Letters for April 28, 2024
Developmental appropriateness important for books
Recently, HB 2331 was signed by Gov. Jay Inslee on March 28. HB 2331 focuses on barring school district boards from refusing to approve or prohibit the use of an educational material related to or including cultural and identity groups. Students can finally read diverse books related to them, while school boards and parents are worried about appropriateness.
To ensure that both groups can get what they want, HB 2331 should be improved by defining the issue as developmental appropriateness. There should be different levels of what books students can read that can open them up to diverse topics, but making sure it is appropriate for them developmentally. Developmental appropriateness groups can include ages: 6-9, 10-12, 13-15 and 16-18. If a book is more mature than others, students below the developmentally appropriate group that the book belongs in will need to wait until it is appropriate for them to read. This can ensure that professional educators are honored for their discernment, while honoring parents’ desires to not expose children to material that might not be developmentally appropriate.
It’s hard to compromise between groups with different perspectives. However, there should be common ground between all groups and choosing books that are developmentally appropriate will help students learn about diversity while also keeping it developmentally age wise. It’s important for children to learn about cultural, ethnic and identity groups different from them while also giving responsibility to school boards to keep this in place.
Ellie Powers
Spokane
There is no God in Providence anymore
The strike at Sacred Heart Medical Center by its technical workers is unfortunately necessary and long overdue. I was an RN at SHMC in the 1980s under the Sisters of Providence, and it was one of the best places to work in the Northwest. The same was true of VNA Home Health when it was an independent non-profit. Now, they are under the tyrannical rule of Providence Health and Services, and I experienced the ugly transformation of both.
PH-S, one of the largest health care conglomerates in the country, is plagiarizing a noble Catholic history of service and undermining it with raw profiteering. But instead of sending profits to owners and shareholders, it “invests” its “margins” in urban expansion projects, acquisitions, multi-million-dollar executive salaries, Wall Street and limited use high tech equipment. Meanwhile, employees have been reduced to being mere tools, subject to productivity formulas, just like factory workers.
The opening screen on our laptops for several years really sums up the change. The words quoted a 17th century monk: “All I know of tomorrow is that Providence will rise before the sun,” with the rising sun and cross logo surrounded by the corporate colors over the word Providence. The graphic made it painfully clear that Providence no longer refers to God’s love, but to PH&S. In other words, employees need not worry about the future as long as they do what they’re told and believe everything management says. It was corporate propaganda pure and simple, and it’s only getting worse.
Cris Currie
Mead
Don’t let Hamas reach Fairchild
Many Spokanites are affected by ongoing skirmishes in the Middle East. Some have close relatives in Israel, Palestine, Iran and other involved countries. In addition, families of military personnel at Fairchild Air Force Base are likely concerned about their loved ones.
Daily approximately 100 Gazans, mostly women and children, are dying from lack of food, medical care and from U.S. bombs dropped from drones. On April 8, NPR reported only 38 people were killed overnight in Gaza, much less than normal.
Imagine Palestinian women delivering cesarean births without anesthetic and Palestinian male prisoners having their hands, feet and limbs amputated because of tight strictures cutting off their blood supply and being marched around blindfolded, half-naked.
And hostages need to be released.
President Biden says, “Israel has a right to defend itself.” Others say, “that is war, collateral damage.”
On another front, Israel “took out” seven Iranian officers, including two top commanders, in Syria with hardly a peep of condemnation from the U.S. Only now, our military including those at Fairchild Air Force Base, may be needed to protect U.S. embassies in nearby countries and be involved in an escalation of war, possibly encompassing the whole Middle East.
All of this carnage is supposed to defeat Hamas. However, it is next to impossible to win a war against Hamas, as children will grow up to love and defend their families.
A halt to military aid and a permanent ceasefire is needed now.
Nancy Street
Cheney
Why not Reichert?
The Washington state Republican Party appears to have an AR-15 equipped with a bump stock aimed at its foot. It appears not to be concerned about the legal troubles of its candidates or the ones they support.
The party rails about cities, counties and states being soft on crime and causing the decline in America. However, when our Washington state Republican U.S. representatives voted to hold former President Donald Trump accountable for inciting and then failing to quell a riot on Jan. 6, 2021, the party decided to support the challengers. Now, the party has decided to support another person, with a criminal record, over Dave Reichert for governor.
Reichert has a distinguished record of service in law enforcement and seven terms as a conservative U.S. representative from the West Side of the state. Reichert has moved up another notch on the integrity scale by declining to seek GOP endorsement. He cites his long and law-abiding life that doesn’t square with current bent of the party.
I expect he will rise in the “top two” primary to run in the general election against a Democrat. Will the GOP join Reichert’s party then?
William Severson
Stanwood, Washington
If you want it, pay for it
Carleen Reilly demonstrates a key bit of ego that is so wrong with the upper middle class and the wealthy. They want services, but they don’t want to pay for it. Add to that, the suggestion she has is a regressive tax as tab fees, which take a far higher percentage of disposable income from the lower middle class and the working poor.
As this paper pointed out, the proposed property tax increase “would cost the median homeowner an additional $323 each year.” For a homeowner, that’s insignificant.
This is a growing area. Intelligent people know we need to prepare and to spend to keep it a livable area.
These people claim they want improved safety, they constantly shout about it, but somebody else should pay for it.
David Teich
Spokane Valley
Select days for broader letter topics
The Spokesman-Review’s drastic change in Letters to the Editor policy is both arbitrary and a failure to represent the broad and eclectic concerns of our community. I can understand that they may be attempting to moderate the viscerally distorted screaming associated with national politics that often permeates the “letters” section of the paper. However, note that international, national and regional topics are also of legitimate interest to our citizens, or your “newspaper” wouldn’t even report about such events. If that were to happen, then you (we) would only have a provincial, small-town paper that limits content to local grocery and gas prices, city council meetings, births and deaths and weekly police reports.
I strongly recommend that the S-R consider a compromise. Publish letters two or three days each week – at least Wednesday and Sunday – and designate specific days for either local-only matters (e.g. Wednesday) or wide-open international-national-regional topics (e.g. Sunday). Given that I’ve recently noticed a stark decline in letters published, I think this compromise along with increased discretion on the part of S-R editorial staff to assure “informed content” would better serve our community. Consider also increasing the lapse time between repeat letter authors to reduce exposure to misguided, ill-informed, wacko extremists.
Phillip Moyle
Spokane
Got smoke detectors?
With horror, disbelief, shame and tears for yet another loss-of-life Spokane home fire near North Central High School on 1700 block of North Howard. This time young “homeowner” family members perish?
There should have been a smoke detector in every room with a closet. Did any pre-sale home inspection catch that one? Not important enough?
It’s a three-decade-old ordinance, if not older. And the fire department installed smoke detectors are available for free. Religious organizations offer them too.
Is your life not worth $10 to $20 for a 10-year battery built in smoke detector?
Renters disabling or removing smoke detectors for cannabis, fentanyl or cooking excuses is idiotic too. It happens, nonetheless.
I’ve encountered renters changing electric breakers swapped out for larger breakers to accommodate plug in electric heaters only to melt the wiring in the wall. Thank goodness the fiberglass insulation didn’t burn.
What will it take to convince people smoke detectors (plural) to save their lives while they sleep in their bedrooms?
Mike Reno
Spokane