Online-only letters
Columbine style
Children of the Web
Editor, The Times:
Regarding “Rampage at school stuns Finland” [Times, News, Nov. 8]: At last we come to it, the indisputable and indefensible position of how the cause and effect of instant, notorious status is garnered by Web sites such as YouTube.
This perpetrator from Finland is not the first to warn of an impending assault on the innocent in a classroom; however, where this heinous act took place serves up the horrendous thought that this kind of crime has no known boundaries - either in our global village or on the Internet.
We have long proven to be at fault to the wayward thinking that has created the cause-célèbre status of that next multiple murderer. Why are we so fascinated with the macabre? Could it be that the rules on the Internet are nonexistent; that many morally defective persons become detached from humanity that rules our day in an empty, hopeless environment that witnesses an 18-year-old from Finland go to such a tragic extreme to be noticed?
If those who take on the responsibility of parenthood showed even a little more vigilance, they might discover that dimly-lit beacon of desperation, long before 89 videos of questionable content are unearthed in the post-mortem.
- Daniel Kowbell, Toronto, CanadaElection surprises
Deceit of the shepherd
Regarding “In surprise, Robertson joins Giuliani camp” [News, Nov. 8]: As a progressive Christian, it is often difficult to watch those who take the bully pulpit in the name of Christ but apparently forget to bring Jesus along for the ride.
Despite in his ridiculous statements of God’s judgment through natural disasters and advocating the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, hopefully most Christians have realized that televangelist Pat Robertson was serving himself more than God. For years we have had to listen to Robertson and his ilk berate Christians to vote only on two issues - gay marriage and abortion. Budget woes impoverishing generations of people? No, doesn’t matter. Endless wars killing hundreds of thousands of God’s creations? No, doesn’t matter. Raping of the environment, pillaging our educational system, kids without health care, genocide in Sudan? No, doesn’t matter.
Christians were led to believe the only issues that would matter to Jesus himself are gay marriage and abortion. Never mind that the number-one cause for Christ when he walked the Earth was taking care of the neediest in society.
Enter Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani - the pseudo-Christian political operative’s worst nightmare. He is the Republican candidate but he is the antithesis of everything they have preached for years. Giuliani is twice divorced. Not only that, but while he was condemning former President Bill Clinton, Giuliani was sleeping with his own mistress, while still married to his second wife, with his kids sleeping down the hall.
It gets worse for the Robertsons of the world though. Giuliani is pro-gay-marriage and pro-choice. There is no way Robertson should cast his lot with Giuliani…
Oops, he just did. Robertson shows us what he really has been all along - a liar.
It’s an opportunity for Christians to reassess what their vote is supposed to mean. It can be so much more than the cynical two-issue mandate which is designed to distract us from the other important issues of our times.
Poverty should matter to Christians. Health care should matter to Christians. War and death should matter to Christians.
Robertson is just a microcosm of what is wrong with the majority of the would-be Christian leaders today. They have embraced a political agenda over the agenda of Jesus Christ. That would be bad enough, but they take it a step further to merge the two and claim that their political agenda is the agenda of Christ. Then they tell you as Christians that if you do not embrace it as well, you are somehow not being a good Christian.
We have been sold a bill of goods we should have inspected closer. The Bible tells us we are to discern. It says if the blind leads the blind they will both fall into a pit; and into a pit we have fallen - with Robertson shaking Giuliani’s hand and laughing - all the way down.
Jesus Christ deserves better than the hypocrisy of man.
- Michael Dean, PuyallupIn the looking glass
Just before the election, President Bush will declare the bombing of Iran. Then you will read, “Bush sacks chief justice, suspends America’s Constitution and declares a state of emergency, and a third term for the monarch.” All this under the guise of national security.
We are not a free country and this is the home of the Americans who are afraid of the monarch.
Has anyone ever spoken out or do we all have our tails between our legs and whimper?
- Leo Shillong, BellinghamA la guerre
Make war wisely
Humanity is too spiritually bankrupt to put war-making to rest. Therefore, consider these practical considerations:
Support for the use of nuclear or biological weapons is an open admission of military incompetence and even cowardice by our government and presidential candidates. Military history proves it.
Precision training in war-making includes indoctrination in layered aristocracy. This makes our military ill-suited to nanny political romper rooms. Yet our leaders force the military to do this.
Presidential discretion to make war, created from years of bullying Congress, denies our military the accurate deployment and public support provided by honestly applying our Constitution. It also made the president’s role of commander in chief more important than his role of chief executor of U.S. law.
Dependency on military and monetary power now supersedes American courage - in the face of human irrationality - to communicate and work with other peoples.
Our military and civilian leaders don’t want to win our wars but just want to fight them. This is demonstrated by the morale-sapping lengths of current military deployments.
- Stuart Thompson, CamasOde to hypocrisy
Regarding “Blackwater guards got immunity” [page one, Oct. 30]: Someone - we are not sure who - has granted immunity to the Blackwater guards who make heaven-knows-how-much more per day than members of the U.S. Armed Forces, yet we rush head-on, fast as a jack rabbit, to prosecute members of the U.S. Armed Forces for supposedly the same crimes?
So much for dedication and loyalty to the U.S. flag.
- Harriet Benjamin, SeattleIt’s not rocket science
Idols of the tribe
Regarding “Boeing may junk worldwide assembly for next jet” [Business and Technology, Nov. 1]: It’s about time. But “it doesn’t necessarily have to be here”?
They still haven’t learned, so it looks like the struggle is not over.
When you try to convince Harvard grads and other self-proclaimed brilliant people the best way to do something, they don’t always listen. It has nothing to do with the relationship Boeing has with the various union leaderships; it has nothing to do with cheap labor. It does, however, have everything to do with controlling your own product.
As we have been telling Boeing since 1999, when you outsource all of this stuff, you lose the most valuable resource you have - the knowledge, skills and ability of your employees.
Of course, Boeing didn’t listen to us, but we didn’t expect it to, either. Just like a child, sometimes Boeing has to learn the hard way, by trial and error. I wonder how much this blunder actually cost.
There is a term used around the factory setting. It’s called tribal knowledge, which simply means the necessary knowledge learned over many generations of how to properly do something. You don’t learn it in a textbook; you don’t learn it from other people who may have given you a little of that knowledge by participating in your halfhearted attempt to extract that knowledge through your many quality-improvement programs you were sold on from some foreign country.
It is hands-on knowledge that is passed down through the generations of aircraft builders. Every single major and minor part that goes onto a commercial and military airframe has some tribal knowledge behind it.
You don’t just snap together these modern airliners. This isn’t Lego land or Tinker-Toys land, these are complex flying machines that carry the world’s families all around the world.
Boeing can continue to outsource and demolish buildings once used to make these fine pieces of innovation, or the executives can pull their proverbial heads out of the clouds and do it right the first time in their factories and start investing again in brick and mortar.
It is no wonder Boeing is having a hard time attracting experienced people to help the company out of its mess again. Boeing hasn’t invested for maybe too long in the very people who made these products great in the first place - its own employees.
- Ed Lutgen, Maple ValleyDarfur Torch Relay
Lighting the hope
On a recent Sunday, in this fourth year of the Darfur genocide, I stood in the salty winds of Alki Beach to witness the dream for the Darfur Torch Relay.
This Olympic Torch Relay is being organized from Darfur, Sudan, to Beijing, China, and across the United States. Its goal is to galvanize world support and encourage China - host of the Olympics and Sudan’s biggest oil customer - to use its leverage to persuade Sudan to actively support the peace process.
Warming my hands with free fair-trade coffee, I was surprised that I felt neither frustration nor despair. Instead, I felt hopeful.
Listening to speeches outlining the impact of several years of demonstrations, letter-writing campaigns and divestment efforts, I saw a road map of progress and influence. I felt buoyed by the hope and passion of Deborah Jones, Diane Baer and Ruth Clark from Save Darfur Washington State.
Most importantly, I was surrounded by hundreds of women and men under the age of 20 - from University of Washington students to Inglemoor High School students. I watched Agnes Oswaha, Seattle resident and Sudanese activist, carry the burning torch with tears and resolve as people signed letters to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. And I remembered a conversation with actress and UNICEF Ambassador Mia Farrow who told me, “We must have as much hope as the people we are trying to help.”
The vocabulary of hope can reinvigorate each person working on behalf of Darfur across the globe. With hope, we can find both the will and the ways to end the nightmare in Sudan.
- Barbara Mackoff, director, Seattle Darfur Stories Project, Seattle