
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 9, 1990                   TAG: 9006110173
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BRIEFLY PUT..

"PLUCKY" is an old-fashioned word, but it applies to young Hung Lui of Pulaski. Lui and his family, of Chinese ancestry, are "boat people" who escaped from Vietnam and made their way to America in 1979. Lui didn't know a word of English then, but this week he was graduated from Pulaski County High School with a 3.96 grade-point average and more than $3,000 in scholarships to Virginia Tech. Lui has found freedom. America has found, again, that freedom attracts talent.

WITH ex-Congressman Joseph Fisher's withdrawal from consideration, Virginia Democrats became almost certain not to challenge GOP Sen. John Warner for re-election. Sure, Warner probably would win anyway. But in failing even to try, state Democrats are showing a bankruptcy of talent and ideas that bodes ill for their future.

BEER-company promotions at auto races have drawn fire from a safety group. Maybe the criticism is overdone; but you can bet no brewer-sponsored driver in his right mind downs a few before he pulls onto the track. Neither should fans before they pull onto the highway.

LEGAL abstractions have dominated the argument over whether Virginia Military Institute ought to admit females. Now, in asking the U.S. Justice Department how it proposes to remedy the alleged discrimination, attorneys for the VMI Foundation have touched on a practical point: If the school's males-only policy is changed, can young women be recruited to attend? Not easily, is our guess.

A PIZZA delivery man in Texas was robbed this week at turtle-point. He says he was in a phone booth when two men put a snapping turtle in his face, and told him to yield his money pouch or get nipped. This raises the question: Do turtles like anchovies?

IF DEMOCRATIC nominee Harvey Gantt upsets North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms in the general election, the Baltimore Evening Sun observed editorially, "Gantt would become highest black elected official in the country." Virginians know better: As governor of the Old Dominion, Doug Wilder, who is black, holds an office of which mere senators from North Carolina can only dream.

by CNB