Letters

Changing Faces

Mayor gives lip service to diversity

“It is time we consider allocating our efforts, our energy and some of our budget to serving new areas of need and different portions of our community in ways other than what we have been used to.” – Mike McKinnon – Mayor of Lynnwood

Like every bit of the company I keep, I am amused by the latest quip by Mayor McCheese. He is a man of perpetual understatements in finally expressing that Lynnwood needs to redirect its effort toward the more neglected portion of his constituents – like everyone not zoned commercial.

Lynnwood is a microcosm of the entire country – it is comprised of a diverse and rapidly-expanding population but has a staunch conservative white man at the reins. He will probably see that as a compliment.

I remain saddened that the beauty of life and the value of cultural diversity goes widely unnoticed by city administrators. Our schools are a fairly accurate cross-section of our city and yet our city administration seems as diverse as a small tub of cottage cheese. The depth of pondering on topics of cultural diversity seems to be nothing more involved than the momentary examination of naval lint – curious as to how it got there and what to do with it now.

MAREK SOLOMON

Mountlake Terrace

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Miscellaneous

Picks and pans, cheers and jeers

Suggestion: Formulate a “knock-off” of (major newspaper’s) Rant and Rave column. You could call yours “Harangue and Meringue,” and encourage contributions. I’ll go first:

Harangue: Bad vibes to the teenage boys in black Ford Explorer who four-wheeled through grass in our cul-de-sac twice in past week. (Note to parents: Check your tires for thick mud and splattered body.)

Meringue: Thanks to Mike and Sonia Smith’s sons who later swept the muddy street clean.

Harangue: Bad thoughts to unidentified owners of two pitbulls running loose in the Echo Lake neighborhood for several weeks. (Dog owners, ask yourself: Do you know where your dogs are?)

Meringue: Praise to the high school boy who helped me at Home Depot garden shop a year ago, when I mistook him for an employee and asked him to carry my heavy purchases to my car. He did. I told his mother he was a great kid –she said, “I know.”

Meringue: To neighbor Larry Nylund who owns two snow shovels, and clears a path in our driveway when it snows. And to Kathy, who shares her plants and vegetables with anyone who’ll take them.

Meringue: Thanks to the road crew that recently installed dividers down the center of the steep hill at 203rd and Wallingford. Now there are two lanes instead of one-in-the-middle.

Harangue: To the drivers who speed up and down this hill. Even with dividers, there’s no pedestrian safety.

Wait! There’s more!

The contributors to the Opinion page’s Just A Thought are very down-to-earth. There may be a two-generation gap between the younger writers and me, but I appreciate learning more about them.

Shoreline editor Pamela Brice is outstanding, and I admire her editorials.

Evan Smith’s Forum this week (March 5) shows considerable research; his addressing the questionable wisdom of imposing an Constitutional Amendment on Congress at this time is valid. There are so many more important things we citizens need right now to survive; whatever our personal opinion, a proposed amendment is not timely.

JUNE FOSTER STINSON

Shoreline

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Marijuana

Donate confiscated bud to medical users

I am not surprised to read about high school kids using the school bus to smuggle high grade marijuana from Canada.

Prohibition has caused nothing but trouble.

I’d like to suggest that the seized plant material be donated to people in our state who are legally allowed to use medical marijuana. I have seen the herb work very well for people with diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis and Hepatitis C and I know the state Legislature passed a bill allowing for confiscated medical marijuana to be passed out to chemotherapy patients a long time ago. There is currently no easy way for those in need to obtain this valuable medication.

I support Canada’s model for lessening and removing the penalties for marijuana and thank the voters once again for making medical marijuana legal for those with a doctor’s permission.

DARRAL GOOD

Lynnwood

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President Bush

President’s policies hurting the economy

President Bush, and his destructive economic policies, which he “spins” as creating job successes, should face the residents of Kaunapolis, N.C. where nearly 6,500 employees -were laid off last August by the Pillowtex towel factory, and the fact that between Oct. 1, 200 and and April 30, 2001 more than 80 corporations in America announced their intentions to shift production to China!

Bush should also confront the residents of Valparaiso, Indiana where a local electronics plant operated by Magnequench plans a move to China, whereby 225 residents will lose their jobs.

Obviously Bush refuses to consider the report of two Univ. of California at Berkeley economists in Oct. 2002 that up to 14 million jobs are at risk of being shipped overseas and that last July, 2,087 U.S. employers laid off 226,436 workers. The Christian Science Monitor said in Dec. 2003 that during the past 39 months, 2.8 million factory jobs have vanished.

In Michigan during the last four years, the tool and die industry, which is essential to all manufacturing, saw about 34,000 tooling jobs disappear.

Virtually every U.S. industry is threatened with extinction due to our economically destructive government policies that penalize American producers and reward their foreign competitors. I thought the job of George W. was to protect and serve Americans.

WM. DUDSON BACON

Lynnwood