Herald readers weigh in on Tri-Cities leadership, the meaning of ‘WOKE’ and homelessness

Tri-Cities needs ‘bottom-up’ leaders

I can’t help but agree with Cecilia Rexus’ recent op-ed on community leadership. Back in the days when the men who created TCNIC, and then TRIDEC, were working on our (and their) behalf, the whole Tri-Cities was smaller than Kennewick is today. They were fighting to protect their personal livelihoods. Hanford was the only show in town. By the 1980s, the Tri-Cities was more diverse, but still heavily dependent on Hanford.

Times change. Now we are a metro area of more than 300,000. While Hanford is still important, we are much more diverse, and the issues and causes that demand leadership also much more diverse. Unlike Sam Volpentest’s day, when a small set of issues could be addressed “top-down,” we now have a rich diversity of issues which demand “bottom-up” leadership.

Allowing ourselves to become politically polarized hurts our ability to work together to address those local issues and causes that help our community. Working against each other tears our community down.

While, in one way, there are today fewer “top-down” leaders, there are many, many more “bottom up” leaders who can, and do, make a great difference in our community. Pick a cause. Find an issue that you care about and spend some of your time working to improve the situation. Your effort will help you and your community!

C. Mark Smith, Richland

WOKE: synonym for ‘Eureka!’

Mr. Micah Valentine, shown schmoozing with alleged pro-sex trafficker Matt Gaetz, “School official under fire ... embattled congressman,” (7/31, 6A) is shown in your photograph wearing a “Stop WOKE” label. A tad bit unclear about the meaning of “WOKE,” I checked in with my neighbor, a retired teacher and asked him what’s the meaning of this word.

Barney (a pseudonym) scratched his chin and laughed before he plied me with a couple examples of “WOKE.” He said the first instance of its use might be “Eureka!” by Archimedes when he discovered how to find out how much gold is in an object. Barney continued with other examples: Our Founding Fathers having an epiphany to create a new nation; Sir Isaac Newton must have jumped for joy to discover gravity; same with Einstein and relativity; then you can’t neglect Lincoln who realized how wrong slavery is; inventors have had “WOKE” moments, like those who came up with the zipper or Velcro; somebody discovered iambic pentameter found in verse.

So I asked him why are certain people opposed to the “Aha!” moment?

Barney replied, “They’re a group of people who’d rather you be wearing a ‘SLEEP’ button. Lots of citizens fear ideas, old or new. Skepticism and open-mindedness can be a bad thing for controllers, like some religious zealots and politicians ... as Orwell wrote about in his novel 1984. Receptivity to new ideas is a Pandora’s Box for many.”

Thanking him, I walked home just when the mailwoman delivered my mail: the new issue of Discover among useless ads.

Bink Owen, Walla Walla

Why no action to handle homeless?

I want to know why the mayor of Kennewick and the City of Kennewick refuse to do something about the extra homeless people. The ones I see begging for money with a cardboard sign. There’s some hanging around Winco and other businesses and a lot of them are scary by the way they act. Then you have the homeless people who walk in front of your car and even threaten people. If the mayor won’t do his job to clean up Kennewick and keep Kennewick safe, we need to replace the mayor with someone who will clean up Kennewick.

Chris Quesinberry, Kennewick