Letters To The Editor

SPOKANE MATTERS

Obviously, Barnes doesn’t get it

I applaud the Spokane City Council for finally taking a formal, public stand banning discrimination against homosexuals. But Councilman Orville Barnes deserves to be soundly spanked for his comment in the Jan. 26 Spokesman-Review justifying his vote against the proposal: “I really abhor the idea of government telling any person how to react to another.”

Ouch! Our small-minded friend missed the point of the council’s attempt to outlaw bigotry. Or does he honestly and sincerely abhor the idea of our government protecting the basic civil rights of certain specific U.S. citizens? I abhor the idea that an entire segment of our population should be arbitrarily thrust outside the protective arms of Constitutional rights and liberties merely because of personal and private lifestyle choices.

Here’s a scary thought: Why don’t we let Barnes and his ilk come up with a list of who should benefit from the supreme law of the land? I’d like to see that list before the next election for City Council. Mary Kate Sorensen Spokane

For now, fairness is one up - thanks

To the members of the City Council who voted to pass the human rights ordinance, I salute your courage and wisdom in guaranteeing basic civil rights for (nearly) all Spokane citizens. Thank you.

To the members of Spokane’s Christian community who vehemently opposed the ordinance and are now scrambling to gather signatures for a repeal measure, I deplore your lack of compassion and human decency. Your narrow-minded bigotry harms us all. Anne Groeschel Spokane

OVER THE LINE

Prohibition wrong, bad in all respects

It’s a mistake to seek legal discrimination against the right to peacefully parade through the streets of Coeur d’Alene. If political authorities prohibit civil liberties, they transform into criminals those who trust in God as the ultimate authority.

It does not threaten liberty when drugs are used or manufactured, payments are made for sex or people express their opinions in a civilized manner. Our nation’s founders would be criminals under present civil law. These men grew hemp, used opiates, solicited prostitutes and barred women from politics. When civilians are criminalized by and taxed for the enforcement of prohibition, then liberty is sacrificed. Authorized discrimination against any non-criminal group is detrimental to the civil liberties of all.

Prohibition does not nurture respect for authority but leads to criminal and rebellious behavior. If the Aryan Nations group is to be denied access to legal forms of expression, they’re likely to resort to illegal ones.

Would the landlords and business owners of Coeur d’Alene support a parade more politically correct? Maybe one that celebrates divorce or adultery? Just look who’s throwing stones. Frances Crabtree Spokane

Bill would puff up prices

Re: “Bill puffs up designated smoking areas, (Jan. 27). Although I agree with the premise of not being assaulted by smoke, I take exception to the reasoning that there will be no cost. Where does state Sen. John Anderson, R-Boise, get the idea there will be “no fiscal impact?” Who is to pay for the little buildings? If it becomes a government project, each one will cost at least $35 per square foot. If the private sector pays, everyone’s prices go up. Robert F. Miley Spokane

Spokane already has an ice rink

After reading the letter about a charming little ice skating rink in Coeur d’Alene, I wondered if your readers knew of the wonderful full-sized ice skating rink in Riverfront Park. Perhaps the city could establish a recreational program through our local established ice rink. There would not be enough business to support two rinks and would be a foolish use of taxpayers money. Let’s meet a need not already being met. Kathleen L. Pollock Post Falls

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Governments hooked on tobacco taxes

Come on, voters and tobacco users, federal and state governments make more money from tobacco than the tobacco industry.

Tobacco users keep paying higher taxes, not to make them stop using tobacco but because they are supporting governments with the taxes the governments assess on tobacco. This is not a fair tax. Can you imagine our state and federal governments without tobacco tax money?

Where have you read where state and federal governments have reduced work forces so that taxes could be reduced? Industries big and small take this step as they cannot tax people as the state and federal governments do. The waste in state and federal governments is truly sinful. If a company like Boeing has to substantially reduce its work force, just imagine what state and federal governments could do for us without waste.

I am not a tobacco user and have never been but I am a taxpayer and will always be. We need politicians who keep their commitments to the people, for the benefit of the people. Victor Chimienti Spokane

Put Congress on Social Security

Finally, we hear the truth about Social Security. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan set the record straight, and it’s grim.

The Congress doesn’t seem to understand the Social Security problem. The basic problem, as I see it, is the $5 trillion national debt left over from the 1980s. As usual, Congress is busy spending any budget surplus in order to benefit special interest groups, which don’t include the vast majority of taxpayers.

Predictably, some in Congress are proposing a new version of the Star Wars missile defense system and tax cuts for the rich, a la the 1980s. Let’s not forget the Medicare program liabilities, which will require benefit cuts or raising taxes in the near future.

In all fairness, the first step in Social Security reform should be to do away with the overly generous congressional retirement plan. If Social Security is good enough for the taxpayer, it’s good enough for members of Congress. Maybe then the program would be managed better. S.S. Howze Sagle, Idaho

Let’s un-elect `stuffy,’ biased men

Re: “Gay renominated for envoy post” (Jan. 12).

I’m appalled to find that Congress is allowed to discriminate against men and women trying to obtain a suitable job in our government. James Hormel was very well-qualified to be ambassador to Luxembourg. Even though he had the support of over half the senators, one man was able to keep Hormel’s nomination from being voted in. That man was the Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott.

We need to have enlightened men running our country. One prejudiced man should not be able to keep another man from being considered for a job. I’m sad to say I know 5-year-old kids who are more in tune with today’s society than those stuffy men in charge of our country. When the next election rolls around, hopefully, we’ll elect people who truly believe “every man is created equal.” Serena Shaw Colbert

Roosevelt better choice for Rushmore

A recent article tells about Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., is introducing a bill that would put former president Ronald Reagan’s face up on Mount Rushmore.

I always thought of this hallowed place as a shrine honoring our past American heroes, like George Washington. I hardly would place Reagan as an American hero. He did very little in our history to qualify being placed on Mount Rushmore.

If they want to expand this display, Franklin Delano Roosevelt is eminently more qualified than Reagan ever will be. Tom Akren Post Falls

IN THE PUBLIC EYE

Clinton not worthy of his office

Terry Morehouse (Letters, Jan. 10) caused me great indignation. He clearly stated that anyone who opposes the president and thinks he is no longer qualified to hold office is a “conservative, Bible-beating, white male Republican who considers himself above, and therefore better than, the rest of us.”

Well, Morehouse is wrong. I am not afraid of change, not a male and not of legal voting age, so I can’t be a Republican. And, I don’t think I am better than anyone. Yet I am quite confident that it is time for President Clinton to be dismissed.

This is not a matter of “throwing stones.” I am talking about trust, integrity and the president’s responsibility to his people. The grounds for impeachment are not based on his affair but rather because I believe he lied under oath. There is no way around it. Sexual relations are sexual relations, no matter how you define them, and Clinton had more than his share of them.

I cannot serve or feel secure under the governing of someone who has proved insidious and lacking integrity. Everything Clinton does reflects on our country, in which I take great pride. Our president should be the best person that America has to offer, and that person is not Bill Clinton. Tiffany A. Keller Chattaroy

Past time to get Starr off the stage

Every time the impeachment farce nears conclusion, every time it seems we might be finished with him at last, Kenneth Starr lurches once again into the limelight, like a spoiled 3-year-old demanding attention.

I’ve got the solution. The moment the Republicans fail to convict, the president should fire Starr summarily. And why not? The man has certainly had enough time and enough of our money. Let him withdraw to Malibu and write his breathless memoirs. That ought to keep him out of the headlines for at least a month or two. Michael Hanly Pullman

Byrd in the hand is overbearing

I noted Sen. Robert Byrd’s call for dismissal of charges against President Clinton.

The Senate’s trying the president is somewhat of a joke. But it’s not very funny if Byrd’s July 1998 statement that no proof of wrongdoing is necessary to reject a proposed appointment, that “If I don’t like the way a witness parts his hair, I can vote against him.” Like Nero, Byrd can get out his violin and fiddle while the country burns.

Nobody should become so powerful that he can make a statement like that and then presume to be serious about something as serious as impeachment. How many more hot-shot senators have that attitude? V.V. Brady Spokane

OTHER TOPICS

Sports types wildly overcompensated

What is this world coming to? We are now paying college football coaches over a million dollars a year, yet tenured professors seldom claim more than $40,000 per year (at least in this area).

Some of your child’s college fees go to represent these sports programs. If the athletic director can negotiate these types of contracts, the board should have the power to hire enough instructors to see that every student will have the classes available to them to graduate in four years. That’s something not guaranteed in many large colleges.

It’s about time that sports, both college and professional, take their rightful place in our working society, somewhere near the very bottom. Come on, sports fans, get your priorities straight. The next time a professional athlete comes up with a cure for cancer after years in a lab, then and only then would their exorbitant salary be justified. A Nobel Prize nomination would also be acceptable, although, I’m sure the sports figures’ agents wouldn’t allow them to accept such a paltry sum. James A. Nelson Spokane

Reject terrorism, yes, and all killing

In his Jan. 25 guest column, Planned Parenthood local CEO John Nugent tried valiantly to put a positive spin on an ugly business - the business of abortion.

While trying to claim the moral high ground, Nugent at no time indicates that his organization provides a woman with an opportunity to choose a loving, compassionate and spiritually fulfilling alternative to abortion. He does, however, in his concluding remarks, make the positive suggestion that we unite in rejecting terrorism. That’s an appeal I pray we would all endorse.

I invite Nugent to take the next step up by rejecting killing in all its forms. Larry J. Welch Colbert

Honor, at last, rights of the unborn

To Ted Nugent, Planned Parenthood, the National Abortion Rights Action League and who castigate me and others who are not pro-abortion, I say this: You do not speak for me, not any more.

As a solidly pro-life, Christian woman, I vote with my head and heart, not by party line. I do not follow the dictates of party politics or party affiliation. I follow my conscience and what is true.

What is true is that at conception, there is life - however ill-timed, inconvenient or planned. Pregnant with my third child, my family eagerly awaits the arrival of this new life. Since conception, I have felt the affects of pregnancy, as energy levels were sapped and nausea overcame me. Everyone agrees that what it takes for a child to become an adult is time, nurturing and nutrition. How unfortunate that Planned Parenthood thinks this is only valid after birth and not before.

To those who say I am not in line with the times, I say that at one time, a majority of the nation felt that African Americans were not worthy of equal protection and due process under the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment.

Contrary to popular understanding, Roe v. Wade did not give women the “right to choose,” but instead denied babies in utero those very same rights. The majority accepted slavery as right and just because a thinking person would accept it as right. How fortunate that thinking Americans saw slavery as the heinous crime against humanity that it was.

My prayer is that one day that will be the case with abortion. Susan M. Lilly Fairchild Air Force Base

Those who died put mission first

Re: Colleen M. Lippert’s Jan. 27 letter.

I have the highest respect for the four men who lost their lives in the tragic Air Guard accident and the greatest symphony for their families, friends and military brothers and sisters.

I came to Fairchild in May of 1957 and was there almost four years. We lost three B-52s during that time: One of them on takeoff; the wing commander was the pilot. The other two collided while in landing patterns. Both accidents happened at Fairchild. I don’t remember a stand-down either time. Those terrible accidents, with high loss of lives, did not cancel our mission.

If the four men Lippert wrote about were here to read her letter, they would feel embarrassed. I think they would answer the question in her last sentence - Why was the mission more important than the man this time? by simply saying it has always been. George C. Ragland Veradale

Make generosity a year-round thing

I declare a novel idea for the citizens of Spokane that this month - and any month, for that matter, or season of the year - can be a time of giving and supplying people’s needs just as December is for Americans every year. Are we such slaves to the calendar to shut ourselves off from the Christmas spirit 11 months of the year? I think way too many of us are.

The need is year-round. The giving is backwards to that need, and sadly comes around just once a year. Clothing banks still need clothes, families still need food and people continue to need hope. These are year-round needs the citizens of Spokane can easily supply if we don’t wait until December. May that giving and joyous spirit be with us in all seasons. Paul Aric Spangler Spokane