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Join September event to help prevent suicide

Suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in this country, and, sadly, again has made Montana No. 1 for the number of suicides completed in 2017. It touches millions of lives — people of all ages, ethnicities, and backgrounds — but the research is clear: suicide is preventable, and the more people who stand up for suicide prevention and mental health, the more lives we can save.

If you’ve lost someone to suicide, or you or someone you know suffers from a mental health condition like depression or anxiety, please join us for the Flathead Valley Out of the Darkness Walk to fight suicide on Sept. 16 at 2 p.m., checking in at 1 at the Gateway Community Center in Kalispell. You can register on line at: afsp.org/FlatheadValley. I’m walking for all of those suffering from mental health conditions which put them at risk, as well as the survivors of suicide, their families and friends.

Funds raised support the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and its bold goal to reduce the annual suicide rate in the United States 20 percent by 2025 through research, education, advocacy, and support. These walks are truly uplifting experiences, building community, educating people about mental health issues, and the Walks grow every year. Hope to see you there. —Alison Harr Schmaltz, Kalispell, chairman, Flathead Valley Out of the Darkness Community Walk

Release WSAs to be managed in responsible way

Numerous letters and opinion pieces have been published by the media on Wilderness Study Areas and why they should be retained. Let me, as a past director of the Society for Range Management and longtime natural resource manager, offer a different perspective.

The current wilderness study areas offer a variety of management options based on their individual ecological characteristics. Why not release these areas and let them be managed for public use based on their individual capacity to sustain a healthy ecosystem, while still providing a variety of recreational activities as well as the potential for limited timber harvest?

For instance, an area may not be suitable for summer motorized uses, but could easily sustain winter use by snowmobiles. These wilderness study areas should be subject to management by the agency administering the land, using decisions based on sound science and public input, instead of being locked up as de facto wilderness in perpetuity.

Each WSA is unique in what uses it can support without degrading the area. Most federal land use plans already address how a wilderness study area will be managed should it be released from wilderness consideration. Rather than the “no holds barred” development that many would have you believe will happen should an area be released, management prescriptions have been developed to protect the special values of these areas.

Collaborative discussions involving all stakeholders could be held to refine these prescriptions, where necessary. No stakeholder should take the spoiled-child attitude that if they do not get their way, they would go to court. Let’s move on and begin sound management of our lands to meet a variety of uses and still protect the ecosystem.

Our population is growing and the demand for quality recreation experiences will continue to expand. —Chuck Jarecki, Polson

Story about psychic was too credulous

As a retired journalist, I was dumbfounded by Peregrine Frissell’s consummately credulous story about Columbia Falls psychic Rose Stuart (May 6, Daily Inter Lake), who, Frissell reports, is a soothsayer, homeopathic healer, palm, tarot-card and tea-leaf reader, life counselor, ordained minister, reuniter of lovers (for a $125 fee), modern-day Nostradamus, and purveyor of incense.

In what amounts to nothing more than a front-page, above-the-fold advertisement for Stuart’s services, reporter Frissell completely foregoes the journalistic formality of getting both sides of a story or following up on claims made by his subject. Unfortunately, balanced reporting is particularly important when claims of extraordinary abilities are being made.

Frissell could have provided his readers with information that would help them decide whether to use Stuart’s services. Simple Google searches of terms such as “paranormal” or “psychics” would have taken him to websites both claiming the existence of and the debunking of paranormal phenomena, as well as references to experiments testing psychic abilities.

He would have learned that for decades the James Randi Educational Foundation offered a $1 million prize to anyone who could prove paranormal abilities under mutually agree-upon controlled conditions ? and that no one, psychics included, ever qualified to collect it.

He would have been introduced to organizations that specialize in evaluating claims of the paranormal, including the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and the Skeptics Society. And he would have learned about a technique called “cold reading.”

Googling “homeopathy” eventually would have taken her to the website of Skepdoc Harriet Hall, M.D., who specializes in evaluating claims about “alternative medicine,” including homeopathy.

But perhaps Frissell’s worst oversight of all was not asking for examples or evidence supporting Stuart’s claim of a “98.9 percent accuracy rating when it comes to her predictions.” Here again, a Google search would have taken Frissell to the websites of paranormal investigators (for example, Joe Nickell and Benjamin Radford) who follow up on psychics’ claims regarding their success rates, including those of famed psychic Sylvia Browne, who died unexpectedly in 2013.

It is possible that Stuart possesses the powers she advertised in her Daily Inter Lake story. And it might be that her God-given powers might be revoked if, as Frissell reports, she uses them for personal gain (other than operating a chain of Rose Boutiques, of course).

This also explains, I guess, why we have yet to see the headline “Psychic wins lottery.” But it seems to me that Stuart could avoid losing her amazing powers by donating all her lottery winnings to worthy causes.

So until such time that I learn of this type of philanthropy, I’ll withhold judgment on whether psychics exist, and whether to pay Stuart for her guidance in matters of the heart, the mind, the spirit, and which incense fragrance best expresses my inner being. —Richard E. Wackrow, Whitefish

Trump is guilty; Hillary is not

I find the testimony of the president’s son quite interesting for several reasons others seem to have missed. He confessed to colluding with the Russians very clearly! He was unhappy with the quality of the material but he was delighted to participate in the conspiracy according to his own words.

This brings me to a second item that’s sorta been glossed over: With the resources of the KGB/FSB/Fox/Koch Security at their full disposal the were still unable to find any usable dirt on Hillary. Fifteen years of Congressional GOP investigation after investigation that produced nothing.

SO, these two things are true, the Trump campaign DID collaborate with Russia to influence the presidential race AND Hillary is not guilty of anything but being a corporatist Democrat. Another thing we now know without doubt is that vote totals were changed by Russian hackers. Not in a state that made a difference SO FAR but the facts have been established and the vulnerability of our voting machinery is demonstrated in real life.

There is only one way to ensure election integrity and that is to return to paper ballots. This is not a Republican issue or a Democratic issue; this is an American issue. It’s my personal suggestion that the ballots be printed on hemp paper like the Declaration of Independence. —Bob Petersen, Evergreen