Letters To The Editor

Washington state

Insurers practice medicine illegally

Opinion editor John Webster’s editorial, “Encouraging step in right direction” (Aug. 17), raised an interesting point. When insurers interfere with a treating physician’s recommendations for care, they are practicing medicine.

Practicing medicine without a license is a crime. This should be decided in criminal court, not in the Legislature. Our legislators are not going to risk offending an industry that makes large contributions at election time.

It would be nice to see a few prosecutors bring charges against these lawbreakers. It would be even nicer to see the insurers taken out of medical decision making completely. Thomas S. Lowerison Spokane

`Stacked system?’ No, not at all

Re: Retired Washington State Patrol sergeant Pete Powell’s Aug. 18 letter.

From the Aug. 8 article by staff writer Craig Welch, it seems Powell went the extra mile to prove he was a resident of Oregon by obtaining not only a driver’s license but a voter registration card. As an experienced sergeant, Powell must know that Washington residents continually obtain post office box numbers in Oregon for the sole purpose of trying to establish an apparent place of residence for cheap vehicle registrations and that it’s a good defense of residency if one obtains a driver’s license plus voter status in another state.

I know this because I was a state trooper in King County for three years before I became a deputy sheriff in Spokane. I continually dealt with Washington residents who claimed they lived in Oregon. But they made mistakes - they didn’t obtain driver’s licensing or voter registration in Oregon.

Oh, the definition of trespassing is: One who knowingly enters or remains unlawfully in or upon the premises of another, (second degree). This is usually done to commit a crime. Also, police officers have the ability to enter onto others’ property, including some areas of curtilage, for official investigations.

I don’t agree with Powell on it being a “stacked system.” I feel it’s an especially good system when a case has no holes in it to fall through. Aaron M. Childress Spokane

Business and labor

Scabs part of problem, not the solution

Rob Routt (Letters, Aug. 17) had the gall to ask “What about us replacement workers?” He also made the ridiculous statement that he has been securing Steelworkers’ jobs.

First, the job you have at Kaiser is not yours. You have no claim to it. You didn’t earn it and you have no right to it. You swept in like a vulture when honest people were on strike fighting for fairness. It is not your job to lose. You have no future there. You will be tossed aside like an old rag when it’s all over and you knew that when you signed up to be a scab.

Second, you have done nothing to secure Steelworkers’ jobs. What you have done is give Kaiser the opportunity to carry on this dispute this long, attempting to starve its employees into giving in to an agreement that is unfair and wrong.

The so-called replacement workers are a blight on society, undermining what good people have fought for for over 100 years. Routt, when your adult children ask you why they can’t find a decent, livable-wage-paying job, sit the whole family down and tell them a bedtime story about how you made it happen. Daryl A. Smith Spokane

Replacements, you’re just opportunists

Rob Routt (Letters, Aug. 17) can believe anything he wants but he’ll get no thanks from me. He and thousands of others have allowed Kaiser to perform experiments for the last 11 months, instead of listening to the experienced work force of over 50 years.

Routt also believes he is securing jobs for Spokane Steelworkers. Why is it then some replacement workers believe they have found a full-time job, they tell everyone they have and continue to badmouth the experienced workers? Why have some replacement workers quit good jobs at some of the area mills to go to work for Kaiser as a temporary employee? Is something fishy here or do you really think they’re securing my job?

Kaiser was too busy preparing, hiring and training months before the strike to negotiate with the Steelworkers. A few managers I worked with don’t know compromise, let alone how to negotiate. They only know how to dictate. So until they receive or ask for help, the $93 million in losses will keep growing.

So, Routt, did I see your face on the bus that night? The night I was told to leave the plant? As I walked by five busloads of replacement workers, I was calling to you as I continue to call out to you each time you cross my picket line.

I have no sympathy for you. Dean F. Wise Hayden

Law and justice

Weak-kneed judge has got to go

Re: the Aug. 17 stories on Scott Yager’s sentence.

As I read the reasons Judge James Judd gave for his lame sentencing, amazement turned to disgust and anger. His conclusion that this murder was not heinous, atrocious or cruel is simply absurd.

Yager, by his intentional, unacceptable actions sacrificed his right to live in our society in any capacity.

Idaho people voted in the death penalty for circumstances such as this. If killing a police officer the way Yager did isn’t reason enough for the death penalty, nothing is.

Judd is charged with carrying out the voters’ wishes. He obviously cannot or will not do that and so should resign or be removed. This is just the kind of judge who could come along and decide in a few years that Yager has been rehabilitated and should be paroled . I sympathize with the families on both sides of this tragedy. However, I agree with and support the death penalty for this crime.

We don’t need more laws, just enforcement of the ones we have. But to do that, our society needs competent judges who have the backbone and sense of responsibility to society, not a bleeding heart.

I challenge good, law-abiding people to stand up for what is right and just. Write letters, vote and demand responsibility of criminals - and judges. David D. Young Greenacres

Don’t let unsatisfactory judge skate

To those who laud Judge James Judd as a man with the courage to apply his convictions against the death penalty, I ask, where was the strength of his convictions when he was running for judge? Did he have the courage to publicly state his opposition to the death penalty or was he a sneaky coward who either concealed it or at least misled the public by avoiding the issue?

I know the judges’ oath of office includes a provision to apply the laws of the jurisdiction and not change them to conform to his personal views.

To Coeur d’Alene citizens crying foul, I ask, what efforts did you take to learn this man’s opinions and ability to set them aside in reaching a judicial decision before you elected him? What are you going to do about it now? Are you going to ensure that he isn’t re-elected or will you let it slide? The law in Coeur d’ Alene has just been pre-empted by Judd’s personal beliefs.

We tend to get exactly the government we deserve. If we keep re-electing incumbents who do things we decry, then we have given those very things our approval with the only message any politician cares about: election.

I urge every citizen to remember the issues important to them involved in a given political position and vote for candidates who support those issues. If you don’t like the government you’re receiving, including judicial decisions, vote the incumbents out or shut up. Donald D. Jones Spokane

Murder being made a viable option

Recent years have found Americans wringing their hands, agonizing about what to do, what to do - about youth gone wild on school grounds. Mayhem and the murder of innocents with efficient firearms have brought an outcry for more gun control. Yet, our very own local Judge James Judd allows a vicious murderer to go on living in life without parole. What message goes out to troubled, confused youth with a sentence like this? Does this send a clear message about the sanctity of life or another confused one that becomes muddled in the mind of a borderline maniac?

I understood that the purpose of the death sentence was to emphasize the precious value of the life taken from the victim. I thought in clear cases of malicious, deliberate murder of innocents, the death sentence was appropriate.

I guess, Judd, I have always been wrong and your wisdom will prevail - and Americans will continue to periodically wring their hands and ask what to do, what to do. Jack L. Hall Post Falls

The environment

Timber sale only adds to the problem

Re: “Bark beetle timber sales get go-ahead.” Aug. 18.

Throughout the planning for this sale, the Colville National Forest agency has told us it must do a logging project to generate much-needed restoration dollars. In other words, have a timber sale, get some money and pay for past logging and road building damage to the public’s forest.

There are two issues the public should not be confused about.

First, the Forest Service has mixed in concerns for a large fire to occur if the trees are not logged. Logging to save our forests makes as little sense as selling all your clothes because you might eat too much and not fit in them. The Forest Service increases fire risk by logging - compacting soils with heavy equipment, increasing wind speed by removing large swaths of forest and leaving slash after logging is finished. Possibly, the greatest threat to starting a forest fire is to log big old trees, since they are the most fire-resistant. Yet, big old trees will be logged in this sale.

Secondly, restoration money doesn’t have to be tied to timber sales. One way to support Forest Service restoration is to call or write Sen. Patty Murray and ask her to support the Bryan Amendment. This would remove millions of dollars from the timber sale program and direct them to fish and wildlife improvement programs and road decommissioning funds. Elizabeth Allen, Forest Watch coordinator Republic, Wash.

It’s public health for the trees

In her Aug. 16 guest column, Linda E. Platts pointed out that western public forests are sick - 39 million acres of them at risk of catastrophic wildfire, six million acres dead or dying from insect infestation - but that private forests are healthy.

Plum Creek Timber Co., for instance, routinely gets higher marks on objective environmental audits than the Forest Service. That is because the subsidized Forest Service is pandering to nature cults and self-serving outdoor recreation groups that want the forests all to themselves.

These groups say that nature, if left alone by mankind, will arrive at some harmonious balance. Balderdash. Forests are as susceptible to disease or parasite epidemics as mankind is to plagues. And they always have been. Preventing or stopping these epidemics by forest management - logging, thinning and controlled burns - is no less necessary than public health measures are in dealing with plague.

Catastrophic wildfires always follow disease and insect epidemics in forests and carbon dating proves that such fires have swept the Inland Northwest for centuries. Eco-ignoramuses and phonies say such fires are swell and call them purifying. A comparable way of purifying an epidemic in humans would be to drop nuclear bombs on the infected and surrounding areas.

Instead of being subsidized with billions of tax dollars, the Forest Service should have to pay its own costs, like private companies (which also pay taxes) and care for our public forests as well as private companies do theirs. Edwin G. Davis Spokane

Better yet, let’s have flying salmon

Dan Hansen’s Aug. 10 article on Ralph Broetje’s 4,000 acre orchard above Ice Harbor Dam elicited warm, fuzzy responses on the human aspects of operating the dams on the Lower Snake River. Broetje, a religious and humble man, does much good with proceeds from his orchard. But as Hansen suggests, he has more than the good Lord to thank for his good fortune.

According to dam operation cost allocations mandated by Congress, irrigation is charged with 4.11 percent of maintenance and operation costs of the Snake River dams, an annual average of $9.4 million. Subsidized irrigation pumping costs and energy generating value of 106,000 acre feet of water used for irrigation rather than going through turbines adds another $1 million. Crop prices subsidies worth $800,000 bring the annual total to $11.2 million paid by rate and taxpayers to keep Broetje and 12 other farm operations in business.

There has been a number of pie-in-the-sky proposals for saving both the dams and the salmon, from fish friendly turbines to digging a bypass channel along the Snake River.

How about this plan? In this wondrous age of genetic manipulation, why can’t the flying gene of the flying fish be transferred to the salmon so they can simply fly right over the dams? Then, everyone could be happy. Buell A. Hollister Post Falls

Other topics

Y2K: Deploy Clinton, Gore overseas

From the recent media reports, it appears many of the critical systems that we depend on will be ready for the Y2K turnover of their computers. However, there have been recent revelations that the early warning systems of Russia and China might experience some complications which could put their nuclear forces on heightened alert.

My suggestion for allaying the fears of these two nations, should their computers fail or their systems report a false missile attack, is to have President Clinton spend the New Year’s holiday in Moscow. Likewise, Al Gore could position himself in Beijing. Both countries would be less inclined to believe they were under attack, should their early warning systems fail, while our leaders were standing on ground zero. As an added benefit, while they are there they might be able to pick up some extra funds for Al and Hillary’s campaigns. William E. Dehler Davenport, Wash.

Stranger’s generosity memorable

My husband Don and I wanted to do something special for our 48th anniversary. We decided to go to this very nice lodge in Noxon, Mont. It was a bed and breakfast so we went to a small local cafe for dinner.

The waitress came over to take our order. I said, “this is our 48th anniversary.”

She said congratulations and also a young man sitting across the room said “congratulations” and we said “thank you.”

We finished our dinner and were waiting for our bill. The young man got up and left.

When the waitress came over and said “that young man paid your bill and asked me not to tell you until he left.”

No one there knew him, so we couldn’t thank him.

So if you read this, thank you very much, you made our anniversary very special. Because you are special. Dorine J. Hanenburg Spokane

What will God say, Goodman?

Re Ellen Goodman’s Aug. 20 Opinion page column, “Old dogmatists learn new tricks.”

I have a question for Goodman: What if the creationists are right and she and Stephen Jay Gould are wrong? How will she explain her position to God? Donald L. Bailey Spokane

Guns are useful for protection

When I was a traveling salesman, I carried a firearm due to a threat by two thieves we helped arrest.

One day, I saw a friend along the highway and picked him up. He had been robbed by three men after his car broke down. We got gas and had returned to his vehicle when the robbers’ vehicle came along, pulled over and backed up toward us. The men got out and approached us. We didn’t have time to get away. I was scared and shaking as I pulled the pistol out of the glove compartment and steadied it on the door frame.

They looked so big, so mean, smiling as they walked toward us. I didn’t want to pull the trigger. One coming on my side of the car stopped when he saw the pistol pointed at him. He warned the other two I had a gun.

They all backed off, talking as they got into their vehicle and sped away. We did not say a word to them.

I’m not sure what would’ve happened if I had not had a firearm but I’m sure it would not have been good. We have a right to own and use firearms for protection. I thank God I had one that day. No, the gun wasn’t even loaded; the clip was still in the glove compartment. But just the presence of the pistol was enough to save our lives.

Get a permit and be prepared. It could really save your life. Paul E.Cooper Hayden Lake