Letters To The Editor

SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION

Parents must play an active role

I’ve been following the problem of inadequate teachers in Idaho and Washington through letters to the editor. An element seems to be missing in most opinions about resolving the issue of preparing students for life outside the classroom.

The missing element is found in the students’ homes. Until parents deal with being partners in their child’s education, a vital support is gone from the effort.

Teachers would welcome parents becoming a part of the educational process. Children need to feel that their education is important to their parents and that working hard in school is rewarding both at home and in school. Asking about homework or reading together is a small investment in time.

It takes a team to help, prod, guide and praise a student to reach his or her goals. The idea that a teacher is solely responsible for your child’s education is faulty. This teacher faces a group of about 30 students each day, with discipline problems, negative attitudes, etc., and works to educate each student to the limits of his or her capability.

Visit your child’s school. Talk to the principal. His or her vision shapes the shool’s educational direction.

If you think the staff is overpaid, invite 30 kids to your home for seven hours every day for a week. You are the teacher - you plan the lessons, grade the papers and maintain the positive educational environment. Remember, teachers do this daily.

Now more than ever, teachers need the support of their community and state. Cliff McLean Coeur d’Alene

Gracias, Taco Time

I recently attended a delightful kindergarten event at Logan Elementary. Literacy Lunch included a luncheon followed by skits and songs performed by the kindergarteners. Being a mother, I so appreciate the extra work and thought the Logan staff put into helping the students shine.

But it was even more heartwarming that food for the luncheon, for student and parent alike, had been wholly donated by the Taco Time at Ruby and Sharp. Students, staff and families feasted on burritos, potato tots and cinnamon crispies. This isn’t the first time Taco Time has assisted Logan Elementary. Taco Time regularly hosts Logan Nights at its Ruby location, donating profits from the food sold that night to our school. It also displays art work from Logan students on its walls.

It’s easy to find companies that are money-hungry and thoughtless of their community. I am happy to thank Taco Time for being a wonderful corporate neighbor and a real friend to the students at Logan Elementary. Rebecca A. Swainston Spokane

SPOKANE MATTERS

Editorial biased, reactionary

Re: “Spokane can surely do better than this” (Opinion, Feb. 10).

Editor Chris Peck attempts to make a case that there is cronyism at work among the new City Council members, in respect to the manner in which they orchestrated the hiring of Henry Miggins as city manager. He clearly implies that this “gang of four” is beholden to the political machinations of Metropolitan Mortgage, due to that company’s political contributions to the newcomers’ war chests.

I found it difficult to stifle my incredulity at Peck’s allegations of hypocrisy toward the new council members. If there was a more blatant attempt at private enterprise trying to manipulate the local political process than the Cowles’ involvement with the parking garage debacle, I’m not aware of it. How hypocritical is it to accuse the new council members of bowing down to special interests when the very people they oppose sign Peck’s paycheck?

I agree the methodology employed to hire Miggins wasn’t as open as it should have been. However, the motives were sound: to clear the decks of players in our government who might have difficulty being objective in the upcoming examination of the garage funding process. The intent was for the welfare of Spokane.

My father taught journalism at Gonzaga University for 20 years and often spoke to me about the need for complete objectivity. When the owners and/or immediate family members of public newspapers become involved in city government and local business, one must seriously question whether journalistic integrity can be maintained in the reporting of the local political process. Mark C. Norton Mead

Enough of Clark’s belly-aching

Doug Clark’s outrageous column of Feb. 13 is completely biased. Activities of the previous “City Council family” were deplorable. The average citizens’ concerns were ignored while the members did their own thing, such as allocating taxpayers’ money for the Lincoln Street bridge fiasco, spending thousands of dollars for outside consultants and awarding huge severance payments to those leaving office, to name a few.

Give the newcomers a chance and forget the snide remarks that, at this point, are completely uncalled for. The voters have spoken. It’s time to listen. Eileen E. Brecken Spokane

Shoe’s on the other foot and it pinches

Re: “Spokane can surely do better than this” (Opinion, Feb. 10).

Editor Chris Peck seems to think the citizens of Spokane deserve better than they are getting from our new City Council.

I say if this council had been seated in the election before, we would not have a parking garage that is losing money faster than we citizens can count.

It seems that Peck thinks the council is being influenced by Metropolitan Mortgage. Who does he think was influencing the council the last four years? This is the first time in many years that the Cowles family has had any competition in influencing city politics, and they don’t know how to handle it.

One thing for sure, Peck proved he knows who signs his paycheck! LeRoy A. Harbour Spokane

WAR ON DRUGS

End this ignorant, failed policy

The United States just passed the two million mark for citizens incarcerated. I prepared my signs for the protest in front of the county jail with a heavy heart. I know grandstanding politicians have used this drug war to militarize the police forces of America. Politicians have given carte blanche to law enforcement in the form of no-knock raids that all too often end in the mistaken death of a law-abiding citizen like Ismael Mena in Denver, Colo. I have witnessed the dismantling of the constitutional rights I hold so dear, especially the Fourth Amendment relating to unlawful searches and seizures.

After 30 years of an internal war, $1 trillion spent and, at best, a 10 percent efficacy rate, by the DEA’s own admission, I am sad, mad and demand a change in this ignorant failure of a policy.

Are we such zealots that we will continue to allow the government to arrest another 700,000 marijuana users next year like we did last year? Are we going to allow the government to ignore the medical marijuana initiatives duly passed into law by the citizens of at least seven states? Under any other circumstance, wouldn’t we call this a police state?

I’m afraid that the land of the free has been turned into the land of the free to do exactly what we are told. John Morgan Duty II Spokane

Replace damaging, Draconian nonsense

We reached a regrettable and shameful milestone on Feb. 15. On that date, our prison population in the United States reached a shocking two million.

More than two-thirds of that population results from excessively tough drug laws, including mandatory minimum sentences, that were passed in the 1980s and ‘90s. Many first-time, nonviolent drug offenders do more time in prison than rapists and murderers. And we incarcerate far more of our citizens on a per-capita basis than any other country in the world, excluding Russia.

Current policy put an enormous strain on our fiscal resources at all levels of government, not to mention the wasted human potential of our prisoners and their families. Instead of building schools we are building prisons. Instead of hiring more teachers we are hiring more prison guards. Instead of keeping families together we are splitting them apart. We need a sensible, common sense solution and we need it now. Terry M. Cox Spokane

PEOPLE IN SOCIETY

Respect not too costly offer it up

Re: “Campaign puts respect for Indians on the map” (Feb. 13).

I was not surprised to read Joe Finney’s remarks regarding the respectful change of the names given to the resort and campground near where he lives on the east shore of Lake Coeur d’Alene. The term “squaw” does refer to a certain and important part of female genitalia - which should be honored and respected - not defamed and degraded on a public way, waterway or highway.

We have a mascot in the local school district which is an Indian. It looks nothing like the Indian side of my family, which has lived in this area for at least 10,000 years. The excuse for not changing the mascot is the same for not changing the term “squaw” - it would be too expensive, according to the local school board.

For these changes to take place, it wouldn’t involve political correctness. It would be a matter of doing the right thing - a heightened sense of cultural sensitivity and respect as part of helping to create a more just and sensitive community.

The price tag for these changes is minimal to me when you consider the historical and cultural insensitivity that young people see and continue to learn by the example they are given by those they look to for direction in their lives. James Gordon Perkins Northwest Coalition For Human Dignity, Colville

Chinook jargon words benign

Re: “Campaign puts respect for Indians on the map” (Feb. 13). Thanks for a thought-provoking front page story. Your ongoing coverage of the issue of whether to change place names that are potentially offensive to Native Americans has been commendable.

“Squaw” is certainly a word that has had negative connotations for the better part of two centuries in American English, as have “buck,” “chief” and “princess.” (See innumerable articles in The Spokesman-Review well into the 20th century.) However, two place names mentioned in Sunday’s article have more complicated histories than was implied. “Papoose” is, in the Northwest context, a word from the Chinook jargon, a language used for communication between Native Americans and whites since about 1800. There is extensive record of the use of this term in that relatively neutral context to mean baby. “Dago” is another Chinook jargon term, meaning gnats.

Many places on North Idaho public lands were given names from that language by a Forest Service ranger in the 1920s and ‘30s. There seems a real possibility Dago Peak may have been a victim recently of misinterpretation when it was renamed Italian Peak by Idaho authorities.

For more on Chinook jargon, refer to the CHINOOK list on the Internet (archived at http:/ /listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/chinook.html). Dave Robertson Spokane

Find original Indian name for bay

Regarding your recent article on the proposed name change on Lake Coeur d’Alene from Squaw Bay to something less offensive. When I was a kid growing up in North Idaho in the 1950s, a great aunt corrected me for saying “squaw.” She said it was an insult to other people and not respectful of one’s neighbors. I have never used it since. As for those quoted as having disbelief that the word is derogatory - come on now, boys, you know better.

Maybe we could find out what the original Native Americans called the place. It was probably both evocative and beautiful. Of one thing we may be sure - it was never called Guys With Foot in Mouth Bay. Leland G. Alkire Spokane