Letters to the Editor

How many more need to die on 101?

Editor, the Journal,

How many more of our citizens are going to die in head-on crashes on the U.S. Highway 101 bypass around Shelton? For years and years, I begged the Washington State Department of Transportation and the Legislature to simply install jersey barriers on the centerline. Impaired drivers easily cross the centerline with tragic results. The bypass has adequate width for centerline barriers, even crossing Goldsborough Creek. I have lost track of how many of our community have died because of inaction from state government. The cost of installing these jersey barriers would not equal 10 minutes work on a large Seattle project. Why do the rural areas have to suffer such an outrageous price in lives lost?

Tim Sheldon, Potlatch

I remember

Editor, the Journal,

Remember when letters to the editor were interesting and thought provoking, not filled with hateful rhetoric, week after week?

John Ervin, Shelton

The Salish Fjord

Editor, the Journal,

Captain George Vancouver named many of Washington’s landmarks. Some are Vancouver, Mount Baker, Mount St. Helens, Puget Sound, Mount Rainier, Port Gardner, Port Susan, Whidbey Island, Discovery Bay and Hood’s Channel, which was miswritten as Hood Canal. Hood Canal was once called an inlet however, because of the topography; this body of water is a fjord.

Captain Hood was instrumental in the Revolutionary War as well as many other accomplishments, including mapping out Vancouver’s expedition. I call this area the Salish Fjord, in keeping with the Salish Sea, rather than referring to the body of water as “canal,” which is no way manmade and is a fjord.

The misnomer of calling it and hearing it called a “canal” gives me pause to make myself refrain from correcting anyone because it has been used for so many years and is on so many things. Lately, I have been seeing “fjord” used in referring to, well, the fjord.

CharEll Johnston, Shelton

Fire coverage

Editor, the Journal,

I request that the Journal put Matt Baide back on the coverage of the fraud at Mason County Fire District 12 in Matlock. Since Matt left, we have had zero coverage by the Journal.

Karen Kenyon, Matlock

Editor’s note: Matt Baide left the Journal in August for a different employment opportunity.

Sources have value

Editor, the Journal,

In my letters to the editor, I try to include book titles and/or internet sources I read which form my opinion(s) on any subject. I do so in an attempt to provide those who might disagree with my stance(s) a basis on which to better inform my facts in a constructive way.

Sadly, most of the time, I have hoped in vain for response(s) in like kind. Why should I or anyone else even consider an opinion which lacks not only fact-based resources for that opinion nor a logical presentation?

To dismiss an opinion based on intentional ignorance (“Life is too short … to wade through all the events and curious websites you list” or “I quit reading … [her] braying”) is an affront to the spirit of informed discussion and an obvious admission of a closed mind. So are deliberate distortion of facts: “He was put on trial twice for impeachment and found innocent twice. The truth works, if you use it.”

Truth, guilt and innocence in charges of impeachment do not necessarily require a foundation in reality. Impeachment is a political process, not a judicial one. Innocence or guilt is not the goal of impeachment, just removal from office. Frequently I truly believe in the saying, “You might have gone through college [or graduate or law school], but it didn’t go through you.”

Bill Pfender, Shelton

My humanity

Editor, the Journal,

Letters to the editor often discuss politics. My recent letter discussed President Joe Biden’s cowardly retreat from Afghanistan and his open borders allowing in deadly fentanyl, killing thousands of Americans.

Katherine Price wrote a response but instead of a rebuttal, she engaged in hate. I criticize Biden’s politics; Price criticizes my humanity.

Hate is an ugly word and an uglier emotion, yet she called Bob Graham and me “boys” and later “scared old white men.” She didn’t discuss my political complaint; she made personal comments on my complexion and gender. It was hateful name-calling against elderly, Caucasian males. She evidently thinks old, white men should be ignored or euthanized; she even said there’s “no place for you in the present.” She concluded her diatribe saying, “You need therapy or church or therapy and church.” She throws accusations without proof. I’ll not justify my existence to her.

Price thinks she has all the answers but doesn’t even understand the questions. She claims she believes in DEI yet the I is “inclusion,” which includes “old, white men.” Readers, please re-read her letter; experience her hate personally. Lord Byron said, “Hate is a madness of the heart.” Booker T. Washington said, “I shall never permit myself to stoop so low as to hate any man.”

Price should apologize to us in the Journal. The apology must stand on its own without conditions; otherwise, it ain’t worth spit. Does Price have the guts or class to publicly apologize or will she ignore my letter?

The letters page should contain dreams, ideas, plans, suggested policy changes and political opinions, but political letters should be about policy and candidate positions, not personality and most definitely no poison-pen letters.

Ardean Anvik, Shelton

Nasty letters

Editor, the Journal,

Katherine Price. I remember you not just from your recent nasty and flawed letters, but from several months back when you memorably claimed to have spit up your “hemp milk.” Did you wipe off your highchair like I suggested?

I think you should meet Donna Holliday and one day go tag team shopping. First you could go to a Whole Foods Market and stock up on your hemp milk, then visit a nearby bistro where Donna could treat you to a nice bottle of Bud Light, assuming that place even sells the stuff.

R.E. Graham, Union

Speak to the issues

Editor, the Journal,

Have you ever had someone so obsessed with another writer that he is still, after four months, complaining about how a letter was written? This person doesn’t give an opinion on the actual issue, just how it was written.

Then there was this, “I have no animus towards Ms. Holliday. Heck, I don’t even know what she looks like. Those who do may have matched face with photo on her driver’s license, like bank tellers or an occasional retail clerk.”

My first read reaction was, what the hell does what I look like have to do with anything? Would he have more animus depending on my skin color, something I wear, or maybe if I have a foreign accent?

My second read reaction, well to suggest someone in town could identify me by my driver’s license sounds like TrumPutin calling their goon squads.

Perhaps he couldn’t speak to the issue, which was about how the radical right Christian nationalists want to take over this country, because he actually knows what I said is true. So he plays politician and diverts the conversation away from the real issue.

In case anyone missed it, this week at CPAC, Jack Posobiec said, “Welcome to the end of democracy, we are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on Jan. 6. But we will endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this right here.” As he held up a cross.

We know what this country would look like under Trump, Christian nationalists and the Heritage Foundation. They tell us every day. If you don’t care because you believe women should not make family decisions (even IVF), you don’t care about LGBTQ rights, or the freedom to read books, or learn the true history of this country and all who built it. But what are you going to do when it’s something that very directly affects you? What are you going to do when this country looks like Putin is in the White House? That is where Trump and his coward Republicans will take us.

Democracy has a fan club. Truth, human rights, freedom have fan clubs.

I don’t, but thanks Mr. Graham for giving me that power.

Mr. Graham, give your “kerfuffle” a rest by sticking to the issues.

Donna Holliday, Shelton