Letters to the editor, May 20, 2009

Thanks for helping
tax helpers

AARP Tax-Aide completed another tax season April 15. All Tax-Aide volunteers share the thoughts that, even though we may have faced some difficult situations, the tax preparation time from Feb. 1-April 15 went quickly.
At our tax-year review session, all agreed that the AARP Tax-Aide program would not be as successful without the support of those providing publicity, site locations and community interest articles. With this thought in mind, we want to extend our thanks and gratitude for your ongoing support this tax year. Through your support and others like you, Clallam/Jefferson County AARP Tax-Aide accomplished the following this year.

2008 Tax Returns Prepared/Questions Answered
Port Angeles/Forks       895    156
Port Townsend           354      61
Tri-Area           338      53
Sequim           505    112
TOTAL        2,092    382
       
As a volunteer organization, we do not have funds for space rent and publicity. We rely totally on the goodwill of community organizations to provide these services. We could not provide our free tax preparation service without your goodwill and support. “Thanks” seems totally inadequate to express our appreciation, but the thanks is extended with sincere gratitude.
Kathy Schreiner
Tax-Aide Clallam/Jefferson County
communications coordinator

A direct attack on views

Roy Wilson is at it again. His recent Guest Opinion op-ed piece on May 6, 2009, brought back to my mind his diatribes in the latter part of 2000 when he was constantly assailing the emerging Bush administration, and indeed, anything that didn’t have a “D” imprimatur.
At that time, shortly after Bush’s election, Wilson was practically spastic about the subject and I made an effort to follow each of his letters with a balancing one of my own.
Unfortunately, many of mine were rejected as either too partisan or not fact-based enough to satisfy what was the prevailing editorial viewpoint at that time. I thought that was rather peculiar, given that Wilson is the personification of Democrat partisanship and his writings are riddled with half-truths and lies.
In the subject column, for example, he uses phrases like right-wing extremist, right-wing radicalization, right-wing fear mongers and negative propaganda; all of these reflect his mind set and political agenda.
In any case, I learned something from that experience: That sort of treatment is apparently the penalty one pays for living in a one-newspaper town, in a one-party county, in a one-party state.
Back to the May 6 piece, though. Based on what I have seen of Wilson’s writings, I’m inclined to speculate that if you looked up a description for “sore loser” in the encyclopedia, you would probably see his picture. His ranting about Ms. Christine Springer’s letter as being the effort of someone too foolish or naïve to recognize a danger when she sees it is not only arrogant and condescending but evidence that Mr. Wilson is in a complete state of denial.
As a matter of fact, his ridiculing of Ms. Springer’s views is a direct attack on my views and those of many of my friends as well.  
All of us conservatives are, and all citizens should be, concerned about the socialist, fascist and largely unconstitutional direction that the one-party Democrat administration and Legislature are taking our wonderful country. Hateful ideas in the leaked DHS memo are good examples of that. Wilson, as usual, can’t comprehend that. Of course, as many of us already knew, he’s had that problem for a long time.
Don Boensel
Sequim  

One of our 50 is missing

If you are from the state of New Mexico, you understand what that means.
As part of the “Kid Scoop” in the May 6 edition of the Gazette, it stated that: “In the 1850s, some of these tiny dogs (Chihuahuas) were found in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, so they were named after this state, which borders Texas and Arizona (emphasis mine).”
Uhm, have you looked at a map lately? There is a state between Texas and Arizona. It is called “New Mexico.” New Mexico belongs to the United States. It is not a state of the Republic of Mexico. So, if Chihuahua bordered Texas and Arizona, it would also have to border New Mexico. (In fact, it does not border Arizona at all; it stops several miles short of the Arizona border.) So someone thinks that Texas and Arizona are next to each other. One of our 50 is missing.
This is not an uncommon perception, unfortunately. In fact monthly magazine columns and an entire book have been written about this amazing lack of knowledge of United States geography. Shipping rates to New Mexico have been quoted at international rates. A telephone operator said the reason I was having trouble reaching my mother, who lives in New Mexico, was because of the unreliability of international calls. New Mexico residents have had heated arguments with U.S. government employees who have insisted that New Mexico was NOT one of the United States. And, here, again, one of our 50 is missing.
I know the intent of the “Kid Scoop” page is to give kids truthful information. It’s a great page. I would like to see a correction on the “Kid Scoop” page so that children do not grow up thinking that Texas and Arizona abut and New Mexico is part of the Republic of Mexico.
Pat Moffett
Agnew

EDITOR’S NOTE: A correction appears on today’s Kid Scoop page. The Gazette thanks Ms. Moffett for calling the error to our attention.

The village idiot

I loved the editorial a few weeks ago about the fine points of hiring a village idiot on whom we could put the onus for everything wrong with our local government, politics, land use policy, empty big box stores, financial woes, poor schools, etc., etc. I wrote to (Gazette editor) Jim Casey and told him that I was probably the ideal candidate for such a position. In fact, for the last few hundred days, I have been sitting around the house waiting for a call from our new president’s people.
I did actually participate in the transition team of the Carter administration on detail from my full-time government position. As is typical of my entire career, I was hired to hire folks to work for the new president (I was actually functioning then as an agency personnel officer); instead, I did something entirely different ? something for which I was woefully unprepared.
In those days, Arthur Anderson was a highly touted consulting firm hired to help the new president weed out unnecessary and over-funded government programs. As far as I could tell, I was the only person working with these folks with any real experience of working for, or in, the government ? but no-one cared. I actually became part of the huge wasting of government dollars.
Not that almost 30 years as a government employee (really 28 years) was without some accomplishments. What was weird was that my biggest accomplishments were in creating personnel databases, or trying to define a rational energy policy for the nation’s hospitals, or doing hospital inspections for safety, or acting as a manager for government funding of hospital construction projects. I did do some teaching, hiring and firing, but mostly my high school engineering training was more relevant than my graduate work.
Before government I taught school, but, even then, some of my biggest accomplishments were teaching 11th-graders how to fill out job applications or teaching middle school children what it was like to walk through the woods. My life has been full of fun and exciting things, but mostly, I was paid to get out of the way and let other folks do silly things. I can still do that! I am probably nearly an expert at accepting a paycheck for doing things that I was never hired to do.
And, hey, I do have expertise! I used to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time before I had gum problems. I learned quite well how to use consultants. Tell them the results that you want to see and promise them additional contracts and you’ll always get the results you wanted to see before you even hired them.
And, over time, through careful study, I have learned how to look very busy and do very little. And, I was blessed with an imagination and some writing skills. I can almost always explain what has gone wrong in a way that protects everyone involved and gets me a healthy raise. I was actually promoted beyond my level of incompetence before I left grade school. I’m not pretty enough to steal anyone’s limelight and I’m smart enough to know when to have two deaf ears.
If I ever become famous, it will probably be because of my doodles. My college notebooks are a treasure house of such things. Even today, when I volunteer, I usually get myself appointed as recording secretary and take notes of meetings. That way I can doodle constantly and my minutes read like what one would expect to have happened. Tell me the truth; have you ever actually read any minutes given you?
P.S. Tell the president that I’m ready to get to work!
Richard E. Olmer
Sequim

Richard Olmer writes a twice-monthly column, “Discoveries,” for the Sequim Gazette.

Park for the cure

We at Walgreen’s want to thank everyone that helped donate to the American Cancer Society Relay for Life during the Irrigation Festival. We took donations for the front-row parking spots for the parade and we very quickly ran out of spots. This was better than we expected and Walgreen’s really appreciates the support of the local community in raising funds for cancer research. We raised over $200 in one day!
Maybe this will be an annual tradition, “Park for the Cure!”
Thanks again.
The whole team
Sequim Walgreen’s

Important to be fair

The release this past week of a “three-striker” has stirred up mixed emotions in Washington. This man has served over 14 years for snatching a purse and though he victimized an innocent person, he has been punished severely.  No one could disagree with that.
Many severe sentences of life without parole are meted out to “three-strikers.” Many were convicted of low-seriousness crimes, essentially “thrown away,” and are an ever-increasing burden to the taxpayer. They don’t deserve life imprisonment and we shouldn’t have to pay for it.
Our lawmakers may be interested in being “tough on crime,” but it is more important that we be fair. Doling out excessively harsh punishment is just as bad as being too lenient. If our three-strikes law were revised to exclude lesser crimes, then people could serve a sentence appropriate to their offenses as mandated by already existing judicial guidelines. It would save millions of taxpayer dollars in incarceration costs.
Shirley White
Port Townsend