Letters to the editor — May 22

• Published May 22, 2008

I like Arts Walk, hometown sports, picnics in the park, walks around Capitol Lake, music in the parks, poetry readings, events at The Washington Center for the Performing Arts. We live here because we DON’T enjoy life in a big city. High-rise condos will block our connection to sea and water and destroy our sense of being part of this lovely part of the world. That DOES NOT appeal to us.

If there is a need for more housing downtown, developments should be for the people living here and not to transform Olympia into a bedroom community for people with commitments to enterprises in other places.

Permitting one high-rise building was a terrible mistake (and a commercial failure). Let’s not add mistakes to that one.

The entire area, and the view of water and mountains that epitomizes the Northwest, lifts my spirits every time I see it, rain or shine, and I want it every day, for everyone who lives or visits here.

NO, NO, NO to the developer’s greedy dream of transforming our lovely waterfront and Capitol Lake into a high-rise horror like that in Seattle’s central district.

Jeanne Gordner, Olympia

Dalai Lama focused on compassion

Ever since the “Seeds of Compassion” conference last month, I keep reading letters to the editor that show some kind of fear toward the Dalai Lama.

First, it was “They’re sending our kids to a religious event.” Then it was comparing the message of compassion given by Jesus versus the Dalai Lama message. Then there’s the one written by Roy Standifer, which cracked me up the most. He thinks his holiness is some kind of character made popular by Hollywood.

Did any one of these letter writers go or listen to the conference? It was put on by organizations that spend their time teaching parents, teachers and child care workers how to teach compassion to our children by incorporating it into their own lives. Children learn by example from the adults in their lives. If we show compassion to others and our children see this, then they will be more compassionate.