Feeling good with Edgar
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Thank you so much for your EDGAR THE HERO piece ["Batman," 7/6]. Leave it to the new WEEKLY to put things in perspective. Truly, this man's astounding ability to hit a baseball with a bat is all we Seattleites need to feel good about ourselves. I think a statue is a great idea. Let's put it right in front of Niketown, kitty-corner from the giant bronze teddy bear at F.A.O. Schwarz, and just down the street from the bronze Warner Bros. cartoon character idols. Then our beautiful downtown will be complete. Baseball, toys, and cartoons: Everything we need to be happy. Maybe later we could even add a golden SUV. One thing though. Let's make sure it's no more than 10 or 12 feet tall. That way the lips of passing shoe-worshiping consumers will be able to reach his ass. It will be Seattle's Blarney Stone!
MARK HOLLAND
SEATTLE
Edgar: Developerman?
Interesting story on Edgar ["Batman," 7/6], who does seem nice, but you got one thing very wrong: He does NOT live in Sammamish (the Pine Lake Plateau), but many of us do. He has a mansion in Kittitas County (see The Seattle Times, 7/10, page A10) and another in Kirkland. He bought land in Sammamish, which he is developing into yet another overpriced, high- density project that will cause yet more crowding in our (not his) schools and on our (not his) roads. In the process, Edgar is literally destroying one of the last Kokanee salmon runs in our (not his) area. That is the story you really should be working on, as it has all of the drama that a baseball game lacks.
JAMES JORDAN
SAMMAMISH
Slade's principles
Is Slade Gorton feinting to the left [see "Softening Slade," 7/6]? Not when it comes to equipping the Colombian military, the biggest human rights violator in the Americas, with modern helicopters and other counterinsurgency (read: counterdemocracy) weapons. There, he's taking a lead role as a principled conservative, recently offering an amendment to cut the aid package by 90 percent. "At this time," he says, " I am not convinced that military assistance will do much beyond involving us in internal Colombian affairs."
I would have said more, pointing out that Colombia's military still operates hand in glove with paramilitary death squads and is itself heavily involved in the drug trade. Gorton's silence in these matters should not be held against him, though; he did the right thing on an issue that matters to only a handful of voters in Washington state and to a handful of warmongers capable of being very generous at election time.
Voters who appreciate a senator's standing up to the arms builders can also do the right thing. Let Slade Gorton and Patty Murray (who also voted against the aid package, though she authored no amendments) know that you appreciate their stand. They're going to need some encouragement: The aid bill passed, and Colombia is well on its way to becoming our next Vietnam.
FRED MILLER
SEATTLE
Stomach-turning Slade
This issue of the Weekly was the first that I didn't read from front to back. Ms. Shapiro's apology for Slade Gorton turned my stomach [see "Softening Slade," 7/6]. "Is Senator Slade Gorton's interest in education and the environment more than election-year politics?" Ms. Shapiro, if you would do a little research you could answer this question yourself. Senator Gorton has endorsed policies that destroyed the environment from Reagan to the present. The deforestation in the Pacific Northwest in the '80s made Brazil look like the Sierra Club. If you need to propagandize for Gorton, please put some facts in the article. And just say Slade is sorry for all the destruction he has done.
MICHAEL SHERIDAN
VIA E-MAIL
Slade and salmon
Senator Gorton's reprehensible stand on dam removal does not stand up to scrutiny [see "Softening Slade," 7/6]. Look at the Elwha and Glines Canyon Dams on the Elwha River. The power generated by these dams is currently used is by just one customer, the Daishowa American Paper Mill in Port Angeles. Removing the dams will provide economic benefit through increased recreation and tourism, which will exceed the cost of removing the dams. The National Park Service estimated that with the dams gone, the number of visitor nights in Clallam County would increase by more than 734,000, generating business expenditures of $28.5 million annually.
Slade Gorton has blocked funding for the removal of these dams, and in doing so hinders the economic development of Clallam County and prevents the restoration of a magnificent river. Before the dams were constructed, all seven species of salmonids were found in the Elwha. Now all are gone or in serious decline. Before the dams, the Elwha supported 380,000 salmon; today about 3,000 fish return to spawn. While Slade plays politics, the salmon runs on the Elwha are going extinct.
When the history of the decline of salmon in the Northwest is written, Senator Gorton will be known as the one person who could have prevented the extinction of salmon on the Elwha and decided to let them go. It'll be the crowning achievement of a career devoted to the environmental impoverishment of the Northwest. Slade has decided for all of us that we cannot live with salmon on the Elwha. We are all poorer for it.
