Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, December 24, 1993 TAG: 9312270282
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
A nationwide search!
Please, let's find someone quickly. To see vacant buildings and empty storefronts downtown would be more than most people native to this area could abide.
It's hoped the carpetbagger, hired gun or mercenary - whatever one chooses to call this savior of Downtown Roanoke - will bring something more to our fair community than saying how he or she loves our mountains, has always dreamed of living in a city of this size and how friendly people have been. All this duly reported in the obligatory biography in the Roanoke Times & World-News, along with how he or she managed to save the city where last employed from certain economic and tourist oblivion.
If this new executive director is brilliant, we can expect to have his or her ``services'' for about two years. If the person is as dumb as a box of rocks, five to six years. One half of the tenure will be learning about sucking up to the power people and whose phone calls to accept and return. The last half of the tenure will be spent searching for a new position with a bigger salary in a much larger pond.
And when the director moves on, there'll again be the usual schmaltzy parties that give credit where no credit is due. This, judging from past experience. These people are ships that pass in the night, and their worth will be measured like the permanence of the wake they leave.
This newspaper should not be a cheerleader. It should not look at everything through rose-colored glasses. Integrity shouldn't be tempered by ad dollars. Politicians and lawyers, no matter how reprehensible, should not be the only people who are singled out for its advice on how to be better citizens.
Any discerning reader of this newspaper can see its writers' avoidance of criticism for anything that has to do with commerce. When this newspaper climbs in bed with Downtown Roanoke to put a notice into employees' pay envelopes, then it's apparent it has lost its objectivity.
The 100-(or so)-year-old conscience of Roanoke succumbs to fear of the dollar lost. Not a pretty sight.
DOUG GRAHAM
ROANOKE
West End Center is a model program
REGARDING PREVENTION of teen-age pregnancies:
What hasn't been mentioned in the recent profusion of editorials and letters to the editor is the West End Center for Youth. This program is already having success. Although prevention of teen-age pregnancy is not a direct goal, it's certainly an indirect result. This program is having success, not with some nebulous group, but with specific ``at-risk'' children.
On a regular and ongoing basis, the center provides supervision and a safe place for kids to be. The children are respected and are taught to respect themselves as they are tutored academically, provided information of all types, and taught values. They're shown the possibility of a better way of life and practical ways they can go about obtaining it for themselves.
Some of the so-called irresponsible parents themselves need help and support to meet their children's needs. The center tries to help them, too. It takes parents, children, the center's staff and many volunteers, as well as assistance from other existing agencies, all working together - but it works. Not a single regular participant has become pregnant in the years the remarkable director, Kaye Hale, has been there.
Might it be that we already have the needed prototype to make a real dent in the serious plight of our children and our society?
LILLIEN S. BROWN
ROANOKE
Old goat isn't a wild animal
AS A MEMBER of the Virginia Angora Goat and Mohair Association, I'd like to respond to the anti-game preserve news article on Nov. 29 by staff writer Adrienne Petty entitled ``Protesters: It's not fair game.''
The picture of the beautiful white animal on your front page was labeled incorrectly. That's not a wild ram or sheep; it's an 8- or 9-year-old Angora goat buck.
Angora goats have been raised in this country ``domestically'' since the late 19th century. Anyone who wears mohair sweaters is wearing the fleece from these animals, which are sheared twice yearly. Looking at the fleece on this pictured goat, he was sheared in July just before the so-called wild-game preserve bought him out of a herd in Texas.
He may not be a pet, but this goat is not a wild animal with a fear of being hunted. For him to have lived as long as he has, he's been handled and shorn twice yearly all of his life. Unshorn goats don't live as long as he has. He only fears man because shearing is unpleasant.
Shame on these ``wild game hunters.'' Are milk goats next?
E. DIANE COLEMAN
INDEPENDENCE
Salem couple got the flags flying
THE COUPLE who made the flags for the Salem Stadium, the Stagg Bowl, should be recognized. Due to a misunderstanding with the original flag-makers, they had one week to make 12 flags. They succeeded and did a wonderful job. That couple was Bobby and Sheri Reed of Salem.
PAULA CARR
VINTON
Show recalls a gentler decade
IF YOU REMEMBER Nash automobiles, Sal Hepatica and Forhans toothpaste, then surely the current presentation at Mill Mountain Theater will give you a lump in the throat and perhaps even a tear or two - as it did to me.
Aside from the superb presentation of stirring song and entertaining byplay, this musical makes one recall the comparative days of innocence of the '40s.
Those days when rap was something done on a door, crack was what you might see in a sidewalk, and AIDS was nothing more than simple helpers. When a schoolyard confrontation would be settled by some pushing and shoving and maybe a wild swing or two. Kids could take their time growing up, without the pressures and tensions they endure today.
It's true that today's high-tech environment has brought us wonderful advantages in many ways, but I'm sorry for those who cannot ever know life as it was in the '40s.
BUD SANTORO
ROANOKE
by CNB