Letters for Sept. 24, 2023

Pac-12 deserves to continue

List all the reasons to try justifying why WSU and OSU weren’t invited to join a Power 5 conference, and at the top of the list is likely geography.

The small towns of Pullman and Corvallis are nowhere close to being metropolitan markets like L.A., Phoenix/Tucson, the Bay Area, Salt Lake City, Denver or Seattle are. Eugene is not a metro market either but Uncle “Moneybags” Phil Knight gives Oregon huge national support and market exposure.

Washington State and Oregon State are great higher education institutions with successful athletic teams and programs, supportive alumni and fan bases, superb physical facilities and stadiums, but Pullman and Corvallis are just simply not “cool” nationally recognized metro market areas so thus are off the radar to larger Big Ten, SEC, Big 12 and ACC bases.

The Pac-12 dissolved and melted down due to utter and complete total mismanagement, but it dissolved with WSU and OSU also aboard and now those two institutions are working to hopefully survive and ideally rebuild the once-proud conference with schools seeking stronger support and visibility.

Here’s hoping they can pull it off and keep the Pac the Pac, with however many schools needed to be successful. The conference was founded in 1915 … that’s a whole lot of history and memories, folks, and it deserves to continue.

Jeff Clausen

Spokane

Fund services for the incarcerated

My answer to the growing and out-of-control crime, trash and homelessness in Spokane is to build a new and larger jail that could be funded with much needed specialized services for the incarcerated. Otherwise, we will continue to live with the ways in which we are now handling these problems that become a cost to lives and pocketbooks.

I volunteered in prison ministry at the Spokane County Jail, Airway Heights Correction Center, Coyote Ridge Correction Center, and I’ve been involved for a long period of time with recovery. I can say that many positive results come from efforts of honest and positive reformation.

Rather than a punitive system, a new and better system can be implemented and, is now being discussed with some of our leaders on each side of the isle. Specific professionals in the jail that can implement better health, safety, and the general well being of the incarcerated is helpful. If they accept help this can help to improve the various difficult situations the incarcerated find themselves. Then there is the need for continued continuity going toward the next step as they leave the jail. Spokane could be an example and a gateway to the rest of the country if we rally together for such improvement.

If we give our patience, fortitude, and support in various ways for a new, larger, better staffed jail that carries with it a positively honest influence, I think life can become one that will work well with the majority.

Nancy Hill

Spokane

Why are we so divided?

Have you wondered why our country is so divided? One reason why is illustrated by Mr. Rob Linebarger’s Sept. 15 guest opinion (“Plan to censure mayor an assault on all Christians”). He says people are censuring the mayor because she attended a prayer meeting. Not so. The issue is whether she should have publicly embraced a man who promotes anti-government and violent views. By ignoring the embrace and substituting instead a narrative about persecution of people of faith, he scares Christians. But that’s how conspiracy theorists divide us. They ignore the real issue and invent instead a false alternative that frightens one group into thinking they are being attacked by another group. It’s a great example of why our country is so divided.

Gerald Duffy

Deer Park

Blind egotistical arrogance

Thanks to The Spokesman-Review for featuring at the top of the Opinion page the piece by Mr. Linebarger. It excellently illustrates that profound failure of comprehension which characterizes the mentality of those who take umbrage in our mayor being taken to task for publicly associating herself with known bigots.

He fails to grasp the difference between privately attending a prayer and singing event and choosing to appear as the mayor of our community on stage with the event’s promoters and leaders. The former is the prerogative of any private citizen while it is not for the elected civic leader of our community.

Linebarger goes on to tar anyone who disagrees with his position with the usual bigot brush, calling them “those who hate God,” are “wicked,” malevolent and controlling.

It is particularly ironic that he is identified as the CEO of an organization that “advocates for the protection of First Amendment rights,” which evidently means the rights of people who agree with his beliefs but not of those who do not.

Linebarger and his ilk will likely assume that my criticism of them must arise from someone who categorically opposes his faith and beliefs, but in fact, that may or may not be the case. And the point is that that it is nobody’s business but my own, unless I insist that everyone else needs to agree with me or be damned.

Peter Grossman

Spokane

Contrast between council candidates

The Sept. 17 edition of The Spokesman-Review contained an article featuring the two candidates running for the Spokane Valley City Council, Position 6. In addition to the information in the article, incumbent Tim Hattenburg takes a very “hands on” approach to many aspects of the city he represents. A few things he has done includes riding the bus, spend time in the Valley Library, and visiting the Senior Center. Hattenburg chooses to do these things in order to better understand how things actually work and how they affect his constituents.

His opponent, Rob Chase, has not responded to multiple requests for comment including where he stands on various issues. His campaign slogan is “Truth Matters.” Perhaps a better slogan would be “Did Not Respond.”

Bob Conway

Spokane

Strike season

This is not only fall, but it is also strike season for many unions. All the good unions want higher wages and benefits and maybe a shorter work week for the same pay like the UAW. Though, you know that nonunion workers and retirees (Social Security beneficiaries) might get a 3% raise but the prices of everything will reflect the large union wage increases, housing, food, insurance, fuel, etc.

Deann Decaire

Spokane

More transparency not exactly helpful

In her recent newsletter, our representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers is bragging about the Lower Costs, More Transparency Act. She makes this bill sound like it will lower health care costs, when, in fact, all it will do is allow patients to see the costs of procedures, blood tests and prescriptions up front. In a past newsletter, she suggested that knowing these prices would “allow people to budget and save” to have elective procedures done. What about if it is an emergency situation? Knowing the costs isn’t going to make any difference.

As someone who has worked in health care in the past, I believe the actual key to bringing down health care costs is affordable health insurance. Then Americans would be able to stay caught up on recommended health exams as directed by their physician. A healthier population would cut down tremendously on the cost of health care.

I also find it quite interesting that Ms. McMorris Rodgers recommends that the 60% of us who live paycheck to paycheck should “budget” and “save” for our medical care. If we had affordable insurance, that would not be necessary and that money could be put to good use such as spending more time with our kids.

Let’s not forget that Ms. McMorris Rodgers has voted against the affordable health care plan several times. I believe she is just trying to pull the wool over our eyes and make it look like she is actually doing something to help, when in fact she is not.

Carrie Cardenas

Spokane

Future viability of global democracy at risk

“This guy is a murderer!” Thus Nikki Haley unleashed her crouching tigress at the Aug. 23 Republican debate on Vivek Ramaswamy, a Trump doppelgänger who is similarly deluded about Vladimir Putin’s evil and his “special military operation” in Ukraine. As a former U.N. ambassador, Haley can credibly lecture the Republican presidential aspirants on realpolitik.

According to an August CNN poll, 55% of American citizens and 72% of congressional Republicans oppose continuing military aid to Ukraine. Americans are weary and wary of foreign commitments after the Afghanistan fiasco, COVID, inflation, and political circus. And it’s a tough sell as the conflict appears to grind into a gruesome war of attrition and stalemate.

Yet to retract from Ukraine would be the equivalent of Neville Chamberlain’s 1938 appeasement of Hitler, an isolationist U.S. would be an abandonment of our NATO allies thus diminishing our global reliability, and, most grievous, debilitate the Ukrainian military enhancing Russia’s strategic position and probability of its conquest of Ukraine. Other autocratic regimes such as North Korea, China, and

Iran would be emboldened. As NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated, “Beijing is watching closely and learning lessons that may influence its future decisions. What happens in Europe today could happen in Asia tomorrow.”

The future viability of global democracy is at risk. No war is good but if ever there was a “good war” (to appropriate the title of Studs Terkel’s book) – a battle between good and evil – this may be the first since World War II.

John B. Hagney

Spokane