Letters To The Editor

SPOKANE MATTERS

Just call this Coolie Wages City

I recently drove from El Paso, Texas, to Spokane through Tucson, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Salt Lake. I was totally amazed at the growth in all these cities except ours. New buildings, new roads, a great outlook on life and how good things are in general.

I think what stops this town is the same bunch of good old boys who have controlled it forever. They don’t want any new industry that’s going to pay a working man a decent wage, so they won’t have to.

Kaiser’s been on strike since September and no one’s raised a hand to put these people back to work. The Chamber of Commerce and all their cohorts sit on their fat fannies and just smile. Another union going down, boys! That means all the more in my pocket.

These people will do anything to keep wages low. Look at the restaurant and bar business here. They charge Seattle prices and pay Mississippi wages, just like all the other cheap employers in this town. Keep the worker bees down!

If it weren’t for naysayers on the north-south freeway, it would had been built 25 years ago, and we’d be much better off. We must be able to move commerce through our city via roads, freeways and ring roads.

We have to put someone in power who understands business - a strong mayor, for instance. This would help all the people in the community, not just a chosen few. Employers will come here if the business climate is equitable for all. Norm W. Ellefson Cheney

Remember, LC is a working school

As a sophomore at Lewis and Clark High School, I think it’s time for LC students to voice their opinions on the controversial issue of the annex building. The school board decided to replace the 1908 administration building with a new, more functional, facility. I wholeheartedly support this decision, as do an overwhelming majority of the students and faculty of LC.

A small but insistent group of people in Spokane are vehemently opposed to tearing down this building, citing the need for historic preservation. What they fail to see, however, is that LC is a school, not a museum. Numerous plans for renovating the inside of the annex were reviewed and none were functional enough to meet the school’s educational needs.

Great care is being taken in renovating the main building, to keep the history of LC alive. But some sacrifices must be made if the end result is to be a historical school, rather than a historical building housing classrooms hardly fit to teach history. The annex must be one of these sacrifices.

It would cost $500,000 more to renovate the annex and make it safe than it would to replace it, and it still would not be as functional as a new building, which would add two desperately needed classrooms and provide superior learning facilities. LC students need the best possible place to learn and that can only happen if the annex is replaced. Marta Soden Spokane

Use minivans for K-9s

When the Police Department is buying cars for the K-9 units, why don’t they consider minivans? That way, the dogs wouldn’t have to spend their shifts crouching in the back seat. One of the back seats could be removed, and when a prisoner is put back there the dog would still have a place to sit - on the floor next to the seated prisoner, and be able to control the prisoner. James R. Long Spokane

Mount Spokane management great

The new management at Mount Spokane, known as Mount Spokane 2000, should be commended for their excellent work and dedication to making Mount Spokane a better place to ski and snowboard.

They have provided the public with a polite, considerate management team whose members go out of their way to ensure a customer is satisfied. The little things are important to them. For example, when my younger sister took some of her friends to Mount Spokane, the lift operators had no problem slowing the lift for them.

Mount Spokane 2000 invested in two new grooming machines last year. The runs were always groomed before the lifts opened each morning. As a member of the Mount Spokane Ski Patrol, I know there was a noticeable decrease in accidents this year, part of which could be contributed to the constant grooming and care taking of the mountain.

Other improvements include the good food and on-hill events, such as the Boarder-cross and Big Air Contest. Management always responded quickly to the radios when a snowmobile was needed to aid a ski patroller, and it was a pleasure to work with such a conscientious management team this year. Bryceson K. Tenold, age 15 Spokane

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Mentally ill severely underserved

Therese M. Orth’s Your Turn column, “Need exceeds resources,” pertaining to the mentally ill, was outstanding.

We aren’t involved with the Spokane County mental health system. However, as the parents of a diagnosed mentally ill daughter, we could identify with her vivid descriptions of the various episodes the mentally ill experience, i.e. lack of impulse control, depressive states, self-mutilation, suicide, etc.

With our daughter, we’ve gone through many of the same experiences. Orth’s statement, “Our children didn’t ask to be born this way” was very poignant. Genetic brain disorders in an offspring are living hell for parents.

Society does very little to ameliorate the problems facing the mentally ill and their families. When a family member suffers a heart attack, everyone asks how he’s doing. Medical insurance pays a goodly portion of the hospitalization and follow-up medications.

If a family member suffers a serious mental illness episode, few people feel comfortable asking how they are doing, and medical insurance coverage will severely limit hospitalization, follow-up visits and medications. Without strong family support, emotionally and economically, many of these individuals become street people

It’s time for our society to awaken to the fact that we have people among us who, through no fault of their own, need help. Mental health services need to be a concern for all of us.

Orth is pleased with the care her daughter is receiving at the Tamarack Center. What about all those other daughters and sons on the waiting list? Can we neglect them? Harry and Ann Holmberg Coeur d’Alene

Put our `speedway’ out of business

In regard to the “Hillyard Speedway” letter from Jeff Sims (April 16), I speak for many when I say, bless you, sir! The downtown core of Hill’s Yard consists of historical train town buildings full of small businesses that are typical of downtown small America. We support a large, loyal residential community and each other.

Consequently, there is a great deal of foot traffic along Market north of Wellesley. After eight years at the center of the speedway, I am amazed no one has been struck down and that our law enforcement hasn’t seen the gold mine here. There are all kinds of benefits for almost everybody concerned.

First, we should loudly announce the new speed limit on all the corners at Market and Wellesley, as well as install a one-way sign and station motorcycle cops at random intervals. Perhaps the ragers and the truckers will tone down and everyone else can amuse themselves by seeing what we have going on here. I encourage Mayor John Talbott and his family to continue their support in this matter, as well as the United Steelworkers of Spokane. We need any cooperation toward getting back to not being afraid to cross the street.

Yes, the speed limit should be enforced in Hillyard. Our festival and parade are coming soon. Karen Tuininga owner, Karenoia, Hillyard

Growers perpetuate health threat

Burning wheat stubble may be cost effective for the wheat growers but people with breathing problems are paying a very high price for the growers’ profits.

Their burning season is short but our breathing problems last all winter. Don’t the growers think about their descendants? Don’t they realize that their bad farming practices are not only harmful to those of us with breathing problems but to themselves?

There must be a special place for those who pollute our soil, air and water, for those who put personal profit before their neighbors’ safety. Not only are we forced to breathe the growers’ smoke but also the residues of the insecticides, pesticides and herbicides they use on their fields.

The highly polluted future Rachel Carson wrote about in “Silent Spring” has arrived. Although, I’d like to make one correction to Carson’s predictions: The spring isn’t totally silent. There is the sound of people like me wheezing, coughing and trying to draw one good, clean, breath of fresh air. Lloyd Lovell Spokane

VIOLENCE

Abandoning discipline hasn’t worked

While I’m as horrified as anyone by the proliferation of teenage violence, I can’t say that I’m too surprised. The decline of discipline in society today is deplorable.

Not that long ago, when I was a student at Shadle Park High School, we had behavior and dress codes. If you didn’t obey the rules, you were punished on the spot by suspension, expulsion or you at least spent the day just sitting in the office.

Now, schools are so afraid of being sued by parents who perceive their child is “being picked on” that they won’t discipline a child. Believe me, if any student at Shadle Park had dared to walk through the halls dressed in baggy jeans, a black duster coat, short shorts or the like, they’d have been sent home immediately to change clothes. Sometimes the offending garment was even confiscated until school was out for the year.

Children will complain they shouldn’t have to be told what to wear to school. Remember, kids, someday you’ll be in the real world, i.e. the work world, and you will be told what you can or cannot wear.

We need to get back to basics: schools that can actually tell children what they have to do without fear of being sued by irate parents, and parents who can discipline their children without fear of having Child Protective Services or the police called on them.

These days, children have no respect for any adult authority because no adult exercises authority over them. J.M. Henderson Spokane

Videogames a malignant influence

John Leo’s April 29 column, “Cold-blooded killing rocks their world,” reminded me of games I’ve seen in the last 10 years. I saw these violent videogames in arcades with my grandson when he was young.

The power of suggestion is very strong. When our youths have nothing better to do all day, while their parents work, they play games. Apparently, Eric Harris had a computer at home and was able to practice these violent games, day in and day out, and eventually couldn’t tell fantasy from reality.

Arcade businesses and this type of “entertainment” are so prevalent today, as are guns and violence on TV. Guns are a problem, but they don’t work without a finger on the trigger. The videogame industry should be regulated even more than guns, and children shouldn’t be encouraged to play them.

If the suggestion hadn’t been pounded into these boys’ heads by these repetitiously realistic and violent “games,” this wouldn’t have happened. Where did the knowledge come from but from some programmer who created these games?

Leo referred to psychologist David Grossman of Arkansas State University, a retired Army officer who thinks point-and-shoot videogames have the same effect as military strategies used to break down a soldier’s aversion to killing. That’s very significant.

Guns were the major weapon but you don’t kill without first thinking about it. Parents need to check out the videogames in their home and at the local arcade. Whole communities need to check out what kids are “playing” with. Joanne Peters Kellogg, Idaho

Parents, look up `spoiled’

Parents have lost control of their children. There’s no one at home when they come home from school. Computer access to illegal and/or immoral subjects is too prevalent, and children today ask for anything they want and the parents will get it for them; money has no value to children. Where do children in Littleton or Anytown, U.S.A., get $800 to buy bombs?

If parents aren’t making enough money to support their children’s monetary demands, they go on strike to get raises, which usually leads to violence. Is this a good example for children? No!

Guns are not the problem. How many guns pull their own triggers and maim or kill someone? None.

Parents need to step back and assess how they are raising their children and what kind of examples they are setting for those children. Did they get everything they wanted when they were growing up? Karen J. Estes Lind, Wash.

U.S. AND THE WORLD

We’re into some bad business

Bombing Yugoslavia into oblivion is wrong. This action violates international law by disregarding the U.N. Charter, the 1980 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and the Helsinki Accords Final Act of 1975.

This aggression has resulted in loss of many innocent lives, both Serbs’ and Kosovars’, and untold devastation of the country. This cost is in the billions of dollars which will be at the American taxpayers’ expense.

Bombing blitzkriegs don’t work, as shown by World War II and the Tet offensive. The blitz didn’t bring Churchill and the North Vietnamese, respectively, to the negotiating table. This current blitz has resulted in two other countries being “accidentally” bombed with guided missiles and three Americans being captured.

On April 14, the Air Force announced serious depletion of its cruise missiles, with 2,000 remaining. The Air Force will undertake a $52 million conversion of nuclear-armed cruise missiles to nonnuclear - at $565,000 per missile. Further, Congress authorized Clinton billions of American dollars for more aggression.

Secretary of Defense William Cohen (one of the three stooges, along with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and national security adviser Sandy Berger) announced intensification of the air campaign by “area bombing,” whereby unguided weapons are dropped. This method resulted in large civilian casualties in WWII and Vietnam.

Why should the innocent people of Yugoslavia be condemned to death and destruction just because they’re Yugoslavians? Charlotte Benjamin Spokane

Nothing here to be proud of

Knowing that U.S. bombs are poisoning rivers, knowing U.S. bombs are killing innocent civilians and having a hunch that this is more about making an excuse for NATO to seem important than anything else, I am most definitely not proud to be an American. Jade Hill Spokane

BELIEFS

Evolution theory not malevolent

Mindy Kanally (Letters, April 27) contends the teaching of evolution contributes to a loss of self-esteem and encourages antisocial behavior. Her accusations are reminiscent of those initially leveled against Galileo for teaching that the Earth revolves around the sun.

Religious authorities once forbade teaching of the heliocentric theory because it ousted humankind from its former privileged status at the center of creation. They feared such heresy would disillusion the masses, undermine church doctrine and lead to moral deterioration. Nonetheless, most people have come to grips with the fact that they do not reside at the center of the cosmos.

Although he was placed under house arrest for spreading dangerous ideas, we do not blame Galileo today for society’s moral lapses. Perhaps the day will come when we’ll be mature enough to stop blaming Darwin for them as well.

Rather than fostering nihilism, the theory of evolution engenders a respect and reverence for all life forms. As products of evolution, all living things on Earth are intimately conjoined through an intricate web of life that stretches billions of years into the past. Belief in this primal kinship mitigates against the animal cruelty that so often precedes acts of violence against humans.

Kanally also criticizes moral relativism for aggravating society’s ills. Her criticism may be justified to an extent. But anyone who thinks that religion-based moral absolutism is an effective deterrent against violent behavior is living in a dream world. (Witness the religious conflicts in Kosovo, Northern Ireland, the Middle East, etc.) Jack R. DeBaun Sandpoint