Letters to the editor (11/20/09)

I'm currently in jail for walking away from a halfway house here in Anchorage. Last year they made it a law that if you walk away from a halfway house you get charged with escape.

They charged me with escape in the third degree, which is crazy because a halfway house is not a lockdown facility and there are no guards to try and stop you from leaving. Because of that law, they gave me three years, and there is no way to beat it in trial. You should only be able to get charged with a walkaway, because that's what it really is.

Alaska has some of the most corrupt laws in the nation.

-- Dane Hodgdon

Anchorage Correctional Complex

Anchorage

Avoid buying Palin's book

I keep hearing about when Palin is going to be signing her book and where everyone can get a copy. Maybe I am a spoilsport, but why?

She ran for office, got into the governor's seat, and from then on it was just a slide for her into better and more money. She sold Alaska out after vowing to do a better job than her predecessor. She paraded her pregnant daughter and boyfriend around, not thinking how that could impact them. Now that Levi is out doing what he wants, she criticizes him.

I can't see rewarding bad behavior with making her more money by buying her book. We Alaskans spent our money to hire her to do a job, and she let us all down by quitting when the going got rough. She condemns Levi, and he has the excuse of being a young kid, but she has no excuse for using people to further her ego or lust for a glamour life.

-- Ann Whipple

Nome

Mammogram issue hits home

While the debate over government health insurance continues, I believe that if the government controls the insurance price and practices, we can expect to see more issues like the recent statement from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a government panel of doctors and scientists. They concluded that mammograms starting at age 40 "... often lead to false alarms and unneeded biopsies, without substantially improving women's odds of survival" and mammograms should not be performed until age 50.

I believe this approach would have cost my wife her life! She was 44 when a mammogram allowed for the detection of breast cancer. Of course this statement cannot really be proved because at the age of 54, she has now been free of breast cancer for 10 years. I firmly believe this is the type of health care we can expect if the government steps into the heath care business any more. I, for one am not interested in this form of health care.

-- Shawn Sommers

Eagle River

Let's all help save salmon

As many commercial fishermen do, I live in Washington and fish in Alaska. I was in disbelief at former Alaska House Speaker Gail Phillips' call for a boycott of the Seattle restaurants participating in Trout Unlimited's Savor Bristol Bay Salmon Week. Why would Ms. Phillips possibly think that boycotting restaurants promoting Bristol Bay sockeye salmon is good for Alaska's economy? Did she mean to pit Alaska's fishing industry against its mining industry? Rather than boycotting these Seattle restaurants, we should be applauding their efforts and becoming repeat customers.

Here in the Lower 48 we are struggling to keep wild salmon returning to the waters of Washington, Oregon and California. Alaska's salmon runs are strong and every effort should be made to make sure they stay that way. Just because there is a mineral deposit at the headwaters of Bristol Bay doesn't mean that mining it is the right thing to do.

You don't need to live in Alaska to want protection for the future of Bristol Bay's wild salmon.

-- Amy Grondin

Port Townsend, Wash.

Breaking labor laws a bad idea

I was very disappointed by Lynne Curry's article "In demanding times, employees must give more," (Nov. 15).

Ms. Curry equates being a "hero" in the workplace to responding to JFK's call for selfless patriotism. Wrong.In tough economic times, employees naturally do give more. Employers often trim the workforce, making those employees who are retained do the work of several. Wages tend to stay stagnant, rather than keep up with the escalating costs of goods and health care. When economic times improve, however, rarely do employers willingly translate that growth into commensurate wage increases.

The problem arises when an employer, as Ms. Curry suggests, asks an employee to step outside of a job description. This is called a violation of contract. If an employer wants an employee to be a "hero," the employer needs to negotiate those conditions into a legally binding agreement with labor. When JFK called for people to do for their country, he understood that was within the boundaries of national laws and the Constitution.

-- Craig Tuten

Anchorage