DATE: Friday, September 5, 1997             TAG: 9709040008

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B10  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Letter 

                                            LENGTH:  109 lines

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR -THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT

WELFARE

Stop ``tax-charity''

for willful poor

How many times have you seen people with food stamps buying more and better groceries than you, loading them into a big, late-model car while your slim pickings go into a decade-old clunker?

And now Brenda McCormick (Another View, Aug. 15) says I'm ``stupid'' because all my tax dollars don't go to the willful poor; some actually get spent on true national interests like defense. She believes I should just work and fork it over. More. More. More. She actually has the temerity to claim that it's the people who get free food, free housing, free medical care, free everything, who are the victims.

Please, victimize me! When I lost a reasonably good-paying job many years ago, I didn't collect unemployment or apply for food stamps or ask my neighbors to support me. I took an hourly wage job flipping burgers and lived on rice and tomato soup for nine months until I found a better job. If I didn't work, I didn't eat. My fault. My problem.

Shut down all welfare programs now. Let the truly needy - the small number that there really are - get charity where it should come from: people who want to give, churches and voluntary social service organizations.

Stop mandatory ``tax-charity.''

Stuart R. Lane

Chesapeake, Aug. 18, 1997

EDUCATION

Forget numbers game,

teach our children

I have been following, with great interest, your coverage of Virginia's heightened educational standards. I am concerned, however, how these will be accomplished.

My daughter currently attends one of the Virginia Beach middle schools, and in order for her to begin the study of a foreign language (a proposed diploma requirement) in the seventh grade, I had to point out to her counselor that she was an honor-roll student. This was due to the fact that she had not attained a passing score on a foreign-language aptitude test.

Study of a foreign language should be offered to all students, not just those who show an aptitude for it. The Virginia Beach school system should eliminate aptitude tests for required subjects, which I suspect mainly serve to heighten an individual school's test scores. The logic: Students gifted in a particular subject are likely to do well in it, thus resulting in a good cumulative score.

Many times, schools seem more interested in their respective quantitative scores than in the children themselves. It is time to stop playing the numbers game and get down to the business of educating our children.

Leah Sturgis

Virginia Beach, Aug. 26, 1997

ENTERTAINMENT

Not a fun night

at the amphitheater

My husband and I attended the GTE Virginia Beach Amphitheater Saturday, Aug. 23, for the first and probably the last time. First impressions were very good. The area was spotless, Will Call windows very organized, parking efficient and plenty of direction from ushers.

Our seats were directly behind the VIP area, which ruined the evening for us. While the VIPs were getting wined and dined, the servers and VIPs had total disregard for anyone sitting behind them. We were constantly having to try to look around someone standing up in our line of vision.

Going to the bathroom during intermission among a crowd of 19,000 people was a 25-minute bone-crushing experience. Once we got to the bathroom area, the facilities were great. By the time I got back to the seat, however, I had enough wine and beer spilled on me to make me smell like one of the crowd.

By the way, the arena and lawn area looked like a war zone of streaming fluids and trash after the concert. Do we really need all of this drinking and eating going on for a three-hour concert?

Diane Aldridge

Virginia Beach, Aug. 26, 1997

LABOR

UPS strike

sent a message

It is time for people in the Hampton Roads area to forgive UPS for their strike and renew their contracts of sending packages as before. UPS workers did a favor for all of us who work in the labor market and government whose jobs are threatened by part-time workers. Let's hope that companies were listening.

It is also a message for companies to know not to mess with one's pension. If we are lucky, we will all get to retire someday and need a monthly income.

We need full-time jobs and pension plans. I say thanks, UPS workers, for setting the standard.

Cinda L. Pack

Chesapeake, Aug. 26, 1997

Pittsburgh in

ruins? Look again

Attention, anyone thinking of traveling to Pittsburgh. For the record, I have been to Pittsburgh, recently, and it does not lie in ruins.

I was greatly surprised to read in the Aug. 19 letter, ``Men can't live on $55 strike pay,'' about the city's ``desolation'' due to the ``long-range effects (of) the unions.'' To walk along downtown Pittsburgh's bustling streets crowded with busy shoppers and intent business people is to evidence the vitality of a city whose economic base is strong enough to support three professional sports teams and an array of successful businesses.

The city's steel industry did not falter as a result of strangulation by the unions; the decline was due to technological and political advancements.

Yes, the landmarks have been preserved, but not as ghosts of yesterday's failures; instead, they serve as symbols of pride for past accomplishments and terrific community solidarity.

Susan K. Welsh

Norfolk, Aug. 22, 1997

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