Letters To The Editor

WASHINGTON STATE

What is human cost of saving money?

Thank you, editorial writer Jamie Tobias Neely, Dr. Deb Harper, Mary Ann Murphy and others for having the courage to expose one of the many dark sides of the social revolution known simply as welfare reform. Denial of public assistance benefits to poor, single parents with newborn children is truly an accident waiting to happen - one that will cost the state dearly.

In our haste to remove people from the dole and create a permanent underclass of workers, we make assumptions that don’t reflect reality. Unlike many middle class nine-to-fivers, low-income parents participating in the Work First program must accept any job, no matter the hours. Often on call evenings, nights and weekends, these parents are placed in the Catch-22 of being terminated from essential (food, rent) cash assistance and having to put their children at risk.

The problem documented by Neely is but one of many structural and practical problems associated with the Work First program. Across Washington, thousands of children are wrongfully terminated from essential medical assistance. Families with disabled children are often sanctioned by workers whose primary goal is to garner another so-called success story, rather than address the real-life needs of the people with whom they work. And so, the needs of disabled adults go unaddressed.

Yes, it was important to re-engineer the system. But in our haste for statistics, let’s not lose track of the people whose lives hang in the balance. Let’s also not lose track of the short- and long-term consequences of a society that devalues and dehumanizes the dignity of the most vulnerable members of our community. James A. Bamberger Columbia Legal Services, Spokane

Bring back needed reform

Legislation that would have allowed our state an additional two years to re-examine and improve the availability of child care and work with the Work First program to allow mothers to stay home for the entire first year of a child’s life was put forth in the Legislature this year.

The extra year the legislation would’ve provided is essential in helping create a strong, healthy bond between a mother and her child. Currently, there are not enough competent, capable child care services available in our state.

It’s not a matter of dollars but a matter of responsible sense. Economic marginalization puts our most vulnerable citizens, our children, at risk. Welfare reform will only intensify this risk and rob our children of their rights to love, hope and the abundant life the creator of life intends for everyone.

I ask our legislators, will this policy help families stay together and care for their children? Will this policy support families in providing care, nurturing, safety and stability to children? Will it put children first?

Who can speak for the children unable to speak for themselves unless it is you and me?

Call your governor, your legislator, your friends and convince them to make those same calls. If one more child is abused, neglected or dies and I have not spoken, who will speak for me? Rev Flora J. Bowers United Methodist Church, Spokane

SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION

You must make yourself learn

In the “Use it or lose it” column of May 17, Darcy Camden of Lewis and Clark High School tries to deflect criticism of students’ educational competency onto the teachers. She says, “After all, it’s their job to make us learn, right?”

This myth is part of the problem. It’s a fallacy that’s been going on for years, and has been circulated by students and some adults. Teachers are there to help you learn and guide you on the educational path. But you have to want to go down the road with them.

Teachers are no more required to “make you learn” than your future employer is required to make you work. When you leave school and join the work force, you will find that if you don’t want to work at a job, your employer won’t take the time to make you work. You’ll just get fired. It will be hard to get good employment if this happens too many times.

School provides the opportunity to learn. Take it, don’t wait for it. Develop the “I want to learn everything” attitude and you will go far in life. John D. McCallum Spokane

Student, help teacher to educate you

Lewis and Clark student Darcy Camden says about teachers, “It’s their job to make us learn, right?” (Our Generation, May 17).

Wrong. No one can make another person learn anything. The person has to want to learn. An educational system or an individual teacher can use rewards and penalties to encourage learning, and gifted teachers frequently inspire students to learn. But the student has to come with some motivation for the teacher to work with.

There is a saying, “A wise man can learn more from a fool than a fool can from a wise man.” Because of changing education needs, a teacher may be assigned a class he or she is not ideally prepared for and teachers, being human, vary in their abilities.

Instead of sitting back and saying, “Make me learn,” a student would be much better off by saying, “How can I help you teach me?”

If the goal is to learn, it is up to the student to do whatever it takes to learn, even if this means working with the teacher to accomplish the goal. What is learned may be of help to the student in later life.

An athlete cannot say it’s up to the coach to make us win. The desire must be there to start with. But a coach can choose who is to be on his team and dump the unmotivated. An ordinary classroom teacher does not have that luxury. Robert E. Forman Colville, Wash.

FIREARMS

Make criminals target of tough laws

Why won’t gun control work? Take a look, for instance, at the war on drugs. Better yet, look at the war on drugs in the prison system. We have yet to be at the point where we can eliminate any illegal substance, even after having spent billions!

Criminals, by definition, break the law. Criminals also do not hesitate to violate society’s mores if and when it serves their purpose.

Rape, murder and robbery are against the law and yet, tragically, they happen every day. But what is truly criminal is when an offender is allowed to repeat a crime.

Babies are born drug dependant, good people are victimized and families lose a loved one every day, and laws don’t prevent these horrible occurrences. If you think creating new laws to address every tragedy will solve any of society’s problems, you’re terribly naive. What needs to be done is to have existing laws enforced and with an iron fist.

Gun owners don’t want criminals to have guns. To demonize gun owners for insisting that the right to own guns should not be infringed upon is ridiculous. Gun owners, as a whole, want stricter penalties and want those penalties to stick. We do not want criminals back out on the street to reoffend.

New laws will affect only law-abiding citizens, not criminals. So, why should good, honest, productive citizens be hampered in any way in a misguided attempt to short circuit criminals?

Police have a thankless job and, unfortunately, can only pick up the pieces after a crime has been committed. They rarely pre-empt crime. Won’t you be thankful that you or a bystander had access to a gun, if the need arise, and saved the police from having to pick up the broken pieces of your life? Keith W Bean Spokane

It’s time for screwdriver control

Re: “Screwdriver used by two robbers” (May 18).

Looks like it’s time for some new laws.

1. Must be 18 years or older to own or purchase any screwdriver.

2. All screwdrivers must be kept in locked boxes, to keep them out of the hands of juveniles and criminals.

3. A person wishing to carry a screwdriver must first obtain a concealed screwdriver permit.

4. All screwdrivers with a shank length exceeding six inches shall be banned.

5. Due to the amount of damage that can be inflicted, all power screwdrivers shall be banned.

6. Screwdriver manufacturers and sellers will now be liable for injuries or deaths caused by these dangerous weapons, whether accidental or during the commission of a crime.

7. All sellers, including those at tool shows, shall conduct background checks prior to the sale of these dangerous weapons.

8. Cheap, low quality Saturday Night Special screwdrivers shall be banned.

Please help make our streets safe. Contact your elected officials and encourage them to enact these new laws. Randall Hines Spokane

Sorry excuse for humor

Re: “Would-be juror comes up with a good excuse,” (May 17).

I take exception to D.F. Oliveria’s “bumpersnicker” of Monday, May 17. It read: “I can’t go to work today because the voices said, `Stay home and clean the guns.”’

As a native Idahoan raised in a responsible, gun-owning family, I was taught to respect guns and to take them seriously - not to joke about their lethal power. As a state legislator, I served on the Region I Mental Health Advisory Board and on the Senate Health and Welfare Committee. I carried legislation to address the inequities faced throughout the health care and insurance system by people with mental health problems. But no law can address the ignorance and often the cruelty they face every day, exhibited in things like this.

As a parent, I watch tragic events unfold: at Littleton, Colo,; at Moses Lake; at towns around the nation; and at Sandpoint, with its recent bomb threats. I wonder what I, as a concerned parent and citizen, can do in concert with school officials, social service providers, elected officials, community leaders and others to make our corner of the world a safer and more inclusive place in which to live.

And I wonder what the media will do to fulfill the responsibilities you have to go along with the First Amendment rights so dear to all of us.

This tasteless, irresponsible item does not reassure me. Oliveria owes us all an apology. Barbara K. Chamberlain Coeur d’Alene

THE MEDIA

Sunday columnist’s efforts delight

I find myself every Sunday ripping open The Spokesman-Review to the IN-Life section, to see if it’s Kathleen Corkery Spencer’s week to write. She has an incredible gift and I feel fortunate to be able to read her articles. I would love to see her every week, if not every day!

Thank you, Spokesman-Review, for recognizing incredible talent when you see it. She makes my day. Shannon Q. Selland Spokane

Quit belaboring school violence

Shame on the television media! When are they going to get a clue about the damage they’re doing? Don’t they understand that by repeatedly keeping this horrendous topic of violence in schools as leading news for weeks after the fact, continuing interviews about the same thing over and over again, that they are glamorizing the whole ordeal?

I am so tired of turning on the news, local or cable, and listening to the talking heads explaining or debating why this happened. We all know why this continues to happen and the media are playing an all too familiar role in it.

These people send the wrong message to children already on the verge of destruction. By keeping school violence in the limelight, another child is going to go one step further - and then another. Where does it end?

It ends with the media and journalists having the decency to report news as it happens and then move on. Show some respect and integrity, for God’s sake. Jeanie DeFranceseo Spokane

Antique car event undercovered

I had thought the media would give Lost in the ‘50s more coverage. A total of 650 antiques is not only a lot of cars but the owners come from afar to display their vehicles. Strandlee N. McMains Sagle

WHALES

Makah whaling not unreasonable

As an ethnic American (i.e. an American of ethnic origin), I see nothing wrong in the Makah whaling expedition. Maybe those who are opposing such traditions don’t have any strong ethnic ties that have any traditional value. Perhaps they just don’t understand what whaling has meant to the Makah.

The Makah weren’t out to kill a whole pod of whales; they were after one. They planned to use all of the whale, for consumption, for display of the skeleton and for the oil. Most other hunters consume the flesh and throw away the rest of their kill or just want it for a trophy and waste everything. Maybe they don’t realize the white man decimated the whaling industry as a whole in the past century. Only recently has the gray whale population regained a healthy level. Even so, population control of any species is necessary.

If a non-Native American group had a history of pursuing a certain activity deemed politically incorrect nowadays, but wanted to resume such activity as a cultural identifier, most people wouldn’t protest unless it was inherently dangerous, illegal or morally wrong.

Now, if only the other Native Americans would do their fishing without gill nets and big boats. I wouldn’t have a problems with their fishing rights if they would fish in traditional ways. The Makah were doing their fishing with harpoons, which is how it should be. Stace Norlen Deer Park

Makah hunt hardly traditional

I am outraged about the traditional Makah whale hunt reinstatement. Forget tradition!

First, they get their souped-up canoe towed out to the open ocean, close to one of the gentle giants. They are unsuccessful in killing the animal in a humane manner so they have to finish it off with a few shots from a cannon.

Last, but not least, they have the whale carcass towed to shore by a large boat. Here it gets cut up while tribe members stand atop of the carcass dancing and chanting. What about paddling out to the open ocean and giving the animal a fair chance at survival?

I am convinced the ancestors provided for their families out of necessity, not tradition. I am saddened by all of this, especially since I am an avid scuba diver and respect, and love to observe, animals in the water - especially the gentle giants of the ocean. Jerry Gooren Hayden