Letters
Please keep Art Department
Before recorded time, there was art. Before organized religion, there was art. Before organized sports, even society itself, there was art.
The cave paintings at Les Caux, France, are evidence that humanity has always desired art. We have always created art.
Now, thousands of years after cavemen first smashed berries onto stone walls, Spokane has decided art is dispensable. This city is able to maintain huge sporting events, parks, golf courses, swimming pools, even a carousel, but is no longer able to support even the smallest imaginable Arts Department.
Art is the measure of our society. Please keep the Arts Department. Please resuscitate our humanity.
Karen Swanson
Spokane
Keep Mobley at City Hall
Doug Clark is right: The position of city arts director must be preserved.
In their efforts to sustain the city’s fiscal integrity, I hope our civic leaders remember that cities that support the arts derive the benefits therefrom. We need Karen Mobley inside City Hall, fighting the good fight for the arts, as only a passionate advocate can.
Don Adair
Spokane
Elderly used as scapegoat
As usual, The Spokesman-Review prints an article that misses the point and points a crooked finger. This time, the June 7 article is written by (an apparently aging and forgetful) Robert J. Samuelson.
Samuelson discusses “The 2012 Long-Term Budget Outlook” by the Congressional Budget Office in a most paranoid manner, stating that the budget remains “hostage to an aging population and soaring health costs.”
So is it better to remain hostage to those who benefit from our recent and future wars, Samuelson? According to the writer, “The elderly are crowding out everything else.” Really? Could, perhaps, our “big brother” attitude toward every other country in the world be a consideration as well? I am sick and tired of sending our young people to fight and die for the continuing welfare of those who benefit from war!
I am sick and tired of giving tax reprieves for the wealthy!
I would much rather spend my hard-earned dollars on those in the United States who haven’t the money or the ability to pay for their very expensive health needs.
But wait a minute!
Somewhere, I have been told, we the taxpayers are paying for Social Security and Medicare through our paychecks. In fact, our government has been so needy that it borrows from Social Security in order to pay for its costs (such as war). Imagine that!
There, in a nutshell, Samuelson, is the budget problem!
Rosemarie Schmidt
Mead
Thanks for cartoons
Thank you for the Michael Ramirez cartoons. Just give us more of them.
Bill Ellis
Liberty Lake
Study health impacts of shipments
I am a researcher who is aware of the health impacts of air containing coal dust and diesel emissions. Regarding the new coal ports to be built in the Pacific Northwest to ship coal to China, many additional coal trains would be coming through Spokane every day on their way to the ports. Increased trains can be expected to increase risks of toxic air containing higher levels of diesel emissions and coal dust.
Exposures to these toxins are associated with high costs, including cancers, other diseases, higher mortality rates and health care costs, and lost productivity. As a result, it is very important that Spokane be included in a comprehensive environmental assessment for this project.
Right now, the beauty of Spokane is clearly seen through clean air, not through a fog of miscalculations. By protecting our children, our air and our economy, we can remain a beautiful and pristine destination in the Pacific Northwest.
Melissa Ahern
Spokane
Coal shipments raise concerns
Big Coal’s plans to export U.S. coal to Asia through the Northwest would bring a lot more coal train traffic through Spokane every day if the proposed ports are approved. As an outdoors enthusiast and the father of two young kids, I’m concerned about the health risks associated with higher levels of diesel emissions and how this could degrade our quality of life here in Spokane.
Priority one is making sure this is safe. The health of our families is worth studying. How could anyone not support that? We’re the ones trying to protect our families, and they are the richest and dirtiest corporations in America. The coal companies can afford the bill. What are they trying to hide?
Dave Braun
Spokane
Cowan is the healthy choice
I am a local health care provider and I work every day with our seniors and baby boomers. I witness firsthand the value of the Medicare services they worked a lifetime to earn. If you’ve ever had experience with Medicare Part D, you would realize that privatization costs everyday citizens more and provides them with less.
It is time to put aside political partisanship and vote for what’s best for our country and the everyday person, not the special 1 percent who do not need Medicare. For this, and countless other reasons, it is time to fire Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers. I am disgusted that she is allowed to continually lie to us, not only about her false support for Medicare, but regarding multiple other issues as well.
I will vote for those who I see every day who desperately need Medicare and the services they were promised. I will vote for integrity, and I will vote for Rich Cowan.
Yvette Goot
Chewelah, Wash.
Process mischaracterized
With all due respect to Louise Chadez’s June 3 opinion, it would be best if she spoke from a position of fact rather than conjecture. The Spokane County Democratic Party’s endorsement committee has received and evaluated the endorsement requests for three 3rd Legislative District candidates and presented their evaluation to the executive board for consideration. The executive board has certified all three candidates as Democrats and will be recommending a candidate for endorsement at the next Spokane County Democratic Party Central Committee meeting, which will not occur until after the primaries have been completed.
The endorsed candidate of the Central Committee will likely be the popularly elected candidate. It is my understanding that the Spokane 3rd Legislative District Democrats are operating on a similar schedule.
The Spokane County Democratic Party chair, the vice chair and the chair of the 3rd District Democrats have attended each of the candidates’ kickoff events thus far.
Dave Koch
Vice chair, Spokane County Democratic Party
Valleyford
Religious liberty under assault
A recent letter to the editor praised the Washington Legislature for redefining marriage as equal rights – not limiting matrimony to one man and one woman. He denigrates the taxpayers who are taking their own time and treasure to get signatures for Referendum 74. The taxpayers already paid for several special sessions for a Legislature supposedly working on the budget. Why do citizens have to expend their energy to undo lousy legislation?
Thank goodness for C-SPAN; otherwise I might have missed the gathering of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. The topic was religious liberties. One guest speaker was a U.S. Army chaplain. He recounted, “When you do what is right you catch hell.” The social engineering of the armed forces has taken away the freedom of military chaplains, the troops and their families. The Department of Defense advocated the Defense of Marriage Act – one man and one woman – but that is being ignored under this evolving commander in chief.
There is a spiral of silence descending over this land.
“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Donna Kuhn
Spokane
Health reform is helping
Washington will bring in $128 million in federal assistance, thanks to the state Legislature’s recent efforts on a bill to kick-start health reform (May 17). Next year, we will have another opportunity to bring in federal aid and extend care to even more of our friends, neighbors and community members.
The federal Basic Health Plan is a federally funded insurance package with lower premiums for households that don’t have a lot of spare change. The Affordable Care Act lets states opt in to offer this plan in addition to the standard exchange.
An Urban Institute report has outlined possible scenarios for how this option might play out in Washington. The benefits are clear. In Spokane County alone, this plan makes health care more affordable to over 11,000 people in our community while reimbursing insurance providers at above-Medicaid or even near-commercial rates.
Strong communities look out for each other. Spokane has been hit hard by the global recession, and this plan is an opportunity to ensure our friends and neighbors still have a life vest if they find themselves in troubled water. In 2013, Washington legislators will decide whether or not to implement this program. Let’s hope they make the right choice.
Amanda R. Hunt
Spokane
MAC board should resign
It would be unfortunate if the governor had to step in and take care of the mess at the MAC. So, for the good of the community, the MAC board should step aside. Failure to do so would cause irreparable harm to a fine and valued institution.
John and Roynane Lisk
Spokane
Why re-elect congresswoman?
In a recent article in Bloomberg, they reported since the time of President John Kennedy, with only 23 years of Democratic administrations, the S&P 500 had a 992 percent gain and an annualized return of 11 percent versus 28 years of Republican administrations with a 109 percent gain with an annualized return of only 2.7 percent.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers is the fourth-highest-ranking Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives. Her boss, Republican Rep. John Boehner, along with the rest of the Republican Party, in their attempt to reduce spending and destroy the middle class safety net, threatened not to raise the debt limit, causing the credit rating agencies to lower the United States’ credit rating.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kan.) has said, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”
What have the Republicans and Cathy McMorris Rodgers really done, and why should we re-elect them?
Lawrence Schuchart
Spokane