Letters To The Editor
SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION
Try disciplinary scheme at home
As a parent of a child at Moran Prairie Elementary School, I am disappointed at the controversial way your newspaper has discussed the new THINK TIME program at this elementary school.
While you have opened up discussion of THINK TIME, or processing, you haven’t provided readers with the four questions on the form. If you were to print these questions and challenge your readers to use them in their home for a week, they could tell you about their experiences.
I think there is great merit to holding children accountable and to forcing them to think about what their negative behavior was and why it was disrespectful. This system teaches children that their behavior affects others. Many children lose precious learning time because a few children don’t respect their teachers and classmates. These children get the message from our society that there are no rules.
Teachers need encouragement and support from this community, not ridicule for trying out a new disciplinary approach that is not punitive but is educational.
Most importantly, our children need an environment in which they can thrive and learn, not one where rude children get all the teacher’s attention.
Questions on the form are:
What was your behavior that caused the time out?
How was your behavior not respectful and/or responsible?
What do you need to do differently to make sure this doesn’t happen again?
Can you do this?
I sincerely hope you will invite your readers to decide the merits of THINK TIME. Elana Lindquist Spokane
Times out don’t change attitude
I am in the sixth grade. My class has been doing a unit on the newspaper for a few weeks. I have read some stories and letters that talked about time out (it used to be called processing).
I don’t think time out works because the same kids keep coming back to my room for time out. I think they keep coming back because kids don’t take school seriously. Most of the kids who come into my room are the ones who don’t care about their grades or what their teachers think of them. They think the whole day should be a time to goof off.
Parents should teach their kids to care about their grades and listen to their teachers from their first day of school. If a person doesn’t listen to their boss, they could get fired.
My teacher doesn’t use time out for us. We have class rules that we follow out of habit. It’s not difficult to learn them. If we don’t follow the rules, we get corrected, miss recess or stay for after-school detention.
Our class doesn’t get in too much trouble. We know that when the teacher’s happy, we all have a good day. Aaron Myers Spokane
WILDLIFE AND HUNTING
Imported speaker did snow job
Lynn Fritchman (“Stick to the ‘real issues”’, Letters, May 19) and his co-conspirators of Idaho Coalition United for Bears should stick to the real facts.
Tom Beck, a Colorado state employee, was paid by I-CUB to speak in Idaho. I-CUB is 98 percent financed by the self-professed stop-all-hunting Humane Society of the United States. Reminds you of the expert witness at O.J. Simpson’s trial: What do you want to hear? Fly me in, I’ll say it.
Fritchman neglected to mention a few things.
Beck admits that the administrative bear kills, those killed for control by government hunters at taxpayers’ expense, increased 614 percent three years after the ban passed (verified by his director, John Mumma). This does not indicate “no significant increase on bear population” or a “small increase in bear/human contacts.”
Colorado sells no over-the-counter bear tags. The “dramatic increase” in sales of bear tags is due to the department issuing more controlled-hunt tags in order to control exploding bear populations. That is not “increased interest in bear hunting.” It is management scrambling to control bears.
Fritchman should tell the whole story, in context, to his duped followers and to the media. Roxanne Carrick Athol, Idaho
Keep endangered species protections
Lately it seems as though the Endangered Species Act has been taking a lot of abuse. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been backing away from its commitment to species like lynx, caribou, wolves and grizzly bears. Not many groups want to stand up and do something for these animals.
Everybody should do what they can to help support the Endangered Species Act. These animals need our help. Frank R. Shucka Cheney
Goats, yes; Hunting, no
Living in the Northwest most of my life has made me appreciate mountain goats, and knowing that they are being spotted in Metaline is a true wonder (“Up there! It’s a mountain goat,” May 28). Most of the mountain goats were transplanted to the Mount Linton area and the population was just starting to rise. But hunting brought down that population.
Hunting has been the main reason half our endangered species are even on a list. Hunting has almost totally wiped out the goats in the Northwest. Mountain goats are something that our grandchildren need to see, and if hunting is still allowed that won’t happen.
We need to clamp down on poaching and the hunting of goats and other species before they are all gone. Jessica R. Parks Cheney
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
Time to put lid on ‘melting pot’
Immigration into the United States is becoming a great problem that is costing millions of dollars each year. It is time to bring immigration to a halt.
Last year, the United States let in 720,461 legal immigrants and several hundred thousand more entered illegally. They take up a lot of space and money that should be put toward Americans first. When the United States starts spending money on immigrants instead of Americans, you know there is something wrong.
I know our country is the “melting pot” of the world, but there comes a time to calm things down. The United States has a great national debt, and bringing in more people is not going to help. Money for welfare, Social Security and such comes out of the taxpayers’ pockets.
If you fee that immigrants are good for the United States and that we should continue the tradition, I respect your opinion. But when the immigrants begin to take over the United States, you might feel differently. Jessica Nevitt Spokane
Let’s be clear about COLA figures
Bernece “Bunny” Bippes needs to spend a little more time studying the Social Security program and annual cost of living increases (“Social Security has been looted,” Letters, June 3).
Bippes states, “If you are now receiving $700 a month in Social Security payments and your next increase would be $50, a large amount of money could be saved and kept in the system to save it by reducing the increase to $25.”
The facts are that the average annual cost of living increases for Social Security recipients have been slightly less than 3 percent during the past five years. On a monthly payment of $700, this would result in average annual monthly increases of $21 - substantially less than the $50 or $25 Bippes refers to.
Not to worry, President Clinton seems to have a very similar problem with accuracy in his figures, also usually well overstated. Robert Bangerter Spokane
S-R that jabs Clintons can’t be all bad
I have long maintained that The Spokesman-Review was one of the club dominated by the media, the donating United Workers, etc. But I stopped to check my bearings after picking up the May 30 editorial, (“Clinton can’t afford to stonewall further,” Our View).
In column one of the Opinion page your astute Opinion Editor John Webster (for the editorial board) said Clinton can’t afford to stonewall further and went on to say why not. Then we go on to read the comments of Tony Snow (Creators Syndicate), whose column is headed, “Bribes, lies at heart of Whitewater.” He goes on to itemize several of the cover-ups that Clinton accepted bribes as Arkansas’ governor and he consorted with crooks.
Then Marianne Means (Hearst International) comes up with an article which pooh-poohs the Clintons’ plan to adopt a baby. It breeds cynicism, she states with some authority.
Well, all this is very good and it just about covered a page of this edition. But the worst was ahead: On June 1, your Opinion page was highlighted by a cartoon which depicted our president on the basis of “admission impossible.” It accused him of being a sexual harasser, a Whitewater co-conspirator, a liar, a draft-dodger and an adulterer.
Quite some bill of health! My red-faced regrets for having misjudged you. Carlton Gladder Spokane
MARGINAL PROPHET
Drug guru’s tragic legacy lives on
It really made my day to see our two major newspapers practically lionize Tim Leary’s death and to put the story on their front pages, no less.
When I think back to the 1960s and ‘70s, I recall a little-known courtroom referred to as Department 95 in the Los Angeles Criminal Courts system. This particular court was stuck away from the main court and was housed adjacent to the USC Medical Center.
I have little difficulty remembering parents huddling together, crying and wondering what went wrong. A side door would open as in came an escorted young person with a blank, vacant stare; a person whose brain had been cooked by Leary’s medicine. The subject would sit quietly while the court would decide which mental facility to send him or her to.
Of course, Leary knew nothing of these young people and he cared even less. He was much too busy experimenting with all manner of other drugs and expounding their virtues. When you add Leary’s story to the countless other tales of so-called celebrities who have been dopers for years and then profess to have seen the light in their later years it makes one wonder just what the message to our youths is.
Weep not for a slug like Timothy Leary. Save those tears for the parents in this country who today ask themselves, “What went wrong?” Michael J. Murphy Hayden Lake, Idaho