Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 6, 1994 TAG: 9408090019
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Why is Lee so angry? What is her message?
If her angry diatribe was meant to point out that Ms. Allen doesn't measure up as a woman of the '90s, it missed the mark. I rather think she does measure up. It takes a lot of grace and intestinal fortitude to balance duties as the wife of the state's top government official with that of wife, mother and homemaker.
I also think it's nice to know that the governor's mansion has a swing set on the lawn. (Ms. Lee mentions this as if it were a blight on the environment.) To me, it bespeaks normalcy in an increasingly abnormal society.
Lee observes that Ms. Allen ``obviously has the proper lack of self-esteem to qualify her as The Perfect Woman'' (whatever that means). Most people wouldn't interpret Ms. Allen's self-effacing remarks on her return from South Africa as a lack of self-esteem.
All Lee's denoucements do is underscore the stereotypical characterization of a radical feminist. Ms. Allen seems perfectly happy in her role. And Virginians must be happy to have George and Susan Allen in office. After all, they voted them in.
JUDITH G. SMITH ELLISTON
North won't be a 'rubber stamp'
IN RESPONSE to Jim Barnhill's July 18 letter to the editor, ``No second chances for Oliver North'':
Apparently, Barnhill believes we human beings get everything perfect the first time around. Unbelievable, and not true! Without second chances, how could we improve our lives, correct our mistakes, grow as human beings? I've had many second chances, and my life is different due to changing my choices with second chances.
Oliver North has betrayed no one! He didn't reveal facts that would be dangerous to prisoners. Congress was determined to belittle former President Ronald Reagan, and North was the scapegoat. He served our country in Vietnam; his buddies trusted him. No lieutenant colonel ever has the authority to order what happened in the Iran-Contra deal! North bore well the scapegoat mantle.
He'll serve Virginia well, unlike Charles Robb, who is a rubber stamp for President Clinton. North is against government spending; against giving money to the sleazy National Endowment of Arts; favors term limits; wants workfare, not welfare; favors school choice; and is against wholesale abortions.
May God bless us all when we receive second chances to better ourselves, change our lives, mend relationships, and serve our God and our nation!
GEORGIA CAMPBELL BEDFORD
`Stones' have stood test of time
AS AN associate professor and scholar of English and popular culture, I'm distressed by Stephanie Mansfield's attack on Mick Jagger and other Woodstock-generation rock artists (July 29 Extra section, ``Lately, it's the rock of ages'' from The Washington Post).
Normally, your rock coverage is fair and perceptive. Staff writers Mark Morrison and Donna Alvis-Banks are exceptional critics, but Mansfield blew it.
I'm sure she meant her ad hominem attacks to be humorous, but she went too far. (I'm a baby boomer, too, but I don't see oxygen tanks and Rogaine - whatever that is - in my immediate future.) Jagger's strutting and misbehaving at a dinner party are bad things. And his illicit kiss in the writer's jeep, in the Caribbean no less, is darn near unforgivable. But never judge artists' work on the basis of their personal lives. Picasso burned his mistress' arm with cigarettes, making him less of a man, but no less an artist.
``Voodoo Lounge'' is a good album, praised by Time, Rolling Stone and other leading magazines. Mansfield misses the point of the lyrics she quotes: ``brain dead ... feeling nothing ... strapped to my bed ... '' The Stones are talking about spiritual paralysis, the same topic treated by Pink Floyd in ``Comfortably Numb'' and T.S. Eliot in ``The Waste Land.''
The Stones have stood the test of time. They, the Grateful Dead and Pink Floyd are on the most successful tours of this summer. And the Stones have earned serious academic study. In ``The Art of Rock and Roll'' (Prentice Hall), Charles T. Brown calls the Stones ``technically quite excellent,'' ``mystical'' and ``intelligent critics of social mores.''
Mansfield is shallow in limiting rock to a genre of ``youthful rebellion.'' As Brown explains: ``Rock is now a universal art form and means of communication, spanning generations all over the world.'' Who cares if Jagger dyes his hair? He's given people lots of ``satisfaction'' for 30 years.
ANNE CHENEY BLACKSBURG
2nd Amendment not just for sports
THE RIGHT protected by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has nothing to do with "sporting purposes." That is why the bill to prohibit the manufacture of military-style assault weapons is unconstitutional.
The seemingly omnipotent Clinton administration, with its lackeys in the media who offer invaluable help with their propaganda blitzkrieg, fanatically campaigns for an assault-weapons ban that is an important step in domestic disarmament.
ILYA BELOOZEROV BLACKSBURG
by CNB