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

DATE: FRIDAY, March 27, 1992                   TAG: 9203270471
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

GREED GLORIFIED, FAILURE CONDEMNED

AT AGE 48, I'm still very much a child. And like the pesky child, I tend to ask those discomforting questions that challenge long-held beliefs.

Like: How is it that the exposure of the human body as God made it is "bad," and its mutilation (as in horror films) is considered acceptable? I feel shamed as I am and glorified in my distortion.

How did homosexuality and carrying lethal weapons become "rights," and having babies and showing brotherly love become condemnable acts?

I question, too, a society that glorifies greed and condemns failure (that necessary human experience that leads to growth).

And this obsession with competition that invariably produces more losers than winners. Come, come now, fellow children. Can't we do better than this? JOHN N. SMILEY ROANOKE

by CNB