Letters To The Editor

WASHINGTON STATE

See to the safety of babies

If you knew that a baby would die tomorrow from abuse or neglect, what would you be willing to do to save that baby’s life? Babies die at the hands of casual, thoughtless, untrained, unqualified adults. Caretakers who don’t care, caretakers who snap when a baby cries and cries and is inconsolable.

We know that babies like the ones who we see at Casey Family Partners: Spokane will be hurt and may even die. Our pediatricians, Alan Hendrickson and Deb Harper, and our professional staff at this specialized child abuse evaluation center are called often to try and pick up the pieces - too late, sometimes, to save the baby’s life.

Federal welfare reform legislation may exacerbate these problems. Congress decreed that states should decide if parents receiving income assistance (temporary assistance to needy families) should be required to seek work when the baby is three months old.

Here’s the big problem in Washington state: Infant child care is scarce and expensive.

Single parents making minimum wage can’t afford it; consequently, their babies won’t be left in safe, licensed child care facilities. Instead, they may leave them with neighbors, relatives, a new boyfriend - someone without an attachment to the child. Inevitably, some babies will be left in the care of persons who will abuse - and may even kill - them.

Washington’s governor and legislators still have time to address this critical issue and extend the timeline to 12 months when they return for special session on May 17. Mary Ann Murphy, director Casey Family Partners, Spokane

Teachers deserve excellent pay

Re: “Better pay only for better work,” concerning teachers’ pay raise (Apr. 23). The writer commented that 25 years ago, a teacher had a class of 30 to 40 kids. No kids slipped through the system and all was well.

Twenty five years ago, kids did sit in class, behaved, learned and respected each other and adults, especially their teachers. Sadly, that is no longer happening in our classrooms today. Teachers are not at fault. Some parents do not teach their kids today about discipline and respect. Some do not give their kids the love, attention and direction so badly needed. Instead, they send their kids to school and expect the teachers to handle it all.

As a longtime parent volunteer in the Central Valley School District, I would tell any parent who does not support our teachers and their cause to spend some time in the classroom. They will find our teachers being placed in the position of disciplinarian, counselor, coach, mom, dad, friend, and baby sitter at times when the kids are sick and parents cannot or will not stay home. Our children are our greatest gift and Central Valley teachers go above and beyond every day for our kids. Teacher should be one of the highest-paid positions in society today and they deserve our support. After all, aren’t your children worth it? Mine are. Shawna Alexander Veradale, Wash.

HEALTH CARE

Medicare change a terrible disservice

Our country is in a health care crisis. The crisis is ability to access home health care services.

The Medicare payment method for home health services that went into effect on Oct. 1, 1997, reduced payments approximately 15 percent. Over 1,000 home health agencies went out of business in the first nine months following that change. An additional 15 percent reduction in Medicare payments is scheduled for Oct. 1, 2000. This will put more home health agencies out of business. Many urban and most rural home health agencies will not be able to stay in business.

This crisis will have a great impact on our elderly community members. People ask what they will do if they aren’t able to get home health care services. I tell them possible options include:

Staying in a hospital or nursing home longer, or going into one sooner.

Relocating to an area that has home health care services.

Finding a means of assisted transportation to bring you to a medical provider as needed.

Home health care services are a proven, cost-effective method of providing health care to homebound individuals. The Medicare payment system’s short-term thinking will destroy this avenue of care and ultimately increase society’s health care cost.

Please contact your U.S. senators and representatives and demand that Medicare payment changes take place that will allow this necessary service to continue. Ralph L. Hill, executive director Home Health of Northeast Washington, Chewelah

VIOLENCE

Ban assault-type weapons

Questions have been asked about the kids involved in the Colorado high school tragedy. Questions like the clothes the kids were wearing and the group they belonged to.

The biggest question is this: For other than military use, why are assault weapons being sold? Why are they in the marketplace? You certainly can’t go hunting with a weapon of mass destruction. What would be left of the game to eat?

Collectibility? Come on. I get better return on collectible comics.

No, weapons such as assault weapons are only meant for mass infliction of injuries, nothing more, nothing less. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out.

Someone has always turned the other way when it comes to regulating guns or the banning of certain types of weapons. Why must it take a tragedy like the Colorado high school massacre to get the ball rolling on creating laws forbidding the design, manufacture and sale of weapons of this type?

Where will the next school massacre take place? Spokane, Los Angeles, New York?

Who will be courageous enough to take the blame and say you’re right? The insanity has to stop. Joe Ocasio Spokane

Look for the trouble within

Re: Jonathan H. Lundquist’s April 28 letter, “Gothic chic is evil.”

We need to look past the way kids dress and start looking for some solid answers to why the killings at Columbine High School happened.

Who cares about the trench coats, black clothes, the games they played or the music they listened to. These things have nothing to do with why this happened. They could hardly be considered signs. This was how these kids expressed themselves as individuals.

You cannot define a person by how they dress, and clothes certainly don’t make them evil. It makes them different. But still others took it upon themselves to decide that this was not normal and so they were outcast.

I’m not trying to justify what these kids did; it makes me sick to think about it. I’m simply saying we should stop pretending that we saw it coming or that it could have been avoided. No one saw it coming because they were so blinded by what these kids looked like and how they were different that they couldn’t see the real signs. These boys were deeply troubled, whatever the cause. I’m sure their choice of clothes, games, or music would not drive them to kill another person.

For the sake of my generation, I’m asking you to close your eyes and open your mind and your heart. There was a boy under that trench coat, but no one could see him until he had a gun in his hand. Chantel Partridge student, East Valley Extension School

Need is for serious attitude change

In the Apr. 22, paper a Lakeside High School student pondered the terrible massacre at the high school in Littleton, Colo. She said she didn’t have answers and is going to look around her more and not ignore people in situations.

I hope she read Doug Clark’s column about Frankie the dog who has had two prior violent incidents and has attacked again. It just isn’t unhappy teens who have dangerous weapons, time bombs, and apparently, no consideration for the lives of others. I have no answers, either. But one suggestion would be to start changing society and legal attitudes from the top down. That is, the older adults, judges and lawyers who think a few violent incidents by pets are OK, down to the children on the play ground who are allowed to bully, tease and ostracize other children. Change sometimes needs to start from the top down. Nancy A. Herring Spokane

ABORTION

What’s in a name? Maybe life

Most people are tired of the A-word now, so let me rephrase it. Last year, my wife had fetal tissue removed after 26 weeks due to an emergency. The chromosomally distinct specimen was able to live with a respirator and feeding tube. We gave the tissue a name because it seemed so human-like.

For two months we made daily trips to the biological maintenance facility to be with the tissue and play it music tapes. It was amazing that even during the first week, this tiny nonperson with a baseball-sized head could recognize our voices and was aware enough to fuss about its diaper.

The second week, the tissue could breathe partly on its own and turn its head over. When it cried, it sounded like a real person. Eight weeks later, the specimen could drink from a bottle and was ready to leave the facility.

We recently celebrated the first anniversary of the tissue. The specimen sat in a high chair, raised its lip corners and watched us as we all cheered it and sang a little song. It then got excited and used its upper phalanges to inject cake into its oral cavity.

Now, will someone inform me why calling my child a fetus or embryo makes it any less a child, and why the destruction in this country of at least 40 million similar human tissues via gestationus interruptus is not mass homicide?

My tympanic membranes and organs of corti are waiting for a satisfactory explanation and so are the victims. Tom A. Garrett Spokane

We have devalued life itself

For days now, we have been saturated by the news media regarding the murders in Littleton, Colo., and in other schools. The outcry you hear is for more gun control. When we, as a nation, finance and advocate the murder of unborn children, the message is clear to our children, our society and especially our young adults that is is OK to commit murder. Life is not precious to them.

Before we talk about more gun control, let’s talk about lawmakers, abortion clinics and doctors who perform abortions. There is no public outcry for the thousands of unborn babies who are murdered daily. In fact, there aren’t adequate records of just how many babies are killed each year. They never get a burial or memorial service. Yet, we will spend days, weeks and much money trying to protect our schools. Protecting the unborn child will send a stern message to our young that life is very precious. Thelma L. Anderson Coeur d’Alene

OTHER TOPICS

Not so fine and dandelion

I always enjoy Paul Turner’s Slice column, so I was surprised at his war against dandelions. Aside from the weak metaphor, given today’s reality (and a headline in poor taste - the word “napalm” will never be humorous to me), it made my skin crawl to read about the “chemical warfare” waged against this benign “weed.”

It’s important for us all to understand how toxic today’s pesticides are. If Turner wanted to grow a tomato where the dandelion was attacked, he’d have to wait five years before the soil could be considered safe. And children should be kept away from the area for months.

Meanwhile, the dandelion is strangely maligned. Every part of it is edible and nutritious. Remember mentions of dandelion wine from a simpler era? I say, make wine, not war. And let’s keep our soil safe for food and children. Judy Laddon Spokane

Baha’is oppressed in Iran

In the United States, students can study their own religion in a college or university. Gonzaga University and Whitworth College are local examples of religious academic institutions.

The situation of Baha’i students in Iran is very different. The Baha’i faith is not recognized as a legitimate religion in Iran and Baha’is have no constitutional rights.

Four faculty members of the Baha’i Institute of Higher Education are in prison in Isfahan, Iran. On March 16, Dr. Sina Hakiman was sentenced to 10 years in prison, Farzad Khajeh Sharifabadi and Habibullah Ferdosian Najafabadi to seven years and Ziaullah Mirzapanah to three years. They taught religious classes to Baha’i youths in an organization called the Institute for Higher Baha’i Studies. The Iranian government barred their students from attending other universities because of their religious beliefs.

The 300,000 Baha’is are Iran’s largest religious minority. The Islamic Revolutionary Court in Isfahan decided that the faculty members’ involvement in a program of Baha’i Studies was evidence of crimes against national security. There is no mention in the law (Chapter 1, Article 498 of the Islamic Penal Code) about religious instruction within one’s own religious community as an illegal activity. This is a clear attempt to use the penal code to punish the Baha’is for studying their own religion.

The United States government has been an advocate for the rights of Baha’is in Iran. There are refugees from Iran in Spokane, from Baha’i and Moslem backgrounds. Deborah Y. Bisenius Spokane

Evolution theory too faulty

Jack DeBaun’s statement defending evolutionism (“Evolution theory not malevolent”) contains a flaw common in such a defense. One should not compare Galileo’s heliocentric theory with Darwin’s theory of evolution. The former is provable by the scientific method while the latter is not.

I’ve studied the written evidence for the heliocentric theory and observed the planets and stars in the sky. Galileo’s theory was eventually accepted because proof through further observations continued to support it, not because more people simply believed an unprovable theory.

I’ve also studied the written evidence for the theory of evolution. No testing or repeated observations can be made to support it. Instead, I find biased statements that violate basic laws of science (and reasoning) and a total lack of physical evidence. Evolutionism is unprovable and is simply a system of beliefs.

I must question another statement DeBaun made. Where in the evolutionary process did it “engender a respect and reverence for all life forms”? If evolution depends on the survival of the fittest, organisms must kill or be killed. When and how did this “primal kinship (that) mitigates against…animal cruelty…” develop? This type of social behavior is doomed to extinction by evolutionism’s own tenets.

Mindy Kanally (Letters, April 27) and DeBaun both correctly blame moral relativism for aggravating society’s ills. DeBaun is also correct that forcing moral absolutism will be ineffective. The moral absolutism must come from within, based on one’s belief in God and relationship to Jesus Christ - something that cannot be forced or legislated. William B. Stromberger Edwall, Wash.

Egos stand in way of real progress

I was delighted to read that the Humane Society began providing free pet food to strikers at Kaiser so they can keep their pets. I never thought much of the Humane Society before, but it just took a giant step up in my book.

At the same time, I was sad to learn that the lives of the strikers had degenerated so badly. I read their letters and their boasts of how they won’t sell their pride and accept an offer they feel is substandard. Pride is an easy thing to boast about with the boys, but it won’t pay a mortgage, feed one’s children or let them keep their pets.

I would like to see the strike end soon, but it looks like too many egos are at stake for that to happen. I feel sorry for the children and the pets. Michael E. Mayeau Spokane