Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 28, 1994 TAG: 9501170016
SECTION: EDITORIALS PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Ted Edlich, Total Action Against Poverty's executive director, need not worry about folks who will lose education benefits, job training and child care under Gov. Allen's new budget plan. Our governor has sagely anticipated the results, and has planned ahead for accommodations for these people in the form of new prisons he's building.
Cultural centers, evidently considered frills by our benevolent governor, could be converted to orphanages in keeping with the new Republican solutions. Employees of these centers will be able to seek out new positions as law-enforcement officers. They won't have to worry about the cost of job retraining; this will be paid for by taxpayers.
JOAN PHELPS
HOT SPRINGS
I VOTED for Gov. Allen, and I believe we need changes as he has stated. However, his cutting into programs that help senior citizens and the retarded, provide health care, etc., upsets me. Stop penalizing Virginia's law-abiding and hard-working citizens in order to spend billions of dollars to house criminals.
When I was in boot camp, we lived in barracks, slept in metal bunk beds, had one locker, and each barrack had one shower and bathroom. We had no television sets or radios. We had outside washboards to hand wash our clothes. No criminal should have any better.
Guards should be paid good wages and benefits (creating more jobs and taxes for Virginia), and prisoners should grow their own food and raise animals as on a farm. Fence in the entire area with razor wire on the fence top. Arrange for educational programs to rehabilitate those who want to go straight, and let the bad guys be farmers for the rest of their terms.
GEORGE J. PALMERIO
VINTON
Existing roads need to get smart
YOUR DEC. 19 news story (``Pethtel staying busy on the road for `the road''') about Ray Pethtel, the new director of the transportation center at Virginia Tech, prompts this letter. Like Pethtel, I like driving along the open highway, and look forward to the day when existing roads are smart enough to allow us to enjoy the scenery more.
I don't like hunting for a parking place, however, and one thing the new highway proposed through the Ellett Valley will do is shorten the time between hunting for a parking place in downtown Blacksburg and hunting for a parking place in one of the cities of the Roanoke Valley.
The need for a new ``smart road'' also raises a flag about the applicability of this technology. Needing a new road to demonstrate this technology seems to say that it cannot be retrofitted onto existing roads. If we eventually have a smart-highway system, does that mean it must be built from scratch? If technology can be added to existing highways - and budgets surely will mandate that - why not demonstrate it that way?
All of this reminds me of a truth from Aldo Leopold. In the '30s, he wrote, ``It's so much easier to build a road than it is to do what's right for the country.''
ROBERT K. REID
BLACKSBURG
Bigotry collides with public safety
THE Nov. 27 commentary by Robert A. Berstein, ``Clinton yields to anti-gay bigotry,'' is sad.
Tom Potter, former chief of police in Portland, Ore., was rejected by the Justice Department for a federal post heading a crime-bill program. The apparent reason for his rejection is his reputation while chief of police for doing battle (and making significant gains) against racism, sexism and homophobia. He was unapologetic that his daughter is openly lesbian and that she is a Portland police officer. He calls her a ``great person'' and a ``good cop.''
Bernstein's commentary eloquently depicts the ``social cost of common bigotry.'' You are to be commended for your continuing efforts to expose the extent to which anti-gay attitudes jeopardize public safety, not to mention public civility.
JOHN A. SABEAN
CHRISTIANSBURG
Please share the ball machine
THANK you for the wonderful Dec. 21 Extra front story on John Schofield's ball machine (``Having a ball''). My first hope was that we could take our children to see it; they'd be fascinated (as would my husband and I).
Schofield is correct in stating that his work is more than art - it's entertainment. I strongly encourage some public organization in the area to buy the ball machine so that we can all share the enjoyment. Our family would come to see it often!
MARY L. ERICKSON
BLACKSBURG
by CNB