Letters for Sept. 10, 2022

No poultry? What chickens.

No chickens at the fair. Ridiculous. The almighty state veterinarian, Amber Itle, has declared no chickens/poultry at the fair due to the very contagious avian flu. One case of human infection in Colorado, in April!

The second ignorant person in the article, fair coordinator Jessica McLaughlin, apparently gets to decide no chickens or turkeys at the fair because “we must keep the poultry industry safe.”

After my nausea to her naivete and ridiculous excuse, I was overcome with laughter at her suggestion entrants can “decorate bird cages and bring pictures of their poultry!”

Better yet, Jessica, there will be cow dung with dung beetles. We better cancel all cattle as well. Finally, there will be mosquitoes at the fair, Jessica. Full of Zika virus. You better just cancel the fair. What a shame people with no life experience or common sense get to make decisions.

Donald Nelson

Airway Heights

Save our horses

I am writing to you today to please help end horse slaughter. Horses that are old and sick could be humanely euthanized. The ones that are not could be adopted out, or sent to rescues to eventually be adopted out. Horses that are sent to horse slaughter are not humanely euthanized because they thrash their necks around and are eventually slaughtered while they are still alive. Even just transporting them is cruel because many are too weak to stand on their feet and are not given water or food. They are forced to stand in very hot trucks for hours and days on end until eventually they end up in a horrific place where they are still not given water or food and eventually slaughtered. Please help to end the cruel practice of horse slaughter.

Thank you for your understanding and time.

Danita Bledsoe

Spokane

Yes, I will blame Biden

Bob Sanborn’s letter to the editor (“Blame Biden,” Aug. 10) mocked conservatives for simply “blaming Biden” and stated that Republicans have no answers. Interesting. Oil prices are at record highs. Biden killed the XL Keystone pipeline, banned new leases on federal lands and ended American energy independences. So yes, I will blame Biden and so should you. Perhaps 3 million illegals will flood the United States this year. Joe stopped building “the wall” actually costing Americans billions to do so and ended policies which had been working to prevent entry including the “Remain in Mexico Policy.” So yes, I will blame Biden and so should you. Inflation is at 40-year highs, crippling the middle class. Biden is responsible for the counterproductive and unnecessary stimulus spending and massive spending bills including the ridiculously misnamed “inflation reduction act” all funded by the Federal Reserve’s “purchase” of federal debt which is purely and simply an expansion of the money supply. So yes, I will blame Biden and so should you.

Republicans have no answers? Hmm? Expand United States drilling, allow the XL Keystone pipeline to be built, build the wall, reinstate migration policies which had been working and stop spending and printing money. And at the same time Republicans, unlike most Democrats, will freely admit men can’t get pregnant and oppose fully biologically intact men (as classically defined) from using women’s locker rooms and competing in woman’s sports. So, I will blame Biden and the Democrats and vote for sanity.

Vote Republican.

David Barnes

Spokane Valley

Dangerous crosswalk

I’m disappointed the city of Spokane refuses to address the dangerous “crosswalk” at Third Avenue and Cowley Street.

Working above Third Avenue, I observe drivers acting irresponsibly, nearly striking pedestrians. Last month, I was almost struck by a Spokane city Streets Department “Stake” truck, as the occupants yelled epithets warning me to stay out of the road. How many others are paying attention to driving?

For the past two months, I have contacted every department I could that can correct this, reached out to the mayor and have yet received one single response from any department save one instructing me to contact one of my original contacts. Last week, a city truck was working on the vault under this crosswalk with traffic cones, flashing lights, signage and a rail surrounding the open hole.

Cars slowed, gave room to work and otherwise were being cautious. Why do other citizens of Spokane enjoy these implements, but we do not? This is anecdotal proof that lights and signs work. One platitude I’ve heard: Our businesses does not have enough customer traffic to warrant this improvement, yet the city is currently installing a crosswalk for Liberty Park, off Southwest Boulevard.

I feel the bruises of hypocrisy beginning to ache.

Spokane needs to address this issue and correct it before someone is struck and severely injured. Who will be responsible for an unmarked crosswalk for drivers and only two signs directing pedestrians to use a crosswalk that does not exist? How much money is a life worth?

James Baker

Spokane

Prove the plant

Trump is now claiming that the FBI planted some of the most sensitive top secret files which includes CIA human intelligence (our spies) and other top secret files. Okay. There are CCTV cameras throughout Mar-a-Lago, including his 45 office.

He watched the FBI executing their search warrant from New York.

So just release the videos of the FBI search. C’mon, release the videos to Fox News that show the FBI planting these classified documents.

As they say, put up or shut up.

Jason Ernsting

Nine Mile Falls

Fossil fuel divestmentThe old joke, “everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it,” is dated. It’s become an indictment. We all talk about the extreme heat, flash floods, frequent hurricanes, etc. caused by climate change, but nobody, or very few of us does anything. We think there’s nothing we can do. In her TED Talk, “What One Person Can Do About Climate Change,” Ella Lagé offers us a simple yet effective way of taking action: ask an institution you support with your money – bank, pension fund, school, insurance company, church – to divest their capital from companies that extract fossil fuels and put it into renewable energy.

Why not try it? You can say those investments are not only a root cause of climate change but for that very reason, increasingly at risk of becoming stranded assets, the “carbon bubble” effect. If you’d rather do it as part of a group, look for a local divestment campaign on gofossilfree.org.

To check your savings for fossil fuel holdings, see fossilfreefunds.org. Divestment advocacy, with its power to influence public opinion, has worked in the past. It will work now. In the 1980s, the campaign to divest from companies supporting South Africa’s apartheid regime helped bring down apartheid. Today, a rapidly growing fossil fuel divestment movement has already led more than 1,500 institutions worldwide to commit to divesting roughly $40 trillion (divestmentdatabase.org).

Let’s stop talking about the weather and start doing something about it.

William Engels

Pullman