Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 8, 1994 TAG: 9405100014
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: D2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
As a military retiree with service-connected disabilities, I've had socialized medicine since entering the Air Force in 1941, and I wouldn't wish it any other way. Whether I need a bottle of aspirin or major surgery, I can go to a military hospital or a Veteran's Affairs medical facility, plop down my health card and everything's taken care of - no paperwork, no fuss, no bother, and the care is as good as you'll get anywhere. I've paid for this over the years, of course, since health care is considered part of a GI's salary. But I'd be willing to pay a value-added tax of 10 percent, or whatever it takes, to ensure that everyone would have these same benefits. Everyone would share in the system and help pay for it, even illegal immigrants.
It seems any employer would welcome such a plan. Most labor unrest occurs because workers are bargaining for better health benefits. One of the largest costs of doing business is health insurance. Imagine how many trillions of dollars would be freed for plant expansion and raises for workers if business didn't have to provide insurance. The only ones hurt would be insurance companies, as you can tell by their TV commercials.
Canadians and the British have such a system, and recent polls indicate that 95 percent are well-satisfied. I expect if a similar poll were taken of veterans, a like percentage would approve. The other 5 percent would gripe if they were being hanged with a new rope.
JOHN W. SLAYTON ROANOKE
Focus on schools in Montgomery Co.
ON BEHALF of the FOCUS 2006 Strategic Planning Commission and members of the 18 task forces that participated in FOCUS 2006, we appreciate your April 6 editorial (``Education goals: Are we serious?'') calling on Montgomery County officials and the public to implement the report's recommendations.
For those of us participating, the process opened our eyes to many issues facing the Montgomery school system. While we sincerely appreciate our many outstanding teachers, administrators and school employees, we have much to do to make our system even better. Editorials such as the one written will help focus public attention on elected public officials and encourage them to fulfill their responsibility. The rest of us must continue to call attention to the school system's real needs.
You've truly performed a public service.
JIM JOHNSON MIKE SOWDER Co-chairs, FOCUS 2006 Strategic Planning Commission BLACKSBURG
American history isn't a romp
IN HIS April 22 column, ``Good old days ain't what they used to be,'' Russell Baker dismisses revisionist history as worthless, and contends that historians are merely men who desired to become scholars, yet lacked heads for science and medicine. He professes a love for the ``old time'' history when, as he puts it, historians made history ``an entertaining romp down through the years starring characters who fascinate people.'' The most important thing he needs to remember is that American history is not an entertaining romp down through the years. It's filled with bloodshed, struggle and war. Inevitably, when we forget the horrors our forefathers lived through, we lose an important part of our heritage.
And as for the characters who entertain and fascinate people? It's a unique condition of the American people that we don't assign to our leaders, past or present, an infallible godlike status. Rather, we see them as what they are - politically oriented men and women who rise to an occasion and fulfill a very important need.
ZACHARY KITTS ROANOKE
Call off the media's dogs in Bedford
I'VE READ a lot of articles in this newspaper about Sheriff Carl Wells in Bedford County. I've never met him, but I felt from the beginning the media were out to get him.
I'm sorry that some Roanokers tried to go down to Bedford County and mess up his life. I wish it were possible for him to hire a special prosecutor and investigate the media to find out why they're so determined to get something on him. I agree 100 percent with Wells' attorney who said, ``It clearly shows how cruel and malicious and unreliable the press and media really are.''
The media have entirely too much freedom. If they think they can get somebody into trouble, they'll dog them to death.
THOMAS L. ALLEN ROANOKE
Southwest Virginia gets only rhetoric
ONCE again, Southwest Virginia gets the shaft from Republican Gov. George Allen.
When asked why he voted twice, as a member of the House of Delegates, against funding the expansion of U.S. 58 from Lee County to Virginia Beach, gubernatorial candidate Allen said it was because he opposed state-issued bonds for the project and favored a pay-as-you-go approach.
Not one month after taking office, he was advocating state-issued bonds to finance Disney's proposed Northern Virginia theme park.
The General Assembly has adjourned; Northern Virginia got its bonds for a new theme park - and Southwest Virginia got nothing but Allen's hypocritical campaign rhetoric.
Shouldn't we ask the new ``Mickey Mouse'' administration in Richmond, ``Where's our road money?''
KAY SAUL ABINGDON
A review should focus on the music
REGARDING Mark Morrison's April 15 review of the Mark Collie-Little Texas-John Anderson concert (``John Anderson does country his way''):
A review should be about music and the show, not the way band members look. Morrison never once mentioned that Little Texas band carried the show, showcased its talent by sharing the microphone and instrumental solos among band members, and received the strongest applause of all three acts.
If he took the time to look at Little Texas' compact-disc covers, he'd see that they write most of their own songs. One of their songs, ``Don't Judge a Book By Its Cover,'' says that even though they may look like a hard-rock band, they're pure country. The crowd roared as they sang it, as it did during most of the concert. So what if Little Texas is, as he put it, ``a country hair band.'' Little Texas puts on one heck of a show, and isn't that what fans pay for?
Not to leave out Mark Collie and John Anderson: they were both terrific. From my seat, the crowd was pumped throughout the show. Too bad Morrison didn't capture that enthusiasm in his review.
ANNE T. PILLSBURY ROANOKE
Constitutional law doesn't make it right
VIRGINIA'S Supreme Court school-funding decision is, at best, a supreme form of inane reasoning that because something is constitutional that makes it acceptable and justifiable. There's been much in the U.S. Constitution that was despicable and unworthy for any democratic nation to live under: slavery, for instance, and giving only the landed gentry the right to vote (women didn't get that right until 1920). There were other shameful and contemptible Constitutional clauses that we've slowly but wisely overcome.
If the sole justification for unequal schooling is based on constitutional law, then our legislature should denounce it and demand equal justice and education for all our children.
Our nation's growth must not depend on landed gentry. It should be able to draw on every part of our society for greater intellectual capacity, thereby improving the quality and rational reasoning of our ``superior'' judges!
Crime and violence are among the major problems facing the country, and these are centered in inner cities where lack of a good education is also centered. This and other states must recognize the fact that ignorance is a leading contributing factor in the growth of violence and crime. The Virginia Supreme Court has knowingly and deliberately ignored obvious results of poorly trained and unskilled people to fit into this modern world.
JOE LIPTON ROANOKE
by CNB