Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 1, 1994 TAG: 9407010047
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A16 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
How many men, taking constant abuse, spend years restraining and limiting themselves to kicking through doors, punching holes in walls and breaking windows? Let them crack once and strike their wives, and they immediately, at a minimum, become wife-abusers.
Men by nature want to love, protect and provide for their women. It happens, but the male that will strike out and harm a female without extreme provocation is very rare.
Just maybe we haven't looked at half the problem.
ALEX V. DERFEN ROANOKE
Robb supported by 'immoral minority'
IN RESPONSE to the June 7 editorial, ``Oliver North, Republican'':
Virginia citizens are at risk if they're without morally sound leaders who share the majority's strong ethics that made this superior nation. History shows the decline of nations. The United States is fast approaching decline due to inner decay of society.
Our country believes in majority rule. Correct? What do 85 percent of Americans say about public-school prayer in a nation built on prayer? Return it to our schools. (Who again prayed with his family to God immediately after receiving his party's nomination for the U.S. Senate?)
So why is the minority driving us to immorality? The leaders are not moral. Does the immoral minority overwhelmingly support Chuck Robb? Check his donation record. They do.
Who supports Oliver North? People who work to support their families, their constitutional freedoms, their God-given rights, and the strength and beauty of Virginia.
KAREN B. SCOTT BENT MOUNTAIN
Case of journalistic 'mental confusion'
FROM MY Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language, the definition of the word disorientation is ``a loss of orientation; specifically, in psychiatry, a condition of mental confusion with respect to time, place, and the identity of persons and objects.''
What has happened during your lifetimes that makes you want to support (June 21 editorial, ``Supervisors shouldn't be censors'') a book like ``Daddy's Roommate,'' a thought-provoking book that ``portrays the life of a divorced father openly living with a gay lover''? Gee, ``if a book such as `Daddy's Roommate' can help even one child [with a gay parent], it has earned its shelf space.'' Do you really believe this book is in the Montgomery County library due to the ``professional judgment of county educators''?
Apparently, you editors are suffering from severe disorientation. Please don't try to disorient the rest of us. Seek counseling instead.
SCOTT N. MARKWELL ROANOKE
North stands up for young and old
I DON'T think we low-income people ought to pay for women who have abortions. If they want to destroy lives, let them pay for their own abortions. Tax money should not be used.
Vote for Oliver North. who is fighting for us elderly people and has respect for young people. He's a father who knows what it is to raise a family.
BEA E. SPRAKER SALEM
Good things came in small schools
ROBERT Benne's June 27 commentary (``In schooling, small brings large rewards'') says what I always wanted to write. He couldn't be more correct in praising small schools.
In my youth, the population of Frankfort, Ky., (a two-industry town: state government and whiskey) was around 12,000, and the city's school system was correspondingly small. Students in the first four grades attended neighborhood schools scattered throughout the town, each having one teacher and one classroom per grade. One teacher also served as principal. For grades 4-8, all students came to one school; for high school, we all moved to Frankfort High. Even in high school, the principal taught every student a required course, plane geometry. The administration consisted of the principal, his secretary, a librarian, and a combination truant officer and guidance counselor. The superintendent of the entire system had his office in the high-school building, and his staff consisted of one secretary.
Graduating classes averaged around 50 to 60. Everything Benne said about academics, extracurricular activities, personal attention, etc., could have been written about Frankfort High. I have a yellowing newspaper photograph of the junior and senior National Honor Society members in my senior year (five girls and seven boys). Of the ones I now know about, there's a nationally known California surgeon, two engineers, two women physicists, an airline pilot, a professional writer and a mathematician. And this was 1955! In a small school, no one thought it unusual for girls to excel in science and mathematics. And it was impossible for them to be neglected or ignored in classes of a half-dozen or so.
ROBERT S. JOHNSON LEXINGTON
by CNB