12/04/08 Letters to the Editor


Yakima Herald-Republic

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Dogs running loose

To the editor -- I have lived in Yakima 73 years and never had my outside animals killed by dogs until the last year. In the past month I've seen two of my cats killed by dogs. Just the other night I opened my door and saw the dogs mauling and killing my second cat. Two months ago my neighbor's beloved cats were mauled and killed by the same dogs. The cats were in pens in a fenced yard. The dogs tore the pens to threads, destroyed property. She had just had the cats spayed and that's expensive.

We have called the Animal Control and other places and nothing is done. We know where the dogs are coming from, and the dogs are still running the streets and on other people's property.

I don't feel safe even taking my dog out at night or getting my newspaper before daylight.

We need to work at getting stronger laws and making dog owners responsible. We love our pets. Too bad other people don't. I'm fed up.

 

ROBERT NORMAN

Yakima

 

Minimum sentences

To the editor -- Washington state has to cut $5 billion in projected spending to balance the budget from mid-2009 to mid-2011. Gov. Chris Gregoire has promised not to raise any taxes. It appears we have another crisis ahead.

The legislators will have their work cut out for them. They will have to scrutinize many expenditures to achieve this goal. Perhaps it will force them to take a long look at the mandatory minimum sentencing laws in this state that are costing us so very much. Hundreds of individuals and families are adversely affected by these unjust, excessive sentences. Longer prison terms are not deterrents to crime, do not reduce recidivism, but they are very expensive and do erode community ties.

Public opinion, the courts, politics and certainly economics are making it clear that now is the time to reform our criminal justice system and eliminate mandatory minimums. Here is where we find wasteful spending that could be a good place to begin cutting.

 

SHIRLEY WHITE

Yakima

 

Columnist trashes Palin

To the editor -- Why did you run the outrageous cartoon of Sarah Palin and the column by Froma Harrop thoroughly trashing her on Nov. 21? Harrop is obviously a flaming liberal and probably is jealous of Gov. Palin because she'll never be able to rise to her level. This may explain her motivation in writing the column, but why would you run it when the election has been over for more than two weeks? I think it was extremely poor judgment.

 

GLENN RASMUSSEN

Wapato

 

EDITOR'S NOTE: We strive for balance and variety of viewpoints in columns. The Nov. 21 Harrop column was preceded on Nov. 20 by a pro-Palin column by columnist Bill O'Reilly.

 

Wall Street bailout

To the editor -- I have been following the Wall Street bailout. The way I see it is that the government is giving taxpayers' money to banks to loan back to taxpayers, who will pay the banks back with interest, which will stimulate the economy by giving more money to Wall Street billionaires. Am I wrong?

 

LOYAL McLOUD Sr.

Yakima

 

Tolerating languages

To the editor -- Re: The Nov. 24 letter, "Legal citizens first." So xenophobia is the game? I assure you will not find a use of race hatred as a productive social movement.

We have room in this country and in our minds for any culture, religion, language and set of mores -- short of abuse of others, tyranny of mind, drugs, thugs, hostile mercenaries and serial killers.

Hateful comments about Hispanics are ubiquitous (the largest community susceptible to slurs). Yet, my experiences with Hispanics have been rewarding, displaying a friendly, intelligent and pleasant attitude toward me.

My travels to Puerto Rico, Thailand, Greenland (Danes are great people) and to Mexico and the Philippines were free of fear. I was always surprised at how I had to deny my impression that exposure would be threatening.

Much of the world can speak some English -- all airline pilots can. Canadian parliament has room for Quebec French as well as English. Germans speak a little Turkish, and Turks speak Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic, Armenian, Greek and some German. Do we have room for a little language tolerance? Where is the evil?

If your game is really xenophobic, then go to Wikipedia and read about the School of the Americas, or euphemistically, the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.

 

LAWRENCE L. BREER

Yakima

 

A Christmas reminder

To the editor -- Let's remember to keep Christ in Christmas.

 

RAY STENBERG

Yakima

 

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