

However, these negative reviews undoubtedly did their damage to a theatre group which is badly needed in Spokane. And more importantly, local drama critics should remember that Civic Theatre productions are performed by amateurs who are working like the rest of us in order to make ends meet. Since they do not earn a living by acting, it must be remembered that they become involved in such stage productions for the love of the craft. Thus, the scathing indictments of their efforts would seem to be unwarranted. Bruce M. Mitchell Spokane

Reviewer, not show, lacking

A theater critic - censor, fault finder, antagonist, complainer, nit-picker - slithering under the guise of “reviewer” tends to cast doubt on theater productions. The latest review of “Fences,” a Civic-Onyx co-production, was hit with one of the most negative reviews that I have ever read. I don’t recall any other productions getting this type of review.

Since I would not accept the review of one individual, I went to see the play on April 17. I enjoyed the play and, judging from the comments in the hall during intermission, the audience - an almost packed house - enjoyed the play as well.

The performance by H.W. Anthony as Troy was marvelous, considering that this is an amateur theater, and no one was expecting James Earl Jones. I do realize that what I saw was not the opening night, when actor/ actress lines are not tight. Nevertheless, this was an enjoyable production.

Congratulations to the Civic and Onyx for their collaborative work which I would like to see more of in the future. I hope that individuals did not miss this show based on one person’s opinion.

Maybe it’s time to have a critique for “theater critics”? Edward Thomas, Jr. Spokane