Letters for May 1, 2023

Veterans discounts

I wonder how many veterans actually inquire about their much deserved discounts when they are out shopping. I want to remind them to ask when they check out. It is usually 10% of their charges. However, recently I asked for my veterans discount at a local store and the clerk was embarrassed to tell me they didn’t have one. She did reply, however, “Thank you for your service.” I thanked her but said I would rather have the discount.

Stan Hughes

Spokane Valley

Climate change hypocrisy

We are being told that we need to drive electric cars, heat our homes with a heat pump and electric furnace back up, build energy -efficient homes and our appliances need to be all electric and Energy Star rated – all to save Mother Earth from catastrophic, man-made climate change.

The point I have been pondering is why the ultra rich, who appear to be telling the rest of us how to live, are allowed to pollute our atmosphere with private jet travel, trips into low space and space tourism. These people claim to have purchased carbon offsets, likely from themselves because the rest of us haven’t seen any income from our required efforts, so they can pollute to their hearts’ content.

I finally found on the internet: Just one launch of a rocket into space supposedly emits more CO2 into our atmosphere than most of the world’s population will produce in a lifetime. This same concept is mentioned in the 2022 World Inequality Report. There are more sites that deal with this concept. I am not surprised that the newspapers and news programs fail to even give these thoughts any voice. Since we are supposedly trying to save the planet, perhaps everyone should be required to play by the same rules.

Where is the outrage?

Larry Wiley

Spokane

Violence reduction

On April 23, Claudia Craven (“Solving gun violence”) wrote in a letter to the editor stating that solving gun violence requires all interested political factions to contribute to the solution of reduction of violence. It will require input and agreements from those with opposing points of view. They will need to create an environment allowing discussion of politically charged topics before making headway on violence and firearm discussions.

Firearms are part of our culture, legislating it out of existence isn’t realistic. Since many Americans value guns, a starting point would be finding a reasonable way to control proliferation to certain populations. We require liability insurance on cars; why not extend it to firearms? Gun violence victims are left with expensive medical bills. Who pays for them? I think gun insurance would be supported by reasonable people as a start in dealing with firearm consequences.

Donald Orlando

Spokane