Letters for Jan. 21, 2022

Duncan a welcome addition

Welcome to Kiantha Duncan’s column on your Opinion page (“To live in our new NOrmal, secure your own mask first,” Jan. 14).

Her perspective has already brought much needed fresh air into my lungs and heart!

Kate Coan

Silverton, Idaho

Spokane’s greatest injustice

I read with pure aghast the article “Chief Spokane Garry’s stolen land” (Jan. 16). The article captured evidence that uncovered one of Spokane’s worst injustices to one our most admired historical characters, Chief Spokane Garry!

Here we learned of a humble, peaceable, Spokane Indian who lived by farming 33 years on a 15-acre plot atop Beacon Hill. The article clearly establishes that this farm rightfully belonged to Spokane Garry. Herein journalist Eli Francovich brilliantly established both that this 15-acre farm was wrongfully taken from Garry and to this very day continues to be passed down to a host of others with no mention of Chief Spokane Garry’s surviving relatives to whom this property rightfully belongs.

The law of our land states that stolen property cannot be lawfully sold and resold to others with monetary motive if the would-be buyer has knowledge that the property is stolen. Abraham Lincoln’s words that fit the plot of this scenario well, when he quoted, “Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us dare to do our duty as we understand it.” The Spokane mayor and City Council should make this terribly egregious historical wrong right and return Chief Spokane Garry’s 15-acre stolen farmland to his nearest surviving relative, Jeanne Givens.

Bill Misner

Spokane

Military spending outrageous

I was happy to see the letter by Linda Greene (“How much is actually needed for military spending?” Jan. 14) about massive military spending with no questions asked.

I too have been concerned for decades about his out-of-control spending that takes more than half of the federal budget. We spend many times more the next most spendy countries. We would be very secure at half the cost.

Trump gave the Pentagon $60 billion (with a “b”) they did not ask for. Our present Congress kept that and added to it. Leaves the rest of government fighting for the crumbs.

After Congress has the guts to deal with this, they can move on the shoring up Social Security, and universal health care.

Bob Curry

Deer Park

Connection; to bind

On Dec. 23 Sue Lani Madsen wrote an extraordinary column about “commonality” (“We’re losing our way to finding our commonality”). In it, she stated the current scientific consensus that there is only one race – the human race. Several decades ago I wrote: “Suppose in the grand scheme of things, when all is said and done, that I am you and you are me and each is everyone.”

There is not only just one human race, but everything in the universe is connected! My physicist grandson put it simply: “Everything comes from the same stuff.” We are connected!

“Connection/to bind” is a translation of the Latin word “religare,” the root word for religious. We are religious/spiritual when realizing our connectedness. We are lost – in disarray/disconnected when we are only connected to our immediate tribe/nation and are xenophobic and not connected with others – of different religious beliefs, ethnicity, skin color, nations or political beliefs.

Each of us humans, with plants, animals, and all else in the universe are, at our very core, connected. Realizing that in our day-to-day life functioning is the fundamental religious/connective experience.

Robert P. Crosby

Spokane