Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 17, 1994 TAG: 9401170228
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Who gave him the authority to speak for the entire lake community or to down a mayor who's trying to do his job?
Our roads and city streets stay in constant need of repair because of heavy traffic from and to the lake. My wife and I occasionally fish at Smith Mountain Lake, and we pay for the privilege in licenses, launching fees, etc. Does St.Clair shop or go to hospitals and doctors at the lake? We pay to use lake facilities, so why shouldn't he pay to use the city's? Perhaps Mayor Bowers could promote building a toll road or a payroll tax.
PARSHA R. HUDGINS
ROANOKE
Gestures send wrong messages
I WONDER if the current use of ``fight for,'' with such gestures as the clinched fist and upraised arm used by politicians, civil-rights activists, those pro and con abortion, etc., sends the wrong message to our youth? It seems reasonable to me that the use of ``work for," without the threatening gestures, would be the better choice of words.
STAN ROBERTSON
ROANOKE
Mankind loves the almighty dollar
UPON READING the front-page news article in the Jan. 10 Roanoke Times & World-News on Fairfield gun dealers (``Va. customers don't look far for gun dealers'' by staff writer Margaret Edds), I was appalled to see among them a state trooper and an elementary-school teacher.
I have two questions for these men. Trooper Gardner, did you ever stop to think that one of the guns you sell might be the one that kills you some dark night? And Bobby Smith, have you ever thought what could happen in your school if some of your students get one of your guns from parents or friends?
If thinking about this doesn't give you nightmares, I sure don't know what would. This is just another example of mankind's love for the almighty dollar.
DORIS H. TOLLEY
LEXINGTON
Bad lawyers disgrace profession
REGARDING the Jan. 7 news article (``Sexual misconduct complaint not 1st for Lexington lawyer'') on the lawyer who has allegedly pursued his female clients sexually:
Lawyers are apparently doing this sort of thing all the time, according to David Marsten in his book ``Malice Aforethought.'' He's a lawyer himself, so he should know even more expertly what we all know.
There are certainly some good, ethical and honest lawyers, but the numerous rotten apples have contaminated the barrel. Not for nothing is lawyer-bashing at an all-time high. If the good lawyers don't begin to take action against their sleazier counterparts, they, too, will suffer one day the consequences.
If the ethical investigative committees of state bar associations do not make massive efforts to disbar or censure lawyers who are no more than legalized criminals, then the people have to do something about it. Let's have more lawyer tear-apart dolls, more joke books, more movies and commercials depicting lawyers as ludicrous slimebags, more and constant exposure. I also recommend listings of bad lawyers for public inspection.
The worst thing we can do is give up and dismiss the system as so corrupt little can be done.
LOUIS GALLO
RADFORD
Movie review insulted Roanokers
GIVEN the rave reviews for ``The Piano'' in publications such as The New Yorker and The Washington Post, together with that film's Best Picture and Best Actress awards at the Cannes Film Festival, why did the Roanoke Times & World-News' correspondent Mike Mayo give the film such a poor review (Dec. 25, ```The Piano' is too slow to please everyone'')?
I was glad to see the Jan. 7 Extra section article by New York-based free-lance writer Ian Spelling (``Holly Hunter strikes a chord with `The Piano'''). He mollified Mayo's insult that Roanoke's citizens wouldn't recognize the film as art, and somehow wouldn't be able to relate to it. Some of us subscribe to The New Yorker, read books we hope will expand our horizons, do not seek the lowest common denominator, do not confuse our lives with those of native New Zealanders, regard action films such as ``Cliffhanger'' for what they are, and enjoy a movie such as ``The Piano.''
BOBI ARNOLD
ROANOKE
Doing it for the money
THE ARTICLES in the Roanoke Times & World-News on teen pregnancy have been a joke. You know as everyone does that when we stop paying, they go on the pill.
We're paying billions to prostitutes, drug addicts, alcoholics and teens to have babies. The more babies they have the bigger the check.
SANDRA AVERY
ROANOKE
by CNB