Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 6, 1991 TAG: 9102060487
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Monday in Richmond: The Virginia House of Delegates votes down a bill that would have required a three-day waiting period between application for a gun and actual purchase of the weapon. A modest bill, it would have modestly affected the flow of firepower into goonish paws. Gun goons, though, bristle at the ridiculous notion that anyone be forced to wait 72 hours to buy a weapon.
Dels. Agee, Baker, Finney, Munford, Putney, Stafford, Thomas and Trumbo supported Virginians' right to buy guns and buy them now.
\ Fair is fair. Used to be, none of the 41 colleges offering emblems on Virginia license plates had as many as Penn State University. I wrung some mileage out of that irony here.
But Nittany Lions have since yielded to geographic reality - this is not (yet) Pennsylvania.
As of Jan. 8, there were 715 Virginia Tech tags, 566 Penn State, 545 James Madison, 363 University of Virginia (ha) and so on until you get to the one Blue Ridge Community College license plate now hanging from a Virginia bumper.
\ "End the recession. Stop watching the 6:30 news."
It's a sign outside Givens Books in Salem, a modified kill-the-messenger message.
Sure, it seemed a jab at television news, a concept with which I have no problem, but I wanted to make sure it ended there. I didn't want newspapering's good name impugned.
Chip Givens, who owns the bookstore on East Main Street at Virginia 419, had an alibi. His father, George Givens, masterminded the message. George Givens' bookstore is in Lynchburg.
"There's some credence to the view," George Givens said. "The media wield a lot of power, and they can make their own prophecies come true."
It's not so much newspapers, he said.
"It's television. They need those 20-second news stories and they can really make things worse," Givens said.
Bravo, George. I'm with you.
\ The Federal Information Center is a telephone clearinghouse that can help citizens wade through the tangled bureaucratic yarn ball by dispensing phone numbers and addresses of appropriate government offices.
It's an invaluable service, really, listed in Roanoke's phone book at 982-8591.
Sadly, that number's been disconnected.
Directory assistance will tell you the new number is 982-6000.
Sadly, that number's a recording: "If you are calling a government agency in the Roanoke area but do not have the number, check your local directory or call directory assistance."
Directory assistance may offer up another number: 1-804-441-3820.
Sadly, that number is Occupational Safety and Health, whatever that is. They say they get calls for the information center from time to time, but don't know why.
They will, though, give you the new number, which they've memorized: 1-800-347-1997.
Sadly, I haven't the guts to try it.
by CNB