Reader Contributed
Adoption a Good Solution -- I recently read your article on adoption, in The Inlander on Jan. 10, and just thought I could add a little insight on my particular situation.
I'm 36 and am raising two boys, ages six and seven. My husband is incarcerated, and I found myself pregnant. (My husband is not the father, needless to say.) In September, my boys and I were still trying to find our own housing, and we were staying with a friend. I work full-time, so I was not a burden to the State of Washington. And before I knew it, it was too late for termination of my pregnancy. I found myself really scared, and not sure what do to. I really knew that I had no desire to raise another child. And it looked as if adoption was the only way to go.
I started to get info about adoption on the Internet, and within about two weeks I was in contact with an adoption agency, which in turn had referred me to an attorney's office on the other side of the state. And then I had been sent about 10 profiles of potential families looking to adopt.
By October I had already spoken with and chosen the adopting family. And in November we all met (my attorneys, their attorney and the adopting family). I immediately knew that they would be the ones to adopt my child.
Right after we all had met, I had an ultrasound scheduled. I went in, but was not prepared for what was to come next. Well, we were expecting twins -- a boy and a girl. Immediately after the appointment, the adopting mom was waiting for me to call her to let her know how everything went. Well, I called her, and she almost fell on the floor when I told her that there were twins, and a boy and a girl to boot.
The adopting family has helped me and my boys in more ways than I can ever express my gratitude. (Since, by law, the adopting family can provide all my living expenses, lost wages, clothing, medical, and related expenses, up through the birth and my post pregnancy recovery time.) They helped me and my boys get our own house, are paying any wages that I lose due to doctors' appointments etc. and many other things to keep me as comfortable and as unstressed as possible.
My due date is Feb. 28, and things are going very smoothly. Although carrying twins is completely different, my doctor has put me on two-day work weeks, and the rest of the time I'm to be in a laying position. (A little hard with two small boys, who are used to you playing football and so on).
This is just a little insight on my particular adopting situation.
Denise Martinez
Spokane, Wash.
Israel IS the Problem -- Poor Lady Macbeth couldn't wash the blood from her wicked hands. Thanks to recently released documents, persistent research and the Freedom of Information Act, neither can Lady Israel dismiss her guilt. The truth is out.
Yitzhak Shamir, future prime minister of Israel, tried to collaborate with the Nazis.
Zionist founder Theodore Herzl, and the Father of Israel, Ben Gurion, both preached the ethnic cleansing of Israel.
Menahem Begin, Ariel Sharon and Moshe Dayan, all future leaders in Israel, carried out actual massacres of innocent, unarmed Palestinians.
Israel started the infamous Six Day War in 1967 and forced the Syrians to join the fracas.
Without the collaboration of the Turks, British and Americans, the vastly outnumbered Zionists could never have invaded and conquered Palestine.
What is happening in Israel today is what happened to the Indians in America, plain and simple. Meander over to www.cactus48.com/truth.html and see what honest, intelligent Jews have to say about the Middle East conflict.
Then clean your bloody hands with letters, e-mails, calls and faxes to Congress and the White House to stop supporting this continuing crime against humanity at congress.org.
God forgive us. We haven't learned a thing from our own bloody past.
Stravo Lukos
Spokane, Wash.
Death by Taxes -- The column by Robert Herold entitled, "Death By Chocolate," in The Inlander on Jan. 24, should have read "Death by Income Taxes."
It's true that our sales tax is regressive, but the reason that the income tax has been voted down time and time again is because Washington taxpayers know that when the income tax is implemented, the result will not necessarily lower the sales tax or property taxes correspondingly, and we would end up paying more taxes.
This income tax approach just gives the tax-and-spend liberals another way to pick our pockets. Herold showed his true colors when he described Eyman as "greedy." How can it be greedy to want to let the taxpayers keep more of their own hard-earned money? The greedy people are those in government who want to take more and more of our money, and then use it on their special interest groups to buy votes.
Herold's reference to initiatives' "overwhelming deliberative government" is a joke. The state government is more paralyzed than deliberative. Remember the three-strikes-and-you're-out initiative regarding habitual criminals? This initiative was overwhelming passed by Washington citizens. This was in response to the state government's inaction on a bill to enact this legislation. If the state government would do its job right in the first place, we would have less initiatives.
I'm with Herold's enlightened friend and vote for all of Eyman's initiatives!
Wayne Wilkinson
Coeur d'Alene, Idaho