Letters for April 17, 2022

Teen’s mental health

Students are always scared to talk about their mental health, because they are worried their problems will be downplayed in relation to others’ problems. Kids our age need to realize that everyone is allowed to feel their own emotions and shouldn’t feel fear in talking about their own. Everyone has their problems, and everyone deserves to find help with the problems they can’t, and shouldn’t, deal with on their own. The pandemic hit everyone in different ways, and it was hard to cope with the magnitude of problems COVID-19 brought to the world. No matter what someone is going through, whether it is big or small, everyone deserves to feel heard and loved all the time. It’s not just because of the pandemic. Suicide rates have gone up exponentially, because of the lack of love and support some feel. Everyone needs to have somebody they feel like they can talk to whether that’s a trusted adult, a teacher, or a best friend. Nobody wants to see you leave this Earth. So please reach out when you are feeling like life has gotten too much, because I can say with certainty that someone would rather help you than hear that someone couldn’t take it anymore. The world has so many problems right now, everyone needs to feel loved and heard no matter what they’re going through.

Ashlyn Patton

Colbert

Bitcoin Merkle bad business

The money-muscled intrusion of Merkle Standard’s bitcoin operation into our state is offensive and insulting. From the start we have been given misleading information about their intentions, and now that their power grabbing feet are in the door, the energy load it poses will require all we have and more to feed its nefarious production.

The injustice began when the Kalispel Tribe was outbid by just $600,000 in an unfair auction. The tribe intended to produce forest products. Local residents would have supplied the workforce.

But now we’re finding out that Merkle is a Chinese reject that is moving its operation to our state with no interest in forest products, as originally stated. Furthermore, Allrise Capital’s CEO is a Russian-born U.S. citizen named Ruslan Zinurov who partnered with a major Chinese tech company, Bitmain, to exploit our abundance of hydro power and local commissioners compromised by their crypto investments.

A gross conflict of interest may have hurt the tribe’s chances in the bidding. Pend Oreille County Commissioner John Gentle’s wife, Kimberly Gentle, was hired four months ago by one of the biggest cryptocurrency mining companies in the world.

There are more than just a few signs of corruption in this deal. Eastern Washington is getting steamrolled by Chinese-Russian players whose wealth is banked in California, and our local voices of dissent are silenced by well-paid lawyers.

To contract so much clean power to foreign operators of a product like bitcoin is shortsighted now and will be dangerous in time.

Daniel C. Gore

Spokane

What happened to the common good?

Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa said, “Without facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust. Without trust, we have no shared reality, no democracy, and it becomes impossible to deal with our world’s existential problems.” I would add that without trust, a National Common Good is impossible.

In President Kennedy’s inaugural address, when he said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,” he infused our nation with the belief that, working together, anything was possible. Three gun shots on a cold November day extinguished our optimism.

The Vietnam War devolved into a meat grinder whose futility was disclosed in the Pentagon Papers. Iraq’s nonexistent WMDs, the cover-up of the 20 years of futility in Afghanistan, the lies keep coming.

No wonder we can’t agree on basic facts. Politicians exploit our disagreements in a power game of “Winner Take All.” We conveniently ignore linkages between individual rights and communal responsibilities. We act as though we can have everything while sacrificing nothing.

To rediscover our duty to a National Common Good, we must 1) promote legitimate journalism and accept facts that go against our bias; 2) stop shouting and assigning derogatory labels to people with whom we disagree; 3) vote for politicians with the courage to consider the weaker members of society; and 4) remember, that with individual rights come societal responsibilities. To compromise is to sacrifice and without sacrifice there is no “Common Good.”

Jim Baumker

Liberty Lake

The spring fake out

The saying “never get your hopes up” is quite a dramatic one, if you ask me. However, right around this time of year that’s exactly how I feel. I call it the spring fake out.

For around a week in late March to early April we see high 50s to low 60s temperatures, and everyone starts to mentally get in that warm weather mindset. We leave the house with no jacket and some may even bust out the shorts. Now give it a week or two and it’s back to cold air and gray skies.

Although this happens every year, I always find myself getting fooled by this short lasting interval of warm weather. So while I know that in a few months the temperatures will rise and stay for good, it’s hard to be patient with the taste of hot days so fresh in my mouth.

Leia Deyo

Spokane