Jamie Tobias Neely

(From Opinion page, April 1, 1998): Francine Boxer is, of course, the new county administrator for Spokane County government. Her title was listed incorrectly in yesterday's editorial.

After living in Syracuse, N.Y., for the past five years, Spokane Symphony music director Fabio Mechetti has decided to move to Spokane. Photo by Shawn Jacobson/The Spokesman-Review

1. Frederica von Stade has performed with the world's top opera companies and symphonies. 2. The Bravo Broadway! trio, left, will perform a SuperPops concert with the Spokane Symphony this season. 3. Inset photos, clockwise from upper left, are other guests of the symphony: singer Shirley Jones, flutist Michael Faust, pianist Angela Cheng and violinist Leila Josefowicz.

1. Gordon Brannon, center, leads a senior water exercise class at Sta-Fit. The class includes a group of blind students. Photo by Shawn Jacobson/The Spokesman-Review 2. Above: Miklyn Ward helps Charlie Greer to the pool ladder at the end of class. 3. Right: Seniors at the Sta-Fit water exercise class hold hands as they wade across the pool.

Two generations of American parents will remember Dr. Benjamin Spock as the wise pediatrician who was permanently on call. At 3 a.m., when parents hate to wake their physician, they turned instead to Spock. His writer's voice soothed their worries, whether the problem was as scary as croup or as mundane as diaper rash. His remarkable new child care manual, now called "Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care," was first published in 1946. His respectful approach reassured anxious parents. "Trust yourself ... you know more than you think you do," he wrote.

For more than two decades, a split has divided feminists of elite Western groups from those of developing countries. The split can only be resolved, said Dr. Angela Gilliam, an anthropologist and member of the Evergreen State College faculty, when more privileged feminists learn to respect the issues of women living in other cultures. Those issues have included the Asian sex trade for Thai women, apartheid for African women and labor issues for Bolivian women.

Child care is like home maintenance. If it's not done well, everybody suffers. It isn't until the roof begins to leak, the sewer backs up or the appliances start to self-combust that everyone suddenly notices what's not getting done.

A classic American scene replayed a week ago when more than a thousand Russian and Ukrainian immigrants streamed into the old First Baptist Church in downtown Spokane. For most Americans, it's an image out of a distant past: grateful immigrants filling churches with strong accents, fervent faith and hope. So dated that many Americans might dismiss it as sentimental, this image pulses with trust and optimism, two qualities that jar with these ironic times.