USAID does good work
Thank you, Wayne Beebe for taking on Dale Courtney’s mindless screeds that are nothing more than mining the right-wing freak-out sites.
I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Lesotho, a country President Trump maligned in his recent speech. It is one of the poorest countries in the world. But USAID was doing very good work there mostly to improve food production. A number of us volunteers were assigned to AID projects, studying soils, crops and farming methods that could help improve the lot of the Basotho people. I don’t know if there is any one left at WSU that ran the USAID funded Farming Systems project, but that is an example of the kind of work that was seeking to help there.
As for Courtney’s attack on Catholic Relief Services, well bless his heart, but he is clueless! Among the world’s NGOs, CRS is one of the most efficient. And their goals are very basic. Things like clean water, housing, medicine and feeding programs. Any dollars from AID to CRS are not wasted. If the Trump administration doesn’t like some of what AID is doing, then deal with that, but don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.
I worked for companies locally that filled USAID bags with peas, lentils, etc. crops that were purchased from our local growers. And regardless of what people say, hungry people around the world do appreciate the help.
Dale Freeman
Moscow
A reluctant goodbye
Stopping our subscription to the Daily News was a difficult decision. I would very much like to see the local newspaper survive and thrive but it did not appear that it was going to happen based on a number of issues. The reduction to two issues made it less relevant. Very few people I know are subscribing to the DN. The preponderance of left-leaning editorial writing based on very little factual information has been hard to take. The lack of anything having to do with God, our Creator, the purpose of life, what is going on spiritually and more decreases the appeal of the DN to me. I do appreciate the writings of Dale Courtney and Scotty Anderson for their factual-based writings and adding a bit of balance to the editorial writing. And price is somewhat of an issue given the above.
I will definitely miss some of the local news, the sudoku, the comics and the editorial writings and letters to the editorial board.
Thank you for what you are trying to do and I wish you all the best.
Larry Kirkland
Moscow
