Letters for April 26, 2022
Save us from false prophets
Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle of the U.S. District Court of the Middle District of Florida, Tampa Division, threw out the recent federal CDC mandate requiring masks for all public transportation (“Court ruling creates mishmash of transportation mask rulings,” April 19). In her 59-page ruling, she “explains” a principal objection to the mandate on page 15: ” Wearing a mask cleans nothing. At most, it traps virus droplets. But it neither sanitizes the person wearing the mask nor the source …” “Sanitize” is taken to mean “to make … clean.” In other words, she “reasons” that since the mask does not dispose of, kill, the virus, it does not sanitize the user nor the source and therefore is useless.
She seems to be totally oblivious of the salient point of masks which is not to destroy anything but to clean, “sanitize,” the air that an infected person may exhale and another inhale.
What kind of judge is so bereft of common sense and understanding that she cannot grasp this established truth? It is no surprise that she was appointed to this Judgeship by Donald Trump, another wise and reasonable mind.
Peter Grossman
Spokane
What opioid and alcohol addiction have done to Spokane
Addiction in Spokane has become a real issue that needs to be fixed, but it’s a hard topic to try and solve. I want to see the good people of Spokane help people who are down in the dumps and need to be helped.
I want to see Spokane be more open about people’s problems are more open to lending out a hand to help people. I believe we need more free rehab centers in downtown Spokane and there are a few reasons for that. One reason is if we had free rehab centers people who are down in the dumps and do have the extra income could go get the help, they not only need but deserve. As well as the homeless people could go to these centers and get help as well to try and change their life for the better. Two, people who are living in places away from downtown who can’t drive most if not all the bus routes eventually lead to downtown where there you could walk to where you need to.
I want to see Spokane and all the people who live here try and help their neighbors, brothers, and sisters out. We as a community need to try to help people and figure out why they are where they are and how we can help them change for the better. I think it’s time to be the change you want to see in our lovely Spokane.
Noah Leffel Jr.
Spokane
Celebration of music
Speaking as a Mead band parent and a university band director who has heard and worked with Mead ensembles many times, the recent letter regarding the Mead band program could not be further from the mark. I adjudicated at the SFMEA Band Festival at Ferris in March, and what I heard over the course of those two days was a celebration expressed in the language of music. My hat is off to Rob Lewis and every other music educator who have faced the tremendous challenge of keeping students involved and engaged when they were not permitted to come together to play music, and to every single student who stuck with it through the most trying times most of us can remember.
Success in music is never measured by the trophies gathering dust in the back of the band room, or a marching band’s classification. Rather, it is in the many ways that music touches the lives of the students, and how they, in turn, pass that gift along. In that sense, Mr. Lewis and the Mead bands have been wildly successful.
If you believe that having music in our lives is important, send a note of thanks and encouragement to the people who are training the musicians of the future. Go to a band, choir, or orchestra concert – even if you don’t have a kid performing in it – to let our young musicians know that what they do is loved and valued beyond the four walls of their rehearsal rooms.
Richard Strauch, DMA
Spokane