Letters To The Editor

SPOKANE MATTERS

Mountain bikers abuse natural area

Mountain bikes are ruining the Dishman Hills Natural Area. Over the last year, bike traffic has grown in this hikers-only area until the trails are hard-packed and rutted, and the sides of the trails are rounded. Hikers now have to walk on a freeway-like gravel bed caused by erosion from hard bike use.

We see these mountain bikers occasionally, and they are young white males - who probably think that their bike doesn’t do any damage. They no doubt think of themselves as rugged outdoorsmen. But to me, they are selfish and ignorant individuals who are taking something very precious from me. They are too lazy to go to biking trails farther from town, preferring to steal hiking areas from old ladies, families with little kids and anyone else who wants to use the area as it was intended.

If you see one of these ecology destroyers up there, please tell them that they are hurting all of us. Cassandra L. Johnson Spokane

City sells out young golfers

Leaders in our world today publicly say they are doing all that they can do to improve the lives of the children in this country. In Spokane, however, the city leaders did one thing this year to make 160 kids’ lives a little less enjoyable.

I am referring to the decision the Spokane Parks Department made regarding the 1999 Greater Spokane League golf match schedule.

For the past 50 years, the golf schedule has been the same - 12 matches in a season. When I was a freshman last year at Lewis and Clark High School, I played No. 5 on the varsity golf team and had a blast developing my game over the long season. But this year, the city cut our schedule down to four matches. This is awful in itself, but the reason they shortened the season is even worse. They did it for the money. Since the guys and gals get to play without paying (just like all of the other high school sports) for a couple of afternoons a week, the courses lost money.

In our world today, all we are concerned with is making a buck. I think that it’s time for our leaders to practice what they preach and put children ahead of making money. Brian M. Guthrie Spokane

Talbott critic got it all wrong

My initial interior response to Christine A. Davis (Letters, May 19) was,“Wouldn’t your therapist simply discount her comments as rejections?” They certainly don’t apply to me or to Mayor John Talbott as, Davis would have us believe.

When our wise mayor shares with us his vast vision for a better Spokane, made better by citizens of strong character, including those in government, he’s obviously not promoting anything negative or divisive. An exception to that might be if criminals (persons apparently lacking in character) don’t approve. Davis misuses“appreciation of diversity” when she implies that we must leave room in our concept of character for those who choose to break the law, be it natural law, civil law, the Ten Commandments, etc. When a mother says no for the good of her child, she’s not displaying negativism. When a quarterback signals a play a teammate doesn’t like, he’s not displaying divisiveness. When Talbott promotes Character First, a program that can contribute to Spokane’s greatness, he’s not introducing anything negative or divisive. Strength of character is something positive and commendable, worth whatever it takes to develop it, especially in those whose paychecks are paid by our taxes. Character First program can be a step toward uniting all caring Spokanites with strong bonds - bonds forged by strength of character. Ellen Ripple Spokane

SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION

Today’s young being taught well

For the past four years, my wife and I have had the good fortune of attending many junior high and high school events following our son and daughter as they go through secondary school. We have attended concerts, athletic events, plays, honor roll programs, etc. These events included local and regional gatherings.

Each time, as we watch these young participants and performers, we come away with feelings of respect and contentment. How can anyone in the audience say schools are failing and these kids are not as good as those in times past? These students are energetic and hard working. They all give that extra effort and dedication needed to succeed. They have a healthy attitude and they look wonderful.

No, they are not all 4.0 students. They are just good, solid citizens. These kids partake of the opportunities provided by their schools and communities.

Judging from the faces and reactions of these students’ proud parents, grandparents, friends, teachers and coaches in the audience, these kids are achieving. Schools aren’t failing!

It is a great mistake not to acknowledge their achievements and virtues. We have many marvelous students in our schools. The majority of our students are decent, good kids. I have great hope for their future and the future of our society. Steve Chin Spokane

LAW AND JUSTICE

Good parents hampered by bad laws

I was interested in a recent headline announcing that parents of the victims of the Colorado school shooting were filing a lawsuit against the parents of the two boys who did the shooting to the tune of $250 million. But we’re all to be assured it wasn’t about money. It was to instigate a change and get parents to be more responsible for their kids.

That’s all fine and well but if money wasn’t the issue, wouldn’t $250,000 be just as good, since that’s also an amount that those parents can’t afford to pay? Is it really necessary to destroy more lives and to relive this tragedy over and over again - which is what will happen every time court’s in session and afterwards, every time a settlement check is cashed. No healing, no forgetting.

Granted, parents need to be responsible for their kids. But many parents are finding that to be quite difficult with all the current laws that prevent just that. If a parent wants to spank a child, that’s physical abuse. If they try to ground their children, that’s wrongful imprisonment. And if there isn’t a law to prevent parents from reigning-in their children, a simple accusation of molestation will get any authority figure to back off immediately.

We’re demanding that parents control their kids, while taking away their rights to do so.

What happened in Colorado is tragic. But those parents are suffering, too. Will utterly destroying them financially really cause or allow parents around the country to be more responsible for their children? Elmer C. Jorgensen Cheney

FIREARMS

Gun controls only make things worse

Federal law states that students can not bring a water pistol to school with them. Huh? We have squirt gun control? Do we have water balloon controls, too?

How will gun control work?

Something is awry here. Will schoolchildren no longer be able to play softball because bats are weapons?

One wonders what’s the matter with the kids. Nothing’s the matter with the kids. It’s the paranoid do-gooders!

Compare the schools to cities. When honest people are not allowed to have guns, dishonest people will still have them.

Just a thought here: What if the children had been able to defend themselves in Littleton, Colo.? Let’s say the teachers were able to defend the students? Another thought: Do you think the parents of the victims might prefer that the Littleton teachers had had the means to defend those students?

If we had gun control, would we be allowed to have a water pistol? It doesn’t make any sense. Well, that’s what controls do; one thing leads to another.

Another thought: What if the bad guys are trying to re-educate our children to their way of thinking?

Fire Dr. Spock, put prayer back in school and Dick Tracy back in the comics. Keep the comic B.C., let them have squirt guns and leave them alone. Steven C. Stone Colville, Wash.

Despite hype, gun violence is in decline

The anti-gun cartoons routinely shown on your editorial page are grossly divisive, unfair and inaccurate. For example, on June 1, staff cartoonist Milt Priggee was true to form, suggesting that more laws are needed to prevent sales of guns to kids, even though current laws prohibit such sales. Another, apparently advocating repeal of the First Amendment as well as the second, shows the NRA and gun lobby muzzled with locks, with the caption, “proper installation of gun locks.”

How about some balance? For example, gun violence in the United States has been declining for the better part of a decade.

Another fact: States with relatively permissive gun laws also have the lowest levels of gun crime. Maybe that’s because gun bans only disarm honest people, not criminals.

Seventy-two percent of Americans favor stiffer sentences for criminals who use a gun in crime, rather than more gun laws.

Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey, in 1960, was correct when he wrote, “One of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of the citizens to keep and bear arms - just one guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proven to be always possible.” Norman C. Samish Spokane

PEOPLE IN SOCIETY

Whites, beware of demonizing others

This letter is concerned not with whale hunting but with the response of my fellow Americans. I’m outraged at those in the May 30 Spokesman-Review who used slander, dehumanizing generalities, profanity and racial slurs to retaliate against fellow human beings.

My husband and I are lifetime Washingtonians; we lived on the beautiful Olympic Peninsula from childhood to young adulthood. We were educated with, worked with, lived alongside and worshiped with both Makah and Clallam tribe members. The outpouring of hatred and malice toward our indigenous people in that Sunday article crushes my very soul. This isn’t what democracy, freedom and human dignity are about.

To the mother and daughter who said, “We should take their land,” I respectfully submit that we already have. The abhorrence of so many watching the televised harpooning of the whale leads me to ask, where’s your abhorrence at the violence your children watch every day in their cartoons, movies and videos? Where is your outcry that the United States has been responsible for the deaths innocent people in Kosovo?

The standard of measure in a civil society can no longer be that held by the white middle class. Look around you. We are an ethnically and culturally diverse society. What we do not understand, we label in horrendous terms.

With the progression of each generation, white Caucasians are becoming the minority in the world. As such, how do you suspect, given our history of racism, we will be treated?

The Makah, African and Hispanic children are learning by our example. Barbara Hutchison Spokane

No cause for belly-aching

I say, give the Indians all the whales they want - and the deer, elk, bear, fish and birds native to America. But they can go back to living in tee-pees.

Do they think they would have gone forever wandering around this land? If our forefathers hadn’t settled this country, Russians most likely would have. I bet Josef Stalin would’ve done to the Indians what he did to my direct ancestors going from Germany to Russia - slaughtered them by the thousands and made slaves of the rest.

I have some sympathy for the Japanese’ continued squalling when I see they were herded like cattle, put in virtual concentration camps and finally paid a pittance. They went back to work, like many U.S. citizens.

I live on Social Security and, at age 71, still work hard labor running heavy equipment and shoveling ditches, sometimes 18 hours a day. Glad I can still do it. If the U.S. government would repay the billions borrowed from Social Security, maybe I would have enough to live on, especially if I didn’t have to pay full taxes.

I’m not mad at the Indians. My hat’s off to them. It’s us idiots who let them do it. I don’t see any Indians with guns herding us into the casino to give them our money. As an American, I resent that by law I can’t do the same.

If that isn’t discrimination I don’t know what is. Paul A. Reimann St. Maries, Idaho

Indians won one - accept it

Shane Sorey and Taryn Hutchins both wrote letters against the Makah Tribe whaling. I support the Makah Tribe.

We - not just Native Americans - are eating animals every day. Pretty much all races eat meat. Is Sorey going to write a letter every day to let people know how he thinks eating and killing animals is bad? I want to know what people sacrifice children; he didn’t say. I suggest he go eat his vegetable burger and leave the Makah alone.

Hutchins makes a nice argument. Except, of course, she brings up bad doings that are not Native Americans’. She forgets that whites brought slaves over, killed most of the buffalo natives used for food. She thinks we are the ones who killed off the country’s goodness. We aren’t! Hutchins also forgets this tradition was here before her ancestors were. And yes, plains Indians should be hunting Buffalo. They can’t because whites nearly wiped the herds out.

The Makah will not leave their tradition behind because of other people’s doings. Everyone will just have to live with the fact that this time, the Indians win. Live with it. Anthony Garcia Wellpinit, Wash.

OTHER TOPICS

There is another, better place

As daily we are confronted with news of violence and warfare in our world, we may be tempted to be depressed. It would be well to remember that beyond the veil of mortal vision there is a spiritual universe consisting only of love, peace and light, without the constraints of time and space as we know them. Taking time in the silence to focus on this eternal dimension will give us courage to live daily with courage and personal empowerment, and give us the freedom to love ourselves and all others unconditionally and without judgment. Thomas E. Durst Spokane

Clark comments `shameful, brutal’

I am disgusted at columnist Doug Clark’s comments regarding the mascot name at North Central High School. In his column, Clark alludes to Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, stating that he will “fight no more forever.”

The United States waged an ethnic war of violence and intimidation against the Nez Perce as well as many other indigenous nations. I find it shameful and brutal of Clark to quote a survivor of this campaign of violence and racial hatred in order to make a flippant point about the use of a school mascot.

His actions are outrageous, on par with invoking the testimony of a Holocaust survivor in a discussion about kosher pickles. Christopher Parkin Chewelah, Wash.