Letters To The Editor

Idaho viewpoints

Problem is `irresponsibles,’ the media

Re: “Study says Idaho isn’t great place to raise kids” (July 28). In fact, it’s “one of the worst places in America to raise a child” according to the liberal Washington, D.C.-based think tank, Children’s Rights Council. The group looks at abuse, poverty, neglect, lack of prenatal care, teen births and divorce. Even if true, what do these statistics have to do with being a good place to raise children? It would simply mean Idaho has more than its fair share of irresponsibles.

If the problem were defined as “Idaho has more than its fair share of irresponsible parents or people who can’t afford children,” then the emphasis would shift to the need for citizens to get their act together and the solution would shift toward individual accountability.

These headlines are symptomatic of a major problem in America: lack of individual responsibility fostered by a liberal media. Once the problem is defined as Idaho being a poor place to raise children, it naturally leads many to wonder what the government can do to fix it. Sure enough, The Spokesman-Review found experts to talk about how more funding is needed.

Liberals hate anything that comes close to people being held accountable, taking care of their own needs or relying less on entitlements and the labor of others.

The study had nothing at all to do with the healthy majority of responsible people who raise responsible children. If it did, then the beauty, freedom and outdoor opportunities of Idaho would have shown it to be one of the greatest places for raising children. Foster Cline, M.D. Sandpoint

Washington state

Special, moneyed interests in control

Re: “Growers sent burn script to Ecology”(July 18) and “Governor investigates wheat deal” (July 22).

The scandal over wheat stubble burning is important not only on its own merits but as an example of a trend in this region which should concern us all. The Department of Ecology, whose job is to protect our health, made a secret, industry-driven deal with the wheat growers, excluded the public and physicians from the process and then followed a public relations script written by the growers that was designed to mislead us into believing this was all done with our best interests in mind.

Why would a public agency behave this way? It’s unlikely DOE has some secret agenda to injure children and asthmatics. It’s more likely that public agencies that once acted to protect us are now protecting those with the biggest bankroll and the most political power. In Idaho, for example, lead levels along some beaches vastly exceed what’s considered safe. The EPA wants to post warning signs. Politicians, and the special interests they serve, don’t. No signs have been posted and children are innocently playing in lead-laced mud.

In Washington, the wheat growers have the biggest wallets. So, in a few weeks, our children will be breathing smoke laced with known toxins and carcinogens. Gov. Gary Locke will have to answer for the wheat stubble burning scandal. But ultimately, if we are to fix this broken system, we’ll have to demand that those we elect be accountable to us, not special interests. Vivian Burgard Spokane

Acreage level for burns set too high

Staff writer Karen Dorn Steele has done the Spokane community a great service by informing area residents of possible duplicity between the Washington Association of Wheat Growers and the Department of Ecology.

Over the last few years, wheat stubble burning in Eastern Washington has increased dramatically, from 40,000 acres in 1995 to 229,000 acres in 1998, and the DOE has determined that cutbacks must be based on the larger number of acres. Why do this when the 189,000-acre increase impacts the respiratory problems of many Spokane-area residents?

There are tens of thousands of people living here and we need to be more aware of the health problems smoke is causing. Clean air is for all people and should not be polluted by excessive smoke.

The Department of Ecology and Gov. Gary Locke can make a positive difference in the lives of children and adults now by putting their health needs first and returning burn levels to 1995 levels or lower. Dianne Crumley Spokane

Welfare

We neglect young at our own peril

Future generations will undoubtedly look upon our current decisions concerning welfare mothers and infant care as both shortsighted and dangerous.

A 1998 Rand Corporation study verified that infants provided proper care and qualified interventions in their early months exhibit, 30 years later, the following advantages: better grades, greater employment, higher income, lower welfare usage, reduced criminal activity and decreased child and substance abuse.

In addition, for every dollar spent on early care and intervention, $7.16 was eventually saved for the taxpayers.

The good news is that the Early Head Start, Casey Family Partners and County Public Health Nurse programs in Spokane are increasingly recognized as leaders in our state for providing valuable attachment resources for at-risk infants and their parents. The bad news is that such programs do not have the personnel to reach every at-risk parent and child. Ironically, with such help available, our state legislators have chosen to move in the opposite direction, turning at-risk families loose with radically insufficient child care for their infants.

How many more dysfunctional young adults violently acting out the gruesome impact of poor brain development will it take for us to realize that it is in everyone’s best interest to do everything possible for our youngest citizens?

I trust that one day our society will recognize that the earliest years are the most important in terms of emotional and mental development. I also trust that we will eventually prioritize the best care possible for every infant born. Only then will we begin to end the persistent cycle of poverty and dysfunction that so often repeats itself from one generation to the next. Dr. Kent T. Hoffman pediatric psychotherapy, Marycliff Institute, Spokane

Getting tough punishes the children

The letter about not coddling welfare mothers hit my anger button. Substitute the words “welfare babies” for “welfare mothers” and you get a different picture: Don’t coddle welfare babies! Throw them out into the woods to starve, as the ancients did with their unwanted children. Let irresponsible boyfriends abuse them or let them be left home alone in dangerous conditions. All because their parents made poor choices.

A baby belongs with its mother for the first year of its life, at least. A poor, uneducated girl has little chance of earning enough money to pay for adequate child care, plus rent, food and medical care.

All these women who go back to work right after their children are born should re-examine their priorities. Nothing in life is as important as that first year with your child. The bonding ensures future good relationship with your child. Breast-feeding ensures optimal good health for your child.

If you can’t do his for your baby you made a poor choice to have one in the first place. I raised a child alone and took a job as a servant to have my baby with me.

I know that people put possessions above children’s welfare; the car, other things we think we have to have come first.

You don’t get a second chance to raise a child. You need to do it right the first time. Dorothy E. Carter Spokane

Keeping mothers at home is crucial

Everyone’s quick to blame the need for welfare on the mothers of fatherless children but the majority of welfare recipients aren’t just young, unwed mothers. Rather, they’re uneducated women who believed some jerk’s promises of happily ever after. Then, he gets bored and takes off, never looking back long enough to send a child support check.

Those uneducated women could conceivably survive on minimum wage if these deadbeat dads paid their child support.

How about making it a crime to financially abandon your children? Don’t just sit around complaining about the continual need for welfare, start making it a crime where the crime begins.

We complain about children shooting other children in our schools and on our streets but we want them tossed into some uncaring day care from infancy so their mothers can work two jobs to make ends come close to meeting. Then we wonder what went wrong. Or, give the woman the only other current option: stay with an abusive man just because it’s the lesser of the two evils.

It should be required that all mothers stay home with their children until school age. Look at the advancement of and low crime rates of countries that encourage mothers to stay home.

Who’s minding the store? Not the mothers any more, we’re seeing to that. Let’s give major concessions to women who choose to stay home in the most honored but least respected profession of motherhood. When we choose to look away from deadbeat dads it becomes our responsibility to provide the nation’s children the lost income. Jo Young Pinehurst, Idaho

All of us don’t just ride the system

Re: “Forget coddling welfare mothers.”

I understand there are a lot of people, not just mothers, who abuse our welfare program. But there are a lot of us who have not abused the program but have used it to better ourselves.

I was on welfare. I had three babies, worked part-time and went to college. I did graduate from college and I have a good job. So when you say “those mothers,” please do not include everyone. Some people do use the program to better themselves. Maybe some fathers should help support their children and that would cut down on so much welfare going out. Lori Rukes Spokane

If you want to be lazy, be on your own

Re: “Group praises Idaho for welfare reduction,” (July 26). No one said that you have to live off minimum wage and pay rent. The whole trick is to quit playing around and study hard and stay in school so you can get a decent job, so you can pay rent or buy a home! If you do that, you don’t have to depend on me, a taxpayer, to support lazy you! Donald R. Thomason Moses Lake

Growth and development

Fuel depot safe enough - go for it

Re: “BNSF applies for depot” (July 17).

I say, put the dang depot in and shut up. The idea is good, the plan is good and it is needed by the railroad. So it would sit on the aquifer. Big deal. So does your car, your gas stations and the major petroleum distribution facilities. They don’t have all the protection that the refueling depot would have.

If the people who oppose the idea drive any motorized transport, then they are hypocrites because they support more facilities than the railroad has.

Also, the tanks would be above ground and thus easier to check for leaks than all of the underground gas station tanks. Who says that those tanks aren’t leaking? And if they are, who pays to clean it up?

Support the railroad and let them spend their money. You can always have your car but without the railroads the nation is dead. Donald Carnegie Otis Orchards

It’s hard to take BNSF seriously

Let me see if I understand this correctly. Burlington Northern and Santa Fe had some tanker cars full of highly toxic, frozen liquid ammonia derail a few miles north of me and, according to this newspaper, the railroad did not immediately report the spill to local emergency dispatchers?

It makes one wonder what BNSF considers an emergency, doesn’t it?

These are the same clowns who average about a derailment a month, are being sued to clean up toxic messes in just about every state they operate in, are responsible for innumerable wildfires all along their lines and now want to locate a half-million gallons of their diesel fuel over my drinking water. I don’t think so. I can’t even trust them to maintain their tracks or operate their trains safely.

But for the grace of God and a fortuitous combination of meteorological events, Moyie Springs could have just as easily become another Bhopal. And that’s just the point: It wasn’t their state-of-the-art safety technology that saved their bacon this time but a windy day. Robert V. Riddle Post Falls