Letters to the Editor, week of Feb. 19, 2025: Respect for Canada; Trump, owls, fascism

Editor,

It may seem inconsequential compared to Donald Trump’s proposed annexation of the Panama Canal, Greenland, Canada and Gaza, and other blunt force decisions. However, his declaration to become chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts holds significant ramifications.

Trump’s quest to chair our nation’s preeminent art center is lifted from the Third Reich’s playbook. 

He has moved with dizzying speed to redefine the U.S. role in the world and to topple our national economic, political, legal and social norms. Trump is abandoning decades of American commitments to freedom and democracy. 

Trump intends to alter the art center’s programming, to eliminate events he deems inappropriate, toward more politically aligned content. Trump’s censorship is similar to the historical precedent of the Reich Chamber of Culture, which enforced strict Nazi ideology in the arts, to enable a unified national identity supporting the regime’s broader goals.

Trump’s role as chairman of the center represents a remarkable departure from past practices, igniting debates about policy, political influence and artistic freedom. And, since when does a POTUS have time for this?

In the U.S. a culture of achievement has been replaced with a grievance culture. Rather than allow Trump’s commandeering of the Kennedy Center to rip us further apart, can we recognize the collective error of our ways, for all of us to desire and try to meet on common ground?

The future depends on it, here and around the world.

Micki Jackson

Bellingham

Editor,

Reading Wayne Pacelle’s excellent guest commentary (CDN, Feb. 12, 2025) about the federal government’s plan to cull the barred owl population on the West Coast, I thought, finally a project that would merit elimination by the current administration in its quest to slash costs, for all the reasons Mr. Pacelle states.

His observation that “to demand that species ‘stay put’ where they were mapped at an arbitrary moment in time” is key. It is a fool’s errand, and an unrealistic demand to put on wild animals. You might just as well try to contain the Pacific Ocean. The thought of all the money and time that would be used for this “project” is staggering — with no guarantee whatsoever that its goal will be achieved.

Listen to Pete Seeger’s wonderful song “The People Are Scratching” if you want a good explanation of what happens when man decides to intervene in the balance of nature and removes something they view as an “inconvenience.”

Finally, I couldn’t help but think that the Native Americans/First Nations of North America could equally well use the same justification for removal of the “invasive species” that is European man from this continent, as Pacelle gives for the barred owl.

Lauren St. Pierre

Fairhaven

Editor,

I want to express my appreciation for your journalism.

As a subscriber, I read your online news almost daily and your printed newspaper every week. Especially in these uncertain times, with the many challenges facing the media, I am grateful for your dedication to covering our local communities.

I deeply value the breadth of your coverage — from news and restaurant reviews to event stories, travel and opinion columns. I hope you continue to thrive, and I remain a grateful and admiring reader.

Alexia Moore

Anacortes

Editor,

China gets to rename the Taiwan Straits but we don’t get to rename the Gulf of Mexico? What gives?

China will wipe your website “off the map” if you even refer to Taiwan.

C’mon, Trump, et al: add an “s” for accuracy and respect: Gulf of the Americas. Any elected officials out there? Pass it up.

Kay Reeder

Bellingham

Editor,

I enjoyed reading Mr. [Roger] Griffin’s letter last week (CDN, Feb. 12, 2025) regarding the water adjudication process. Good points to think about, the mix of law and environmental questions.

I, too, would like to hear more on the water storage subject. The other points regarding the tribes and salmon harvest/management: I highly recommend a recent book by the late Charles Wilkinson called “Treaty Justice: The Northwest Tribes, the Boldt Decision, and the Recognition of Fishing Rights.” An excellent read and very enlightening.

Gary Malick

Bellingham

Editor,

As a potential tourist to the Mount Baker area, I would prefer a discount chain motel, in Glacier, to the complex array of Airbnbs now there. B&Bs add complexity to the transaction with add-on maintenance charges and other complexities. 

I understand the problem of Airbnbs reducing the availability of affordable housing for permanent residents (CDN, Feb. 12, 2025). Lack of affordable housing for residents who work in Glacier, adds to the traffic as people have to live farther from their jobs.

I don’t drive so I travel to that area during summer months by bicycle. I seldom go there, these days, due to more traffic on Mount Baker Highway and the narrow road shoulders for bicycling between Deming and Glacier. 

Last time I rode out to Baker, I took a WTA transit bus with a bicycle rack out to Kendall. That was as far as the bus went. Then it was bicycling to Glacier to an Airbnb. I survived the traffic. 

Next day, the ride to Artist Point was delightful past Glacier. Too bad there is no transit service to Glacier to avoid the bad traffic between Kendall and Glacier. A larger motel and more clustered, affordable housing would be good for Glacier and might even make it more viable for WTA service to go all the way to Glacier.

It would be nice if that area was not so car-dependent.

Robert Ashworth

Bellingham

Editor,

I was recently directed to an article on the Northwest Citizen website that left me alarmed and disgusted. It seems that the county officials that we have entrusted to act in the best interest of the people are instead catering to the whims of developers at the expense of local residents and the environment.

Currently, the Bellingham Planning Department is facilitating a 33-unit development at 331 Chuckanut Drive that will greatly enhance the potential for flooding of the surrounding neighborhood.

I learned that in 1991 the city converted that section of the historic Larrabee Creek watershed into a “fill” site, replacing the creek with a culvert and burying it under 20 feet of excavation spoils, a practice that would be illegal today.

Though convenient at the time, the filled area created a floodplain in the surrounding area, and the development they are poised to approve will further erode draining capacity, threatening 62 homes.

Oh, well, we all make mistakes, right? But do we learn from them? Maybe not, or they would not be quietly exacerbating the problem. If their inadequate drainage plan fails, will the city be liable?

The responsible solution is to return that section of Larrabee Creek to its natural state, eliminating flood risk and marking a small step toward healing the damage humans have inflicted on nature.

Learn more and help this effort by reading the article in NW Citizen, which includes maps and records of the years-long progression of this bungled effort.

Tell the city to daylight Larrabee Creek!

Linda Lee

Bellingham

Editor,

After two and a half centuries of aggression driven by avarice and bigotry, the United States government— under Democrats and Republicans — has always served the interests of the aristocracy represented by Wall Street at the expense of democracy and human rights. Now that this ugliness is laid bare by our self-designated emperor and his Proud Boys street thugs, reasonable Americans are bewildered by the insanity. 

William Vega, an American public health researcher at Rutgers — published in the Archives of General Psychiatry in 1998 — observed that Mexican immigrants have roughly half the incidence of psychological dysfunction as Americans. After 13 years, though, these immigrants develop depression, anxiety and drug problems at the same level as the general population (32%). Additional studies have extended these findings to other ethnic groups, leading to the conclusion, that “socialization into American culture and society increase susceptibility to psychiatric disorders.” 

Twenty years ago I wrote, “The fact of the matter is that our culture makes people crazy.” Americans have been documented to have abnormally high mental disorders. World Health Organization reports on the specifics of this phenomenon are alarming, to say the least.

Add to that the effects of inadequate brain development due to poor education and unloving environments, organic brain damage from physical and psychological abuse or accident, as well as brainwashing from aggressive media and religion, and we’ve got some seriously damaged folks running around. When these confused and often angry fellow citizens get involved in politics, things can get real ugly.

Jay Taber

Blaine

Editor,

Nearly the same percentage of Israeli citizens disagree with Netanyahu’s racist policies as American citizens disagree and find abhorrent the racist and sexist policies of the Trump administration and the new fascist threat posed by the MAGA/Trump/Project 2025 corruption of our values. Both are frozen by the fear of losing comfortable lives by doing what needs to be done.

Where the Palestinians failed to take the necessarily violent actions to curtail Hamas, the new Democratic “sit on your hands and whine” party is showing the same spineless response to the new Führer wannabe and his gang of billionaire thugs and their uneducated horde.  

If our fathers and grandfathers had lacked the backbone to do what was necessary in two World Wars to stop the fascism, we never would have become the America whose demise many of us now lament.

Gutless Democrats, the few remaining Republicans of integrity, and independent politicians think somehow this will all go away with wishes and Ghandi-like resistance.

Do we all have the patience for the decades if not centuries it will take to make the needed U-turn? It will not all magically end in four years.

Michael Waite

Sedro-Woolley

Letters to the Editor are published online Wednesdays; a selection is published in print Fridays. Send to letters@cascadiadaily.com by 10 a.m. Tuesdays. Rules: Maximum 250 words, be civil, have a point and make it clearly. Preference is given to letters about local subjects. CDN reserves the right to reject letters or edit for length, clarity, grammar and style, or removal of personal attacks or offensive content. Letters must include an address/phone number to verify the writer's identity (not for publication).