Filling the funding gap
I’m a parent of an incoming first-year student at Washington State University. On July 1, WSU released an addendum to its on-campus housing contract that holds all incoming students financially liable for a full year of housing and dining charges even if the campus closes a few weeks into the first semester due to COVID-19.
All first-year students are required to live on campus. Currently, there is almost no information on which classes will be on campus and which will be online. WSU is requiring that we commit to a nonrefundable contract of nearly $11,000 without any knowledge of whether or not our son will be attending any class in person.
So, if my son moves to Pullman and after two weeks the governor issues a new stay-at-home order, an increasingly real possibility, we will be paying monthly room and dining charges to the university, while my son is living and eating at home.
The University response has been to point to the waiver for the first-year living requirement. We would need to know that he could have all online classes before signing that waiver. The University has made no commitment to having that information available until after July 12, the deadline to sign the new contract addendum.
There are many reasonable solutions to this problem, such as semester-long contracts or a fully online semester, but WSU seems unwilling to reconsider. They are committed to having the students fill their funding gap, whether or not they provide the services. This is a money grab.
Wayne Swanson
Suquamish, Wash.
Poem: We Are The Same
We are the same, though covered by / Our outer forms, which amplify / The thought that we are different; / This is our great impediment / That we are loath to rectify.
Our special thoughts preoccupy / Our minds and tend to ossify; / Though differences are evident, / We are the same.
Diversity can complement / When we become more tolerant; / When we perceive and don’t deny / The inner sparks that underlie / Our bodies, we’ll be confident / We are the same.
Alan Steinle
Pullman
Things have gotten muddled
I support the LGBTAQ+. One of the comments that usually shows up in the evangelical Christian’s rhetoric when they are professing their adherence to the Bible or God’s word is “the gay or Pride agenda will strip Christians of their freedoms.” Huh? When has someone else’s lifestyle, marriage, way of raising children or health decisions impinged on your rights and freedoms?
God gave us brains to use to understand our place in the world and to investigate its many wonders. Due to science and the many discoveries it has illuminated, we know many things that the Bronze Age and Iron Age goat herders who wrote the Bible did not understand. There are always new studies coming out that put old ideas out to pasture.
By studying the brain, we have found out that there are medical answers to things that were once thought to be caused by “demons.” Also in English, the word homosexual was first used in 1892 in the English translation of Krafft-Ebing’s “Psychopathia sexualis,” a reference work, written in German in 1886, and “homosexual” did not appear in any translation of the Christian Bible until 1946. There are words in Greek for same-sex sexual activities, yet they never appear in the original texts of the Old Testament or New Testament. Much of the Bible was written in Greek — Ancient Greek — which is very different from Modern Greek. Changes in words and meanings get worse when translating to different languages.
We have all played “telephone” and know how things can get muddled. So much of the furor over LGBTQA+ community comes from the Old Testament. What happened to Christ’s commandment to “Love the Lord your God. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” Christians need to start living according to Jesus’ words.
Dorothy Newkirk
Pullman
Shocked by large gathering
I join with others in the Moscow community who were shocked and disappointed to learn that our Christ Church neighbors gathered an assembly of about 1,000 people indoors without masks or social distancing on June 28. Church leader Doug Wilson talked about it as if it were an accomplishment. It’s not an accomplishment to endanger the health and well-being of our community.
I find it hard to believe that hundreds and hundreds of Moscow residents do not understand the concepts of “highly contagious,” “easily spread,” “pandemic,” “thousands dying,” “millions more sick every day” or “hospitals filling up.” I cannot believe they do not care if their actions harm their neighbors and fellow citizens. These church members tell us all lives are precious. They seem to care about protecting the unborn, but ignore caring about fellow humans trying to avoid serious and fatal illnesses. Frankly, it’s very difficult for me to understand their reasoning and their value system.
Let us be thankful for those who do care, including Mayor Bill Lambert, who made the difficult decision to require masks be worn to help protect the health and safety of our community, and some struggling business owners who have decided to temporarily close due to the virus upsurge in Latah County.
Let’s also hope that at least some of those thousand Christ Church attendees will rethink their actions and have meaningful discussions within their congregation about what it means to love thy neighbor.
Joann Muneta
Moscow
Thinking about the pioneers
“Make America pay again” sounds like a good opening statement from Joe Biden. Maybe it should be his official slogan. He’s vowed to raise taxes on all Americans. If he chooses Michelle Obama as his VP, he will after a few months resign for whatever reason. The VP now becomes the president, who has the choice of choosing a new VP. Who could she choose? Well, her husband, or Hillary, or Little Nancy if she is reelected. Well, what do you think? To even-thinking Democrats, surely the choice is frightening?
Let’s look at the good side, after wiping the sweat from your brow: President Trump has been reelected. The great question is why do the Democrats, the media, past presidents, Bush, Slick Willy and the globalists hate Trump so much? It took me about five minutes to figure it out. He’s a Christian and that means freedom of choice. Most if not all of the so-called leaders of the Democrats are communists, and as such the only thing that they want is absolute control of people from birth until death. They want control of the money and absolute total power. They hate with a passion Christianity. Not only do they want to close all churches but also to destroy the building.
The reason that the party has turned is that back in the 60s Gus Hall moved into the party. He said Americans will never choose communism but they will choose socialism. Hence that is where we are. A warning: There is a time coming when you will look at the pioneers crossing the prairies with their wagons and you will envy them because what we are going to go through will make crossing the prairies look like a Sunday school picnic.
Mike Beirens
Pullman
