Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 9, 1994 TAG: 9403090176
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The United States paper industry has already surpassed its 1995 goal of recovering and recycling 40 percent of all the paper Americans use. Now it's aiming for 50 percent by the year 2000. Most of this recovered paper will be recycled in American mills.
Will all this paper recycling save us from cutting trees? No! Repeated recycling weakens paper enough that we still need to add a significant amount of new tree fiber into paper production. Fortunately, America grows and harvests healthy, renewable forests to meet our demand for more than 600 pounds of paper per person each year.
It's OK to cut trees. Many forests grow back naturally; many are replanted. In 1991, forest landowners planted more than 1.7 billion trees in the United States. That's more than six new trees a year for every American.
For decades, we've been growing more wood in America than is harvested. Reducing harvest here will mean increasing harvest in other nations, most of which have a much poorer environmental record than America.
RICK MEYER
Division Forester
American Pulpwood Association Inc.
ROANOKE
North personifies Marines' motto
YOU CAN always count on this society's liberal left to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to shortcomings of their own to focus more attention on the exaggerated ``truths'' about the conservative right. I refer to recent articles, commentaries and letters to the editor in this newspaper relative to senatorial hopeful Oliver North. He's been called so many names - names I assume were intended to make people forget that he's a retired officer of the United States Marine Corps, a true patriot (someone who stands up for this country and doesn't run off to another to protest) and an honorable American.
North served this country well. He personifies the motto of the Marine Corps, Semper Fidelis, if ever it's been personified. He did things for this country and his president that, in retrospect, may have been wrong, but his motivation was honorable. Those attacking him have no conceptual understanding of serving God and country. In fact, the Democrats would have you believe that the endorsement of a minister is far worse than going to a hotel in New York with a young model for an innocent massage. Have our principles become so perverse that readers of these attacks aren't outraged?
DONALD R. KELLY
ROANOKE
Uphold the honor of a proud flag
SUPER BOWL week is over for another year, but what I remember has little to do with the game. It has to do with a national television news story showing another protest against the Confederate flag. The flag in question was a portion of Georgia's state flag bearing the Stars and Bars as part of its design. The question raised was whether a game involving minority players should be played with such a symbol of minority oppression flying over the stadium.
I can no longer hide behind political correctness, but must express my anger at what seems to have become the prevailing view. I defend this flag's honor, and the brave men who fought and fell for what it stood for. And what it stood for wasn't oppression but rebellion against a Union in which the federal government sought to eradicate states' rights to govern within their own borders. Those who fought under the Confederate flag didn't fight to maintain slavery any more than those in blue fought to abolish it. They fought to defend their newly created nation, just as their patriot grandfathers had fought before to defend the newborn United States of America from England.
To declare that the flag stood only for suppression of minorities should never be tolerated. It wasn't the swastika or hammer and sickle of its day, and shouldn't be considered as such. It was the second American Revolution's proud banner and deserves more than unjust criticism heaped upon it.
ROBERT S. AKERS
ROANOKE
Don't forget object of health care
BASIC facts are being ignored in health-care discussions now in progress. It appears that all considerations revolve around the delivery of care, the costs, taxes to pay costs, etc. But the basic object of a health-care plan is not discussed.
The health-care system has one purpose: to cure sickness and save lives. It's not to provide income to health-care professionals, profits to hospitals and insurance companies, or pay for complicated administration. This is not to deny just and fair monetary rewards for services provided. But a license to steal doesn't become automatic with health care and it cannot be promoted and allowed under any system.
A ``single payer'' system, as in Canada or the United Kingdom (but not necessarily copying in detail either of those), is the only route to follow. This is not socialism to any greater degree than is Medicare (which works), but will be national health care.
A system similar to Canada's, but administered by individual states and required to meet federal standards, puts the delivery of care nearer to and more in control of those who are the payers and the receivers of the service. The present system, where, in many cases, employers pay insurance premiums, only masks the fact that it's the consumer in the end who pays through higher prices.
A simplified single-payer system should have considerably lower administrative costs. If correctly designed, it should result in further savings that haven't been disclosed thus far, such as reductions in automobile insurance policies' medical-payment coverage and reductions in medical malpractice insurance rates.
Any system has to fulfill the aim of curing sickness and saving lives in the most efficient and cost-effective way. A single-payer system can achieve this.
WILLIAM E. BUTTERFIELD
BLUE RIDGE
Thomas offers emotional claptrap
CAL THOMAS has given us another of his biblically based, rhetoric-backed, simplistic solutions to the world's major problems. In his Feb. 16 column (``Mother Teresa brings power of the truth to the powerful''), he extols Mother Teresa's speech at a Washington Prayer Breakfast. He seems ignorant of the protocol involved in such an event.
First, to ensure good attendance, you must get a celebrity speaker. She qualifies. Second, invite the president. If he doesn't come, you can accuse him of not caring. If he shows, watch and report his every reaction to points made in the speech. Third, make the forum one in which your own supporters (in this case, the religious right) will be in a majority, thus assuring that most will `` ... erupt in a standing ovation'' on cue. Fourth, report the event as having offered solutions to the world's problems. She accused Americans, as expected, of being selfish because we permit abortion, which leads to violence and murder. These would be eliminated if we outlawed abortions.
Thomas reported that Mother Teresa has placed 3,000 children in adoptive homes, thereby answering the question: ``Who'll care for all babies if abortion is again outlawed?'' According to Thomas, 30 million abortions have been performed in America. It's easy to cheer her efforts, but could she have cared for 10,000 times as many American babies? Would they have been adopted in Indian homes, where the very source of the good nun's celebrity is her work with the tremendous problems of poverty and overpopulation?
Thomas is a crusader with treadmill monotony: Enact my theology into law and I'll be served. He has a right to his opinions (and the good living he enjoys by getting them published), but emotional claptrap should be labeled for what it is.
HAL H. EATON
MOUTH OF WILSON
Visit the shelter, meet a new friend
IT SEEMS like every time you read the editorial page of the Roanoke Times & World-News, someone's expressing concern over the SPCA shelter's animals.
On a recent Saturday, I headed to the shelter with some food and treats to see if there was anything to be concerned about. It pleases me to report that it smelled better and was cleaner than I've ever seen it. The staff was friendly, helpful and attentive to the animals. There were quite a few folks there looking to adopt pets. In general, everything was very upbeat.
I wholeheartedly recommend that those concerned about the SPCA animals should take time to visit the shelter and judge for themselves. Perhaps they'll leave with not only a new opinion, but also a friend for life.
WALKER NELMS
ROANOKE
by CNB