ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, September 10, 1996 TAG: 9609100018
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: LETTERS
REGARDING your Sept. 1 editorial, ``A kinder, gentler UVa Pep Band'':
The actions by the University of Virginia to muzzle the band demonstrate all too clearly that athletic events are no longer considered entertainment.
Athletic events are a part of big business, and the National Collegiate Athletic Association, Nike, Reebok and others expect them to be operated in a serious manner. Unfortunately, universities are all too happy to go along with this arrangement.
The UVa Pep Band was a breath of fresh air in an otherwise stifling atmosphere.
For the many years UVa fielded a football team that was less than serious, why didn't the university bring in other teams to represent it before and after the halftime show?
ALBERT C. HENDRICKS
CHRISTIANSBURG
Roanoke has its own `Mr. Holland'
AFTER VIEWING the film ``Mr. Holland's Opus,'' it occurred to me that as a member of the Monroe Junior High School band in Roanoke from 1952 to 1955, I had known a ``Mr. Holland.''
His name is A.W. Hull, longtime band director in Roanoke city's school system. He came to Roanoke in the 1940s, being impressed by its beauty and other assets. It was at Monroe Junior High School that he instilled a desire for excellence among many young people. There began a record that may be unmatched among seventh-, eighth- and ninth-grade students anywhere.
Beginning in the late '40s and continuing to the early '60s, a string of nationally recognized accomplishments was made. Often going head-to-head with senior high-school bands, the Cardinals of Monroe achieved first place, time and time again, in national competitions. After-school rehearsals, Thursday-evening marching drills and individual practice were all the norm for those who wanted to be in Hull's band. There was always somebody waiting in the wings to challenge for your place.
For a number of years, there has been an annual reunion in Roanoke for Hull's ``opus'' - thousands of students his life touched. This is probably the only junior-high band in America that meets annually - its attendees now in their 40s, 50s and 60s. Their appreciation for the lessons learned under his tutelage is greater with the passing of time. Some of us still play regularly the instruments he taught us, and also remember the shop, mechanical-drawing and photography classes he taught.
Still a resident of Roanoke, Hull is an enthusiastic presence at the reunion each summer, usually held at the picnic pavilion at Melrose Baptist Church. It's good to know that ``Mr. Holland'' wasn't a myth, and that some of us knew teachers who gave sincere dedication to their students, taught standards of excellence and were superb role models.
RODNEY J. HALE
MIDLOTHIAN
Israel flirts with Nazi-like policies
THE AUG 28 letter to the editor (``The Holocaust has lessons for all'') from Rabbi Kathy Cohen about the value of the continual replaying of the Holocaust story raises some worthwhile points. It also gives rise to some important questions.
How can those Jewish people who suffered so much from the state-organized and state-sponsored ethnic cleansing during the Nazi time in Europe now elect a government for Israel containing many officials who advocate measures for dealing with the Palestinian people that are highly reminiscent of those employed by the Nazi regime during World War II?
The Netanyahu-Sharon clique has publicly favored the removal (elimination?) of Palestinians. It is right, of course, to punish those who commit crimes against Israeli or other peoples, but the measures advocated by many in the present Likud government involve the belief in mass guilt, which was a fundamental principle employed by the Nazis in their reign of terror.
The only crimes committed by most of the Palestinians who will be affected by the new ``iron fist'' policy involve their misfortune to live on lands coveted by the Israeli government for expropriation.
How long can American Jews who have traditionally been committed to just, humane and democratic principles continue to support a regime that flirts with the barbaric policies of the previous Likud governments of Shamir and Begin?
CHARLES F. ROBERTS
BLACKSBURG
Government's secular heavy hand
ED LYNCH decried a legal system that bans Nativity scenes but protects pornographic bookstores (Aug. 24 letter to the editor, ``Thanks to Goodlatte for `tinkering'''). Drucilla K. Barker's reply (Aug. 31 letter, ``Fallacies and fear-mongering'') denounces Lynch's ``lack of critical-thinking skills.''
When I was in college, critical-thinking courses hadn't been invented, but let me take a stab at the debate.
Barker draws the distinction between public and private domains in that Nativity scenes, as well as porno stores, are legally protected as long as they are in the private sphere, while both are outlawed on government turf. But what about the recent representation of the urine-borne crucifix, funded at government expense? One would expect Barker to have fully supported the religious right's protest against the public funding of that statement about religion. But she says the judicial system should protect the minority against the tyranny of the Christian majority. I guess the crucifix-in-urine minority needed public money to shelter itself from the despotic Christian establishment.
Then take the claim that Christians constitute the majority. Christians range across a gamut of denominations, from fundamentalists to de facto atheists. If you add up all who are called Christian, you get a large number, but you also get a gross overstatement of the clout of Christianity in today's secular society. Christians are far from unified on the large moral and legal issues.
Just because most Americans are not auto repairmen doesn't necessarily mean that the auto-repair minority desperately needs additional legal protection against the rest of us. I agree that non-Christians need constitutional protection from an ignorant or despotic school board, town council or government. But the conventional separation of church and state is much less significant when the more powerful forces that shape the government's heavy hand are secular.
BERNARD GAUCI
BLUE RIDGE
Tax cuts stimulate economic growth
A VERY dangerous and oft-repeated lie is gaining wide acceptance - that the Reagan tax cuts caused the great enlargement of the national debt.
The irrefutable fact is that the Reagan tax cuts caused a doubling of federal revenues. So, why did the debt increase? The Democrats controlled the House of Representatives every minute of the Reagan years, and they spent the increased revenues, plus an awful lot more of borrowed money, on vote-buying social programs that did more harm than good. In all fairness, some of the money went into the Reagan defense buildup, which resulted in the dissolution of the USSR and the demolition of the Berlin Wall. The winning of the Cold War was cheap at any price.
If many influential people believe the lie that cutting taxes causes debt, then future national policy will be based on this false assumption and will lead to a national economic disaster. The only hope for a reduced deficit and debt retirement is in enhanced revenues through tax reduction, increased growth in the gross national product and reduced federal spending.
This principle was demonstrated by the Kennedy administration when it cut taxes and projected a large revenue loss, but got a large revenue gain. President Yew of Singapore took a pitifully poor ex-colony and turned it into a raging Pacific tiger by simply cutting taxes and freeing the economy. He remarked that taxes are ``demotivating.''
The media have a solemn responsibility to report the truth and expose lies. They have been shamefully delinquent in this case. If our government is going to be based on falsehoods that determine policy, then our future is bleak indeed.
FRED M. WERTH
RURAL RETREAT
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