Dori Monson’s Feedback Friday: Viadoom, masculinity, and homelessness

Welcome to our new Feedback Friday feature, where we collect a sampling of comments we receive over email and Facebook on various topics throughout the week. Want the chance to have your comments included in Feedback Friday? Send your thoughts about any show topics via email or the Dori Monson Facebook page.

ViaDoom shakes up transportation

Is Mayor Durkan following her own advice? 

As much as we disagree, Dori, I do share (some) of your consternation with city government. I would like someone to ask Mayor Durkan about which public transportation option she chose to help alleviate congestion during “Viadoom.” She says that we are all in this together, but I really think she meant that YOU (meaning we) are all in this together. While I am certain she views her own job as much too important to rely on public transportation, that is a thought we all share. Just my humble opinion.

– Kevin in Seattle

How to save WSDOT a few bucks

I am a daily ferry commuter for work; mostly, I walk on. I signed up for the ferry surveys that they send out, and the recent survey states that it is $150 million for a new ferry. So if the ferry system is trying to find new sources of revenue, why doesn’t the state build a bridge between Vashon and Southworth, and eliminate the need for that route? Surely a bridge wouldn’t cost more than $150 million?

– Michael in Bremerton

‘Toxic masculinity’ in Gillette commercial

Don’t just give the Cliff-notes version of the story

I just heard the Fastest 15 segment on the APA and Masculinity. This link is a discussion about what the report actually says vs. the tweets and sound bites. As a long time listener, I am finding myself becoming disheartened in hearing much of the same rhetoric fueled not by the facts of an issue, but the sound bites. One reason I have always enjoyed your show was how even-handed it has been regarding issues that are often divisive. Please don’t fall into the same hole that so many on the “other side” have done, in only responding to, and repeating, the “sound bite headlines” of the day. It only took me a few seconds to find the article I linked. Thanks for reading. From a longtime listener, who appreciates a fair point of view.

– Bill in Marysville

The opposite of masculinity

Isn’t it the opposite of masculinity for a man to cry in public like Dori does?

– Lynn in Woodinville

Gillette faults you for being a man

I wanted to offer you a copy of the customer feedback communication I offered Gillette in response to their ad. I know I’m not a perfect man, but I do know that I, and probably a large majority of men in this country, do not need advice on how to be a better man from the company we buy personal hygiene products from. Thanks for being a voice of reason and truth in the cesspool of toxic leftism that is our community.

To Gillette: I started using Gillette shaving products when I enlisted in the U.S. Army at age 17. I’ve used them for all of the 15 years since. I’m sorry the company feels that men like me are the problem with society. I’m sorry that my being a man doesn’t fit with your view of what society should be. I will no longer be purchasing or using your products, and my two sons will not learn how to shave with your products. Thank you for 15 years of providing me a with great product. I’m sorry you’ve decided to put politics before customer service, but you’ve made your choice clear, and I won’t burden your conscience with the horrible thought of having to take any more of my toxic money. Best of luck with the social “justice” crowd, I hope they’re better customers for you than I was.

– Mick in South Prairie

Kirkland police exonerated after Menchie’s incident

I met with the Totem Lake Menchie’s owner, Ramon, a couple weeks after this happened. He could not be a nicer guy. If you talk to the guy, you can see he does not have a malicious bone in his body.

Byron Ragland sounds like a condescending jerk. He is saying the teenage girls need to take a break from work, especially customer service? I am assuming he is basing this off of his ‘extensive information’ on the girls’ history of handling situations wrong. He sure sounds like he ‘knows’ a lot about them, saying they need to not work. If they need to quit their jobs because of the attention put on them due to this jerks’ actions, I say he has to pay for their unemployment, or at least some counseling. Imagine being the subject of a nationwide story calling for your firing, and worse, at 16 years old.

Sound Transit rip-offs

I absolutely love your show. I know you’ve talked about this topic before, but I had to tell somebody how angry I am at the government. We just purchased a 13-year-old car for my teenager last night. I registered it this morning and guess how much I had to pay? $927.75! We paid $7,500 for the car. I have no idea who to contact to give them my opinion, but I’m going to research it tonight. Thanks for listening.

– Patti in Renton

Homelessness solutions

A small town forever changed

We live in Kingston. Folks used to move their families here to get away from drugs on the “other side.” Our Kingston Community Center on February 14 is giving citizens free training on the giving of Narcan to heroin-overdosed people. If you are over 50 years old, you get a free Narcan kit. This is what our sleepy local town has come to — sad. I am not too sure I could do this, I don’t know how the overdosed person will respond, and I worry about liability. We have a bunch of yoyos running our country. Just where is their thinking coming from? I can just can hardly believe it.

– Carole in Kingston

One idea for the homeless crisis

I have an idea as to how to address the homeless situation, but I have no outlet for it and do not want to be recognized for helping the City of Seattle in any way. I grew up in View Ridge and am a few years older than Dori. In my younger years, I thought the City of Seattle was the best place in the world; now I wish Trump would put a wall around it.

If you had a large building, say 500,000 square feet, and you split the building in half, one half is for the homeless to make their camps; on part of it, you could even remove the roof so they feel like they are outside. In the back of this first area, they would have access to all of the social, church, and mental health services, and could stay there as long as they like with no restrictions. If an individual in this first area exhibits signs of trying to take care of themselves and their environment around them, they would be invited to go into the second half of the building.

In the second half of the building, they still have access to all of the services, social, mental, church … plus they get a yellow shirt to identify themselves as a person who is trying to improve. As a yellow shirt, they can still go back into the first half of the building to help out, clean up, some form of being useful and to hopefully set a good example to others, and once they have attained a specified goal, they are given a small apartment that gives them a bed, a closet, and access to a common indoor bathroom. At any time, they can give up their yellow shirt and go back to the first side of the building.

As a yellow shirt with a private room, they are given an opportunity to gain an education of some sort, and if they do well at taking care of themselves and look to be willing to work their way out of this system, they are given a white shirt and and an apartment with a kitchenette and private bath. As a white shirt, they are expected to go out into the city and get a job; we pay to put them on a bus and we could request that corporations take these people on as employees on a trial basis in exchange for a tax discount. At any time, people in this program can go back the the first side of the building and start over. The final goal for them would be to move into an apartment outside of this facility (we may need to help with the rent for one year ) and regain their life as a functioning part of society.

Now, don’t get me wrong, Dori, I am not a daisy-sniffing liberal. But this would at least be a way of spending the billion dollars in such a way that it would either make a difference in the end or prove that there is no hope for the homeless.

– Bob in Puyallup