It’s their right
In late April, I watched a local pastor’s announcement about his church’s decision not to take advantage of Gov. Brad Little’s “Idaho Rebounds” process.
Essentially, their board reviewed the rebound guidelines, felt the church could not in good faith meet them and, after prayerful consideration, opted to continue live streaming services for now.
I applaud their decision to be safe and cooperate with government precautions. I’m doing the same.
However, both that decision and such foolhardy choices as Ammon Bundy’s holding a live service with no pandemic precautions in place are equally protected First Amendment “free exercise” choices.
The Founding Fathers’ experiences with a set of government commandments controlling personal and corporate worship led to this wise restraint enshrined in our Bill of Rights.
If you leave it up to Caesar to determine what’s his and what belongs to the Lord, guess which way his decision is going to go?
New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio has threatened police action against Orthodox Jewish funeral-goers in that city. Maine Gov. Janet Mills’ stay-at-home order includes churches. In California and Kentucky, the courts had to enjoin orders banning drive-in church services.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s Jacobson v. Massachusetts decision set standards of reasonableness and appropriateness for government actions that impede our rights in the name of public health. Cornell University’s law school notes Jacobson has never been challenged.
Restrictions on religious services might just bring such a challenge.
“Mother of Mercy,” let the Supreme Court be the end of these “Little Caesars.”
Thomas A. Hennigan
Asotin
Times change
... The New Deal under Franklin Roosevelt recognized the potential of hydroelectric power in the Pacific Northwest. It envisioned opening up new agricultural lands and providing opportunities fueled by this reliable, inexpensive power supply.
The Army Corps of Engineers began a decades-long process of damming rivers, ... and turning their management over to the Bonneville Power Administration. The program worked and our region has thrived. ...
Toward the latter part of the century, however, we realized that we had ignored a major environmental issue. ...
Huge numbers of salmon and steelhead were lost due to their inability to migrate to/from their spawning areas in the Columbia and Snake river systems.
Over time, other energy sources have changed the landscape of power supply across the western U.S. Wind, solar and natural gas have combined to be very competitive and much less expensive than hydropower. Major customers are turning to these alternatives in Washington, Oregon and Idaho. Even California, a longtime recipient of BPA supplemental power, is not renewing BPA contracts. ...
Competitive rates combined with increasing maintenance demands on an aging system and legal obligations for fish and wildlife recovery (which have been unsuccessful) have put the BPA $15 billion in debt. ...
The environmental community makes a very strong case for breaching the four lower Snake River dams:
l None contribute to flood control.
l Suspending maintenance of these dams would lower BPA’s overhead.
Importantly, it would reduce barriers to salmon/steelhead migration into Idaho and aid in regional fish recovery.
Thomas Benson
Worley
Trump’s puppet
Reading Rick Rogers’ purported expose of the negligent media coverage of the coronavirus, aka COVID-19, in the May 3 Lewiston Tribune brought to mind an image of President Donald Trump pulling the strings on another puppet.
As usual, it’s never mind the reality; put the blame elsewhere to distract people of the underlying fact that this is still an active and an ever-increasing pandemic with deadly consequences.
Trying to compare this virus to the annual flu is a weak-minded and shortsighted statement at the very least.
The ratio and numbers of deaths are continuing to grow daily. Sadly, actual numbers may not be known for some time. While the media on both spectrums have some faults, blaming them is not going to change the facts.
So many first responders, nurses, doctors, ambulance, fire, police, hospital and care facilities employees are devoting their efforts to help those in this crisis and at the same time risking their health and lives. This is an unprecedented situation around the world and all of them deserve all the support possible.
The real fact that many forget from the top down to local is that each and every individual that dies from the virus was a human being, someone’s mother, father or sibling. They were cherished by their family and their passing should be treated with respect and not used as a dismissive political stunt.
My hope is that we all learn about the value of their lives and be more humane to each other.
Mike Petrusky
Clarkston
