Letters for Jan. 11, 2023

Avista rates increase

I wondered if I missed something when my Avista bill showed up for November. The amount had doubled since October. We hadn’t had an arctic chill, I never moved my thermostat up any higher than usual, but I owed a lot more! Talking to my friends and neighbors, they experienced the same rise in price.

Not sure why Avista is sending a notice out to customers about the rise in price for gas and electricity for Janunary, as it has already happened! Scared to see the bill for December, if this is the case.

I know there are places you can ask for assistance (“if you qualify”), but to a lot of us in the middle who can try and pinch our dollars to pay it, cannot buy “red meat.” Where does this end?

One evening as I was driving by Avista, it was lit up with huge tree and Christmas lights. When my light turned green and I was almost out of sight, I said “I wonder who paid for all those lights?”

Marilyn Allen

Spokane

Farwell and thank you, Leonard Pitts

While Leonard Pitts final column, “Goodnight, Everybody” came as a complete surprise, I felt it appropriate to express gratitude to him and The Spokesman-Review for many wonderful Leonard Pitts columns over the past several years.

Whenever Pitts discussed governmental issues of concern, his depth of knowledge was evident with references of the Founding Fathers and the documents created for our system of government. Whether he was responding to the educated, the less educated, or to those with selfish or negative intent, his knowledge was most evident.

During Mr. Trump’s year in the White House, the frustrations of many were calmed by Pitts’ own frustrations shared in this column, along with his knowledge and sense of humor. And in a most recent column referencing his plan to run as a presidential candidate again, Pitts matched the intent to the Dolly Parton song, “Here You Come Again” with the response, “and there I go!”

Thank you, Mr. Pitts. For helping us see the humor when sometimes there may be none, but also when it’s been most evident if we think about it.

Finally, my sincere thank you to The Spokesman-Review and those responsible for Pitts’ column which added to your readers intelligence, sense of humor and pleasure for many years.

Cleo Clizer

Spokane Valley

NonnaPaura

Honesty, accuracy and fairness seem to make few appearances in Western Policy Center’s opinion pieces. Todd Myers (“New climate curriculum says emotional should be prioritized over ‘rational thinking,’ ” Jan. 1) takes a sledgehammer, whacks a nail, shapes into a ring and expects his beloved to believe it’s more than a flattened, reshaped nail.

The curriculum Myers derides is an introduction to a database developed by epidemiologists and computer scientists. People who certainly used rational powers to build a database that tracks health impacts within Washington of things like wildfires, heat waves and drought. The Department of Health made the curriculum because it thought teachers and students should know about the database and be able to use it.

NonnaPaura is the word Myers refuses to share. It comes from two Italian words: grandmother and fear. The Bureau of Linguistical Relativity “was established in 2014 for the purpose of collecting, translating and creating a new vocabulary for the Anthropocene.” New words get added to languages regularly. My old dictionary does not include “website” (noun) or “google” (verb). NonnaPaura names the wish to have grandchildren, combined with the fear of them growing up in a future of climate crises and chaos.

In the curriculum, NonnaPaura immediately follows a graph showing results of a poll asking childless adults whether climate change played a major

role in their decision not to have children. Responding yes were: 8% of baby boomers and Gen Xers; 13% of millennials; 17% of Gen Zers.

Scientific knowledge sometimes has emotional impact. Both must be, and are recognized in this curriculum.

Elaine Harger

Spokane Valley