Author: The Seattle Times: Northwest Voices

Perspective on business

Lance Dickie’s Jan. 8 column quoted the estimate that the health-care bill “would extend” coverage to more than 30 million Americans [“Healthy people, healthy wallets,” Opinion]. It’s true — that’s how many people who don’t have insurance that would get it. And “would” really means “maybe.”

But this is deceptive. According to the Congressional Budget Office, 10 million currently covered by plans at work would lose this insurance. Their employers would be forced to drop these plans because reform mandates would make coverage too expensive. This is one example of how the overgrown legislation fails to pay attention to everyday realities.

Millions will be worse off because the reform’s bottom-line impact on companies and institutions that buy and sell health care was not properly considered. Medicine is a business that’s about to lose revenue. Some providers, insurers and manufacturers will lose profitability and fold. To continue, they will likely turn to contract labor and services (outsourcing) and try to reduce waste like never before.

To keep existing providers in the system — and maintain access to care —Dickie and other opinion leaders should lead new dialogue about how business practices need to change with the reform.

— Randy Bartsch, Tacoma

The right thing to do

Your editorial is misguided at best [“Jobs first, then talk about health reform,” editorial, Opinion, Jan. 8]. Every American citizen deserves adequate medical care. And, every American citizen certainly deserves the opportunity to find work. I see no reason why we can’t do both.

No one should lose health insurance because he/she lost his/her job. Employers, big or small, shouldn’t be burdened with the cost of health insurance for their employees. No one should be forced into bankruptcy just because a family member got sick. Most of the rest of the civilized world gets this.

To your credit, two columns appearing in The Times supported my view. Lance Dickie and Amy Goodman [“The best way to protect Americans is with adequate health care,” Opinion, Jan. 8] obviously get it, too.

All Americans deserve adequate medical care. We take care of each other in this country, it is what we do. If it were up to me, we would already have Medicare extended to everyone.

The current legislation in the House and Senate are just a start to move us in the right direction. We cannot afford to be distracted by other issues. It is, simply put, the right thing to do.

— Terry Mercier, Woodinville

Health care held hostage

I had such high hopes of finally — with the Obama administration and a majority Democratic Congress — getting an American health-care system that is designed to truly provide the American people with comprehensive, universal and affordable health care as is provided by virtually all of the rest of the industrialized, modern world.

It has become sadly apparent that both Congress and the White House have caved to the desires of the health-insurance industry by putting together a bill that does not address most of the problems with the private health-care system in our country. This is not in the best interest of the American citizens who were promised great things in return for their votes in November 2008.

It is time to listen to the likes of Sen. Bernie Sanders and not the obstructionists like Sen. Joe Lieberman and Sen. Ben Nelson who hold America’s health care hostage for personal or political gain.

— Jay Wang, Seattle

Abortion provisions

The purpose of insurance is to protect us against liability from unforeseen events and I expect my health insurance to cover the full range of unplanned medical emergencies.

Under Sen. Ben Nelson’s abortion provision in the Senate’s health-care bill, tens of millions of Americans would be forced to write two separate checks — one for abortion coverage and one for the rest of their health insurance. It unfairly singles out abortion in a proposed system that is both unworkable for insurance companies and burdensome for women.

Women don’t plan an unplanned pregnancy or complication in their wanted pregnancy any more than they plan to have a heart attack. I urge leaders of Congress to remove this dangerous provision — and the House’s Stupak abortion ban — before the bill becomes law. Women deserve better.

— Kaela Reilly, Shoreline

Sheltered Anne Frank, touched lives

It was with special sorrow that I learned of the passing of Miep Gies, the woman who risked her life during the Nazi occupation of Holland to bring food, medicines, provisions and outside companionship to Anne Frank, her family and the other lodgers in a secret annex [“Miep Gies, who helped hide Anne Frank, dies at 100,” Newsline, Jan. 12].

I had the profound privilege of meeting Gies at Temple De Hirsch Sinai in 1995 when she was in Seattle to open an exhibit about Anne Frank. When I shook her hand, I remember feeling overwhelmed that I was touching the same hand that had held Anne Frank’s hand when Frank was afraid, soothed her forehead when she was sick and stroked her hair when she was melancholy. In this way, for a shining moment, I shared an intense connection with the timeless young diarist.

The experience left me at a loss for words and I didn’t get a chance to thank Gies for her courageous altruism or her retrieval and preservation of the scattered pages of Anne Frank’s writings — without which the world would have never known her diary. But looking into Gies’ pallid blue eyes, I sensed that she didn’t want to hear that anyway and that she knew that she had been the agent for a moment I would treasure the rest of my life.

— Mark Isaacs, Las Vegas

It’s personal

Editor, The Times:

I learned today that the niece of a friend working on relief in Haiti for the U.N. was killed in the earthquake [“Devastated,” page one, Jan. 14]. This cuts through the distance of faraway news like a knife and makes the earthquake and the suffering in Haiti something personal, painful and up-close.

In the same day’s news, I read that Pat Robertson has blamed the earthquake on the 18th century slave revolt against the French. Robertson remarked that the earthquake was caused by a pact with the devil made when Haitian slaves launched a revolt against French colonial power at the end of the 18th century.

“They got together and swore a pact to the devil,” said Robertson. “They said, ‘We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.’”

There simply appears to be no end of the obscenity that right-wing fanatics spew — and this is what passes itself as “Christianity” in parts of this country.

I hope American response to the suffering in Haiti will show that we are a country of openhanded generosity, not mean, medieval superstition.

— Nathaniel R. Brown, Edmonds

Heal Haiti’s old wounds

Our hearts are in Haiti and we must help the Haitian people in this urgent moment. But we must be more than foul-weather friends. We must stand by them for the long haul.

These people are our neighbors, yet they live in dire poverty. This must change. A healthy, educated and prosperous Haiti is in our best interest.

The Haitian people need urgent help and need clean water, food and medicine. But we must do more than slap a bandage on this gaping wound. Haiti has been bleeding out for generations. Lets face reality and do our part to cure the disease at the root of this crisis.

We must lead the world community in building, from the ground up, a system of community-based schools and clinics to educate the young and heal the sick. Nonprofits with strong bonds to Haitian communities are our best bet. Partners in Health has been active in Haiti for a quarter century. They run nine clinics across the island. We must support their efforts and follow their lead.

The Haitian people are aching for more from life. We can give them an honest shot at realizing their dreams. Knowing the American spirit, we will.

— Ben Packard, Bainbridge Island

Haitian lives trivialized

I am a local student, now in eighth grade at Washington Middle School. When I woke up early this morning and read the article about the Haitian earthquake, I was horrified and sad. But then I looked at the paper again and I got mad.

It just shocked me that in your three news stories, the layout suggested that the two American missionaries trapped in rubble were of equal importance to the lives of thousands of Haitians. I found it offensive that two people were considered as important as thousands in Haiti just because the missionaries were American.

You made it into an issue of “us” and “them”. If you can’t — as mature adults — show equal respect to everyone, then what do you think that teaches us?

— Marley Arborico, Seattle

Off the streets and into liquor stores

The legislature currently is considering a bill to regulate marijuana [“Time to let pot trade bud legally,” NWWednesday, Jan. 13], allowing it to be sold in state liquor stores, and there is now a state initiative petition seeking to put before the voters a law that would allow possession, growing and sale of marijuana. Who would have thought this possible three or four years ago?

Sanity should prevail as we consider how to transform the state’s drug policies. We don’t want marijuana sold on the streets, with no controls on the age of the buyer.

We need a reasonable distribution system that includes a tax covering the cost of the regulation and providing funds for drug-abuse treatment. We want responsible people handling the distribution, so that drugs are not adulterated or sold to minors — and so that all proper taxes are paid. Organized gangs would lose the tax-free stream of revenue that has fueled their growth for decades. Police could focus on more serious matters.

The time for change has come, but let’s do it responsibly.

— Jim A. Doherty, former prosecutor and corrections officer, Shoreline

Financially responsible thing to do

With the financial condition of this state and this country spiraling lower and lower, we can no longer afford the luxury of enforcing morality with the law. Our law enforcement and courts are overburdened and our prisons are overcrowded.

Legalization of marijuana will save money and allow law enforcement to use their resources where they are more urgently needed. Correction facilities would have more space for real criminals. Taxing the nonmedical use of marijuana could also help put a dent in the budget shortfall.

Legalization of marijuana would also eliminate the criminal element. Without the threat of arrest, marijuana distribution would be on par with alcohol and tobacco sales. The outrageous profits made by criminal gangs selling marijuana will dry up, causing the gangs to abandon marijuana for substances with a higher profit margin.

— Neil Foster, Renton

Create shuttle routes to and from stations

Nowhere in the article about parking at light rail stations [“In switch, commuters will get to park in lots near light rail,” NWTuesday, Jan. 12] is there any discussion of the most logical approach of establishing a system of bus routes that will feed into the stations.

If you live even a mile away from the station — which is too far to walk — a bus could come by and pick you up and take you and your neighbors to the station.

This system works well in many other cities that have metro rail lines — for example in Washington D.C.

Large parking lots are only at the terminal stations. Feeder buses even serve outlying park and ride lots. This allows the property near stations to be designated for high-occupancy housing. Office buildings can be built near the stations to attract riders who will then commute from other neighborhoods to the stations to go to work.

— Myrna J. Aavedal, Seattle

Light rail hijacked bus routes

Its no surprise light-rail ridership has increased with the opening of the Sea-Tac Airport station. Eliminating Metro bus route #194 guaranteed it. What is surprising is that light-rail ridership is averaging 15,000 weekday passengers, which is only a bit more than Metro’s #48 bus route.

While continuing to burn coal and oil threatens to destroy the world as we know it, wasting billions of taxpayer dollars for a transit system that essentially replaces a single bus line is simply stupid — and building expensive streetcar lines that get stuck in traffic is just as pointless.

If you want to get daily commuters out of their polluting cars, build parking garages at every freeway interchange where they can board express buses every few minutes. HOV lanes are already in place and can be turned into full-time bus lanes because there are fewer cars on the road. A fee on all employee parking spaces will discourage driving to work, while helping to fund the new system.

It’s a new world now and doing more with a lot less money is the only real option our leaders have. Will they begin to make smarter choices or just lead us over the cliff?

— Daniel Castro, Seattle

The primate is better off dead

While it was very sad to read Sandi Doughton’s article about the little macaque at the UW who died of starvation [“UW monkey starved to death in lab last year,” NWSaturday, Jan. 9], he is now free from the further pain of cruel experimentation, from loneliness and from lingering for years in cages.

I am still thankful to the USDA for reporting this tragedy. It is bad enough for these animals to go through cruel experimentation, but to be denied food day after day is just as cruel and inexcusable.

When lives are at stake — be it for humans or non-humans — caregivers must be above reproach in their work. Excuses like “a change in staffing and confusion over responsibilities” are so lame. With all the new technology available, the UW and other institutions doing vivisection must find alternatives.

It is preposterous to read that they have 700 primates in their Seattle labs and about 3,000 in their primate-breeding colonies in Louisiana and Texas. This sounds more like a booming business, undoubtedly with large grants for researchers for caging and staff and so far there have been no promises to cure illnesses.

Yet, this little macaque is better off dead.

— Claudine Erlandson, Shoreline

Basic care a basic necessity

We are meant to believe that research on animals is an unfortunate necessity regretfully undertaken by compassionate researchers for the “greater good of mankind.

Even if that were so — which it is not — surely the very least one could expect would be that during their miserable lives, the animals are subjected to as little suffering as possible outside the experiments for which they are being used. Yet here is an animal whose most basic care was repeatedly neglected.

It is terrible to think of this small being, whose entire life had been nothing but pain and misery, being bypassed for food day after day until he or she died of starvation. And if this is one story that came to light, how many others died when no one was looking, recording or caring enough to make it public?

This is but a tiny fraction of the terrible wrongs involved in this area of so-called science.

— Franziska M. Edwards, Seattle

How to honor the late Dr. Sharples

Editor, The Times:

Your Jan. 9 editorial speaks well of Caspar Sharples, [“Honoring Dr. Sharples,” Opinion], the late and eminent Seattle physician whose career as a School Board member and one of the chief architects of the Childrens hospital was foundational to the humanitarian and educational character of the community.

There are two points you may have overlooked in the recent efforts to relocate the Sharples school dedication. The Sharples family is guided by a resolution enacted by the School Board in 2000 that prescribes that a new dedication to Sharples be equivalent to the old one in architectural, educational and civic importance. The family deemed that the old John Hay site did not meet those criteria. A reason for this — and not the least important —was that John Hay’s architecture and landscape are controlled by the Landmarks Board. A new dedication there would be compromised by the apparently irradicable signage that announces the place as the John Hay School.

With the concurrence of the president of the School Board, the Sharples family presented a “memorandum of understanding” in December whereby the family would accept the Hay site providing the school district agreed to make good faith and positive efforts over time toward reconciling these and other issues. However, the district dismissed the proposed memorandum out of hand and without discussion. At this juncture the family realized that the district’s rigidity was not conducive to an accord.

You also recommended “patience” on the part of the Sharples family and friends. We have demonstrated patience beyond measure these past 10 years. The thing that drove the family to reject the Hay site was the district’s intractable deadline of Jan. 6 to either accept or decline it. A little patience on that score would have been welcome. Meanwhile, the Sharples family stands by its earlier memorandum that bespeaks goodwill and patience toward resolving whatever issues impede conferring the dedication on a qualified school.

— Joseph C. Baillargeon, for the Sharples family and friends, Seattle

A slap in the face

A Seattle Times editorial published on Monday [“Appeal felon-vote ruling.” Opinion, Jan. 11] addressed the Washington state “felon disenfranchisement law,” which denies voting rights for persons who have been convicted of felonies and incarcerated. The editorial notes that “Washington has stripped felons of their right to vote as a punishment on top of time behind bars.”

I doubt that as a “punishment,” this law has any impact on felons. Nor would it have any impact as a crime deterrent. But what it does do — as the editorial points out — is compound a person’s “separation from civil society.” It is, as you suggest, an additional slap in the face for the felon.

Is this what we want, to further humiliate persons who have been convicted of crimes? We know that crime is in part the result of disadvantaged opportunity, discrimination and victimization, particularly when applied to youth and children. To pretend that this is not the case is to be blind to the realities of contemporary society.

Our goal in working with those in the criminal-justice system should be more appropriately directed toward rehabilitation. Providing access to education, employment and appropriate housing would serve as examples of activities that could assist this group to reintegrate into “civil society.”

Disenfranchisement, further stigmatization and alienation of this population will only impede rehabilitation and, as an additional outcome, put others in the community at greater risk of crime.

— Jere G. LaFollette, Mount Vernon

Exposes discrimination

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has decided that felons should have the right to vote, because denying them that right disenfranchises minority voters disproportionately. It is long overdue that the issue of discrimination in incarceration is exposed.

While females comprise over 50 percent of the population, they make up less than 10 percent of the inmate population. Arrest rates of people younger than 30 make up a vastly higher proportion than their percentage of population. And if one studied the education level of inmates, one would see that people with college degrees are vastly underrepresented as compared to their population at large.

By using plain, provable statistics, it is obvious that the police are deliberately not arresting retired, white, college-educated females to the degree that they should be.

This reverse discrimination must stop.

— Tom Tangen, Edmonds

Uncomfortable with the notion

It’s nice to know that here in the state of Washington, logic and common sense have been buried under a steaming pile of political correctness.

I can’t say that I’m comfortable with the notion that I now have the same voting rights as gangbangers and level-three sex offenders. These people are felons for a reason.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it a lawyer’s job to uphold the law, not destroy it? It’s quite apparent that none of those [9th Circuit Court] judges have ever been robbed at gunpoint.

— Jeremy Ghea, Federal Way

Should acknowledge slavery’s existence

Republican Bob Benze’s “Founding Fathers didn’t envision wealth distribution” [Opinion, Jan. 12] supplies important history that Americans overlook — at our own peril — respecting the original calculus underlying the U.S. Constitution.

The essay would be immensely more useful, however, if it explicitly acknowledged that central terms of that initial calculus allowed one human being to own another outright and calculating a value for slaves as chattel property at three-fifths of that of an enfranchised voter. This proved unacceptable to a one-term Whig congressman who would become the first Republican president [Abraham Lincoln] in 1861. Freeing and enfranchising slaves in the early 1860s drastically changed the calculus of the Founding Fathers forever.

Railing against the evolution since 1789 of our Constitution— after the Republican Revolution that followed the Declaration of Independence by four score and seven years — is less helpful than integrating at least the Republican Revolution underlying that evolution into a logical argument with intellectual honesty.

— Will Knedlik, Kirkland

Fathers did anticipate need to redistribute wealth

Whether or not the Founding Fathers “envisioned wealth redistribution,” they were intent on forming “a more perfect union to establish justice and promote the general welfare” of this newly formed country. The verbs “establish” and “promote” anticipate a sociopolitical process through which constant improvement is achieved.

It is estimated that, due to insufficient wealth or unwillingness to ascribe to a religious creed, half of all white males were precluded from voting after the Fathers crafted their preamble. Women and people of color were denied this basic right, as were men called upon to fight for their country but were too young to vote. So too, were Catholics, Jews, Quakers and others too far removed from mainstream Protestantism.

Fortunately, America did not remain fossilized after 1776, but became an evolving society, perfecting itself through a process of increasing inclusion and equality. As Paul Krugman notes on the same opinion page [“European social democracy works”], Europe is becoming even more dynamic — and prosperous.

There have been Americans who fought every step toward redistributing power and wealth; some are still among us. I can’t imagine the Founding Fathers supporting only wealth retention since they risked their assets and freedoms to expand ours.

— Bob Selby, Blaine

American versus European dynamism

Your Monday editorial page had an amusing contrast between two adjacent articles. It would be hilarious if the issues weren’t so serious.

In “Founding Fathers didn’t envision wealth distribution,” Bob Benze repeats the usual Republican theory that if the government redistributes the nation’s wealth via taxes and social programs, it will “invariably” inhibit the creation of jobs and industry and the incentive to work. He cites Western Europe — versus Eastern Europe — as an illustration.

But in “European social democracy works,” Paul Krugman demonstrates with facts, not empty theory, that although European taxes are higher than ours, their per-capita GDP, employment and productivity are almost the same as ours, while their social benefits — including universal health care — far surpass ours.

Benze’s article reminds us of the old quip, “Don’t bother me with facts, my mind is made up.”

— Robert and Susan Stanton, Seattle

Donate allowance to cause

I learned in The Seattle Times that the Woodland Park Zoo is going to shut down the nocturnal exhibit [“Zoo plans to close nocturnal exhibit to save $300,000,” NWMonday, Jan. 11]. I am 7 years old and I have been going to the zoo since I was a baby. My favorite place at the zoo is the nocturnal exhibit.

I love the bats and the sloth especially. I learned at the nocturnal exhibit that we need bats so there aren’t too many bugs. Also, the nocturnal exhibit is a really dark and peaceful place.

I would like to donate $10 from the part of my allowance that I share. I have been saving up for something important, and this is important to me. I would like to ask the other children of Seattle, if they love the nocturnal exhibit, to give some of their allowance to support it too. I wonder if we could raise the $300,000 that is needed from all our money together?

— Asa Buehler, West Seattle

Who decided this?

I was surprised to read that the zoo’s very popular Nocturnal House will soon be closing. My daughter and I are zoo members and consider this to be one of our favorite zoo exhibits. I don’t recall being asked for any input as either a Seattle taxpayer or as a member of the Zoological Society.

How was this decision arrived at and what other options are there that would keep this unique exhibit open? Seattle residents need some answers and explanations for what appears to be a very dictatorial decision.

— John Alwin, Seattle

Move the elephants to save money

In Susan Gilmore’s article about Woodland Park Zoo’s plan to close the popular nocturnal exhibit, the zoo claims it will save $300,000 by making this unnecessary move.

If the zoo were to do the compassionate and cost-effective thing, it would accept the Elephant Sanctuary’s offer to transport and keep the zoo’s elephants for life in a much more suitable environment: 2,700 acres of rolling and varied terrain to roam and explore, plus a 15-acre lake to swim in — all in a much warmer climate.

Our three elephants at WPZ need more than one acre and they suffer by being locked into a tiny barn for about 17 hours a day due to our colder climate. It’s funny that the figure for keeping three elephants in the zoo is about $400,000. This humane choice would allow the zoo to keep the Nocturnal House open with about $100,000 left over.

— Nancy Pennington, for the Friends of Woodland Park Zoo Elephants, Seattle