For your neighbor
Chapter 19 of Leviticus recounts that the lord spoke to Moses and was very clear on the expectation of the community. Immediately before the 19th verse, where God is to have said, “You shall observe My laws,” it is stated: “Love your fellow as yourself.”
In Matthew 22:39, Jesus replies: “Love your neighbor as much as you love yourself” and then in Galatians 5:14: “Love others as you love yourself.” Pope Francis has received the vaccine and has indicated that it is an ethical obligation to receive the vaccine when available. It is clear, we must consider our neighbors as we do ourselves if we are to follow the Bible’s teachings. We want a healthy and COVID-19 free community and a return to normal. We have a much better chance of achieving this goal if we think about our impact on our neighbors. If we wear a mask and we are carrying COVID-19, we are less likely to spread the virus than if we do not wear a mask. If we social distance and do not congregate together in substantial numbers, we are likely to transmit the virus. And if we get the COVID-19 vaccine and we are resistant to getting the virus then we are much less likely to transmit it to someone.
So, to all who are God fearing people who follow the Bible, do your best to keep your neighbor healthy. And to those who are not “God fearing” people of the book, be nice and think about the other guy: He or she may more likely return the favor and we will all be better for it. Be generous with your thoughts and actions and take advantage of the vaccine. If not yourself, please do it for your neighbor.
Lawrence Fox
Pullman
Sadly, there’s more
If only there had been some way of predicting that gathering legislators from all across the state, most refusing to wear masks and social distance, would result in a COVID-19 superspreader.
It’s even more disgusting that Reps. Troy, Mitchell, Ehrlinger and Kingsley put representatives Sue Chew and Muffy Davis, who both have major preexisting conditions, in the position of having to choose between representing their constituents or risking their lives to physically attend the legislature. And these Republicans have the gall to call themselves pro-life.
But sadly, that’s not the worst entry in the Republican “social injustice” caucus. That has to go to Kingsley in his justification for giving out-of-state shareholders and corporations a giant tax break because “I’ve never had a poor person offer me a job.” All they do is teach your kids, clean your homes and offices, ship the stuff you order online, and staff your stores and gas stations, currently risking their health to do these things.
Kurt Obermayr
Winslow, Ariz.
Media needs to do more
Larry Kirkland recently questioned whether the mainstream media was being totally truthful in reporting environmental activities. He gave, as an example, emissions from coal-fired power sites being overplayed by the news media. However, he didn’t take into account that coal and oil burning power plants emit mercury and other toxic pollutants such as arsenic and nickel, that weaken people’s immune system and are linked to neurological disorders.
It is former President Donald Trump who has mostly misled and misguided us, not the news media. He replaced the Clean Power Plan, redefined the Endangered Species Act and weakened the disposal of toxic coal wastes often into our rivers and streams.
Four of the past five years, Trump has taken steps to increase emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases — mainly carbon dioxide that has helped warm the planet to dangerous levels. Fortunately, more natural gas and renewables are now replacing coal, favored by our former president. These contain about one-half the amount of carbon dioxide and are less expensive than coal.
Actually, the media should increase its coverage of environmental pollution since the public needs to be more aware of what is happening to our home.
Fred W. Rabe
Moscow
Vote Animal Party
Today I wish to publicly announce a new political party to represent the tens of thousands of disenfranchised living beings on earth. The Animal Party has been and will be the most abused group on the planet. Their slogan rightly should be “All Life Matters.”
In the West, they have been disenfranchised since God said: “Be fruitful and multiply fill the earth and subdue it.” (Genesis 1:28) Obviously we have been fruitful! Our population in 1820 was 1 billion. Currently our exponential growth is at 7 billion-plus only 200 years later.
We have not been good stewards. Overpopulation and habitat destruction are destroying the healthy biodiversity of our planet. The U.N. Environmental Programme recently announced that we are losing 200 plant and animal species every day. Today we have 3 billion fewer birds in our North American skies. As a boy in Long Valley, Idaho, I enjoyed the musical accompaniment of the meadowlark as I walked to school.
The lark’s song is only one voice in the chorus of all living things. Let us caste our proxy vote for the Animal Party whose political platform calls for among other things: 1) voluntarily reduction of the human population; 2) join and support the work of the Paris Agreement of 2015; 3) protect and promote BioDiversity Globally policies and practices to save the one million plant and animal species currently threatened with extinction.
Our technology alone will not be enough to save us or other living things. The work of John B. Calhoun in 1947 demonstrated that when population growth was left unchecked, murder, cannibalism and the extermination of rats confined to a small space resulted.Surely we are smarter than rats. Vote Animal Party!
Stan Smith
Viola
The decline is tragic
On June 27, 1864, my great-grandfather was seriously wounded charging up Kennesaw Mountain to attack Confederates concealed in boulders at the summit. He had lost one brother fighting at Vicksburg the year before. A third brother would fight his way with Sherman on to Atlanta and Savannah, to end the war in Washington in April 1865, the month Lincoln was assassinated.
Throughout the campaign through the South, Union forces liberated thousands of slaves who joyously left plantations to pursue their freedom. The descendants of those slaves, especially in Georgia, are being victimized now, this time by Republican legislatures hellbent on restricting their right to vote. Republicans can’t seem to win national elections honestly by providing a platform that attracts poor and minority voters.
In the 2020 election they had no platform. It was left to the racist and anti-Democratic Trump to make his own. It’s tragic how Lincoln’s Republican Party of emancipation and voter rights has declined.
Richard Shafer
Pullman
