ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 2, 1996 TAG: 9603060014
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
UNDER a policy that the state Senate refused this week to override, the Virginia Department of Corrections denies virtually every request from the public to visit the state's prisons.
Such requests - from the citizens who employ public servants, and from the citizens' media eyes and ears - are rejected in a form letter saying that "the presence of outsiders, photographers and reporters impedes prison staff from dealing with other more important priorities."
Obviously, visits to prisons have to be controlled in a way that visits to other state agencies don't. But how many priorities at any public agency are more important than accountability to the public?
In the case of corrections, this means maintaining security. But it also should mean letting the public get occasional looks at the inside.
U.S. NEWS & World Report recently compiled a list of book titles attesting to the sour mood of much of America. They included:
``The End of Affluence,'' ``The End of Culture,'' ``The End of Marriage,'' ``The End of Kinship,'' ``The End of Conversation,'' ``The End of Science,'' ``The End of the Education,'' ``The End of Equality,'' ``The End of Intelligent Writing,'' ``The End of Literary Theory,'' ``The End of Architecture,'' ``The End of Art Theory,'' ``The End of the Novel,'' ``The End of Liberalism,'' ``The End of the Republican Era,'' ``The End of World Order,'' ``The End of the World'' and ``The End of the Future.''
While waiting for ``The End of Doomsaying,'' we played a scratchy, old phonograph of the spiritual/musical ``Purlie'' to hear this wonderfully cheerful lyric: ``The world ain't coming to an end, my friend - the world's just coming to a start. I feel it in my heart.''
LENGTH: Short : 39 linesby CNB