Letters To The Editor

Business and labor

Retirees’ interests well-cared for

An article in the July 11 Spokesman-Review reported concerns about the changes Kaiser Aluminum has proposed to make to retiree insurance benefits. The article also contained quotes from two retirees who suggested the union had “sold out” the retirees.

Such a claim is absolutely false.

The union could have abandoned the existing retirees and simply waited for Kaiser Aluminum to begin charging retirees monthly premiums under the 1994 cost cap that would quickly rise to over $150 per month in just five years.

Inaction would have been quick and convenient - but it would have been wrong!

The proposed agreement guarantees that: 1, the cost cap provision which passed along medical inflation to the retirees is gone forever; 2, retirees will have benefits that are comparable to those they have today, at no cost to the retirees, through the use of Medicare HMOs; 3, the retirees will have adequate access to providers; and 4, any health plan offered by Kaiser will be approved by the government and accredited by the foremost independent organization that reviews the quality and performance of managed care providers.

These are guarantees that retirees did not enjoy in the past.

In addition, the agreement makes the identical health plans available to current retirees, should they object to Medicare HMOs at a fixed cost far below the $150 per month that Kaiser was about to implement. If Medicare HMOs are not available for any reason, current retirees continue their existing plans at no cost.

We hope that this clears up the misinformation that has clouded this issue in the last several days. David Foster, director United Steelworkers of America

Sound and fury

Who’ll be boom abatement candidate?

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom!

Another rolling boom box has just passed my apartment at midnight. According to the July 7 editorial, I should not be alarmed, it’s only baby boomers’ children having fun, expressing themselves. It is their right, you know.

Now, I would like to express my rights. These rolling boomboxes are dangerous as well as disrespectful to the rights of everyone within a two- block radius. These so-called kids having fun are violating all the other drivers’ rights. They are causing confusion and inattention to the other drivers, not to mention the fact under no circumstances could they possibly hear an emergency vehicle anywhere within earshot.

It is time for our police department to do something about this menace, just as other cities have done - most recently, Coeur d’Alene.

If the next mayoral candidate would run on a platform of turning down the volume on the rolling boomboxes, he or she would win in a walk. James A. Nelson Spokane

Excessive volume drowns out safety

Rebecca Nappi tries to make a good argument (editorial, July 7) for young people to crank up the volume. D.F. Oliveria does a good job refuting her opinions. However, both failed to see this for what it is - an accident waiting to happen!

If you are grooving to your tunes and fail to hear the siren of an emergency vehicle, the collision you are involved in will change your life.

First, you are at fault - emergency vehicles always have the right of way.

Next, most emergency vehicles are big, fast and have lots of metal on them; they are not little fiberglass slowpokes. They will do substantial damage to your vehicle and to your body.

Any accident is devastating but an incident with an emergency vehicle not only does damage to you and your vehicle but to the people who were waiting for the emergency vehicle. They could die before another rig is dispatched.

Driving is a privilege. It is not your God-given right when you turn 16 to be let loose on the streets to do as you wish with no regard to others. Be respectful. Loud music has its time and place - and a vehicle is not it! Candie Sharon Credit Union Insurance Services Inc., Spokane

Noise ordinance needed now

Re: “Should car stereos be regulated?” (Opinion, July 7).

Rebecca Nappi obviously doesn’t live on an arterial here in Spokane. I have to listen to and feel 20-40 of these explosively loud subsonic car stereos all hours of the day and night, every day of the week!

Listening to one’s music loud is one thing but when I am kept awake all night by cars that I can hear and feel from over two blocks away, that is disturbing the peace.

I also remember a story in the paper recently about an older gentleman asking one of these people to turn down their stereo and he was assaulted.

I urge everybody to call the mayor’s office and City Council to demand a noise ordinance to put a stop to this immediately. Paul Flanary Spokane

Government and politics

Bill is proof of statesmanship

I read with interest Clay Bleck’s July 7 letter attacking Rep. George Nethercutt’s statesmanship in negotiating his sanctions reform bill.

A statesman is an individual capable of overcoming impossible burdens in the pursuit of a policy change, through perseverance, persuasion and passion. Nethercutt’s bill reverses 40 years of Cold War foreign policy, is one of the most significant bills the 106th Congress will consider and is by any measure the mark of a statesman.

Nethercutt has been pushing the issue of sanctions reform for three years. This is not his first success in changing our sanctions policy. In 1998, the president signed a bill Nethercutt authored allowing wheat exports to Pakistan to continue. This year, despite strong opposition from Republican and Democrat leaders, he has secured agreement on a bill that will open up $7 billion in new export markets to Northwest farmers. This is statesmanship!

And now that Nethercutt has succeeded, the Johnnie-come-latelies and doubting Thomases are out in force, questioning his motives and dedication to our district. This chorus of naysayers has a hard time accepting that Nethercutt has been an effective and passionate advocate for Eastern Washington.

Notwithstanding Bleck’s shrill attack, Nethercutt’s untiring work on the sanctions issue demonstrates that he is a true statesman and is unfailingly committed to our region. Julie Holland Colbert

Sudden service figures

Sometimes, campaign techniques are not so subtle. For example, Rep. George Nethercutt’s staff is now returning telephone calls from his constituents. Mary R. McDonnell Chewelah

Better to be an eagle than a pot pie

“We need only surrender a drop of freedom for a steady stream of benefits,” said Gary Crooks for The Spokesman-Review editorial board (June 30). And I pause to ponder, what kind of chickens have we become?

If we let it, government will take care of us, have total control over every aspect of our lives, so that we need not “scratch” for anything ourselves. Sound appealing? Then join the chickens. Big government seeks always to expand, one drop at a time.

Example: Adding prescription drugs to senior benefits at taxpayer expense. Are all seniors poverty stricken and in poor health? I think not. Example: Disarming the law-abiding public. Fresh in our minds: Veterans wishing to march in parades as color guards having to assert their right to shoulder guns.

Example: Government confiscation of millions of acres as national monuments, effectively taking valuable land out of production.

The gate to the chicken pen is slowly closing. Far above, the eagle soars. He calls, “Come with me. Brave the storms. You can be strong and free.” But we are well-fed and complacent. It is too much bother to climb where eagles soar.

A government hand reaches near. Hey! Don’t take those, they’re mine! Oh, foolish chickens, did you think you’d be allowed to keep your eggs? Luella Dow Cheney

Church and state

Constitution a God-fearing venture

Walt Aring (guest column, July 3) credits humanist thinkers with the greatness of the U.S. Constitution. In so doing he tries to marginalize the Christian contribution and implies that man should govern himself without reference to God. He appears not to know that James Madison actually wrote the bulk of the Constitution. Madison said, “We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”

Ben Franklin proposed each session of the Constitutional Convention be opened with prayer. Thomas Jefferson is quoted on the walls of the Jefferson Memorial, “God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are a gift of God?”

The question “Why is America great?” is vitally important today because what made America great should obviously guide us into the future. Aring implies that any greatness in America is in spite of God and believers in God. If he is right, America should have a great future by turning away from God and faith in God.

Today most of the references to the religious influences on our national history have been suppressed from school textbooks. Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1814, “For God’s sake, let us freely hear both sides.” That is what we need if we are to understand the reasons why we are what we are. Bob Silver Nine Mile Falls

Writer skipped over references

I won’t describe Walt Aring’s July 3 Roundtable diatribe as ridiculous. He stated that “the Declaration of Independence announced the sublime truth that all power comes from the people … and denied the authority of any and all gods.” I simply ask Aring to whom the Declaration refers when it says that “nature’s God entitle(s) the colonists to `separate and equal station’ with Great Britain”? Who is the “Creator” who “created (all men) equal and endowed (them) with certain unalienable rights”? To whom did the signers “appeal …for the rectitude of (their) intentions” in the “Supreme judge of the world?” What is the “divine providence” on which they firmly relied for their protection? R. Paul Unger Spokane

U.S. and the world

Rwanda feuding not our problem

The July 8 article, “Report: U.S. let Rwandans die” quoted United Nations officials who headed a study into genocide in Rwanda as calling on the United States to “pay reparations” and “cancel Rwanda’s foreign debt” because we did not mount a military rescue mission. This conclusion is outrageous.

Our leaders, including the president, should denounce this. However, they won’t for fear of being called racists.

I support the United Nations taking collective action when it makes sense. However, sometimes the United Nations gets cockeyed ideas. The United States had no obligation to go into Rwanda with troops to stop the locals from killing each other. Many questioned whether or not we should go into Bosnia and Kosovo but our political leaders decided that there was sufficient national interest involved and that, with our allies in Europe, we could succeed in the Balkans with acceptable risk to the lives of our military personnel.

The same conditions did not exist in Rwanda. It is not racist to recognize that Rwanda, like Somalia where we had soldiers killed, is much different from the Balkans. There, we don’t have the equivalent to our NATO allies and we don’t trade with that area the way we do with Europe.

If the Hutus and the Tutsies slaughter each other to the last, we would, realistically, still have no more than a humanitarian interest. We should have a much greater national interest involved before we send our military personnel into harm’s way. Lt.Col. Charles E. Latimer U.S. Air Force, retired, Spokane

Send bill to Rwanda’s tribes

One tribe of Rwandans used French weapons to slaughter another tribe of Rwandans and it is our fault? The U.S. taxpayer is supposed to pay to rebuild Rwanda?

It seems like Stephen Lewis and the Organization of African Unity are blaming everyone except those Africans who actually committed the murders. I pray American leaders do not buy into this bunk. Terry Griner Spokane

Other topics

`Forging future’ helped my son to learn

It’s hard raising children these days. There are many influences that creep into their lives (cliques, drugs, mischief), especially during their middle and upper schooling years.

After I read Jeanette White’s July 2 essay, “Forging a future,” I sat my son, who will enter junior high this fall, down and we read it together. What better way to talk to your child about lessons in choices and friendships than to read together the experience of those who have been through it?

Through Micke Plybon and Jonn Smith’s story, my son was able to relate to the peer pressures that come along with starting new schools (he’s been to three), building new relationships and learning about who he is as a person and not just part of a group.

Thank you for printing this article as part of your series. Sometimes it helps when we can show our children what happens with other kids and not always “when I was your age …” We were able to read and learn together. Your story had a great impact on my son. Melissa Sussman Spokane

Get serious about pet overpopulation

Nationally, for every human born 15 puppies are born. It’s estimated that in Stevens County the ratio is one baby to 30 puppies.

Nationally, only 50 percent of puppies will find a home and only two in 10 will stay in that home. In Stevens County, 10 percent find homes and less than half a percent stay. Most euthanized pets are healthy.

Companion animals were made to be our companions, not born to be euthanized in shelters or found dead in the street due to roaming free. Figures show that 80 percent of dogs hit by cars are unneutered males searching for a female.

The offspring of a pair of dogs can produce 4,372 to 9,000 puppies in seven years.

City-county records prove that our “animal control” organizations release nearly 50 percent of dogs to owners who never demonstrate that they spay or neuter their adopted dog.

Informed animal organizations know that caging, killing and the lack of spaying and neutering are the roots of pet devaluation and overpopulation, which result in cruelty and neglect. I urge the sheriff and city animal control to ensure that every pet they release is spayed or neutered. If they will do this they will save pet lives, control neglect and abandonment, and save many tax dollars spent on caging and killing the pets their current policies help create. The City Council and commissioners can help by passing mandatory spay and neuter ordinance, and by banning pet giveaways in front of stores. Joyce Tasker, director Dog Patch Humane, Colville, Wash.

Forget shifting holidays around

Re: “Let’s reschedule holiday” (Letters, July 8).

I am definitely not with you on this. That is the most ridiculous thing I have heard of. To reschedule the day of our nation’s birth is like saying, Well, the birth of Christ this year is inconvenient to employers and merchants, so let’s move it to Monday or Friday. Or, The start of the new year isn’t compliant with our schedules, so let’s move it, too.

Too many people have taken for granted the reason that we celebrate our holidays and want to make them convenient for themselves. Our forefathers gave us the freedom that we enjoy today at a great cost. Enjoy what you have in America today because of them. Don’t try to commercialize that. Les Wolfe Spokane