Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, November 4, 1995 TAG: 9511060040
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"Soft money" donations often are from corporations that by law can't give directly to candidates themselves for federal office, or are limited in how much they can give.
The top three donors? According to The Washington Post, they're: Philip Morris Co. ($730,000); RJR Nabisco Washington Inc. ($286,000) and Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. ($260,000).
And those amounts are just for the first half of 1995. Thus does the distribution of cash, in time-honored tradition, continue to engage the occupants of smoke-filled rooms.
If you think these cigarette-makers were doling out such gifts in the interest of patriotism and good government, you've been smoking something besides tobacco. Inhaling, too.
THE ARIZONA Diamondbacks and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays have their new uniforms: desert purple caps and jerseys for the former, a logo of purple, teal, green, gold, black and white decorating the latter's. Isn't that precious?
Neither of the major league baseball expansion teams has any players, mind you, a small matter that will have to be taken care of before the uniforms can be seen on the playing field in the spring of 1998.
Fans already can be assured of really neat team colors, though, and that matters a lot in the $3 billion-a-year market for licensed baseball products.
All of which increases our appreciation for the Salem Avalanche in the Carolina League, where the talent may not be as hot or the uniforms as cool, but the game is still the thing.
STATE SENATOR Brandon Bell, who has publicly called his election opponent, Roanoke Vice Mayor John Edwards, "a liar," must have a sense of humor. How else to explain Bell's campaign flyer that asks: "Why is John Edwards running such a negative, malicious campaign?"
by CNB