Letters To The Editor
SPOKANE MATTERS
Smokers helped pay for those parks So the clean air nuts are at it again. No smoking in the parks? Their reasoning is that the children might see the smoking and then do the same. Like, monkey see monkey do?
First, they ran us out of buildings, now the outdoors? What is next? Can’t smoke in your own back yard? Smoking in cars prohibited?
Having bought my first house in 1949, I have paid taxes, which included money for parks, and now some out-of-towner wants to screw everything up. May I have a refund?
Would I ever again vote for a park bond? No!
I guess it is fine to trip over doggie droppings, slip and slide on the duck and goose poop at Manito, but heaven forbid if they see a cigarette butt.
Will the next move will be to remove all folks who have recently eaten a bean taco? Beware if you have ingested boiled cabbage, beans and other gas-producing foods! Will bad breath be next on the list?
Get off my back and stay off! Charles E. McCollim Spokane
Why stop at banning smokes?
I found your report on the recommendation to ban smoking in Spokane County parks a real hoot.
The last time I checked, parks were located outside so as to not make the big, bad secondhand smoke a problem. Even so, I do agree that smoking should be confined to a specific areas in venues such as sports stadiums where people are forced to sit in one spot for a long period, as a matter of courtesy.
But alas, it’s not secondhand smoke but rather that the sight of someone smoking might endanger young tender minds. If this is so, I propose that you include any and all things that anyone may find objectionable. Why be so timid? I propose you ban: fat people, ugly people, dirty people and anyone else or behavior that the new keepers of the public morality don’t want to be exposed to.
Sound extreme? It is. But no more so that what certain arrogant, uptight, affluent bureaucrats propose daily in their effort to bring citizens into line rather than allowing people to make their own informed choices.
Think about it. It goes way beyond smoking. We all need to grow up and realize we cannot and should not banish anything we do not engage in or agree with, just because we don’t like it. Jim Prokop Moses Lake
BUSINESS AND LABOR
You saw the good life - going south
Re: “Poor mouth, big boat don’t jibe” (Letters, June 22).
Wendy K. Marshall, the Steelworker you saw driving down the road in a new Chevy pickup pulling a nice boat, is a former member of Spokane’s middle class engaged in the uneven process of downsizing his family’s life. It is hard to do this with complete grace and timeliness.
For this man and his family and several thousand other Spokane families, the summer of 1999 will be their last in the American middle class. Why shouldn’t we enjoy ourselves as much as is possible? Working for Kaiser, we have always had the money but rarely the time and energy to enjoy ourselves after putting in long, shifting hours in the Trentwood and Mead plants. Keep your eye out for that pickup and boat, Marshall. I am sure you will be able to get a good deal on them this fall, when the Steelworkers’ unemployment benefits run out.
By the way, there’s is a garage sale every month at the Steelworkers Local 338 Union Hall on East Trent where you might pick up something cheap even sooner, if you can afford to buy it on a Spokane paycheck.
So long, middle class, it’s been real! Ron A. Hansen Trentwood Steelworker, Spokane
Another Kaiser public service coup
Re: the story about the Kaiser replacement worker being an accused bank robber (June 18).
Everyone involved in hiring and bringing this kind of element to Spokane should be ashamed of themselves and resign their positions after they apologize to Spokane and to the world. This would include everyone - from Charles Hurwitz, George Haymaker, Raymond Milchovich, Susan Ashe and all those below to the actual person who hired this creep. It is clear that these people have no conscience and are on the path to ruining not only Kaiser Aluminum, but the whole area, too.
Citizens of Spokane should be outraged by this blatant disregard for our safety and well-being. Incidently, there have been other scab felons arrested while entering and leaving the plants. So, this is the kind of work force that Spokane wants here?
If we continue to sit back and remain neutral, then I guess Spokane gets just what she deserves. Margaret Klubben Mead
`Executing plan’ - yeah, right
Re: “CEO Haymaker to retire from Kaiser at year’s end” (June 16).
It looks like George Haymaker has lost his taste for personally “executing” owner Charles Hurwitz’s plan to destroy Kaiser Aluminum’s union work force.
The Maxxam-Kaiser press release detailing Haymaker’s retirement reads more like mob bluster, with its repeated references to “executing the plan” (to get rid of Kaiser’s union workers), than a corporate press release announcing the impending retirement of its top executive.
As for Ray Milchovich, Haymaker’s replacement, I wonder how someone who was once a Christian family man can continue to sell his talents to a low-road corporation like Maxxam-Kaiser. At some point, I hope the better man Milchovich once was will stop him from proceeding with the execution of Hurwitz’s plan. Margaret Larive Trentwood Steelworker, Spokane
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Now, science gives us killer corn
Genetically altered corn, which is being extensively planted throughout the United States, is producing wind-borne pollen that kills beneficial caterpillars, butterflies and other insects (Toles’ cartoon, May 24, and Earthweek, May 30). This Bt corn, which was genetically engineered by the Monsanto Corp. in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is designed to produce a toxin in its tissues that fights off pests. Obviously, additional testing should have been conducted before this product was unleashed.
Monsanto has also been awarded a patent on a technique that genetically disables seed, causing farmers to buy new seed each year instead of harvesting seed from mature crops or using old seed. These genetic terminator seeds will allow Monsanto to control global food production.
India is currently battling to keep Monsanto’s Bt corn, Bt cotton, terminator corn and terminator cotton out of India’s vast farm acreage. A strain of Bt-176 corn recently escaped from a farm in Reigel, Germany, causing German agriculture officials to frantically scramble in an attempt to contain the corn, and prompting the French Ministry of Agriculture to recall all genetically engineered corn.
As the old saying goes, “It’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature.” Margaret E. Koivula Spokane
FIREARMS
Read the one about crooked cops?
So, longtime anti-gun activist Walter Becker (Letters, June 10) says he’s an ardent reader of the American Rifleman, a publication of the National Rifle Association. No doubt, Becker reads the NRA magazine to keep tabs on the enemy.
I hope Becker read the article about the rogue Chicago cops, now under arrest, who sold machine guns, silencers and thousands of rounds of stolen police ammunition to drug gangs. If any of these police-supplied guns and ammunition are used in crime, you can bet that the anti-gun mob and its propaganda organ, the media, will promptly blame Charleton Heston, the NRA and the Second Amendment.
But Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who banned handguns for honest Chicagoans in 1982, probably won’t blame his crooked cops. Instead, he’s filed a $433 million civil lawsuit against the firearms manufacturing industry and several gun shops. Curtis E. Stone Colville, Wash.
Anti-gun crowd stubbornly wrong
Friday, I watched the firestorm of politically motivated rhetoric from both parties. Several points struck me.
One, the Democrats really feel that the National Rifle Association has some god-like power over the U.S. government. While I do not belong, the NRA is millions of Americans who cherish liberty, not some amorphous cabal of baby killers, as the demagogues would have you believe. Have any Democrats ever heard of the NRA’s Eddie Eagle program, which teaches children never to touch a gun, leave the room where the gun is and tell an adult?
Second, the Republicans’ bill was flawed in at least one major aspect. We all know that licensed firearm dealers must complete a background check even at gun shows. This defeated bill would have made it mandatory for private citizens to do the same (the sticking point for the yammerheads was 24 or 72 hours), not that it was unconstitutional. How long would it have been before everyone would be forced to get a background check to sell, give or otherwise transfer a firearm to a family member or friend? Not long, I’ll bet.
Please consider, 95 percent of all handguns sold come with trigger locks. No need for a law to do this.
Up to 2.5 million times last year firearms were used in self-defense; 99.9 percent of the time, no shot was fired. How many people will die waiting to lawfully own a firearm? The Bill of Rights is about keeping in check overweening government. Paul Alan Claussen Spokane
What a militia is - and is not
We’ve all been focusing our “discussions” regarding gun control around the second portion of the Second Amendment - the people’s right to keep and bear arms. There is little discussion about the first part: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state …”
The men who wrote the article in this fashion did so for a purpose. This purpose can be understood by defining the words “regulate” and “militia.”
Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary defines regulate as “to control, direct, or govern according to a rule, principle or system; to make uniform, orderly, etc.” It defines militia as “any military force, or army composed of citizens rather than professional soldiers, called out in time of emergency.” It further states that in the United States, the National Guard and Reserve forces are considered “organized (well-regulated?) militias,” and all others are “unorganized (unregulated?) militias.”
Let’s now restate the amendment.
“A well-controlled, directed, uniform, orderly, governed according to rules, military force composed of citizens rather than professional soldiers, to be called out in time of emergency, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
Perhaps the NRA can explain to us citizens what gun owners do to meet the requirements of this Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America in order to maintain their right to keep and bear arms? John D. McCallum Spokane
Swiss example a good one
The letter from Peter Gillespie of Veradale (June 16) is very interesting. His suggestion to call for advice to a country whose percentage of deaths per thousand due to gun violence is way fewer than ours in the United States may be a good one.
I suggest we call upon Switzerland. There, upon a youth’s 18th birthday, he is scheduled for weeks of intense gun training, given a state-of-the-art weapon and ammunition and then sent home, confident that he will be able to defend his home, his neighborhood and his country in case of any emergency. Alice F. Peck Liberty Lake
We could repeat Australia mistake
Re: Peter Gillespie’s June 16 letter, in which he said we should take lessons from other nations’ gun policies.
Australia, for instance, ordered its people to surrender their guns in 1967. In 1968, the law-abiding people were left to the mercy of armed criminals and government. During 1968, the murder rate rose 3.2 percent. Robberies rose 44 percent.
As for Switzerland, each home is required to have a rifle for each man in the family. Swiss men commonly carry rifles through the streets and are free to buy assault rifles. How many Swiss children are involved in accidental home shooting and school massacres? But the Swiss government is not predatory or repressive and does not seek to degrade its people though inferior “education.” Nor does it dare to try to control its well-armed population, with so many freely available guns. David M. Porter Spokane
Clinton just has it in for gun owners
President Clinton’s obsession with more unnecessary and unreasonable gun control laws has nothing to do with crime. It is about harassing law-abiding citizens.
Clinton claims the Brady Law kept 400,000 unqualified people from acquiring firearms. It is against federal law for an unqualified person to try to obtain a firearm. The Clinton administration has prosecuted zero percent of these alleged 400,000 criminals. This is because Clinton is not anti-crime, he is anti-honest citizens owning guns.
Clinton has no problem with criminals. As a convicted felon, Dan Lasater could not legally own a firearm. Clinton pardoned his good friend and drug dealer, so Lasater can buy a gun.
Studies by John R. Lott Jr., Dr. Gary Kleck and Dr. James Wright and FBI uniform crime reports show gun control laws do not reduce crime but widespread ownership of guns often does reduce crime. In spite of all this evidence, the Clinton administration needed some pretext to justify more gun control and so commissioned the study, “Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms.” When Clinton’s own study found guns are used far more often to defend against crime than to commit crime, and did not support his preconceived agenda, it was shelved. David Wordinger Medical Lake
NRA shouldn’t back gun makers
The National Rifle Association is experiencing an increase in membership and contributions under the threat of congressional gun bills (Spokesman-Review, June 12).
As an organization I feel has a legitimate role in defending our Second Amendment rights, I wish the NRA well. However, I disagree with its enlarged agenda of “pushing legislation to prohibit municipal lawsuits against the gun industry” at the state level.
To give carte blanche support to all gun manufacturers is not very intelligent and certainly not socially responsible. Not all U.S. gun makers are ethical. A case in point is Miami-based Navegar Inc., which manufactures the TEC-DC9 semiautomatic pistol, one of which was used in the Littleton massacre. Manufacture of its predecessor, the TEC-9, was banned by the Federal Assault Weapon’s Ban of 1994. Navegar simply changed the name of the weapon, then manufactured and sold 36,000 of them. This assault weapon is still manufactured without a change in its basic design or lethality.
The NRA would be well-advised not to identify with gun manufacturers. Astute Americans will discern that the NRA’s focus isn’t just the protection of our Second Amendment rights but involves an agenda which many consider is not in its purview.
The gun hysteria is creating many fear-induced coalitions. The NRA will be well-advised not to embrace too many ancillary pursuits. Like the tides, NRA membership will continue to ebb and flow depending upon the sea of public opinion. They’ll be judged by the company they keep and the agendas they support. Merle R. Craner Cheney