Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 23, 1994 TAG: 9411160016
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: D2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Never read to your children.
Have the TV on at all times.
Monitor kids' TV viewing. With the exception of the Public Broadcasting Service, The Learning Channel and the Discovery Channel, let them watch anything they want, whenever they want.
Never go to the library.
Never buy a book; spend your money on toy guns and Barbie dolls instead.
Don't subscribe to or read newspapers or magazines.
Should you accidentally read an interesting item in someone else's newspaper, don't discuss it at the dinner table. Better yet, eat dinner in front of the TV; ergo: you'll not have to talk at all.
Never use words such as ``ergo.''
If you feel an uncontrollable urge to read a newspaper, buy a tabloid at a store's checkout counter and have a family discussion about Roseanne's latest exploits.
Never play word games, such as ``Hangman'' or ``Scrabble,'' with your children.
Send your children to any public school in the United States from which they will almost certainly graduate with a fourth-grade reading level.
If, heaven forbid, your children express an interest in matriculating at a college, discourage them from pursuing a liberal-arts curriculum. It ain't gonna do 'em no good.
I guarantee that strict adherence to these rules will, within the next generation, eradicate the pervasive threat of reading-run-rampant. Perhaps with this in mind, when Ms. Dudziak goes to that great atheneum in the sky, she will read in peace.
BARBARA TODD ROANOKE
Public won't fall for voodoo economics
AN INFORMED and intelligent electorate is the only protection we have against anarchy, dictatorship, and the gridlock that paralyzed the end of this session of Congress.
Republicans on the radical right want to blame President Clinton for everything that's wrong (in their opinion) with American society. They want you to forget that it was their leaders who left us with such an enormous budget deficit that interest was eating up our operating budget. Clinton's budget reducing the deficit passed in the Senate on Vice President Gore's vote to break a tie, without Republicans' help. Now Republicans promise even bigger reductions in the deficit - with tax cuts, more military spending, and a balanced-budget amendment! They think we're stupid enough to fall for voodoo economics again.
Waving the flag doesn't make you a patriotic American. Informed and thoughtful voting does.
GLEN H. MITCHELL BLACKSBURG
Rush Limbaugh researches his facts
I'LL BET $50 the writer of the Oct. 9 editorial ``The betrayal of conservatism'' doesn't listen to Rush Limbaugh or read either of Limbaugh's best-selling books. I do listen, and have read the books. Therefore, I'm not going to allow the writer to make statements that go unanswered regarding the linking of Limbaugh with words like ```Facts' are asserted without the pretense of verification ... ''
Limbaugh is painstakingly thorough in his research of the facts. I'll bet $100 his record in this regard will severely embarrass any in the mainstream media foolish enough to compare his and their records of facts.
The writer also needs to take Limbaugh's advice and lighten up. The ``radio chatter ... remarkable for its disorderly civility,'' is - after all - entertainment. The writer doesn't find it entertaining because, as Rush would say, the truth hurts too much.
JAMES J. BOUTILIER ROANOKE
Put the memorial on the line
COULD ONE who is not a complete outsider - having lived in Roanoke two years and owned property there seven years, having relatives by marriage in Bedford, and, though not a veteran, having served 31 years in the civil service - offer a suggestion on the location of a proposed D-Day memorial?
I suggest it be on the Bedford-Roanoke County line, in or near the Explore Park at the Blue Ridge Parkway, with names of those who fell on D-Day from Bedford on the Bedford side of the memorial, and those who fell from Roanoke, or the Roanoke side.
JAMES R. THORPE PEARISBURG
Region doesn't need Disney
I'M QUITE concerned about Rick Boucher's enthusiasm regarding a Disney theme park in Southwest Virginia. He thinks it would be a positive project for this area. This is not the case!
I lived in Orlando, Fla., during the late '60s and early '70s. Orlando was a nice town at that time. It was growing and progressing at a steady pace. In 1973, Disney World invaded Kissimmee, a once-small and beautiful town just south of Orlando. The area became inundated with traffic and tourism industries. Crime rates escalated at an enormous rate. If you don't believe me, take a trip to the Orlando area and see for yourself.
Disney World brought mostly low-paying jobs. If you could smile real big, Disney would consider giving you a job in its park working with the public. Your mouth gets awfully tired of smiling, but spies are employed to watch other employees to make sure they keep that silly grin on their faces eight hours a day. If they don't smile enough, they're out! Would Boucher like to have such a job? Could it ever pay enough? I doubt it.
Boucher talks about attracting tourists to our area, but has he considered that tourists visit Southwest Virginia for its natural beauties? We're fortunate to have the highest mountains, the Blue Ridge Parkway and the New River - to mention only a few natural wonders. Do we want to attract the type of people who visit a plastic theme park? I don't think so.
JOAN W. BOLDUC ELK CREEK
Violence does not concern all parents
I WOULD like to commend Jeannine M. Parnham who wrote the Oct. 3 letter to the editor (``Help turn kids' eyes away from violence'') concerning children being taught violence. I agree with her, but am afraid that she won't be able to raise her children without this influence of violence as they'll learn it from other children whose parents aren't concerned.
An excellent example of this came in the newspaper's ``Campaign Notes.'' I guess little Seth Taylor's family thinks it's cute to teach him to say that ``we shoot Democrats.'' But who do they plan to blame if this child shoots someone he happens to disagree with when he is older? I bet they'll blame it on liberals, lack of prayer in schools, violence in movies and TV, and bad children who influenced him.
MARY H. MILES BEDFORD
North's lies just keep coming
``THERE YOU go again,'' as Col. Oliver North's one-time hero, Ronald Reagan could repeat, this time in regard to North's lies. It seems incredible that even to a group of high-school students in Falls Church (Oct. 5 news article, ```I did not lie to Congress''') North continues his charade and deception. It's no wonder that even among his former colleagues in government he had a reputation as a congenital liar.
North's trial, the evidence and his own sworn testimony are matters of record, yet he still persists in denying documented facts. Should a sane, rational person continue to lie in the face of historical fact, and thus ignore reality? Should a rational electorate support such a candidate? Someone is out of control here.
On a recent radio talk show in Charlottesville, North was lamenting that his critics misrepresent him, and in the next breath he said, ``I wasn't even charged with lying to Congress'' (I heard this with my own ears, no liberal press). Yet at his trial on April 10, 1989, Mr. Kecker, the prosecutor, asked North under oath: ``And then there's a charge that you obstructed a congressional inquiry in August of 1986 by lying to it, do you remember the charge?'' He remembered.
How could anyone be suckered in by such a candidate?
ARTHUR CLAUSSEN BLACKSBURG
by CNB