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

DATE: SATURDAY, February 1, 1992                   TAG: 9202030149
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

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BRIEFLY PUT . . .

MAYBE the upset victory in Pennsylvania last year by Democrat Harris Wofford, who stressed health-care needs, convinced President Bush he'd better pay mind to the issue. It already had the Republican National Committee's attention: Before its chairman, Lee Atwater, died last March, he had battled a brain tumor for a year; the cost of that care broke the committee's health-care fund.

THE PRESIDENT proposes to cut defense spending by $50 billion over six years, bringing it down to $250 billion annually. By then, the cost of servicing the national debt - already $200 billion a year - may rival the defense budget for size. If we don't need as many airplanes or bombs, still less do we need bigger interest payments.

A SNOUT full of cayenne pepper could stop a charging bull. Manassas police officers hope it will have the same effect on criminals. They're testing a new cayenne pepper solution that, when sprayed in the face, burns the eyes, ears, nose and throat and temporarily debilitates. Said to be more effective than Mace (but those big pepper-grinders can be cumbersome). If troublemakers still won't behave, use the cayenne for high-voltage jail-house chili and make them eat it.

CLARIFICATION? An editorial on Jan. 29, regarding Money magazine's ranking of property taxes in Roanoke, may have been unclear. The magazine based its ranking on a $620 property-tax bill for Roanoke. How does the article's author explain this figure? The survey, he says, assumes a "median-value house," as reported in the 1990 Census, in an area "where affluent homeowners like Money subscribers (median household income in 1991: $69,275) are most apt to live." We're not sure what he means, either.

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