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SPEECH: Signs
of the times
Some interesting contrasts occurred to me during last week’s significant anniversaries:
Black-hooded Antifa adherents violently preventing free speech and ideas, contrasted with the image of Tiananmen Square students who were demanding free speech being crushed by communist tanks and machine guns.
College students huddling in their “safe spaces” and labeling as “Nazi” anyone who doesn’t agree with them, contrasted with the thousands of young men who went straight into hell on D-Day to save the world from the very real Nazi threat.
What have we come to?
MIRIAM OWENS
Coeur d’Alene
TRUMP: No
way to lead
Trump has surrounded himself with parasitic subordinates. We must watch while more children sicken and die in caged border detention camps. We must watch while the president sucks the compassion, empathy and protectiveness out of Lady Liberty. We must watch while Trump, Putin, Kim and their flatworm kin suck the life-blood out of their countries. We must watch while Trump drinks dry the souls of Republican leaders until they become mindless zombies blindly following Trump’s bigotries. May God grant us love, caring and hope, because Trump gives us contempt, superiority and victims.
CECIL KELLY III
Coeur d’Alene
POLITICS: Alive
and sick in Post Falls
I take issue with the real estate broker who was quoted in last Friday’s Press, stating that North Idaho doesn’t really have a lot of politics so that’s one of the reasons people like living here.
Really? Wow. Maybe she should attend some Post Falls Planning & Zoning meetings, City Council meetings, etc. We’ve got MAJOR politics going on in Post Falls that smacks of corruption.
Someone recently disclosed to us that individuals on the City Council, Planning & Zoning and even our mayor have vested real estate interests. The public meetings are only a formality as they’ve already made their decisions about how many homes to cram into tiny spaces, before they even hear what we have to say. In our case, 43 homes will be crammed into less than 3 acres, right behind our subdivision.
To make matters worse, they rezoned these 3 acres for extremely high density with no input or opportunity for public comment. No politics you say? Hogwash! They pretended to listen to our many legitimate concerns and arguments (with deaf ears) as hey, a buck is a buck is a buck. I bet some of these city officials would sell their own mother for a buck; probably less.
Money talks, people, especially when you’re in bed with the real estate developers, brokers and lenders. If this isn’t political, then what in the world would you call it? How about what it is — just plain greed!
ROBIN NEAR
Post Falls
WWII: Who will remember?
Thank you Michael Anderson for your June 8 “My Turn” article. I’ve been filled with emotion as “some” of us have celebrated in honor the history and lives of those who served and fought during World War II, especially on D-Day. Your story is important and concerning. Your uncles lived through that horrific history and passed on golden nuggets of experiences. What they did for you was far more important than they may have understood.
The sad part is why I said “some” of us have celebrated in honor. I say that because there were 291,557 battle deaths, let alone 113,842 in service non-battle deaths and 670,846 non-mortal wounded, and there are fewer than 497,000 veterans from World War II living. We are losing about 500 a year.
After they are gone, along with those who suffered and died during World War II, so too will the appreciation, respect and awareness of how devastating it would have been if they had not given their all. The fact that you wrote your thoughts in “My Turn” and I’m responding is one drop in the ocean of freedom that has been retained for us all because of their sacrifices.
I’m 72. My dad fought in World War II, and he told me stories as well. You and I are a lucky few. Sadly, this generation for the most part has no interest, appreciation or understanding of what could have been lost. I fear history may repeat itself while educational institutions and teachers are censoring that part of our history.
JERRY MARTIN
Post Falls
MEAT: The impossible is happening
The Impossible Burger, coming soon to a fast food joint near you.
“Why?” you ask.
“To save the planet,” Impossible Foods, a Silicon Valley start-up that produces plant-based alternatives to animal meat, answers. Its mission statement is brief and bold: “To save meat. And earth.”
Their website states, “We started with the question: what if we could make meat better? Our approach; understand exactly what people love about meat, dairy, and fish, and then explore the plant world for specific ingredients that recreate those experiences — the flavor, the texture, the juicy sizzle. The result? Meat from plants. Good for people, and the planet.”
They go on to explain that something called heme is what makes meat taste like meat, and that they have somehow duplicated nature’s processes and created a plant-based heme via fermentation of genetically engineered yeast. They stir it up with potatoes, wheat, soy, coconut oil and other stuff. Voila, an Impossible Burger slides onto the grill.
Here in Kootenai County, we look forward to the annual North Idaho State Fair. And who among us can resist a walk through the exhibits to get a look at our young people caring for and showing the livestock and crops they have labored over for the past year?
So, what’s in the future? Can we expect to see lines of 4-H and FFA members stirring pots of heme where the livestock pens used to be? Will judges pass from pot to pot sampling heme instead of judging livestock and crop displays?
In the dystopian novel “Brave New World,” Aldous Huxley envisioned a meat alternative called vitaminized beef-surrogate. Are we there yet?
BOB LaRUE
Hauser
ARTICLE: Not
news, but opinion
Coeur d’Alene Press, Saturday, June 8, Page A3; “World/Nation;” This page, seemed to me, is intended to be a brief summary of news, which entails facts and actual events that have occurred. News is not opinion! Opinions are just that, opinions.
The article in question is sans any news fact items or events, but clearly expresses someone’s really biased opinion. It seems that any newspaper should distinguish between news and opinion, and opinion articles should be placed in the Editorial section. Running an AP opinion as a news article is incorrect. For the record, this opinion is quite opposite from the news I have read from British and other European newspapers. They praise President and First Lady Trump. They both were quite the successful diplomats during this trip. In fact, should one think if this Coeur d’Alene Press article is news, then it readily qualifies as “Fake News.”
JACK H. NOMANSON
Hayden
Editor’s note: Mr. Nomanson is correct. The excerpt published by The Press was part of an analysis — and therefore, opinion — by The Associated Press. It should not have run as a news brief.
See LETTERS, A5
LETTERS
from A4
OPINION: God and hate speech
Hate speech is funny. More often than not when people claim a person is guilty of hate speech is not that they really think the person is guilty of hatred, but it is more a clamp on free speech. If we truly hate someone, we harm our own souls more than them.
We just saw that very thing here in Coeur d’Alene. Someone is going to talk about Islam, the history, and the good and the bad. Since Islam is opposed to what we consider to be American culture, it is not hate speech to not want Islamic law for our own country, and to point out what has come from their actions, e.g. 911, Iraq.
God hates certain things, like sin. Here is a short list of what God hates: “These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief. A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.” (Proverbs 6: 16-19)
JIM HOLLINGSWORTH
Hayden
GAS: Abundant in D.C.
The Green New Deal? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blames bovine flatulence and internal combustion engines on global warming. She even wants to ban all domestic air flights, although she travels from Washington to New York or California by air. “Do as I say, not as I do.”
Bernie Sanders is no better. He attended an anti-gun rally accompanied by three uniformed armed guards. Getting back to global warming, the last ice age was about 10,000 years ago. If it wasn’t for naturally occurring global warming, we would still be in an ice age.
Was global warming then caused by Indian campfires and flatulent buffalo? I don’t think so.
BOB RIDOUT
Coeur d’Alene