Letters to the Editor

Ah, the ever popular oil debate. Of course the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and those with the tainted blood of environmental idealism running through their veins are going to be outraged by drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. They will offer their solutions, most of which will never come to fruition because most of these idealists have no conception of how a market-based economy really works. The president has an energy policy on the table; unfortunately all I hear from the other side are complaints, economically unviable alternatives and accusations. So much for the reasoned debate in the United States today.

Bruce MacPherson
Edmonds

Congress doesn't get basic idea of protection

When pristine areas such as ANWR are set aside from development, there is not a clause in the fine print that states the area will be protected until a valuable natural resource can be exploited. These protected areas are set aside because valuable natural resources may be discovered and exploitation must never be allowed in the very few remaining pristine areas.

It is a tragedy that the ethics and morality of the current Republican majority is too low to understand this simple idea.

Steve Chilcoat
Woodinville

SOCIAL SECURITY

It's a rare program that really helps working stiff

I turned 55 last week. Just getting another year older allows me to do what the Democrats are having difficulty doing -- stopping the president from destroying one of the only functional government programs ever devised to help the working stiff.

I started paying into Social Security when I was 15 and, 40 years later, I'm still paying into a great program and I look forward to contributing until I'm at least 62-65 for those coming up behind me.

All the program needs is a few tweaks (increase the income cap and tie yearly increases to prices instead of wages) and we're good to go for another 100 years.

This sky-is-falling rhetoric from the weapons-of-mass-destruction doomsayer is an insult to the intelligence of the American voter.

Daniel B. Clarke
Seattle

TERRI SCHIAVO

Suddenly, Texas Republican decides life has some value

Over the weekend, Congress decided to step in and require that Terri Schiavo's feeding tube be restored. An Associated Press story on this subject contained the following quote:

"We should investigate every avenue before we take the life of a living human being," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. "That's the very least we can do for her."

Texas Republicans, of course, are world-renown for their compassion. They are also known for the ability to keep a straight face when speaking in public.

Number of executions in Texas, 2000-2004: 137, but only four so far this year.

Mike Gies
Seattle

Parents have the more altruistic reason for choice

Terri Schiavo is a living, breathing person. Her husband wants her dead. Her parents want her alive and have offered to take care of her for as long as she lives. There is no living will to show what her wishes might be, but her husband says she told him if she was ever in this situation, she would want to be put to death. That is what we are told. She probably will not die on her own, so something must be done to make her die. The choice of her husband is to starve her to death. A very slow death. It is not known whether there would be pain connected to her starving or whether she would feel that pain.

The motivation for the two sides is pretty clear. The husband has a common-law family, accumulated after Terri's medical problem began, and her death would free him up to make that family legitimate. The parents want her to live, like most parents would want, even though the possibility of her getting better is slim to none.

Being a parent to four adults and grandparent to 13 and great-grandparent to 14 with one grandchild right now in a coma from an auto accident, I am on the side of Terri's parents that she should not be put to death at the hands of her husband and the Florida courts. She should not be sentenced to death for something she has no control over.

Ed Anderson
Kirkland

Politicians interfere for purely political reasons

The only thing more tragic than this story is the politicians intervening in it for crass political purposes. The poor woman is dead. Her brain has no function. Even if she has a shell of a body, that is not life.

We have this debate, at her expense, only because medical technology makes it possible to pump air and nutrition into a brain-dead corpse and keep the physical shell from shutting down.

It's a ghastly prospect of the government preventing you from expiring so that wunderkinds such as Rep. Tom DeLay and Sen. Bill Frist can grandstand. Isn't there some important business for Congress to spend time on?

Tim Stefan
Tacoma

Basic right to life must be extended to the disabled

Terri Schiavo left no written directive. Her husband, who started a family with a different woman a long time ago, maintains that Terri had told him that she would not want to be kept alive in such circumstances. However, Terri could not have foreseen her precise medical condition, and it is hard to believe that anyone would desire to be slowly starved to death.

Medical professionals are divided regarding Terri's precise medical state and her chances of improving. Terms such as "brain-dead," "severely brain-damaged" and "persistent vegetative state" (PVS) constantly appear in news reports, but the medical community lacks consensus about their proper definitions.

Terri fails to meet Florida's strict statutory definition of PVS.

Pictures and videos clearly show that Terri interacts with visitors. Although she needs to be fed with a feeding tube, Terri breathes on her own.

We give convicted murderers the right to federal court review of their constitutional rights. We give convicted murderers food and water. The American people and U.S. Congress should be willing to extend the same basic rights to Terri Schiavo and other disabled people.

Benjamin C. Hughes
Maple Valley

TRANSIT

Buses cheaper, but will people really ride them?

Ted Van Dyk states in his Thursday column that buses are "typically 30 percent cheaper to operate than light rail." His apples-to-dogs comparison is like stating that a DC-9 is 30 percent cheaper to operate than a 747. He ignores the fact that buses are smaller, more cramped and less comfortable than rail transit. It's little wonder buses are cheaper to operate; they carry far fewer people.

The statistics from Vancouver, B.C., presented at the conference were quite telling. They have achieved their high transit ridership by running both rail and buses. In addition, they realize that land-use planning is equally important to transportation planning. Translink CEO Pat Jacobsen stated that customer surveys rate customer satisfaction with their rail services far above buses.

Despite Van Dyk's distorted sales pitch for buses only, the public doesn't buy it. Polling shows strong support for rail transit, which is why it's being built in Seattle. It's why it's being expanded in Portland, Vancouver and other cities. It's curious that people pushing bus rapid transit (or buses) have never been on one. The conference itself gave no directions on how to actually take a bus to get there. Bus rapid transit is a transit dog that don't hunt. It's unfortunate that it's used as a trojan horse against rail transit despite rail's success in cities like Vancouver in boosting ridership and encouraging favorable land use patterns.

Richard Borkowski
President
People for Modern Transit

STATE BUDGET

Start taxing other resources of revenue

It will be interesting to see state government react when the law of diminishing returns hits and revenue from cigarettes actually reduces. I suspect we have already reached that point with alcohol. Let's put a sales tax on newspapers and advertising to raise revenue.

Jim Ashcraft
Cle Elum

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