Letters for Dec. 28, 2023
Bus safety should be common sense
Seeing a recent article about bus driver safety, who would have ever thought that’s even a issue? Bus drivers apparently now, especially in California and New York, are the victims of escalating assaults.
One would think the solution, especially for Oakland, California, whose AC transit system has had the worst recent number of assaults on bus drivers, would be to increase police presence on the buses. Not so. The city is still in the process of “defining” what a assault actually is. Their solution is based upon plastic shields to protect the drivers, waiting for funding from the Biden infrastructure plan to retrofit the buses.
Wouldn’t you think, with all the cameras on the buses, finding the perpetrators and prosecuting them would be the common sense solution?
Steve Hintyesz
Spokane
Who’s the dictator?
A current meme spread by the Democratic Party, it’s TV network and its social media allies is that Trump will be a dictator if he’s elected in 2024. What do dictators do? One thing is control the flow of information to the public. The release of the Twitter e-mails documented collaboration between government bureaucracies and social media censoring dissenting views about the origins of COVID or Hunter Biden’s laptop. The same collaboration promoted hoaxes like Trump-Russia collusion.
Second, they create a dual system of justice: one for allies and one for enemies. Like Democratic mayors and district attorneys did in 2020 by allowing a summer of rioting, looting and arson by party allies, while a poor schmuck who wandered around the capitol in a funny outfit escorted by Capitol police spent three-plus years in jail.
Third, dictators promote a tribalism where people are put in friends vs enemies slots. Like the Democratic Party does with the poison of identity politics, where people’s individual humanity is stripped from them, and they’re defined by race, gender and other affiliations.
We already have an elite unaccountable ruling class reigning by dictatorial means.
Bill Manuel
Spokane
New year, same me
When a new year approaches, so does the need for individuals to change or rebrand, to become something new, something foreign. My question is, why? I’ve heard the saying about a million times, “New Year, New Me.”
I understand moving forward and changing, but why must we discount the version of us from the year before, a whole 24 hours earlier? The person before Jan. 1 is still exceptional. They made it through the year, they survived all of their obstacles, so why are we so desperately wanting to forget that so easily? The versions of us from Dec. 31 do not need to change but rather be celebrated for all they have made it through.
So, no matter what new fad diet, workout plan, difficult goals or challenges you plan to accomplish, do not forget the version of you from the day before, and the day before that. That person is still here, they survived all their battles of that year and made it through all of their bad days, and all of the mundane ones, too.
Whether you choose to change or not, do not forget that sometimes we do not need to make monumental changes. We are just as deserving of a person today as we were the day before.
Emma Craven
Spokane