ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, December 9, 1995 TAG: 9512110017
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: LETTERS
REGARDING the Dec. 2 Associated Press article in The Roanoke Times, ```Breast' ruled decent, let back on-line'': Cyberspace - the alpha and omega of words? How many homes in Roanoke city have access to cyberspace? How many in the nation?
I cannot hear what comes through a computer. Likewise, children also cannot hear it. But I can hear what comes through a television set, and so can children.
The word ``breast'' has created a molehill in the computer world. Is it easier for those involved in this controversy to see the molehill, and yet be ignorant and blind to the mountain that stands before them? The mountain I speak of is television. Millions of children see and hear it. With children present, I've heard words on television such as ``Go to h--- you son of a bi--h'' and ``you bast--d.'' Am I to believe that these words are of no significance to the upbringing of children? It must be so.
I've never before heard or read an article involving so many people concerned over just the word ``breast.'' If we're to teach children, let us focus not on what they don't hear, but rather on what they do hear. If you clean the mountain, you can control the molehill.
VICTOR VARGAS
ROANOKE
Safeguards are at risk with Medicaid
CAL Thomas' Nov. 22 column (``Back to work on the budget'') shows again how inaccurate public perception is about proposed funding cuts.
For example, he refers to the president's insisting that conditions he set be met, ``including the preservation of Medicare (there is only $4.80 worth of difference between the Medicare premium plans of the Republicans and the White House - hardly enough to cause the elderly to be evicted from nursing homes),
Medicare doesn't pay for most nursing-home care in this country. Medicare Part B premiums have little to do with long-term care. If the only issue affecting elderly people were the $4.80 difference in Part B Medicare premiums, it's probably true that a consensus should be quickly reached.
But nursing-home costs for poor people are paid by Medicaid, a program that under legislative proposals will be turned over to states through a block-grant arrangement without the safeguards of current federal laws such as a guaranteed eligibility for indigent persons, minimal standards of care for nursing-home patients, protection from impoverishment for spouses of nursing-home patients, assurances that there will be an ombudsman to monitor long-term care and a fair rate of pay to nursing homes for care provided to Medicaid recipients.
Medicaid also pays for the primary, basic health care of indigent children. The poorest and most needy of our citizens are affected by these cuts. The budget can be balanced within seven years with this kind of disregard for people, but cuts may need to impact more heavily on the upper-middle class rather than the poorest and most vulnerable. Some options are unacceptable. When the American public realizes the choices, I believe people will choose to do right. Can't the newspaper help bring the issues to light more accurately?
HARRIETTE SHIVERS
ROANOKE
No losers on Council High's team
THE NOV. 26 Extra section article about Council High School's football team (``0-40'' by Mark Morrison) may have been written with all the best intentions in the world. But it seems to me that Morrison lost track of the human-interest story he set out to write, and it became a story about bad weather, about poverty in Buchanan County and about losing.
He lost the perfect opportunity to write about 14 boys who played football with all their heart, soul and strength in the face of much adversity, and who never gave a thought to quitting the team. He lost the chance to write about a coach who never gave up on his boys and who would go the extra mile to help any of them. I know for a fact about the hard work of the team and Coach Roger Deel because the coach is my brother.
Morrison also missed the story of the parents, the school and the community while he was there. There's more to a football team than its record.
Yes, the football team is 0-40 and has never won a game. But these boys and their coach aren't losers. They all became winners when they played every game until the final whistle blew, and they became winners again when they showed up for practice the next Monday. These young men have learned a valuable lesson that will serve them the rest of their lives. They have learned to use the past to prepare for tomorrow. They plan, prepare, practice and look to the next opportunity to win.
Morrison may have a different viewpoint. But I have a lot of respect for these young men, and I applaud them for their efforts.
KATHY HARRISON
CLINCHCO
LENGTH: Medium: 89 linesby CNB