Letters To The Editor

CONSUMER ISSUES

Don’t tamely accept gas price gouging

More than any other place I’ve lived, Spokane has an amazing variation in gasoline prices from one area of town to another. It strikes me as unusual that consumers here have not gotten the message to not buy from the gougers.

Recently, while running some errands, I noticed the price range for regular unleaded gas ran from $1.39 per gallon at the BP in Qual Chan, to $1.24 per gallon in the Logan neighborhood. That’s a 15-cent-per-gallon disparity, something I’ve never been aware of in larger, more consumer savvy markets. Prices in general around town ranged from $1.33 on the North Side to $1.28 downtown.

A recent trip to Tulsa presented prices for the same product, from the same companies, at $1.09 per gallon. Tulsa is thousands of miles from the refineries in California, whose freight costs are blamed for the high Spokane prices.

It seems to me that a newspaper like the SpokesmanReview, with its stated mission of serving the local reader, could help tremendously by having a weekly feature listing selected local prices, as well as those from other communities nationwide. Knowing what things should cost is a big first step in allowing consumers to reward responsible marketers and to avoid opportunists, with whom we are abundantly supplied in easygoing Spokane. At the least, consumers would then be able to ask why a given station’s prices are so out of line with the area average. Often, opportunistic pricing is simply the result of gougers not being challenged by their customers. Lawrence Massey Spokane

Buyer, `You’re on your own’

Question: Who’s looking out for the consumer?

I recently filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau about a company that had conducted business very badly. Our television stations encourage viewers to call the BBB to report any company not using good business practices. I had a rude awakening when I did just that and received a response from the BBB stating, “No report will be filed but the company will be notified of the complaint.”

Several months later, I called the BBB to check on the company. I was advised the company was in good standing with no complaints reported. What happened to my complaint? And the purpose of my complaint was what? How many other consumers have written unlogged letters about the same company? More importantly, how many unsuspecting individuals believed what the BBB was reporting and had a bad experience with this company? The BBB was not established to protect the consumer from bad business. As I have discovered, it’s quite the contrary.

Finding no resolution with the BBB, I wrote to the attorney general’s office. I discovered it merely takes complaints that may affect the state of Washington, not its consumers. So, who’s looking out for the consumer?

Answer: You’re on your own. Linda Becker Veradale

LAW ENFORCEMENT

What’s wrong is failure to enforce

Re: “Private dealers thwart gun laws.”

The article by David B. Ottaway of the Washington Post appearing under the above headline on page one of your July 13 edition should have been titled, Government’s failure to enforce firearms laws allowed Smith’s rampage.

Since the instant check system prevented Benjamin Nathaniel Smith from acquiring guns from a licensed dealer, the breakdown in the FBI instant check system was the failure to have an FBI agent or Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms agent deliver the news to him of his failure to pass muster while simultaneously arresting him for the federal felony offenses committed when a prohibited person attempts to acquire a firearm.

This failure comes as no great surprise. As pointed out in the article, the FBI claims to have thwarted about 500,000 prohibited persons from acquiring firearms since 1993. What does not appear in the article is that there has been no follow-up and that fewer than a dozen prosecutions have occurred out of all this number.

Had the government successfully prosecuted only one half of these lawbreakers, 250,000 more felons would be in prison. Think how much safer the rest of society would be.

Operation Exile, as used in Richmond, Va., and now in Atlanta, is the answer. More regulation of law-abiding citizens is not. Vincent W. Reagor Nine Mile Falls

RIGHTS AND RADICALISM

JDL response the right one

My father spent 1944 flying a bomber over Germany, in a plane with so many patched flak holes that it rattled. He never talked to us much about World War II but I once saw him deeply upset when a friend of my brother’s, as a teenage prank, stomped a swastika in the snow behind our house.

“I was willing to get shot at,” said my father, “so I would never have to see that thing again.”

Now that thing parades down the main street of Coeur d’Alene, as Barbara J. Welch (Letters, July 9) complains that she doesn’t like protesting members of the Jewish Defense League “in our town.”

Your town, Welch, is part of the United States of America. This is the nation that my father and his fellow veterans risked their lives to defend. For the honor of our veterans - and in support of the Jewish Defense League - I call upon the people of this community to raise their voices in vigorous protest every time Richard Butler and his punks choose to make a parade out of stupidity and hatred. Next year, in Coeur d’Alene, maybe we should all be sitting in the street. Jean L. Pond Spokane

Aryans don’t deserve rights

As a lifelong resident of Coeur d’Alene and North Idaho, I am ashamed that the neo-Nazis were given the right to march - the sheer irony being that the American Civil Liberties Union went to bat for the Aryan Nations, a group long known for violating the civil liberties of others.

During the parade, a small but mighty group of protesters marched up Sherman Avenue and turned back the Nazis, stopping them in their tracks. In that moment, they gave us our town back.

It is a violation of basic principle that the neo-Nazis are allowed to exist. A group that advocates violence, hatred, oppression and discrimination goes against everything our Constitution stands for. Why, then, are Aryans given constitutional protection in the first place?

This had to be a tough situation for the police to prepare for. I’m sure they did what they felt they had to do. It’s tragic that marches such as this have to take place to begin with. Hate groups, such as the Aryans, must know, however, that their ways are wrong. Groups such as that will take silence as complacence. So the protests were needed. Never again, indeed! Dave Holmes Coeur d’Alene

LAW AND JUSTICE

Perceived hate bad basis for laws

The new hate-crimes laws currently being implemented will allow extra time put on standard sentences if the violent crime was committed out of hatred because of race, gender or sexual preference.

Violent assaults are perpetrated on people of all kinds, though, for an infinite number of reasons. These can range from the trivial (the victim of road rage, for instance) to the important (victim had different skin color). Is hatred toward the vehicular-impaired less severe than hatred toward, say, homosexuals?

If emotions involved are going to be a factor in deciding a criminal’s fate and hate crimes are considered more severe and therefore worthy of greater punishment, then shouldn’t people who love their victims be given extra-lenient sentences? Virtually all jealous spouses who kill their mates proclaim a genuine “love” for the deceased. Should they receive minimal sentences, since hatred was not a factor? And what about the sociopath, who supposedly feels no emotion at all? Should he or she be let off scot-free?

Harsher punishments for crimes against minorities and women defeat the whole purpose of equal rights by suggesting that certain people are somehow weaker than others and are entitled to greater protections because of factors as irrelevant as the color of their skin. Jeffrey J. Grygny Spokane

Light sentence a disservice

Re: “sexual predator pleads guilty to charges” (July 13). Why does child rape results in less jail time than raping an adult? Are children less valuable?

Gregory L. McCrae is charged with 25 counts of sexual molestation, all videotaped (compounding the sickness and intent). He confesses, yet gets a mere 25 years. If he’d raped 25 adults, would his sentence be longer? We’d call him a serial rapist and probably make a movie about him.

While working as a counselor in a juvenile detention facility in Alaska, I noticed how very many juveniles have been sexually abused. They lost their respect for authority figures. Why shouldn’t they? The very ones left to protect them had failed. It was as if their internal pendulum that tells them the difference between right and wrong had been bent.

One article on McCrae indicated the child victims seemed to be coping well. Please explain “well.” The chances their behavior will be affected are astronomical. Acting out these frustrations will become more clearly visible over the next 10 years.

One of the greatest tragedies of these crimes is low sentencing. Do the research; recidivism among offenders is enormous.

Please help kids realize the danger signals, that this offense is illegal, and who to report it to immediately. Chances are, the offender is offending others. There will most certainly be another and another. Even if it’s uncle So-and-so, report it. Randy C. Moyse Spokane

GAMBLING

Banning casinos prevents ills

Chris Peck’s “Ban on casinos wouldn’t solve gambling ills” overlooked important facts.

Granted, banning casinos in Spokane wouldn’t cause recovery among problem gamblers. However, it would move legalized cardroom gambling, and the violence they can produce, farther from my neighborhood.

Atlantic City police determined each casino generates an average of 1,000 crimes yearly. Four years following casino legalization, Atlantic City’s retail business declined by a third.

Although Spokane casinos will pay $1 million-plus in taxes this year, that annual revenue and more will be consumed by the increased cost of law enforcement, criminal justice, etc.

The cost of supporting gambling outweighs the benefits. Discrediting the negative effect of gambling by claiming the majority of clientele are recreational gamblers who pose no threat to society is the equivalent of saying recreational drug sale and use, and prostitution and solicitation should be legalized. What’s the difference?

Addiction is deceiving. In-control recreational gamblers can quietly become problem gamblers. Many smokers become addicted because they don’t understand the addictive element of their recreation. The same is true of gambling. It’s an addictive recreation waiting to ruin lives.

Thankfully, Penny Lancaster cares enough to locally fight the battle that has ignited statewide. Peter Callaghan’s on-the-mark column lists cities attempting to bar gambling and those that already have. Will Spokane become the gambling gutter of Washington? Our city has much to offer families. Are we willing to fight to preserve it?

Outlaw cardroom gambling, as Kent, Puyallup and other cities have. Kimberly A. Utke Spokane

BELIEFS

What’s to rethink?

Re: “Rethinking Jesus” (July 10).

People are always trying to “rethink Jesus.” In fact, Jesus is just who Jesus claimed to be: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6) Rethinking him will not alter his inevitable judgment. Patricia R. Abson Chewelah, Wash.

You have to believe to realize

I read with interest “Rethinking Jesus” (July 10). It was a very thought-provoking article.

What caught my eye were some of the of Marcus Borg’s statements.

“For me to accept that God transformed the corpse of Jesus would not only violate my sense of the limits of the spectacular, but it also would privilege the Christian tradition and would be saying that God acted in Christianity in a way God has never acted in other religious traditions.”

Are we trying to understand a creature greater than ourselves through our created, therefore limited, intellect? Are we assuming that we are as great as the creator and can therefore totally understand him or her?

I believe in the Judeo-Christian idea of a God. Why? Because the thought of someone like Jesus (God coming down to my level in the form of someone like me but perfect) makes me feel very secure inside.

That’s right! We will never be able to justify Jesus through our intellect. Only by believing the story (faith) can we then understand. It’s a personal thing. And that’s the appeal. As I read the article, I was reminded of a passage in the Bible, John 14: 8-11. It is a matter of what you believe, and to me, also what I feel deep inside. Alan Broden Hayden, Idaho

Arguments fail test of logic

In George Thomas’ July 3 letter, he says the “pseudoscience of creationism does not stand the task of rigorous logic.” He manages to sneak in the conclusion that things supernatural can’t exist. Yet that statement is in none of his premises. Because of this, his conclusion is invalid according to the rules of logic.

Thomas also implies that creationists must prove God’s existence so their house of cards doesn’t collapse. He himself apparently has no obligation to prove that God doesn’t exist. Putting the burden of proof on creationists is academic imperialism.

Furthermore, evolution falls short of the scientific principle of causality. If the universe is the product of primordial matter, what brought that matter into existence in the first place?

Distinguished Brown University biologist Kenneth Miller believes creation happened but so did subsequent macroevolution. In other words, the two are not as incompatible as one might think. Therefore, creationism is not pseudoscience.

In addition, Thomas claims appealing to authority is not a valid method of scientific proof. That statement is authoritative in itself and is presumably made on Thomas’ own authority. The fact is that appealing to competent authority is a sound form of arguing, both scientifically and philosophically. Since Thomas doesn’t consider the Bible authoritative, here is a short but no means comprehensive list: Newton, Lanais, Pasteur and Mendel. All four were pre-eminent scientists and all four were creationists. With this in mind, I humbly ask Thomas to name his contribution to the advancement of science.< T. David Edwards Spokane

U.S. AND THE WORLD

U.S. should avoid overreaction

The recent spate of stories on Chinese spying at U.S. nuclear laboratories should lead us to a thoughtful re-examination of U.S. nuclear policies but not to hysteria.

We need to remember that China did not acquire three-dimensional models of weapons, that the information stolen was quite old and that China has not deployed any new weapons based on the secrets that were stolen.

It makes no sense for the United States to respond to these thefts by building more weapons or by giving more money to the U.S. nuclear weapons labs. That will not increase our security.

Rather, the wise response would be for the Senate to promptly ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and for the United States to press all other nations to do the same. Getting that treaty in force is the best way to prevent China or any other nation from building and deploying new generations of nuclear weapons.

With that treaty in place, the world’s nations can work on a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons, just as was done for chemical and biological weapons. John L. Cobb Spokane