Letters To The Editor

Government and politics

Social Security sound and sensible

David Wordinger’s letter, “Social Security just a rip- off,” is alarming. I hope he and other concerned citizens read the June 29 Roundtable commentary by Thomas Oliphant of the Boston Globe.

Oliphant describes Al Gore’s proposal to create individual investment accounts as a supplement to, not a replacement of, Social Security. In contrast, George W. Bush wants to take money away from Social Security to invest in “individually controlled voluntary accounts.”

Who benefits from Social Security? Nearly every American family is protected. One in six receives a monthly benefit check - over 44 million people. Of these, more than 31 million receive retirement benefits. In addition, workers and their families are protected by Social Security’s disability and survivor insurance for disabled workers and their dependents, widows or widowers and children. While Wordinger considers Social Security in gloom and doom terms, actuaries tell us the program can pay full benefits till 2037.

The Federal Insurance Contributions Act, or FICA, collects payroll tax from workers and employers. This revenue funds Social Security benefits and administration costs. Dollars not used immediately are invested in U.S. Treasury securities. In times of surplus, Social Security reserves pay the publicly held debt. To continue to pay interest on a national debt that could be paid off in a dozen years is ridiculous. But that is what will happen if funds are diverted for a huge tax cut or individual accounts.

Wordinger would do well to consider Social Security insurance for his future. He should help all of us keep it solvent so it will be there for him when needed. Elinor F. Nuxoll Spokane

Keefe has so much to offer

Until June, I worked on Wayne Brokaw’s 5th District campaign. I was convinced that he fit the political profile of this district because of his life experiences, education, 24 years of community service and leadership skills.

Brokaw and I now support congressional candidate Tom Keefe. Brokaw set his ego aside, considered the best interests of the 5th Congressional District and graciously withdrew in support of the man he was convinced could beat George Nethercutt at the polls, serve with distinction and not be hampered by the political handicaps of a novice representative.

I looked in the so-called “carpetbag” and discovered other things. I see a man who kept a promise to his wife by giving their children the opportunity to be enriched by their cultural heritage on the Nez Perce Reservation for the last six years.

Keefe is intelligent, informed and articulate, with a wealth of political experience. He has poise, sensitivity and a sense of humor that are formidable tools for campaign debates and congressional forays. He has a history of fighting for diversity and human rights, an insider’s knowledge of living in a small town undergoing the transition from an extraction-based economy while coping with leaking schools and underpaid teachers. He has painfully honest insight about how Washington, D.C., works and the skills to deal with it.

I see a man who is loved and respected by his friends. I urge my fellow citizens to take a good look at this remarkable candidate before making up your mind. Valerie R. Smith, MSW Spokane

Distinctions without difference

The July 1 Spokesman-Review featured two strikingly similar photographs - one of Cuban kids singing for Elian’s return and one of American kids singing about our flag. What struck me was that most people would consider the former to be subject to horrible brainwashing, while the latter are just being patriotic. I’m sure someone in Cuba would have just the opposite reaction; their children are the patriotic ones, while the poor American kids are subject to American capitalist propaganda.

We like to think our culture is right and theirs is wrong but in fact, we’re deluding ourselves as to how similar they really are, and about how alike, not different, all of mankind really is. Luke Bakken Spokane

In the region

Small towns mean something

I enjoyed Jim Kershner’s article on Highway 2. I have traveled this route at times and associate the vast fields like an ocean. Instead of thinking there is nothing to see, I try to see the contrast of colors and the various homesteads that lie off in distance, and the history.

On my way home recently from Lake Chelan, I decided to stop in every town along the way. In some I just drove around a few-blocks area. In others I others I went into local businesses. I had a sense of true community. Granted, some of these towns appear lifeless but to those living in outlying areas, they offer comfort and companionship.

I grew up in Naches, Wash., and during my years there it was fairly busy, even for a population of 600. Now when I visit, I see an empty shell of what was. But I also see a community trying to hang on in a fast-paced world.

Let’s hope small towns can survive because they add a touch of reality in this new world we live in. Thanks, Kershner, for taking time in your busy life to stop and smell the roses. Bertha M. Miller Spokane

Our condolences, Hanford fire victims

Our hearts go out to the people who lost their homes, their belongings and, most of all, their irreplaceable memorabilia in the recent fire near Hanford.

My mother and I can relate to that, as we lost all we had in the Tum Tum fire almost three years ago. Almost every day we remember something we lost and can’t replace. You don’t really realize the full impact of what happened until later, if ever. To them and the family of the woman killed in the accident that caused it all, we wish the best possible! Don Marshall Tum Tum, Wash.

The environment

Activists say too much, know too little

For the last several months the roadless campaign has been in high gear in the Northwest. This campaign is doing its best to remove our ability to harvest timber from a large portion of the forests in the Northwest.

Many who advocate this program come from Washington, D.C., and have never even seen a northern forest, so how do they know how to manage them correctly?

The idea of not using this invaluable renewable resource is about like saying, I’m not going to grow and harvest wheat or grain here because it will destroy the pristine beauty of the land. This is preposterous; no one would have bread to eat. In the same way, building materials would be very scarce. And, pardon me, but toilet paper comes from trees. Some have suggested that fire and other natural processes will take care of the forests. Obviously, this is not the case. A big area of Los Alamos, N.M., is just a smoking hole in the ground now.

I agree there are better ways to harvest this timber than building roads all over the area. But over the years economically feasible options have come along, like helicopter logging. After a helicopter comes through a selective-cut area you cannot even tell by looking at it that it has been logged and the forest quickly springs to new life. And, because competition for nutrients has been removed, trees that were previously there grow much faster.

Let’s not close off this renewable natural resource. Let timber professionals harvest our forests. Brian K. Jorgenson Laclede, Idaho

Roadless area protection makes sense

Roads cause major environmental problems on Forest Service lands. Roads produce sediment that clogs streams, fragments wildlife habitat, spreads exotic weeds and causes landslides.

The Clearwater River Basin alone experienced more than 3,000 landslides from 1995 to 1997. Forest Service studies established that 70 percent of the mud slides were directly related to roads and logging. These slides dumped sediment into many streams and damaged wild trout spawning beds.

A lot of hysterical claims about fire danger aren’t based on reality. Forest Service data show 87 percent of lands at high risk of a severe fire are in the roaded areas, not roadless areas. Concerning fire danger, it makes sense to do something with roaded areas first.

Anyone who wants to log roadless areas wants to do just that - log roadless areas. Trying to link fire danger with roadless areas is just a desperate effort to play off people’s fears.

The Lewiston Morning Tribune recently ran the headline, “Timber glut shuts Potlatch.” A smart timber financial manager might consider supporting roadless protection. Although very little timber comes off roadless lands, the economic well-being of the timber industry is likely to be helped by protection of roadless areas. Decreasing timber supply increases the price.

Roadless areas are only a small part of the United States but provide a wealth of wildlife diversity and healthy ecosystems.

By not logging roadless areas we’ll save millions of taxpayer dollars, preserve wildlife habitat and ensure quality public recreation areas.

The healthiest forest environments are found in roadless areas and deserve to be protected. Larry O. McLaud Moscow

Those forest roads are unnecessary

We need more roadless areas, not fewer, because the last of the rugged individualists must have been our grandparents who lived in them. My mother and her parents herded sheep from southern Idaho to Lake Tahoe in the early 1900s - without 400,000 miles of government-subsidized roads.

I still recall the look of disbelief on my grandmother’s face when she asked my father, brother and me why we loaded the old 1948 Chevy pickup with so much equipment. When told we were going on a weekend hunting trip, she laughed, and in her broken English, Basque and French wording made it very clear we were a bunch of wimps. This happened before the giant 4-by-4’s and the creation of more back roads than we can use. What would she think of us now?

She took great pride, and rightly so, in telling us how my grandfather moved the entire band of sheep from one camp to another with only one dog. She moved the entire sheep camp and four kids by herself with only two pack mules and without 400,000 miles of back roads.

We do not need more government-subsidized gas guzzlers, nor do we need more government-subsidized road building in the last of our disappearing roadless areas. We should close many of the unmaintained roads and convert them to hiking trails for future generations.

Let the last of the rugged individualists drive our 4-by-4 to the trail’s head and hike from there, as many of our grandparents did. Larry M. Belmont Coeur d’Alene

Criticisms of industry all wrong

I saw the ad Timothy Coleman mentions in his June 30 letter and nowhere does it incite arson, as he claims. It does state some thought-provoking facts, such as a direct quote from Vice President Al Gore that is so misguided it’s almost laughable. The ad doesn’t encourage illegal activity. It simply shows the consequences of adopting such a blatantly political, unscientific roadless policy.

Coleman says forest health problems are “corporate greed and preference for timber management over all other ecosystem benefits.” First, “corporate greed” is a blanket phrase routinely dragged out by radical environmentalist groups whenever a timber sale is proposed, no matter the size of the sale or the company harvesting the timber. They would have you believe timber companies are made up of men in suits, smoking cigars and planning how to destroy the forest. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Timber companies make up the most concerned group of all about keeping forests healthy and abundant. If forests decline, so does their pocketbooks.

As to Coleman’s criticism of “timber management,” I remind him that the national forest system was created for the expressed purpose of having a well-managed, healthy supply of timber for our country. The preservationist movement’s attempts to turn national forests into huge “wilderness areas” are in direct opposition to the original intent for which national forests were designated. Daniel P. Robinson Usk, Wash.

Industry has image work to do

Recently, the logging industry has spent a considerable amount of money on advertising to sway the public toward believing that everything they own will go up in flames if salvage logging on U.S. Forest Service lands is not allowed as a result of the roadless proposal. As a frequent recreationist on public lands, it’s hard for me to believe that the enormous piles of pine needles, limbs and slash left by irresponsible logging are less combustible than a forest that has never been harvested.

Having lots of dual-trailered logging trucks careen down a narrow, shoulderless county road at excessive speed past small schoolchildren waiting at the bus stop in front of my house is generating some anti-logging sentiment within me. Using the road to illegally sneak between Highway 2 and Highway 395 in the wee hours of the morning during spring, when weight restrictions are in effect, is also wrong.

We all know wood products are important. Instead of telling the public the logging industry is really interested in preventing fires, erosion, etc., it should try demonstrating that. The industry should clean up its act and earn respect for being a responsible land steward. Reba Hendrix Deer Park

Today, it’s fish but tomorrow?

National Marine Fisheries and National Fish and Wildlife had plans to club to death salmon returning to the hatcheries in the Methow Valley because the brood stock used to start the hatchery in the 1930s came from a Columbia River tributary hundreds of miles from the Methow. All of the rivers in Eastern Washington are tributaries of the Columbia.

How could this possibly have an effect on the genetics of the salmon just because it came from a different tributary? Should we post guards along the borders of Idaho, Oregon, Canada and the West Coast to club any out-of-staters, to keep them from messing with our genetics? Ed B. Booher Airway Heights

Law and justice

We’re not talking weak case here

So, Speedy Rice, in his anti-death penalty article, would have us believe that Gary Graham has been “demonized” for his other crimes and that he “most likely did not commit the murder for which he was executed.” This is even though, as George W. Bush stated, Graham’s case had been reviewed 20 times and 33 judges “heard and found his numerous claims to be without merit.”

The sole eyewitness has remained unshakable, after seeing Graham’s face three separate times during the killing, including once from a distance of 10 feet. She has said that she is not 99.9 percent sure but 100 percent sure Graham was the killer. The two witnesses who now say Graham didn’t do it originally told police they never saw his face or the crime. They are unreliable witnesses.

Some other things Rice neglected to mention: The killing of Bobby Grant Lambert was the start of an eight-day crime spree for Graham, which involved 20 armed robberies, three kidnappings, one rape and three attempted murders.

Graham was arrested in the home of a female cab driver, who was in her 50s, whom he had kidnapped, beaten and raped.

Right after Graham was sentenced to death, he told the court bailiff, “Next time, I’m not leaving any witnesses.”

Gee, I hope Rice doesn’t think I’m “demonizing” Gary Graham. Scott B. Burrington Spokane

Death penalty is constitutional

Our U.S. Constitution does permit the death penalty. The Fifth Amendment: “…nor be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.”

The Fourteenth Amendment, section one: “…nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law.”

The key word here is “deprive,” meaning taken away. Regardless of whether one is pro or con on the issue of the death penalty, the bottom line is this: the Constitution allows it. William A. Hall Spokane

Business Source offers old roses aplenty

Re: “Old roses” (June 30).

Pat Pfeiffer is to be commended for her brief but informative article on the history of old roses. Yet her research local growers is incomplete.

Unfortunately, Pfeiffer failed to mention the largest local source for old roses just 12 minutes from downtown Spokane. Northland Rosarium, 9405 South Williams Lane, (web site: www.northlandrosarium) has more than 500 varieties of old and unusual hardy roses. A visit to its display garden is enough to win over the most committed grafted-variety grower to these magnificent plants grown on their own roots. They require minimal winter protection and bloom throughout the entire season. Ray F. Laurence Spokane