Letters To The Editor

SPOKANE MATTERS

Give them lots of time to watch

Citizens of the city of Spokane have watched during past council sessions as Councilman Joel Crosby read the newspaper and ate, and now he admits to watching a sporting event during the time in which he was being paid to give his full attention to our municipal business.

Both Councilmen Crosby and Orville Barnes admitted to watching TV during the time that the council was transacting the city’s business, as well as during the citizens’ forum when citizens address the council on matters of individual concern.

Mayor Jack Geraghty is responsible for the conduct of the meetings and apparently approved the viewing of the game. Members of the council were the only ones able to watch the game since the monitors facing the public were tuned to the council proceedings.

I nominate Joel Crosby, Orville Barnes and Jack Geraghty to this week’s Hot Seat column.

The citizens of Spokane have an opportunity to give their own hot seat to Crosby and Barnes this fall when they are up for re-election.

I hope this newspaper will give this issue of disregard for the public the amount of space it gave to the unfounded accusation of reading a book by Judge Donna Wilson. Donald H. Skaufel Spokane

Zoo bashing not appreciated

Doug Clark’s attitude toward the animals at the zoo is sadistic and appalling. It seems impossible for The Spokesman-Review to say anything positive about the zoo, but Clark’s March 19 column is an all-time low. His eyes are so closed to the good of Walk in the Wild.

Clark is quick to mention the $70,000 debt but neglects to mention that the zoo’s indebtedness has been reduced by $100,000 in the past five months. Over 100,000 people visit the zoo each year, many of them from out of town. Clark cannot see the visitors’ expressions of joy and wonder, and the excitement of children when they see the animals for the first time. Many of the animals are there because of injuries and wouldn’t survive without this facility.

Has Clark visited the zoo? Has he seen the many improvements made over the past three years? All of us who love the zoo and appreciate what it gives this community know there’s lots of room for improvement and growth. We have visited zoos in Portland, Tacoma and Seattle, where most animals are in small quarters and spend their days very bored. Walk in the Wild allows its animals ample room to wander among the rocks. It’s a perfect setting.

True, Walk in the Wild has had problems but it again has a caring general manager, Frances Drake. All it needs is the support of community businesses. What a travesty if we lose this gem. Jack and Patti Muncy Spokane

Zoo fans should pay for zoo

In regard to the letter by Janet L. Miller of Otis Orchards on selling the golf courses to save the zoo:

Our golf courses are county-owned property. They make money for the county and are used by many more people than go to the zoo, which is not owned by the county. Why should we sell an asset to pay for a organization that cannot pay for itself? The zoo has been in financial trouble almost since it was started. This town just will not support a zoo.

Zoos are great, but if Spokane won’t support a zoo, it should not have one. And we should not penalize golfers and golfing, which makes money and does have lots of people wanting to use the courses (trust me; try to get a tee time some days) to pay for something that doesn’t work. It just isn’t smart.

Let the people who want the zoo pay for it, not the rest of us. Matt Meeusen Spokane

I came by parental fear honestly

In response to Doug Clark’s March 30 column:

I came very close to losing my youngest son during a visit to Chuck E. Cheese. Prior to this business initiating the ID check system, my son was able to escape out the door without anyone noticing. After what seemed like an eternity of searching, a very honest woman found and returned my son from the parking lot.

I cannot imagine how a day care-providing mother could be annoyed at a business for trying to ensure increased safety for her children. I personally stopped frequenting Chuck E. Cheese until I heard about this safety system being used.

The fear a parent feels when they experience losing their child is haunting and never leaves you.

I think Clark was way off base and should get his facts straight regarding his statement that kidnapping is mainly a parent-related incident. Tell that to all those mothers and fathers who are still waiting to hear about their abducted children.

Call us “fearmongering” or “paranoid,” but when a child’s safety is at stake I don’t think you can be too careful these days. C.M. Alshahrani Spokane

HELPING THOSE IN NEED

Don’t abandon aid programs

Thousands of Spokane-area citizens have worked for many years to establish first-rate programs for children and young people: Crosswalk, Vanessa Behan Crisis Nursery, SCAN, Martin Luther King Center, Deaconess Regional Center for Child Abuse, and more. Now, our state legislators are threatening to cut off state funding on June 30. Three months’ warning. Some organizations would be wounded, others devastated.

For 10 years we have fought to give street kids the most basic human dignities of food and shelter, with counseling and educational opportunities available. Hundreds of young people have finished their education, found jobs and reconciled with their families because they had a safe place, surrounded by people who offered hope and love.

The other threatened organizations can also point to their success, from prevention of child abuse to intensive interventions with troubled families.

Some legislators suggest that the newly established community networks will “pick up” these programs. Our Spokane County Network, of which I am a member, is just getting organized and is nowhere near being able to fund local programs. We have no idea what our budget will be. Indeed, the House budget eliminates the networks entirely.

We have worked too hard for too many years to see these programs struggle or disappear. Kids need us more than ever and we need your help to convince our legislators that these programs are important - and supported - by area citizens. Marilee Roloff Spokane

Urge restoration of funding

The Washington state Senate has reported out a budget that has withdrawn funds from Crosswalk and our kids.

Our agency deals with runaway/throwaway kids who need us now more than ever. The need for state funding for Crosswalk is here and now. Our ability to function on a continuing basis is ongoing.

Please contact all our legislators and encourage their support in the conference committee. Clay Bleck, board chairman Volunteers of America, Spokane

‘I’ll err on the side of charity’

A columnist and a cartoonist asked me to consider if panhandlers are needy or are professional beggars (Opinion, April 1).

A while back, I was certain that poor people were just bums. One day as I was entering a restaurant, a woman in shabby clothes asked me for money for a meal. I knew, of course, that she wanted it for whiskey.

To call her bluff, I said to her, “Well, if you are hungry, come in with me and have dinner.”

To my great surprise, she did. She wolfed down her food like she hadn’t eaten in days - which, for all I knew, she hadn’t. I left that restaurant ashamed and less arrogant.

Since then I have met many poor people. They are not a separate species; they are you and I with less money and with a rougher road.

As for professional beggars - you know, like PBS, business lobbyists, subsidized farmers, special interest groups, etc., - the poor have stiff competition in this occupation.

If I guess right and give to a poor person in need, their hunger is relieved. And what if I guess wrong and they use the money to seek solace in a warm bar out of the cold and lonely streets?

Every day in restaurants, taverns and country clubs, people buy friends and strangers drinks. Jesus turned water into wine.

The Apostle Paul reminds us that mercy triumphs over judgment. So, I’ll take a chance, bet on hope, err on the side of charity and drop a buck in their cup. Greg Maloney Danville, Wash.

THE MEDIA

Infomercials not all bad

I’m amazed (Business columnist) Frank Bartel could possibly think all infomercials are worthless, gimmicky, misleading and phony (column, March 29).

To give one example that doesn’t fall into that category, I bring your attention to an infomerical selling the 100 Greatest Classics Learning System on tape.

The entrepreneur who organized that system spent countless hours painstakingly building the system. He sent me a complementary copy for critique. I was impressed with what he had accomplished and the quality of the product. His half-hour infomerical was tastefully done and no outrageous claims were made. The product is good and will surely be an educational aid. I donated my set to the Spokane County Library system.

I’ve been a regular reader of Bartel’s column. I’ve been a Spokane businessman for over 30 years and remain successful in the audio cassette field. I think someone needs to bring to Bartel’s attention that his business leanings seem to have gravitated into a socialist form.

He has failed to recognize the plight of the small businessman today and the extreme pressure placed on small business by our government. Neither Democrat nor Republican has been kind to small business.

I am curious how Bartel perceives the Uniform Capitalization Rule by the feds. Try to figure it out. Additionally, the fact that the Employment Security Department only allows the last four years of tax payments to apply toward unemployment compensation claims is highly discriminatory to businesses employing fewer than 10 persons.

These examples are only starters. Gary Challender Spokane

Movie critics: 1 on scale of 10

The one good thing to come out of the Oscars this year was that “Pulp Fiction” did not win best picture. I’ve seen some bad movies but that one was the most scurrilous piece of trash I ever wasted money on.

Talk about a flick with no redeeming qualities! How that thing could have collected all the critics’ awards that it did is beyond rationality. I went to see it because the critics were all raving about it. I checked with my friends - middle class, professional, educated people - to see if any of them had seen it. Those few who had agreed that they, too, absolutely detested it. I know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but this is ridiculous.

Last year, a film that was up for all kinds of awards was “The Piano.” Once again, everyone I talked to hated it, with some of them leaving the theater before the end. Oh, but the critics loved it! Two years ago, the critics were all raving about “The Crying Game,” another crude film with an obscure soundtrack that was boring to boot.

“Forrest Gump,” on the other hand, a charming, delightful movie, got low critical ratings, as you might imagine. I’m amazed that it won. It just goes to show that you can’t trust the experts.

Movie critics. Bah, humbug! Jack Jennings Spokane

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Please, no more license to steal

Re: “Liberals don’t understand economics” (Letters, April 2):

Patrick Braden, I studied, even advocated trickle-down economics and the promise of the Laffer curve in the early 1980s. I was intrigued by these fresh new ideas. But eventually, I also had to admit that Reaganomics failed miserably.

1. Reaganomics created huge tax windfalls without channeling them into productive investments. Newly liberated wealth flew offshore and overseas or was squandered in the Wall Street leveraged buyout casino. Lifetime jobs disappeared in a frenzy of downsizing designed to build up balance sheets that then were treated like markers at the Wall Street roulette tables.

2. The U.S. Treasury was surrendered to uncommon thieves under the camouflage of deregulation. Don’t you remember the savings and loan fiasco, Mr. Braden? Donald Regan and Ronald Reagan gave us that, not Congress. Congress, at first bullied by the economic brown shirts of the far right (remember Richard Vigurie?), finally closed the breeches in the treasury wall in 1985 and the Reagan revolution subsequently collapsed under the weight of its own greed, corruption and abuse.

I really wanted Reaganomics to work but it just didn’t. It turned out to be a con job. Reagan’s handlers preyed on our naive notions about individual capitalists acting for the common good.

During the 1980s, Mr. Braden, Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” was mostly picking my pockets and using my credit cards all over town. I don’t need a return to that “golden” age of fiscal responsibility. Jim Wavada Spokane

Switch to a national sales tax

There recently has been some talk about doing away with the federal income tax and replacing it with a national sales tax. Aside from the benefits that are usually mentioned - closing of loopholes for the rich and making illegally earned money taxable - there are some other very large benefits to a national sales tax that deserve consideration.

First, the national sales tax would make individual Americans again anonymous to the federal government. No more would big brother need to know where we live, what we earn or what we do for a living.

Also, since most states already have a mechanism in place for collecting sales tax, the states could collect that money for the federal government, while being allowed to keep a small percentage to cover their increase in expense. The Internal Revenue Service, which I think everyone agrees is far too powerful, would then be relegated to policing the states and not the individual American. Its bureaucracy would shrink dramatically.

The only negative thing I’ve heard about this idea is that it would put too much of a tax burden on the poor. The solution is simple, and most states are already doing it: Don’t tax food.

Taxes for everyone in the long run should be substantially lower because of the decrease in bureaucracy, closed loopholes and the taxes on illegally earned money. And we’d get some of our freedom back. Adam Nashif Spokane

Cutting aid to Africa foolish

Africa is at a pivotal point, standing between crisis and opportunity. Some nations are still plagued by war and famine but many show signs of great hope. Civil war has ended in Ethiopia and Mozambique. Millions of refugees are returning home.

The Republic of South Africa held its first democratic elections last spring. Democratically-based movements are emerging and people are working together to achieve peace and build hope.

Yet at this critical moment, the United States is turning away from Africa. New congressional leaders have proposed severe cuts in U.S. foreign assistance, especially to Africa and other poor regions. They’re aggressively attacking U.S. aid programs, such as the Development Fund for Africa, that promote self-help development and reduce poverty.

In this increasingly interdependent world, the U.S. cannot afford to end aid to Africa. Economic deprivation results in social upheaval and political extremism. The destabilizing effects quickly cross national borders. It’s much cheaper to invest in development and prevention than respond to crises. The Somalia military operation cost the U.S. about $2 billion - five times more than its total development assistance expenditures in Somalia for the previous 30 years.

Bread for the World, an anti-hunger organization, has launched the Africa: Crisis to Opportunity campaign to save development aid to Africa. I urge Sens. Craig and Kempthorne and Reps. Chenoweth and Crapo to support retaining the Development Fund for Africa at its current level of $800 million. U.S. assistance could make the difference between crisis and opportunity in Africa. Jo Austin Post Falls

Reactors for Iran OK? No way

I see our enlightened secretary of defense, William Perry, is at his worst again. This time he says it’s OK for Russia to sell nuclear reactors to the Iranians (Spokesman-Review, April 3) and that should not hinder our “business as usual” with them.

Hold on, folks. Iran is the chief culprit and financier of the most widespread and dangerous international terrorist movement in history. The Iranians have made it clear the West, especially the U.S. and Israel, are their principle targets, and they have proven it time and again.

Knowing this, Perry says it’s OK to supply Iran with nuclear capability? Excuse me, Mr. Secretary. You need a gross reality check. Bob Spaulding Post Falls