Saturday, November 21, 2009

Letters

October 4, 2005

After attempting suicide, a woman ends up in the hospital. Within a year, she has learned to manage her depression with medication and coping skills (taught to her by Spokane Mental Health therapists). She returns to the workplace and her life.

Physically disabled and deeply depressed, a woman finds help by contacting local mental health providers. She attends a "Living with Chronic Pain" group therapy and learns new ways to live her life more fully. Caring therapists guide her out of her depression. Her life has hope again.

Only 10 years old, a confused boy is challenged with moderate-severe brain disorders. He finds help and hope in the local mental health system; he really needs this as he will be dealing with his disorders for the rest of his life.

These examples represent some of the faces of emotional/mental illness that surround us. The financial (hence staff) cuts that have been made to our local mental health system are morally unacceptable!

Please contact your state officials. Speak out for those who cannot. (I did some of the legwork for you.)

Gov. Gregoire: (360) 902-4111; Sen. Murray:

(202) 224-2621; Sen. Cantwell: (202) 224-3441; Rep. Cathy McMorris: (509) 353-2374; Rep. Lynn Schindler: (360) 786-7984; Rep. Larry Crouse: (360) 786-7820

Sherry Smith

Spokane

As I sit here reading your editorials, I notice you have "green-eyed monsters" in your town. I see Mr. Roger Dudley (absolutely no relation!) sits back and likes to throw mud at people who protect and serve ("High salaries at police and fire," Sept. 29).

As a retired firefighter with over 30 years of service from a larger city than Spokane, I think your fire and police are underpaid. I am sure if you ask any normal citizen of Spokane if they are happy with their fire and police they would say yes! If you also would ask them if they would run into a burning building while everyone else was running out (remember the Twin Towers), they would say no! You can't pay the fire and police enough.

So the next time you need fire and police, remember they can't pay them enough! So, Mr. Roger Dudley, cage your "green-eyed monster" and try to help not sling mud.

Jay Dudley

Sagle, Idaho

Just several weeks ago, the City Council was unanimous in its request for Mayor West to resign. Now there's a "wishy-washy" attitude to let it solve itself or to go away. "Flip-flops" do not promote a stable government or launching pad for Spokane.

The taxpayers purchased the city computers. Thus, we should be able to digest the "personal issues" on the mayor's city computers so that the voters can make an intelligent vote, which should determine whether to recall or not recall. The 17,000 signatures must be heard!

I believe that the City Council has the authority to place the city charter change for mayor removal on the Nov. 8 ballot. Seattle has that provision, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to send a fax to Seattle for a copy of that portion of their charter. It would only take a simple mind to think that the issue needs to be studied.

If the voters approve the charter change, then the "flip-flops" will have to prove their integrity to the taxpayers. This would save $140,000 from a special election and give immediate recourse. It would cancel lawsuits/appeals. Our city is in a budget crisis!

Wayne Emmel

Spokane

I agree with Jim Nicks ("Trouble with the Plaza," Sept. 25). We had a lot more problems downtown before the Plaza was even built. A lot of people I know, including my husband and I, ride the buses to get places we need to get to.

The bank should be happy for the people downtown. It'll bring them a lot of business and a lot of their employees ride the bus. If the Plaza were moved, it might lower the business at the bank and the employees might have to move to a different location, and people coming to the Plaza would have to ride even longer and further to get to a bus they need to get to work and school. I also think hiring two police officers is a good idea.

Susie Bush

Airway Heights

The expression "Think globally, act locally" now has a Spokane application: the downtown condos tax break story featured on Wednesday's front page ("New downtown condos come with a tax break," Sept. 28).

Apparently, our cash-strapped city feels that its citizens who can afford to buy a half-million dollar condo would be overburdened if they had to pay the additional $8,000 annual tax assessment. We feel their pain.

Thanks to our math-challenged president and lawmakers in D.C., the rest of us get to pay for the huge tax breaks being handed out to the nation's wealthiest individuals, while the country is spiraling deeper into hock and government continues to serve fewer people with real needs. We can be proud knowing that we taxpayers can give a helping hand to those in Spokane who most need it; those who would otherwise be forced to – gasp! – pay their own way like the rest of us.

We feel that this "redistribution" is just another example of fiscal policy that forces a group to pay the way for an individual. We see no reason that we should have to pay for a stranger's home choice, any more than we would expect them to pay for ours.

Patt Earley and Ken Yuhasz

Spokane

It's dismaying, as the unemployed owner of a very modest home, to read Alison Boggs' story detailing the tax breaks being given to buyers of expensive condos in the downtown core ("New downtown condos come with a tax break," Sept. 28).

It appears, from the content of this story, that Spokane has taken a page from George Bush's book, and is giving tax breaks to the rich at the expense of the poor. Gavin Cooley states that the property taxes the buyers of these half-million dollar (and up!) condos won't have to pay will be covered by increasing the taxes of all other property owners. Now isn't that just the sweetest thing?

I feel so warm and fuzzy knowing that I can do my small part to help some deserving rich person pay for a home, the likes of which I will likely never in my life be able to afford.

Call me crazy, call me a whining liberal Democrat, but geez, wouldn't you think that if someone can afford to buy a half-million dollar condo downtown that they can pay their own taxes?

Chris Lang

Spokane

We are a poor nation. Our dilapidated infrastructure crumbles in testament to our crony capitalism. The failures of our underfunded social safety nets embarrass us on the world stage. In a frenzy of reptilian reaction and paranoia, we choose to squander our much-maligned tax dollars on ill-conceived ventures of revenge that only succeed to construct a false sense of security against evil-doers located just on the periphery of a moving target.

We are a poor nation. Rather than fund even the most basic social components, we swallow, hook, line and sinker the fear mongers' message of insecurity, imminent threat and ordained crusades.

We are a poor nation. Rather than invest our wealth on ourselves and our future, we allow greedy single-minded power brokers free reign to siphon the federal deficit into their corporate coffers. We deceive ourselves by thinking our security is increased by (not-taxing and) spending billions on weapons, while other nations allocate wealth toward developing alternative energy and stem-cell industries that will much more effectively transfer scientific acumen to national security.

We are a poor nation and we will remain so, as long as we undervalue the tenets of civic responsibility, social interdependence and progressive research.

V. Edward Shaw

Colville, Washington

Once while hunting, I met an old gentleman who told me a story about why he wouldn't shoot deer anymore. He said he loved watching the deer in his yard so much that he put a salt lick out to bring them in so he could photograph them.

Then he started to notice a lot of deer dead from automobiles on a near by highway. He told of dozens of dead deer he'd seen. Then he realized he was the one killing them. Apparently after using his saltlick, these deer headed directly for water, across that infamous highway.

Now I realize that auto-deer collisions are an inescapable inevitability of nature. I guess the point I'm trying to make is: If you truly love wildlife, don't put out salt for them; they don't need you to give them salt, and you might be killing them.

Anyone notice all the deer dead on U.S. 95 between Garwood and Athol? Anyone have auto body damage from deer? How about this: When you see a deer cross the road in front of you, don't concentrate on where it went, watch for the next that may be crossing behind the first; a lot of times it's the second or third that get hit.

William M. Hanks

Hayden, Idaho

Dave Oliveria called me an "East Lakeshore Drive Fat Cat" because I chalked a line on my beach at the 2,130 feet private property mark recently set by Judge Judd in his Sanders Beach ruling ("On Sanders Public Beach," Sept. 12).

Webster's defines a "fat cat" as (1) a wealthy political contributor, (2) a privileged person or (3) a big shot. I am none of the above. Hard work, not privilege, got us our dream lake home. Oliveria's labeling of people, having never met them, is unnecessarily sharp-edged sophomoric editorial journalism.

The chalk line was an act of frustration, auger and comedic release. All Idaho lakeshore property ends at the water's edge ... except for nine homes on Sanders Beach, says a left-leaning activist group supported by Cracker Jack box experts, pro-bono attorneys and a weak-willed City Council that turned a blind eye to common sense and initiated a politically motivated taking of private land.

My chalk line memorializes the absurd outcomes that arise when Captain Queeg-like politicians steam across their own tow line creating a solution worse than the original problem.

"Fat Cat?" Hardly. Disheartened with the deafening silence of my "red state" politicians' protection of private property rights? You bet I am.

Robert B. Cliff

Coeur d'Alene

How does Bush plan to pay for his invasion and occupation of Iraq, tax cuts for his rich contributors, corporate-sponsored Medicare drug coverage and now the damage from Katrina and Rita? Why ask? Borrow, of course, from our good buddies in China and Japan.

Why bother trying to remove pork from the transportation or energy bills? That "bridge to nowhere" and incentives for "cash strapped" oil companies are vital to the war on terror, aren't they? Any chance Bush just might cut programs for the poor and disadvantaged?

When "tax and spend" Clinton left office, the largest deficit in our country's history was turned into the largest surplus ever. The Clinton administration's goal was to free us from debt by 2012, assuring future generations of long-term prosperity. What could better illustrate a "family value?" And this from a Democrat!!

The "borrow and spend" Republicans are having a grand time printing worthless dollars with the 2006 fiscal year deficit now estimated to be $700 billion. What happens when another disaster hits? What happens to interest rates when foreign lenders are no longer interested in weak dollars?

So much for so-called fiscally responsible Republicans. Tell me again what conservative means?

Marilyn Weik

Coeur d'Alene

When faced with calamity, there are those who take the challenge and make a real difference. They are the primary life support for so many without ulterior motives. Seldom will you see them in front of a camera; they're too busy actually doing the work as the government flounders in red tape.

Some see human suffering as an opportunity to further their political ambitions. The colorblind wind is harnessed to fan the flames of racism and flood a tragic situation with irresponsible accusations that only serve to foment anger.

If all the disingenuous fingers were pointing at real solutions, the government could build on what they do right, especially the Coast Guard and National Guard.

All I hear is the old retread of raising taxes that will only confiscate from those funding private organizations that are so effective – you know, the intolerant Christian right. Does it make any sense to give the very bureaucracy politicians complain about more of the burden?

Sen. John Edwards recently chimed in with pearls of wisdom that reminded me of his "Two Americas" campaign mantra, on that I find myself in full agreement.

Jim Glenn

Spokane

Someone once said that it's easy to fool some of the people some of the time. The left of today are just asking to be fooled. Now they want to believe that Bush is responsible for hurricanes and their destruction? They say not signing the Kyoto Treaty causes global warming, which makes hurricanes worse. Doesn't global warming melt the polar ice caps, which would cool the waters in our oceans? Cooling those waters would make ocean storms less severe, not worse.

They also want us to believe Bush cut funds to the levees, which caused their breach, when, in fact, even if funded, the repairs wouldn't even have started yet. They also say the federal government responded too slowly, when, in fact, local governments are always the first responsible and that failed miserably.

Let's just say the same fools will be fooled again and the rest of us still won't be. Oh yeah, and Saddam destroyed his weapons of mass destruction without documenting it. Yeah, yeah, that's the ticket.

By the way, New Orleans was a Democrat-run city in a Democrat-run state; shouldn't it have been a Utopia? Why are they so poor?

Rob Leach

Mica, Wash.

I detest the color blue. I curse the sky and sea and everything else that is any shade of blue. I lament to anyone who will listen about my disdain for this horrible waste of a color. I write endless letters to the editor, dominate dinner-party conversations and plaster clever stickers all over my car. Blue must go! Down with blue!

Wait a minute ... in all of my wasteful whining, I remind myself of someone. Oh! I know! I sound exactly like a Bush basher!

The sky is blue. Get over it. Your guy lost. Get over it!

Michaél Elaine Alegria

Spokane

OK, folks, it's time here for just a little bit of federal reality.

First: The war in Iraq has, so far, cost us (read here: taxpayers) $200 billion, and the clock is ticking. And as for the value of the fruit of our dead youth? Sorry, no answer there.

Second: The relief, recovery, cleanup, repair, restoration of New Orleans, Biloxi, Gulfport, Pass Christian, Pascagoula and Mobile as a result of Katrina, is estimated to cost us (read here: taxpayers) $200 billion, and the clock is ticking. Familiar number, no?

Third: Our American brothers and sisters in eastern Texas and western Louisiana have been visited by Rita. No hard numbers there yet, but the load is all ours (read here: taxpayers).

Fourth: "W" now says we have a new plan to colonize the moon real soon.

What? Hello! Earth to "W." Any brains out there? Any at all? Understand, folks, I was educated in the sciences. I spent my entire professional career using physics to solve real-world problems in the manufacturing industry to the benefit of society.

I'm telling you, this guy has no grasp of scientific or financial reality. He's an idiot. He's out of control.

Tom Cameron

Spokane Valley

That leftover group of anti-war hippies from the Vietnam era who call themselves the Raging Grannies should probably stop raging and start thinking ("One part anger, one part grief," Sept. 25)! Iraq is not a war in itself, but rather just one battle in World War III.

If we lose this war, they will find themselves "raging" in burqas just prior to being taken out to Joe Albi Stadium (renamed Osama bin Laden Stadium) to be shot in the back of the head.

H. Duane Brown

Otis Orchard

I find it quite ironic that President Bush flying around in Air Force One on multiple vacations and because of Katrina to New Orleans six or seven times, can ask you and me to car pool, conserve gas, and not take trips anywhere unless it is a necessity. Air Force One needs $6,000 of fuel an hour to fly. Not to mention all the other back-up aircraft he flies around in to see the sites. No, this man does not deal in reality.

Robert Tracy

Ritzville, Wash.

It is unlikely that George W. Bush would be president if the Catholic Church had not united with the Protestant right-wing on the issue of abortion.

It is also unlikely that the lunatic right wing will ever give up its pride and ask for forgiveness, but I'd like the Catholic Church to make amends by urging its members to become active in the anti-war movement as vigorously as it urged them to vote for anti-abortion candidates.

Our children are human beings, and I ask the Catholic Church to help save them from being killed, and from killing other human beings, in the immoral Iraq war under the command of the trickster in chief, whom it led its members to support.

We all make mistakes.

Gretchen Nielsen

Spokane

In her Sept. 23 "Lifestyle" column, Jill Wagner argues for the gay lifestyle, not with reasoned discourse, but by calling names ("Compromise may be hard to find in equal rights issue"). Those who disagree with her are "detractors," "narrow-minded zealots," act out of "pure, unadulterated selfishness," we are "for perpetuating discrimination" and we choose "hate" over love.

Ms. Wagner chooses to ignore several important issues:

Fact: All three major religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) have historically and strongly opposed homosexual behavior.

Fact: Homosexual behavior is an evolutionary dead end. Same-sex behavior does not lead to "survival of the fittest" since it does not lead to reproduction. Even same-sex couples have to employ the union of a sperm and an egg (heterosexual behavior) in order to reproduce.

Fact: The research on causes of homosexual behavior is very inconclusive and flawed. The major "findings" in the field cannot be reproduced by other researchers.

Opposition to homosexual behavior and the gay lifestyle arises for several reasons, many of them very legitimate. As much as Ms. Wagner wishes it to be otherwise, there are many people who cannot and will not support her lifestyle, no matter how much of a forum is given her by The Spokesman-Review to press her agenda.

Donald. F. Calbreath

Spokane

Regarding the declaration that "under God" is unconstitutional. Enough of this! Why are we letting ignorant power-seeking anarchists interfere and upset the moral values of our nation? It is preposterous to let this type of being invade our rights.

To think a judge, any judge, would concur with the ideology of such as Michael Newdow is insane. Judge Lawrence Karlton and the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals should be permanently removed from office forever. These atheist ideas have cursed our society long enough.

Misbehavior of attorneys who feel they can throw anything against the wall and if no one grasps the concept it might stick. This type of behavior is only crippling our judicial system and should be refused on the basis that it is erroneous and time-consuming.

We've saluted our flag and stated, as did our forefathers, "under God" in reverence to our country and flag. If this "seemingly small part" of our Constitution is violated and these morons win, what next?

B.J. Littlejohn

Spokane