Letters To The Editor

BUSINESS AND LABOR

Income envy helps no one

Envy is one of the least satisfying of the seven deadly sins. If a corporation spread the salary of a CEO to raise the wages of its workers, it would make little difference in their lives.

Marilyn Geewax, in her column of April 12 (“Greed drives CEOs’ pay higher,” Opinion), tries to engender envy by quoting the salaries of 35 large corporations and makes it seem obscene by breaking it down to $17,500 per day. But, if that income were to be spread over about 50,000 workers, each worker would see a benefit of 35 cents per day - not even the price of a newspaper or a candy bar.

Now, who knows what the proper salary should be for a CEO? Geewax? Some government official? The workers? Or might it be the shareholders - the ones who pay that salary?

In our quest to find reasons to be miserable, envying the CEO is a rather poor place to put our hopes. When we begin to consider that another’s well-being has a detrimental effect on our own, we are closing avenues for ourselves to achieve well-being.

Remember, the Boeing parts clerk earning $20 per hour seems to have an obscene wage to an auto parts clerk earning $6 per hour. Will lowering the wage of the Boeing clerk lower help the auto parts clerk? Might that $20 per hour be a benefit resulting from the effectiveness of their CEO?

Envy. Not very useful or satisfying. Michael Michels Spokane

Party hardy - for awhile

As Henry George, the 19th century economist, said, “As long as progress only sharpens the lines between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots,’ there can be no real progress!”

The growing inequality between the haves and the have nots has caught the attention of only one Republican presidential candidate: Pat Buchanan.

Buchanan is attacking Wall Street, the investment bankers and the free-trade exponents as enemies of the American worker. Imagine, a Republican worried about the working man. What next?

Republican philosophy on the rising economy could be likened to a rising tide in a great yacht basin. To the average person, all of the boats would rise at the same rate as the tide, but to Republicans, only the yachts (big business, etc.) would rise, and the rowboats and dories (workers), as in the present economy, would capsize.

It’s not only Republican philosophy, it’s a reality, for corporate profits are at an all-time high, as are corporate cutbacks. But the average worker is making 5 percent less than he did 10 years ago, while the CEOs are making 190 times more than the worker does.

Why is the CEO rewarded for the sweat and toil of the worker, and the worker penalized for doing a good job?

Why are only Pat Buchanan, Bill Clinton and the Democrats concerned?

Henry George was correct in saying, “Such progress cannot be permanent.” Andy Kelly Spokane

SPOKANE MATTERS

Radio towers came first

Complaints about the radio transmitters and pressure to have them moved prompts this letter.

Doesn’t anyone recall that those towers were there long before any housing developments began encroaching on the area? I’m referring to the 1930s and ‘40s, when Browne Mountain, as it was known at that time, was in a remote area, high and ideal for radio transmissions.

The end of the Manito street car line was on Grand Boulevard, between 37th and 38th avenues. Few houses were south or east of that point. The east side of Perry Street had no sidewalks, nor did any streets beyond 29th, other than the small neighborhood of Lincoln Heights farther east. But the KGA tower was always visible from our home on East 33rd.

We used to hike from our home through Perry woods and out across Moran Prairie toward the little mountain where other transmitters were added and became known as Tower Mountain. On our trek toward the towers, we didn’t trespass on anyone’s property because there were scarcely any houses between Perry and Tower Mountain. KGA was always our landmark.

My point is, the towers were there first. Why should they be moved to accommodate newcomers?

Meanwhile, birds will continue building their nests and raising their young in the framework of those towers as they have all these years, with no adverse effects.

May the radio stations continue to beam their programs from their location until someone can prove there are any adverse effects from them. Helen Brown Moses Lake

HUNTING REGULATION

Don’t be swayed by extremists

Re: D.F. Oliveria’s editorial of April 9 (“With bait, dogs, it isn’t hunting”):

The Washington anti-hunting initiative, I-655 is the product of radical animal rights extremism. Although the animal rights ideology calls for the return of all animals to the care of nature, the time has long since passed that nature can care for her own.

People are usually shocked and their emotions are stirred by things foreign to their comfortable environment, things they no longer fully understand or have to face every day. Animal rights groups, like PAWS and the Humane Society depend on the collective ignorance of the American people, not their collective knowledge.

Animal rightism is a battle that pits the movie star against the trapper, the highly educated and elitist ideologue against the farmer, the media elite against the hunter, the consumer against the producer. It is an uneven battle that pits the rich against the poor, the powerful against the weak and the famous against the unknown.

Never in the history of Washington state has there been such a blatant manipulation of our system to serve the moral convictions of a tiny “religious” minority. Bear, cougar and Bobcat populations are thriving because of professional wildlife management.

But, like the sea lions at the Ballard locks, Bear, Cougar and Bobcat have emotional appeal and represent an easy sell for animal extremists. Don’t be fooled! Passage of these initiatives will result in higher taxes, increased danger to livestock, pets and other wildlife. Haven’t we had enough of these radical movements? Jon M. Akers, president Washingtonians for Wildlife Conservation, Seattle

Pro-initiative items welcome

Kudos to Staff Writer D.F. Oliveria and Staff Cartoonist Milt Priggee for recognizing the unsportsmanlike barbarity behind bear baiting and hound hunting (Opinion, April 9).

The Washington Wildlife Alliance is currently gathering signatures to place Initiative 655 on the November ballot. I-655, which is supported by many responsible hunters and conservation groups, would outlaw baiting and hounding in our state.

Forty states have already banned these unfair hunting practices, and I’m confident Washington voters will make it 41.

Please sign the initiative and vote yes in November. Anne Sciortino, Spokane coordinator Washington Wildlife Alliance

Consider the lore , tradition

I read all the negative things being written about hounds and I wonder if the people are really educated. Do people really know what goes on out in the woods?

I use hounds to pursue game. At times people accuse me of killing everything I tree. That is not true. The thrill of the sport does not have to deal with killing. In fact, very few animals are killed after the chase ends.

The sound of the chase and the excitement of your favorite dogs doing what they have been bred to do for hundreds of years matches the joy one might have seeing your child take its first steps or speaking its first word.

People who use hounds are not barbarians, they are people who care for their environment and don’t want to see animals threatened by over-hunting.

I am not trying to hide any facts. There are negative things that happen in every sport, most by accident. That is a fact of life; there are fools out there everywhere.

I would like to see my children be able to hear the song of the hounds. So before you make up your mind that hound hunting is so barbaric, get educated by someone who cares for both the environment and the animals that live in it. If you ask a person with hounds I am sure they would do their best to answer your questions. M.L. Zema Spokane

Critters do well without new law

In his April 9 editorial, D.F. Oliveria admits asking support for an initiative that goes farther than we like. In this same editorial, he allows that the methods, (hound hunting) unfortunately, may be the only way to control cougars.

Are we going to go the way of the Californians, who raised more money for the orphaned cougars than for orphaned children whose mothers were killed by a cougar?

The people who filed I-655 must not have done their homework. Why would they have included lynx in the initiative? Lynx has been closed to hunting in Washington for years - an action supported by houndsmen and professional biologists with the Washington Fish and Wildlife Department.

Bear, cougar and bobcat populations are thriving under current game management. If you support I-655 you are bowing to radical, misinformed people who are trying to manage game with their emotions. Rick Osterback Chattaroy

Read I-655, then decide

If you attended this year’s Big Horn Show, you may have seen literature and or heard comments by persons in opposition to Initiative 655. The Initiative would ban the practice of baiting bears and ban hunting black bear, cougar, bobcat and lynx with the use of dogs.

The full text of the I-655 is roughly one and one-half pages long and quite understandable. Contrary to what I was told at the Big Horn Show, the initiative does not “end hunting as we know it.” One person even warned me that this initiative would impact fishing practices as well.

The bottom line is, don’t listen someone’s interpretation. Read the full text of the initiative and then decide. The full text of I-655 is available at local libraries and via the Internet. Dave C. James Spokane

IN THE PAPER

Easter is no joking matter

Since April 6, when the Rev. Paul Graves’ column (“Look at Easter as helpful holy humor”) was published on the Religion page, I have been trying to understand what his purpose was in trying to make the most sacred day of the Christian year into a joke. Without the day of resurrection there would not be a Christian church; faith in the resurrection is the basis of Christianity.

God may indeed have a sense of humor, but to treat Easter as a joke from God seems a very odd way of observing this important day.

Christians also know that our own death is real and we do not “fall all over ourselves,” as Graves puts it, to pretend it doesn’t happen. Because we believe Christ is alive, we need not fear death, since we believe in a life after death. If Graves meant this column to encourage nonbelievers, it was probably a dismal failure. Olive Cody Spokane

Keep speculation out of print

It has disturbed me for some time that the news media choose to print or broadcast things that go beyond the facts and the public is given speculation, innuendo or unfounded prognostications.

“Women killed in wreck” (April 6) says that Washington State Patrol troopers may recommend that charges be filed against Jerry Martin. Please note that troopers had not recommended that charges be filed.

So why was it necessary to mention that they “might” recommend that? Martin is innocent until proven guilty.

The writer goes on to say, “Prosecutors can get a vehicular homicide conviction if they can show a driver was under the influence of alcohol or drugs or driving in a reckless manner in a crash that kills someone.” The words “alcohol and drugs” gives readers the idea that this man might have been capable of those actions.

We all know how the gossip game goes. One person says they read that there is a possibility of something happening. The next says it did happen. Soon the person is convicted in the minds of the people.

This is completely unfair to Martin and to all others who have experienced this sort of publicity.

You have heaped a pile of hurt on an already grief-stricken family. I’d like to see your good paper dare to take the lead in restraining from using innuendo and stick to writing about what actually happened. Then you can earn the title of “the paper with a conscience.” Betty Johnson Liberty Lake

OTHER TOPICS

Clinton wrong to veto abortion ban

April 10, 1996, will go down as one of the darkest days in recent history for the morality of America. President Clinton vetoed a bill that would have outlawed virtual infanticide.

The bill, HR 1833 (the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act) would make illegal an abortion procedure where second- and third-trimester babies are 80 percent delivered from their mother’s womb and then executed while still alive.

Testimony before the Senate and Congress revealed the following:

Martin Haskell, one of the abortionists who has performed over 1,000 such procedures, has said in an interview with the American Medical News, “I’ll be quite frank: most of my abortions are elective in that 20-24-week range … 80 percent are purely elective.”

In September 1993, “pro-choice” nurse Brenda Pratt Shafer went to work for Dr. Haskell. Three days thereafter, she quit. Later, in a letter to her congressman detailing what she had witnessed, she wrote, “I saw three of these partial-birth abortions up close. … It was the most horrifying experience of my life.”

It is interesting to note that none of the three partial-birth abortions she witnessed were performed to save the life of the mother.

To have a woman who is strongly pro-choice crusade against this speaks volumes.

This veto displays just how extreme our president is. If, because of our ignorance and laziness, he is not held accountable for this inhumanity, we should expect America to continue down the hill to moral bankruptcy. Pete Caruso Spokane

Get a load of those gun letters

The two letters printed April 14 in response to your April 9 report, “Guns kill more kids than ever,” should be required reading for anyone who wants to know how far from civility we can stray. Both authors make it clear their overriding interest is only in gun possession.

Vern O’Farrell tells us two-thirds of the people shot to death have long criminal records anyway. Not only is this stated as dogma (so it may not be questioned), but it implies they all deserved to die. He wants anybody older than 9 listed in statistics as an adult. All those older are beyond redemption and may be considered throwaways.

Loue E. Stockwell wants us to focus on the shooters, not the weapon used. As if they could have killed just as many as quickly with a club as with an assault rifle.

The power of the loaded gun is literally the power of life and death over a fellow human being. It is clear that, for some people, that power is addictive. We should heed Lord Acton’s warning, “Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely.” Edward B. Keeley Spokane