Letters to the editor June 3

Professional and compassionate care

I recently spent eight days in hospital at Logan Health. It breaks my heart to see the battle between union and Logan Health. I would like the community to know what I observed and my experience.

The nursing care was something that I would challenge any hospital to beat. It was absolutely the best you could ask for. I never once saw any “in-fighting” between union and non-union nurses. In fact I could not tell who is union and who was not. What I did observe was nurses working a 12-hour shift and caring for me that full 12 hours with nothing but compassion and professionalism throughout the shift.

It is my opinion that these nurses should be at the very top of the pay scale for Montana and have more nurses on staff to help with the outstanding care they give. Please settle the differences and let these nurses do what they do best, professional and compassionate care.

—Bob Safford, Kalispell

Unconscious bias

With regard to the Elsie Arntzen and Austin Knudsen articles on critical race theory, I would like to share my thoughts.

Recently, as part of my continuing medical education, I was required to watch a video by Cook Ross on unconscious bias. Upon completion of the video, two questions that were asked stayed with me:

Is there more to the truth than what I know?

What role does forgiveness play in restoring relationships damaged by unconscious bias?

I think that asking these two questions of ourselves will help us as Americans. In my opinion, unconscious bias awareness has much value for healing our divisions.

May we pray for guidance in healing our struggles with racism and prejudice.

—John Lavin, Kalispell

Public servants

Talk about arrogance. Denise Juneau’s editorial extolling the benefits of teaching the far-left version of history (critical race theory) takes the cake. This viewpoint, developed somewhere in the deep dark recesses of the liberal think tanks, epitomizes educational curriculum designed to indoctrinate our children into the left’s warped sense of history.

While illuminating the egregious behavior on the part of our government during the hard and tumultuous time of the latter 1800s, she conveniently forgets the atrocities committed by tribes against not only white settlers but also other tribes, including murder, torture, slavery, rape and skinning people alive. She makes no mention that many settlers were just looking for a place to call home. She also ignores that 350,000 young men were killed and millions more injured in our Civil War to do away with racism.

But at least she’s confessed to how long this has been going on mostly without the knowledge of those of us who pay her salary. More than 30 years and hundreds of millions of dollars? To teach an opinion that the vast majority of those of us in the state disagree with? A theory that continues to support racism and division in our state and country as well?

At the same time, she embraces the reservation system, which I believe is racist by definition, and solidifies the notion we can have sovereign nations based on race inside our nation. She also does not mention the hundreds of billions of dollars sent to tribes. This is all about votes and political power, nothing more.

Juneau lives in the distant past, 170 years ago to be precise. It’s time for her to wake up. She must realize that our schools have no place for the indoctrination of our children into the left’s extreme view of our history. These actions clearly show she is no longer a public servant. Rather, she arrogantly views herself as a public master who has a duty to impose her extremist views on our defenseless children while hiding that agenda from us.

Give me a true public servant like Elsie Arntzen anytime.

—Mark Agather, Kalispell