Letters to the Editor, Week of July 6, 2022

Editor,

Let’s hear it for our tree-lined boulevards. I just drove down (up?) James Street from Hardware Sales northward. The oaks have almost closed the canopy and as I drive along, I can feel my pulse slowing, my breathing too. Front Street in Lynden does the same thing for me. As we talk and plan for planting more trees, let’s pay some attention to closing in our arterials in an enveloping tree canopy. We can forest bathe as we drive.

Craig MacConnell

Bellingham

Editor, 

Re: “We must protect life from conception until the moment of birth!” Opinion, June 29 (print only).

As a liberal-democracy society, we cannot prevent anyone from bearing children, including those who insist upon procreating regardless of their inability to raise children in a psychologically functional/healthy manner. We can, however, educate all young people for the most important job ever, even those high schoolers who plan to remain childless. If nothing else, such a curriculum could offer students an idea/clue as to whether they’re emotionally suited for the immense responsibility and strains of parenthood.

Yet, owing to the only-if-it’s-in-my-own-backyard mindset, the prevailing collective attitude (implicit or subconscious) basically follows: “Why should I care — my kids are alright?” or “What is in it for me, the taxpayer, if I support programs for other people’s troubled families?” While some people will justify it as a normal thus moral human evolutionary function, the self-serving OIIIMOBY can debilitate social progress, even when social progress is most needed.

The health of ALL children needs to be of real importance to us ALL — and not just concern over what other parents’ children might or will cost us as future criminals or costly cases of government care, etcetera — regardless of how well our own developing children are doing.

A physically and mentally sound future should be every child’s fundamental right — along with air, water, food and shelter — especially considering the very troubled world into which they never asked to enter. 

As for abortion services, I strongly feel that they, along with critical health services and long-term care residences, should never be for-profit medical procedures. Now, if only as much concern was given to the already born and breathing as is given to the unborn, some real progress could be made.  

Frank Sterle Jr.   

White Rock, British Columbia

Editor,

Are you sick of the rule of this nation by Democrats and Republicans? Are you sick of the same elected officials of both parties doing nothing except perpetuating the massive war machine of the military-industrial complex? Are you sick of “bipartisanship” masking the eradication of all human rights under a secular Constitution? Are you sick of Christian Nationalism dedicated to the destruction of the secular Constitution and denial of basic human rights to all people?

Murray, Cantwell and Larsen have reaped all of the benefits of elected office while providing nothing but false bipartisan support for every war budget feeding the military-industrial complex led by Boeing. Boeing rewarded its campaign chests while throwing the employees out of work or forcing them to move across the country to save their jobs. The Boeing board and management are economic terrorists demanding removal of all taxation under the threat of job losses. All of it is lies.

Neither Democrat nor Republican in the current political system has obeyed their oaths of office to defend our nation against the forces of religious terrorism now sanctified by a Supreme Court cabal of traitors removing all human rights from law. A legal system now totally corrupted and filled with the fellow travelers of fascists appointed by Republican presidents and installed by traitorous Senate Democrats and Republicans to end all secular control of the United States of America. 

The voting systems of the nation are now corrupted by the same traitors to ensure minority control of all aspects of governing at every level — local, state, federal. The original Constitution contained no reference to political parties. The two-party system is nothing but the continuation of rule by the elite wealthy dedicated to the enslavement of all other citizens. Time for some drastic changes.

Richard Morgan

Bellingham

Editor,

Re: “Offroad e-bikes cool tech, but headache for land managers” (CDN, June 17):

As a septuagenarian, thanks to the advent of e-bikes, I’m finally able to get some benefit from the Greenways levy. The levy that has always arrived with a thud at property tax time in the past.

Where I live, the bicycle route is always uphill, out and return. 

I first saw an e-bike while sitting in the “husband chair” on the sidewalk, while the wife was browsing one of the shops in Laguna Beach. The machine was love at first sight.

Returning to the ‘Ham, I immediately plunked down $1,500 bucks. The bike arrived in a big box. Hours later, I was back in the saddle. 

We’re saving gas now biking for shopping and enjoying all the Greenways trails.

I’m also thrilled to know I’m doing my part to help alleviate Mayor Fleetwood’s greenhouse gas obsession. He has his Climate Action Plan, I have my bike. We’re both expecting our respective “atta boy” letters any time.

Forgiving the slight tone of entitlement, certain parts of the article by Mr. Almond are misleading and might be worth considering clarification.

Sorting through the material, it became clear that the article illuminates squabbles about rules in the hills and not the trail system in town. Of course, contained therein is also subtle advocacy to destroy yet another pristine area in the hills for the sport.

The statement that “Whatcom County prohibits e-bikes other than on designated roads and parking areas” might be true. But on June 21, 2021, the city specifically permitted the use of e-bikes in city parks and all city trails.

I value the ability to use the trails and ride safely, respecting all the other trail users. I do not want to lose that privilege by commentary that could raise unnecessary concerns.

Bob Morton

Bellingham

Editor,

After watching all the bipartisan Jan. 6 hearings, where it has been only Trump-appointed Republicans, Republican elected officials and conservatives testifying under oath that ex-President Trump has been lying about a flawed election, and continues his bald-faced lies to this day, it is impossible to couch his lies and the actions of his pitiful lemming crowd in any terms but psychological.

Psychopathy and suffering under the delusional rationale of an insidious psychosis are the only reasonably sufficient realms to talk of his and their refusal to join the world of the sane.  

Whether Trump is in fact insane, or just some manner of lowlife hell-bent on bringing our country down, he should never be allowed to seek or hold office again. 

Any Republican-appointed or elected official who has supported his delusions in the face of overwhelming factual evidence should muster the integrity to resign. Those who can’t bring themselves to act responsibly should be prosecuted and imprisoned for any part they played. 

And any voter who still clings to his lies, or their own twisted rationalizations about the Trump years, should either banish themselves to a world of silence and much-deserved shame or leave. Period.

Michael Waite 

Bellingham

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