Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 29, 1994 TAG: 9408020069
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Presently, the position of the health-care industry has stripped nurses of this vision. The precarious economy has switched the focus from patient care to financial care. The very people who entered the nursing profession to help individuals and envisioned themselves as caregivers are now paper-workers. Nursing is no longer a giving position, but an industry.
Patients no longer exist as people, but as statistical numbers in hospital-based systems that label them as alphabetical characters. The care they receive isn't based on need or want. It's based on numerical aspects that pertain little to patient care.
Our health-care system does need serious reform. But perhaps first we need to examine the basic emotion that inspires us as human beings - the act of caring.
DANA BRYANT
ROANOKE
Facts obstruct North's defense
AFTER reading letters from the Oliver North Fan Club (or the Flat Earth Society), I suppose it's too much to hope that they would ever read the facts, much less get them correct. A case in point is Tom Taylor's July 4 letter to the editor (``Trumped-up charges against North''):
Taylor writes: ``Lawrence Walsh, Congress' special prosecutor ... '' and later refers to Walsh's ``congressional bosses.'' Wrong! Judge Walsh, at the request of the attorney general, was selected by a panel of federal appeals' judges, themselves appointed by the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Obstructing Congress is illegal, as were the other 11 counts in North's trial. This obstruction itself was more of a threat to national security than a protection. North's Iran activities were responsible for adding to the hostages when Terry Waite was captured. This was no crime, but nothing to be proud of.
The phrase ``trumped up'' implies fraud. The 12 counts against North were not trumped up, but based on evidence that was presented to a grand jury. Evidence was obtained and sealed before North made his famous theatrical testimony for Congress on television.
The security fence was not installed by Gen. Secord. It was installed by Glenn Robinette and then paid for by Secord as an illegal gift to North. After his firing, North tried to cover up the gift by having Robinette send him bills to which he responded by typing two phony letters.
ARTHUR W. CLAUSSEN JR.
BLACKSBURG
Another Joe McCarthy
CAL Thomas suggests that there is a coordinated attempt to discredit Rush Limbaugh (July 20 column, ``Liberal elitists just don't get Limbaugh's satire''). That would be a great thing to see.
Nobody since Sen. Joe McCarthy has been as loose and reckless with facts. Limbaugh sees every Democrat as a mortal enemy. His ``America held hostage'' theme is un-American. He's a raving hatemonger, a braggart on an ominous brand of talk shows who would pit any Republican against any Democrat in a way reminiscent of the Irish Protestant against the Irish Catholic, the Serbs against the Moslems, or the Palestinian Arab against the Israeli Jew. It may be that thinking people don't get Limbaugh's ``satire,'' as Thomas calls it, but they surely get his inflammatory hate theme with little trouble.
McCarthy, at one time, had a larger following than Limbaugh does now. He was, however, finally branded in the public eye, not as a useful patriot who was helping to rid government of communists, but as an un-American, reckless with the truth, whose unfounded and unproven charges were the ruination of many a patriot. McCarthyism has been discredited. It would be great to see Limbaughism discredited in the same way.
LESTER H. HALSEY
MOUTH OF WILSON
Speed demons on Roanoke streets
COME ONE, come all. Enjoy the thrills of speed and daring - absolutely free. Watch high-speed runs down one hill and up another, near misses as fearless drivers run stop signs! Watch the games of chicken in autos!
Get a good laugh when calling our fearless leaders to stop the games before it's too late. Watch daredevil drivers slow when white cars with red and blue flashers do show in my neighborhood (yes, they do show) and return to normal when our police leave.
Carnage and destruction will soon occur; you can bet on it.
BOB BOSTIAN
ROANOKE
Well-protected real estate
ALL EYES have been focused on the planet Jupiter recently.
Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 had pelted the planet with fragments, and it seemed that astronomers all around the world just stood in awe of this spectacle. The Roanoke Times & World-News has covered it well.
Now, it seems the American public and Congress are somewhat scared this same thing could happen to Earth. We all could go up in one big cloud of fire and dust, resulting in extinction.
Hogwash! The God of your Bible makes it clear that Earth is very special to him, and its inhabitants are created in his own image. Remember? Therefore, you can rest assured that Earth is a very well-protected piece of real estate, and its Creator and Dxesigner will not just stand idly by and let it be destroyed by a simple group of break-away, mountain-sized comets or fragments. At least, not without his permission.
RON PENLAND
WYTHEVILLE
by CNB