Blankenship the right choice
Bryce Blankenship will bring a fresh approach and varied experiences to the Moscow City Council, if elected.
For 11 years as a Moscow Mentor, he has helped steer our next generation of adults in a positive and friendly way. The young people he has mentored will be better citizens because of Bryce’s influence on them.
Bryce is a senior instructor at the University of Idaho in philosophy, and his knowledge and contact with students and other university staff and instructors give him a unique window into important groups of our city residents.
Being a local bartender for many years again gives him insight into how a vast group of residents think, want and, I am guessing, feel about Moscow both positively and negatively.
A vote for Bryce Blankenship will be a vote for inclusion, open communication and new energy.
Bill Lambert andKathy Weber
Moscow
Benjamin, Wright, Evermann
Once again, Pullman has been blessed when one reviews the qualifications of our candidates. And this holds for all the various races. Please join me in thanking our residents who ran, educated us, yet may or may not win.
They deserve appreciation for their effort.
Three individuals that I particularly support and call to your attention are Francis Benjamin for mayor, Pat Wright for Pullman City Council, and James Evermann for school board.
I have worked with Benjamin in my past roles of vice provost of academic affairs and chair of the faculty senate at Washington State University. Francis is thoughtful and effective, showing personal respect as issues were debated and hopefully solved. His experience at the local, regional and state level is a desired attribute for our mayor of the future.
Wright is a winning force in all that she does. Her spirit, analytical skills and work ethic continue to be a positive asset on our city council. Pat is a quiet but determined leader of many organizations in Pullman, some of which I served with her so I know her well. She listens, learns and teaches on the issues, all with an enjoyable attitude.
An effective candidate is Jim Evermann. Jim and I have worked together in our church and other activities, including the historical depot development. He should be returned to the board since he offers preparation, analysis and decision making based on a loving attitude toward our children.
We have some great proven candidates. Thank them when you can.
Kenneth Casavant
Pullman
The greater good
I write to you today as an active member of our community, a member of the Moscow Arts Commission, a former board member of many organizations, an employee of the University of Idaho and as someone who has had the privilege of witnessing firsthand the profound qualities that make Moscow City Council candidate, Joe Campbell, truly exceptional.
I’m a marketing and communications professional, so if Joe’s lifelong service were a marketing campaign, it would be called The Campaign for the Greater Good.
Joe is always working to learn about people, their views, existential worries; he works to understand viewpoints and nuances. He has an abundance of years of leadership experience and is a great mediator. He is able to research and find ways for all sides to succeed. He has integrity. He is interested in working on good projects for the greater good. You want this kind of person on the Moscow City Council.
Campbell doesn’t just do lip service to equality. He literally creates opportunities for women, and specifically, women in philosophy. Joe’s recent book is a volume containing works from religion and science, young and old philosophers, established experts and rising stars, and endowed professors and adjunct instructors. But 43% of the authors are women in philosophy. The traditional ratio in philosophy in the U.S. academy is 75% men to 25% women.
Vote for Joe Campbell for Moscow City Council and be part of his campaign for the greater good.
Cynthia P. Barnhart
Moscow
The new house speaker
As an afterthought the House GOP voted in a cultist, Mike Johnson. He’s second term so he’s in the bottom 10% of experienced congressmen. In his younger years he was a respected, successful lawyer. But some time after 2016 he contracted Giulianitis. Mike led Trump’s coup attempt, claiming he had tons of election fraud evidence. At the impeachment trials he lied; none exists. He swears a vast conspiracy involving compromised voting machines, 700,000 people illegally voted but every one of them has kept it secret to this day.
Johnson is pushing his pageant wagon into office. It is filled with guns, a ton of IOUs, a thumped out bible and prayer for your machine-gunned young. Any single accused sex offender, enabler, insurrectionist, fake TV producer or gay exorcist in his 200 member GOP clot can demand another ouster vote. Only four votes needed to oust him. Johnson cannot square filing suit over Biden’s genuine win when a dozen in his Trump cabal got caught with forgery, fake electors, doctoring videos and more of these clowns are admitting guilt weekly. This eloquence of GOP lawyers want to change the rule of law. They want to charge individuals with zero evidence but require that individual to produce exculpatory evidence although none is presented or even exists. That’s our new House. Mike Johnson says he was ordained by God to win. Me too, ordained by God to write a letter.
RM Strongoni
Moscow
More floods coming to Moscow
I walk the Paradise Path past Berman Park almost every day. For the past approximately eight months I’ve seen three downed trees obstructing the flow of water in Paradise Creek. As I pass, I wonder to myself, gee, that looks like a very real problem for the flow of water in the creek. One tree obstructs approximately 50% of the flow of water, while the other two trees would obstruct 25% each. Taken together, these downed trees represent a significant obstruction to the flow of water in the creek which would greatly increase the likelihood of flooding. Eight months have passed and the trees have just been laying there, so three weeks ago I sent an email with several photos of the trees to Tyler Palmer (deputy city supervisor) and Steve Schulte (street and storm manager). Steve replied and said he’ll “investigate it.” I wonder to myself why, after eight months, has no one in the city already observed these downed trees and flagged them as a flood risk. I have not heard more from either Tyler or Steve.
Ironically, last week a friend who has a house near the creek in another location received a letter from the city titled Flood Hazard Information. The letter outlines the risks of flooding and how property owners can deal with it. One sentence caught my eye: “Keep banks clear of brush and debris to help maintain an unobstructed flow of water in stream channels.”
Is it not time for the city of Moscow to heed its own advice and clean up the obstructions in Paradise Creek? Doing so will minimize flooding. Our tax dollars — and the “stormwater” fee added to our monthly water bill — should cover the expense.
Bill Christopher
Moscow
Knowledge makes us no wiser
We used to take it for granted that news reporting was factual and adhered to principled standards. We didn’t need to hear the agency proclaim their reporting is “fair and balanced.” We used to take it for granted that Israel would work out a two-state solution with the Palestinians in their midst, that the two cultures were both committed to coexistence. We used to take it for granted that our fellow Americans had the same values because we share the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
Now we know better. But this knowledge has not meant we are any the wiser. Indeed, I would say quite the opposite. The problems of the media have only grown: we know there are many who are daily taking in only the information their chosen source shares, be it online or in print, that there is zero tolerance for opposing voices.
We know Israel has repeatedly shown, by electing far right leadership, that their fear of Muslims and the loss of their tiny foothold in the Middle East, they have zero tolerance for a solution that provides the 2 million Palestinians a viable future.
We know the founding principle of separation of church and state has been buried under an evangelical fervor that supersedes all rights of the individual. You are gay? Your pregnancy is not viable? Your child is curious? Your skin color is not white? Better watch your back, the culture is coming for you.
No solutions will be forthcoming. However, if each of us does our part to be kind, to listen to others, perhaps we can emerge from these troubled times with some hope for our nation, our world.
Zena Hartung
Moscow
Solidarity with Jewish Americans
In the face of Christian nationalist assaults on our civil rights including by a captured Supreme Court, it is important to express solidarity with Jewish-Americans facing anti-Semitic attacks throughout our nation.
Growing up on the East Coast and living in the upper Midwest as a young adult, I had the privilege to count as friends many hundreds of Jewish-American people, who to a person demonstrated outstanding integrity, moral character, and political and ethical evenhandedness.
That some college students and faculty are asserting the full and equal humanity of thousands of Palestinian children and other civilians now being killed in Gaza following a massive terrorist attack in Israel is being latched onto by domestic propagandists to provoke and further divide our society.
As an alumnus of the University of Virginia, I know with certainty that the Unite the Right rally that took place there in 2017 with chants of “Jews will not replace us” in no way reflected the sentiments of the campus community. Rather, the university and the city of Charlottesville stood as a hub of anti-racism, making them the target of an event that resulted in the death of anti-racist activist Heather Heyer.
Chris Norden
Moscow
