Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 5, 1994 TAG: 9409070006
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
In the world of private-sector employment, this act would cause the union to strike, picket lines would have been up, and the opening of school would be an issue for us all to consider. The act implies that for nine years our children have been going to an alternative school that didn't meet their needs, and that children shouldn't have been removed from middle schools and the two high schools where we have all the certified teachers and principals.
To me, it also means that the former school superintendent, Frank Tota, didn't carry out his responsibilities to us when he allowed the program to start. If this is so, then we shouldn't continue to pay him $35,000 to come here each year.
Harris is playing a game with us - a game where our children are the ball getting kicked around, and our committed alternative-education staff and parents of the children are the losers.
Harris is banking on us not to object to his unjustified actions, not to question his decision. He apparently assumes that we're so unknowing and/or uncaring about our children and the teachers who have made a difference in their lives that we'll accept anything he does.
I hope those who know what the alternative-education staff and program have done for this city will come forward to help Harris gain and demonstrate some respect for our history, and an effective process by some committed people.
ROBERT BENNETT ROANOKE
Credit free enterprise system
I RECENTLY underwent outpatient surgery in a Roanoke hospital - a procedure that not too many years ago would have required an overnight stay or perhaps even two days hospitalization.
Since we're preparing for a trip to Ireland, I took with me to the hospital some reading material to while away any waiting time. A recent issue of ``Inside Ireland'' admonishes that `` ... you don't need health insurance in Ireland. However, without it, you might find yourself at the end of a long queue for many procedures ... In practice, you'd be much better off to bring your health insurance with you.''
I apprehensively entered the hospital door bearing the sign ``Outpatient Surgery Entrance.'' A sign inside read, ``Outpatient Surgery Patients: Take elevator to 4th floor.'' Upon exiting the elevator, another sign read, ``Outpatient Surgery Patients: Sign in here. Take seat [arrow pointing] there.''
I wondered if when we ``progress'' to national health care, and a Washington committee of bureaucrats is calling the shots, if the next sign might read, ``Outpatient Surgery Patients: Take one scalpel and read instructions carefully''
Everything went fine with the out-patient surgery. The doctor, anesthesiologist, nurses and entire staff couldn't have been better.
As I regained consciousness, I marveled over the drug they'd given me. It was far better than sodium pentothal I'd had another time. This stuff knocked me out within five seconds, and I came out of it just minutes after surgery, feeling refreshed and not the least bit tired or sleepy. I commented on how advanced our country's medicinal practices have become, and credited our free-enterprise system for this drug's development. Someone joked (?) that under national health care, patients would be knocked out with a hammer.
ANITA LAMBERT EAGLE ROCK
An imaginative welfare scheme
IN THE crime-bill debate, congressional conservatives accused liberals of hiding massive social spending in the guise of fighting crime. In fact, conservatives, with their cry of ``three strikes and you're out,'' are far more guilty of this.
Liberals have struggled for decades, mostly unsuccessfully, to attain minimum social standards in nutrition, housing, employment and health care. Food stamps fail to reach significant numbers of the poor, and when they do, they cannot provide an adequate diet. Housing assistance was slashed while homelessness exploded. Full employment is redefined to mean 6 percent, 6 million people, unemployed. And the increasingly pessimistic possibility of achieving what every other industrialized nation has accomplished, universal health care, needs no additional comment.
For these reasons, I applaud the conservatives' imaginative and visionary approach of reaching social goals of better nutrition, housing, employment and health care by simply incarcerating an ever-larger portion of the population, many who cannot obtain these amenities on their own. For just $20,000 or so a year, we provide the disadvantaged with three meals a day, shelter, work opportunities, and round-the-clock medical care by placing more and more of them in jails and prisons for longer and longer periods of time.
When viewed in this light, the brilliance of the conservatives' social-welfare spending disguised as an anti-crime measure becomes readily apparent.
MARTIN WEGBREIT ABINGDON
by CNB