Bertha Cooper’s column hits the mark

I want to thank Bertha Cooper for the clear and correct column she recently wrote about the racism displayed in Charlottesville, Va. (“A mass of malignant mobs,” Sequim Gazette, Aug. 30, page A-8).

I am saddened by a few of the responses by some writers who muddy the waters by calling other groups that demonstrate “mobs” or attacking “liberals,” and ascribing to them views that they simply do not hold.

I thank Bertha Cooper for the courage to publicly say what she said. It was correct and sensible.

Jim Dries

Sequim

Courtesy on the trail

We are fortunate to be able to enjoy the Dungeness trail (Olympic Discovery Trail) for safe walking and bicycling.

As a walker, I appreciate the bikers who call out their presence so that I may move over and tighten the leash on my small dog.

Unfortunately, there are those who consider the trail as their personal race course.

If there is a need for speed, there are the highway shoulders.

Also, I would like to remind them that Robin Hill Farm County Park pathways are not off-road courses.

Thank you to all who do share safety.

Joyce Jamroga

Sequim

Resource drying up?

I enjoyed Ann Soule’s article on the Texas flooding (“50 inches of Harvey,” feature column, Sequim Gazette, Sept. 6, page A-8), but I worry about the opposite: Sequim’s lack of water someday, with our measly 14.9 inches of rain per year.

With the seniors flooding into the Sequim area, is there any planning for future sources of water? I’m sure the aquifers are being drawn down already, so it’s only a matter of time that we will probably be on water rationing.

I know a dam on the Dungeness River is an “unmentionable,” but there is no cleaner or more “renewable” (which all the environmentalist love to use) source of energy and water.

If global warming continues, and the Olympic glaciers disappear, we will be dependent on catching the rains that fall at higher and higher altitudes.

Who knows, but maybe someday, there will be “only rain” falling in the Olympics! Something to think about? Time marches on …

Travis Williams

Sequim

About that Distracted Driving Law

In driving around Sequim it appears that not many people are aware of the new Distracted Driving Law or are just ignoring it. I constantly see drivers with a cell phone to their ear chatting away.

There appears to be no effort to pull over to have that must have conversation.

Most newer cars these days have the ability to provide hands free calling and answering. Even though this still causes distraction it’s better that fumbling around for your phone when it rings. In the past I have been guilty of doing this but since the new law came into effect I have been obeying it.

So I have a plan. From now on, if at all possible, I intend to get the license number and make and model of car of anyone I see violating this new law and then turn it over to the police department.

They might not be able to do anything about it but just maybe they might remember that the person driving a certain model of car or truck has been known to chat on the phone while driving.

It will make me feel better anyway.

Stan Riddle

Sequim

A president at sea

One need not be a liberal or conservative to realize that the captain of our Ship of State is as defective as was Capt. Queeg of the Caine (Ref.: “Time to back this country’s captain,” Letter to the Editor, Sequim Gazette, Sept. 6, page A-8).

His unsound orders led to a mutiny of officers under his command to right the ship during the typhoon conditions as the captain and ship both floundered.

In our Ship of State, under our president’s command, some in his administration have abandoned ship rather than continue their duties and sully their reputations.

His usurpation of judiciary decisions is anathema to our democracy and should be condemned by those show believe in our Constitution.

It is erroneous to believe our Constitution is sacrosanct while ignoring the additional caveats known as amendments.

The signers of that document would welcome rather than condemn others, irrespective of partisanship, who have added rather than detracted from it.

Those who stubbornly refuse to see our “emperor” has no clothes will never acquiesce to his peccadillos and administrative divisiveness.

Rather, they cling to their cognitive dissonance even if it is already too late to save our ship.

Roger B. Huntman

Sequim

Stance on anthem shows great disrespect

Again it’s time for school and football.

I watched the Seahawks-Vikings game then wrote an unanswered letter to Seahawks management, indicating I wouldn’t watch any more games as long as players publicly disrespected our country by refusing to stand for our National Anthem.

I note that this flagrant disrespect for our country is pretty much universal among all NFL teams; My response is that I will no longer watch NFL football until this practice is stopped. As a gesture to we Americans, teams could be kept in their locker rooms until after the National Anthem.

Now to academia, particularly in regard to elementary education. On May 20, 2017, in a letter to the then Sequim superintendent of schools, I wrote, “I remember that in every classroom I entered there was an American flag on a staff affixed to the wall near the classroom door. There were a portrait of George Washington and a photograph of the current U.S. President on the wall behind the teacher’s desk.

Question: To your knowledge is this the standard display in today’s class rooms?” I did not receive a reply to that question. I will assume that this display, sadly, is not the case.

I realize that our wonderful country is under attack from within by a collection of highly visible, vocal, self serving but otherwise insignificant minorities who firmly believe our country is the embodiment of all that is evil. They are utterly mistaken.

Our country has the greatest form of government that has ever existed; formed by men of vast wisdom and steeped in Judeo-Christian principles. We should be eternally grateful that they lived and were at the right place at the right time.

It is not wrong for an American to love his country. God Bless these United States.

Ethan Harris

Sequim