Banning lighters is a start

To the editor -- May 4-10 is National Arson Awareness Week. This year's theme is "Toy-like Lighters -- Playing with Fire."

Novelty lighters have features that make them attractive to children under age 5, including "lighters with a toy-like/cartoon design, visual or sound effects."

Yakima was one of the nation's first cities to pass an ordinance prohibiting the sale of these lighters. Yakima County, Selah and Moxee either have since passed or may soon pass similar ordinances.

With more than 30 years of fire service experience, I have seen enough injuries and death from fires in this community. There is no need to see more caused by a child with an airplane or race-car lighter. Therefore, I applaud the actions of our City Council and those of neighboring jurisdictions who have joined this worthy cause.

Removing novelty lighters from the sales counter is not the complete answer. Parents must be aware of the lighters and matches in their home.

There have been many incidents of children playing with fire this year in Yakima. If you know a child who has demonstrated an interest in using fire, please call us at 575-6060 for Juvenile Fire Stoppers education.

Fire safety information is also available at yakimafire.com.

RON MELCHER

Deputy Fire Marshal

Yakima Fire Department

Demand to know more

To the editor -- Now, at last, the general public in East Valley knows some of what has been going on behind closed doors at the fire district office: Chief Warren Gay, the fifth man in that position in a little over 10 years, is out of office -- and that's not counting two terms of a temporary chief brought in from the Seattle area.

The executive sessions, from which we were excluded, we are told, was to protect "privacy." I have to wonder whose privacy was protected? Was it the identity of those who were complaining and the substance of those complaints? Who or what is next?

Just reading the report of the Dispute Resolution Center, which residents paid for, will show that the problems in East Valley fire district come from much more than one man. I know that we financed upward of $20,000 for another investigation last year, another $12,000 for a management skills class this year, and untold amounts in attorney fees. We built a new fire station, have fine equipment and some good personnel. The problems have been and are still there. I just hope the public will demand to know more as time goes on.

JACQUI WALKER

Yakima

Show how evidence fits

To the editor -- Re: "Keep Seeking The Truth" (Letters, May 3).

The statement "scientific bigotry will continue its arrangement of facts according to 'acceptable' presuppositions, dissenting voices will be discounted or silenced" seems to imply that evolution is an untried theory without scientific support. Quite the opposite is true. Evolution is a theory that is based on established facts, including the discovery of "missing links." (www.world-science.net/othernews/060405_tiktaalikfrm.htm)

In science, a dissenting voice is only silenced if the theory that is presented is inconsistent with the factual information in the world around us and in the rigorous application of scientific tests. In fact, any theory can be accepted until it is proven inconsistent with fact.

Those who support a divine beginning to the universe have not, to this point, postulated any theories that are consistent with the factual information in the fossil or geological record all around us. I would be pleased to support a divine postulate for the universe's start if the idea took into account the evidence presented in the natural world. After all, if God created this world, then the fact that it is billions of years old must be a part of that creation as well, and a proper proposal for a divine beginning must take that into account.

JOE LANG

Yakima

A few misfires

To the editor -- History teacher George Pickard (Letters, April 22) aimed to drill me over the individual rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment. With all due respect, I believe that he fired some blanks.

Mr. Pickard apparently supports the NRA's extreme position -- that individuals have a "sovereign" constitutional right to bear and even to shoot those weapons that tickle their fancy. He made these points:

1. The First Amendment, like the Second, establishes individual rights.

Not sovereign! We have the right to say, to publish and to worship as we wish -- within the guidelines set by "the people." Slander and libel and dangerous speech are taboo. Praising the Lord by smoking weed or snorting coke or burning crosses on black folks' lawns or committing statutory rape is likewise legally frowned upon.

2. Our forefathers spoke and wrote differently.

NRA types, on the other hand, may read differently.

3. Criminals don't obey other laws, so they will ignore gun laws.

One more reason to toss them into the pokey!

I agree with Mr. Pickard that individuals do have a right to bear firearms -- a common law right subject to reasonable regulation by "the people."

DOUG PATTERSON

Yakima

Pleasure and pain

To the editor -- Wine-making in college was given a large front-page promotion on April 29. In the 1930s, we children lived next to a little stream separating our house from a dirt road to town in Canon City, Colo. Often on weekends, cars would crash on on a small curve when coming home. Startled, Mother would say: "Drunken fools."

Now I live near noisy South 16th Avenue and Nob Hill Boulevard and Yakima Valley Community College, which now teaches wine-making at its Grandview campus. It will make more "drunken fools," is my thought. Some will have pleasure from wine and others will have heartache. Lasting heartache to weight against the "happy" others experience.

MARY COOPER SCOTT

Yakima