People were hungry and cold, and this group fed and sheltered them. We owe thanks | Opinion

Thanks for providing food and shelter

We commend the Richland All Saints’ Episcopal Church for providing its facilities and volunteers to house people in need of shelter during the bitter cold weather this January. Church Senior Warden Julie Wiley, parishioner Diane Goheen and Rev. Jane Schmoetzer and supporters arranged safe, secure sleeping accommodations along with clean, well-maintained bathrooms and generous dinners and breakfasts.

Snacks and beverages were continuously available. Donated clothing suitable for cold weather was provided free to guests. All guests were accepted and treated respectfully while maintaining their privacy and dignity. Space was allowed for guests to store personal items.

A game room afforded card playing and puzzle working. Church members recognized the need for these services during the winter of 2022-23 and hastily organized a warming shelter. With that experience and having a year to plan, All Saints’ successfully applied for a grant to help fund their operation this winter which is well-managed with assistance of volunteers to serve up to 20 persons in need.

This essential public service relies on the humanitarian goodwill of community organizations and individuals. All Saints’ Episcopal Church is leading by example and we thank them for that.

Tom and Kathy Staly, Kennewick

Is Trump really your messiah?

Reid Kapple, pastor of Trinity Fellowship Church in Olathe and a volunteer regional immigration advocate for the National Association of Evangelicals said in an editorial published in today’s Herald “ that 77% of evangelical Christians — and 82% of evangelicals who attend worship services weekly — want Congress to work on bipartisan solutions that would provide undocumented immigrants an earned pathway to legal status or citizenship.”

This is a far cry from positions trumpeted by the self-appointed and apparently widely annointed new leader of the evangelicals.

I’d suggest the true evangelicals should decide en masse whether they intend to line up behind what looks like the glitzy Antichrist for the 21st Century or whether they’d be better off not following him into what might prove to be a very disappointing hereafter.

O. Dennis Mullen, West Richland

Newhouse owes constituents a Biden impeachment

Will Rep. Newhouse redeem himself with his voters who support Trump if he impeaches President Biden? After Congress certified the 2021 presidential election on Jan 6., Newhouse betrayed his supporters a week later and ignominiously voted to impeach Trump. Consequently, the chairmen of the Benton and Franklin Republican parties demanded his resignation.

This rebuke, lest we forget, was because Newhouse in his deceitful impeachment speech parroted the Democrat-RINO-fake news propaganda narrative: Trump summoned MAGA (“the president misinformed and inflamed a violent mob”), commanded them to attack the Capitol (“who tore down the American flag and brutally beat Capitol police officers”), then did nothing (“there was a domestic threat at the door of the Capitol and he did nothing to stop it.”)

Newhouse knew that his politically craven and obsequious snap impeachment was wrong: “these articles of impeachment are flawed but I will not use process as an excuse.” Newhouse took an oath to uphold the Constitution and its impeachment process yet he set the precedent for its political weaponization.

Newhouse owes his Trump-supporting voters who want him to impeach Biden. Then he will be redeemed and have the distinction of having impeached a president from each party.

Joe Mercer, Kennewick

Resolutions to help the climate

It’s not too late to set New Year’s resolutions, and here are some ideas for protecting our climate:

First, make a resolution to discuss your support for climate solutions, like clean energy and clean transportation, more frequently with your family, friends, neighbors and co-workers. These discussions will be good for you, them, and the climate.

Second, look at where you bank. If your bank lends to carbon-intensive industries, just $1,000 in your account could produce as much carbon as a flight from NYC to Seattle. The website for “Green Bank” will tell you how your bank is doing, and suggest greener banks to consider.

Third, try out some new plant-based recipes to add to your regular meals. At the “Veganuary” website, you’ll find cooking guides, recipes, and they’ll even send you a free e-cookbook. So, if you haven’t made any resolutions, consider these; and if you’ve already made resolutions, consider adding these three for the climates’ sake.

Roger Ovink, Richland

There is never a justification for killing civilians

The mass killings of innocent civilians are the greatest atrocities of human existence. It continues: one retaliation after another, numbing all of us to the unimaginable pain and loss being experienced on both sides by mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters.

What does it matter if someone’s young child is murdered at point blank range, or by a missile fired from a computer screen many miles away? A “moral code” that is said to form the foundation for the “rules of war” is a contradiction, and does not exist.

The agony and suffering of innocent individual people is the same, whether you call it a surprise attack, or a defensive retaliation: both sides are experiencing a melting pot of unimaginable human suffering. As Mahatma Gandhi so eloquently warned us: “an eye for an eye just ends up making the whole world blind.”

Convincing yourself that the tearing apart of people’s lives and bodies is justified because “God is on my side” or that it’s just “unintended collateral damage associated with a justified defensive strategy” is insane. The atrocities being leveled against human beings on all sides need to stop.

Jim Carlton, Othello

Hand washing can fight disease outbreaks

I wish to draw the attention of the concerned of health promotion, specifically hand hygiene. We live in a time where primary health care is sorely underrepresented. Primary healthcare is care that helps keep individual well and prevents illness.

Especially right now, when respiratory & other illnesses are on the rise, this is important. Literature shows there is a significant reduction of illness with proper hand washing with soap. One 2023 study suggests that hand washing can help the risk of diarrhea by up to 48% and reduce acute respiratory infections by more than 20%.

This is also extremely cost-effective. My suggestion is to get in the habit of hand washing with soap every time you use the bathroom, when you come home and any time you’ve touched objects in public places. If you have kiddos help them to form these same habits and hopefully you will maintain a healthy and happy home.

Krystal Lancaster, West Richland

Stopping Trump is the top priority

A fantasy game baby-boomer kids used to play went like this, “If you could go back in time just once, what would you do?” The answer that usually quenched the game was to respond, “Stop Hitler.” That just couldn’t be topped in my circles.

Hitler was a populist elected under the banner of halting the poisoning of the nation’s blood — sound familiar?

Trump is like Hitler in beliefs, in his malignant narcissism, and need to hold unchallenged power. He openly seeks the strong-man leadership of our enemies.

Joe Biden has a long history of public service, honor and has been fully accountable for his actions.

Grand juries in two states (peers not appointees) have found probable cause for charging Trump with felonies of the highest order.

Republican leaders have taken the position that Trump is above the law. It disparages our Constitutional separation of powers to delay Trump from having his day in court and is fundamentally unpatriotic.

Will our children one day wish they could go back in time and prevent the tragedies that foreseeably befell us when Trump wielded our nation’s enormous power?

It is not hyperbole to say voting for Joe Biden is voting to save democracy. Never forget.

Ivar Husa, Richland