Thank you to Dr. Mark J. Snell (Courier-Herald, letter to the editor, April 1) for staying true to the medical profession’s first principle, “do no harm.”

I fear for the future of this country when some in our society not only use Nazi-style propaganda techniques to persuade us that human life is of no value if one suffers but some in the medical and scientific communities are willing partners in the destruction rather than protection of human life.

Today, the unborn are considered nonhuman by some and the terminally ill are less than human. History is our witness to what happens when particular groups of people are deemed less than human. What group or groups of people will the modern propagandists persuade us are not human or less than human tomorrow?

There is no dignity in asking physicians to lie nor to be complicit in intentionally ending the life of a human being.

There is shame and disbelief that civilized society has not learned the lessons from history.

Elaine Biggerstaff

Bonney Lake

It’s refreshing to see an effort to maintain a program necessary for student development, but as the article is read one wonders about the necessity of this action originally (“District officials bypass pay hike,” Courier-Herald, April 1).

In an effort to ensure everyone received credit the White River School District central administrative team is named in its entirety in paragraph six. By all appearances there are many individuals handling very specialized functions.

But what does the approximately $80,000 saved constitute? If it’s their pay hike, wow, $80,000 at 3.5 percent means those 10 people collectively divvy up $2,285,714 in salary each given year, which is a lot of bread.

If those unproductive days that are given up by principals are included, their dollar amounts should be so noted, so they could be discounted from the $80,000 figure, then the public could see that they are paying for what appears to be a top-heavy administrative team.

As school taxes are greater than 60 percent of our already inflated property tax bills, I would think the public could expect an answer.

Marvin Sundstrom

Buckley