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

DATE: SATURDAY, June 30, 1990                   TAG: 9007020160
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

BRIEFLY PUT...

THE PROPOSED Roanoke City-County consolidation, opponents in west county said this week, is "the most serious situation to face the Roanoke Valley since the Civil War." Are they kidding?

Actually, the comment is revealing. In 1861, the valley consisted of a few scattered farms and the little Valley Pike outpost of Salem. Today, it's an urban concentration of 200,000 people. Isn't it time to accept the valley for what it is, and work for what it can become, instead of pretending it's a 19th-century agrarian Eden?

DURING the intifada in occupied territories , about 500 Palestinians have been slain by Israeli soldiers, who at least have the obligation to keep order. Rabbi Moshe Levinger, a prominent settler, killed a Palestinian shopkeeper by spraying submachinegun bullets around Hebron. Levinger was sentenced to five months in prison for "causing death by negligence." The message this sends to other Israelis is all too obvious.

PUBLIC-WORKS officials in Sacramento, Calif., joshingly proposed that the city substitute a non-sexist term for manhole. Mayor Anne Rudin liked the idea. This month, the city council adopted the term "maintenance hole" for use on official maps and documents. Now, about manual laborers . . .

by CNB