Online-only letters
Giving thanks
Feast in time of plague
Editor, The Times:
It can get rather tiresome to hear the platitude about how we all need to give thanks, especially on Thanksgiving Day, for the bounty of food that currently exists in the Western world
Especially around Thanksgiving, I cannot but reluctantly find that, for example, by saying grace before a meal - because of the bitter reality of earthly starvation - we, the well-fed, are in effect assuming that our creator has found one portion of this planet’s populace worthy of nourishment while allowing another to starve.
What also bewilders me is, while so many other people also pray for the good health of their loved ones but nonetheless lose them to death, why we believe God found one entire family worthy of life while allowing another to lose a child to a disease, car accident, etc.
But having said that, it’s not that God does not care about his creation or the suffering that infests its people. He’s just allowing humanity what we so crave, i.e., free choice, as did Adam and Eve who chose to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
I believe God is quite unhappy with the human condition; however, we are simply harvesting the produce of our own doing, even though innocent people too often share in the resulting suffering.
- Frank Sterle, White Rock, B.C.Tax of three heads
Less for more
Regarding “Triple-whammy from a tax-and-fee binge” [Times, editorial, Nov. 18]: I suspect the sales-tax increase to pay for more mental-health treatment was sold on the basis that, at least in the long run, providing more mental-health treatment would yield net savings to taxpayers through less incarceration and hospitalization.
If that is true, no tax increase was justified, because the additional mental-health treatment should have been paid for with spending cuts for incarceration or hospitalization.
- Loren Oakley, BellevueProposition 1
A taste for irony
It was very amusing to me that among all the hand-wringing over Proposition 1 and the related transportation issues, The Times ran “Microsoft campus expands, transforms, inside and out” [Business & Technology, Nov. 11] - specifically because the report never mentioned the word “telecommuting.”
It’s especially ironic when you consider how much money Microsoft has invested in the online-collaboration space. Thousands of Microsoft employees travel to physical buildings, have angst over shared physical workspaces and private offices… all to work on technology designed to render those space requirements obsolete.
Until telecommuting and similar solutions are more fully embraced, it’s rather obvious why there are more people on the road. You can see more people being hired and more office buildings for them to travel to every day.
- Chris Keroack, BothellBy road or rail
I don’t take the bus from Redmond to Seattle every workday to satisfy some politician or even to be greener. I take the bus to avoid paying for parking and to lower my gasoline bill, as well as reduce wear and tear on my vehicle and my nerves.
“This society is not a society of cattle-car movement,” claims reader Preston Sult in “State of negation: We won’t stand for it” [Northwest Voices, Nov. 11]. My family first came to this country in ships. Much of my family came west by wagon train, stagecoach and train. Now I travel in buses and planes.
Americans have a history of being a society of mass transit; we’ve just gotten a little selfish of late. But don’t worry: The planet is starting to remind us.
- Bert Schulz, RedmondOn new paths
The defeat of Proposition 1 provides an opportunity to solve our transportation problems and simultaneously reduce global warming [”Plan B, now in the making,” editorial, Nov. 11, and see “Only pockets of support for transit, road plan,” Local News, Nov. 10].
The Sierra Club’s exit poll shows that voters are beginning to acknowledge and vote against this threat to our environment.
Scientists tell us it is absolutely necessary to reduce greenhouse gases 2 percent a year - achieving an 80 percent reduction by 2050 - to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. More than half of the greenhouse gases emitted in our region is from cars, trucks, buses, etc., hence, they must be reduced by 2 percent a year.
Trucks will be needed for goods and services. Buses will increase as part of public transportation. Biodiesel fuel and hybrid cars alone will not achieve this reduction.
The only way to obtain a 2 percent-a-year reduction is by reducing auto miles. Fewer auto miles also mean less congestion, eliminating the need for more highways.
Accordingly, all thoughts of expansive highway construction must be off the table in any future transportation plan.
Repairing the roads and bridges we have; increased busing; arterial rapid transit with public transport; bringing people to the transit stations are what our region needs.
Let us start this now so that our children and grandchildren will have a transportation system that both works and reduces global warming.
- Arthur Kaufman, SeattleGood government
Axis of evil
The Bush administration recently imposed new sanctions against Iran and continued with the previously started economic, political and cultural pressure against the Iranian program for uranium enrichment [”U.S. to seek new sanctions against Tehran,” News, Nov. 16]. Those sanctions are not only immoral but also illegal.
Sovereignty is defined as a state’s right to do whatever its government wants within its territory. Neither the U.S. nor any other state in the world can impose decisions on a sovereign state.
Iran is enriching uranium for domestic use on its own territory. The problem is that the U.S. and other so-called great powers don’t believe the uranium program is just for domestic use, but it’s a nuclear-weapons development program.
Even if that’s true, according to the United Nations, all states are equal and have the right for security. If the U.S. can use nuclear weapons for defense and maintain the biggest nuclear-weapons program, Iran should be allowed the same privilege.
Not to mention other countries that have publicly declared nuclear-weapons possession: Israel, Pakistan and India. These countries are in the same region, have close cultures and very tense relationships with their neighbors. But among all these countries, there are sanctions only against Iran.
India and Pakistan are involved in an arms race, and a conflict between the two states is possible. However, they are not considered a threat, probably because they are not part of the axis of evil.
The Bush administration should change its hypocritical behavior toward Iran and start abiding by the established international norms and laws.
- Andreana Drencheva, AuburnClintonian moment
The last Democratic debate indisputably confirmed that CNN is now and always has been the Clinton News Network. As long as the commentator (in this case CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer) panders to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, he or she is designated an outstanding interviewer.
But when journalist Tim Russert, perhaps one of the most respected journalists in America, asks the tough questions and insists on answers, he is labeled abusive and argumentative.
This merely confirms what many of us have always known about the Clintons: They must have absolute control of all things political. Their arrogance and condescending attitude are unprecedented in American politics. They will deign to tell us only what they want us to believe, truthful or otherwise.
The planting of softball questions in several other venues further confirms that we are unlikely ever to get an honest, unscripted response from Mrs. Clinton.
This last debate was a travesty. Whatever your political persuasions, the voting public deserves far better.
- Maureen Schwab, LymanDo you Yahoo?
Not-so-innocent fun
Regarding “Can you Yahoo safely in China?” [editorial, Nov. 15]: Yahoo’s relationship with the Chinese government makes me wonder how cozy the company is with the National Security Agency and other government security agencies in this country.
We already know of AT&T and other Internet service providers compromising our privacy.
On the Internet, it is healthy to be paranoid considering phishing, Trojans, botnets and our faithful government in its zealous ambition to make this country “secure.”
- Jon Cosby, Seattle