Letters to the editor Dec. 9
Marching band hand-me-downs
I’m just checking to make sure I got the story right because, to be honest, I sometimes misunderstand and I certainly don’t want to be unfair to anybody. According to the front page of Daily Inter Lake (Nov. 24), the Glacier High School marching band will have the opportunity to march and play in Washington, D.C., for the National Memorial Day Parade? And Glacier High School has dug down into the bottom of the poke and come up with enough money to buy the band some used hand-me-downs so they won’t be embarrassed by marching in their running drawers? Like they have for the past 11 years?
Is that it? OK, just checking.
—William Ball, Whitefish
Attention dog owners
I have a few basic requests to help make dog-walking in the Flathead a bit safer and more enjoyable for all of us.
If you are walking your dog in a city owned space (parks, sidewalks, neighborhoods etc.) keep your dog ON A LEASH. It’s the law (everywhere) in city limits!
Pick up your dog’s waste, should they decide to defecate ANYWHERE and EVERY TIME.
Don’t allow your unleashed dogs to run amok and approach other dogs or people without their permission.
If you cannot recall your off-leash dog with 100 percent confidence in the surroundings you’re in...DO NOT ALLOW YOUR DOG TO BE OFF LEASH. It is a safety issue for both dogs and people.
These are four basic, responsible, behaviors of dog owners, yet SO many people do not think these apply to them, or their dog. Many public places are going to start closing the opportunity for dogs to walk in certain areas because of poop not being cleaned up, dogs running at large, etc. I don’t want my privilege to walk my dog taken away simply because of others’ irresponsible and reckless behavior.
Please be responsible for your dog, and their behavior, when out and about in the city. Please be respectful to other dogs and their owners.
—Angie McCrorie, Kalispell
Case against crossbows
Why we should be against the crossbow during archery seasons:
Most of the people I talk to about this idea are against it for several different reasons, but I think most miss the point. Some of the comments I hear is that the modern compound bow is as accurate as the modern crossbow, so what’s the difference. I believe this to be true in some cases, but the problem as I see it, we are comparing a bow shooter who has a lot of experience and his accuracy has come at the expense of hours and hours and months of shooting a bow to a person who picks up a crossbow for the first time and in a few days can hold his own against a good compound shooter. Now take a guy who has never shot a hand held bow and it will take him months and maybe a year or of good coaching to reach the same level of accuracy as a week old crossbow shooter.
If crossbows were to become legal archery equipment, a few things will happen, none of them good. There will of course be several bowhunters who will switch over to the crossbow; these guys will contribute to the problem but not near as much as the other convert, This is the rifle hunter who didn’t want to or didn’t have the time to dedicate practicing with a hand-held bow and wasn’t a participant in the archery season. Now we have a whole new pool of hunters who will be entering the bow seasons and competing with the previous bowhunter for special archery limited draw elk tags. More competition for the limited tags is not good but is not the crux of the problem. The crossbow will increase the harvest success rates to a point something will have to be done; remember for every action there is a reaction. We will have to reduce the number of hunters to compensate for the extra elk being harvested. Both archery hunters and rifle hunters will lose. Not only will the archers lose archery permits but with reduced game populations the coveted rifle tags will be reduced to. The problem just cascades. We hear rumblings now of Montana expanding archery permits to areas that are now over the counter. Add the crossbow into that mix and now were are reducing hunter opportunity even more.
— Steve Schindler, Glasgow
Bypass safety
A recent edition of the Daily Inter Lake included a report about a crash on the bypass. Fortunately, no one in the accident was killed. But I can’t help recall that just in the last couple of weeks, I read that the speed limit had been increased to 60 mph on that stretch of road. At the time, I remember wishing that I was reading, instead, of plans to install a center guard rail between 93-A’s north- and south-bound lanes. Going 5 mph faster will get you to your destinations only seconds earlier. A guard rail might help you get there altogether! We take preventive measures, or wait until a report of someone who is NOT “expected to survive their injuries”?
—Scott Thompson, Kalispell