Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, October 7, 1994 TAG: 9411150047
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The Roanoke Valley needs a facility capable of making ice year-round for ice-skating. It wouldn't have to be another civic center - only large enough to have a regulation hockey rink, locker and weight rooms, and a seating capacity of around 1,000 people.
As everyone knows, the Roanoke Express hockey team took the valley by storm last year, and I think this year will be even better.
What I don't want to see is losing a good thing when we have it. We've had numerous sports teams before, and all have gone by the wayside. If this facility were built, I believe the hockey team would have a first-class place to practice in. And the more they practice, the better they would get and the more fan support they would have. Everybody loves a winner.
Now, let's look at a broader use for this facility. We have a valley youth hockey program, but they have to play a lot of their games at 6 a.m. because that's the only time they can get the ice. I've heard that college teams nearby would love to rent a facility like this.
What about those kids in the valley and surrounding communities who would love to have a place to skate and/or learn to skate? I'm sure parents would be happy to pay for something like this. And wouldn't it be really nice to see a kid from the Roanoke Valley playing for the Roanoke Express in just a few years? I think this could be a reality if this facility were built.
Even if ice cannot be made during summer months, roller-blading has become such a popular sport that people would pay to use the facility during this time.
TOM HAYES ROANOKE
A threat and a promise to Warner
IN RESPONSE to Tim Austin's Sept. 18 letter to the editor, ``Warner stands up to hatemongers'':
I reject his argument that people with decent, moral and religious values are ``angels of hate'' or ``extreme right wing.''
I supported Mike Farris last year, and this year I went to the Republican Convention to help nominate Oliver North as the Republican senatorial nominee because North supports the things important to me. This includes the right to keep and bear arms, term limits, the right to life, etc.
I'll work to see Sen. John Warner defeated in his bid to run for another term in 1996, and thus defeat the Republican Party's ``extreme left wing.''
CARL KEMPA BENT MOUNTAIN
`Guns-for-hire' likes loopholes
RAY ROBRECHT'S response (Sept. 12 letter to the editor, ``Leave labor laws alone'') to the Sept. 5 commentary by the president of my union (``A new compact between labor, management'' by Arthur A. Coia) regarding the need to change our antiquated labor laws made one glaring omission. Robrecht forgot to mention his special interest in opposing labor-law reform. That special interest, of course, is his long standing in the valley as one of our leading labor-bashing attorneys.
Company guns-for-hire, like Robrecht, don't want loopholes in our current labor laws changed. To do so might mean they would truly have to bargain in good faith with unions that win National Labor Relations Board elections. Furthermore, they couldn't encourage companies that hire them to ignore the law because it's toothless anyway.
I doubt if he or his cronies want to see us in organized labor fade away, though. In fact, the opposite is true. They'd like for us to step up our unionizing efforts! What better (and easier) way for them to line their pockets than from profits that management and their workers together have achieved. As I was told at the negotiating table one day by one of these hired guns: ``We can talk about anything or nothing. It doesn't matter to me. The meter's running.''
The real culprits in labor-management cooperation are those who choose to keep the meter running at the expense of the company and its employees. It is also at the expense of the spirit of law, and further erodes our faith in the system.
BOBBY MYERS Business Manager Construction and General Laborers Local Union No. 980 ROANOKE
North is the one who can be trusted
RECENTLY, I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with Oliver North. I'm convinced President Reagan was correct when he said North was an American hero.
Ask yourself this question: If you were held hostage or prisoner of war, as I was, who would you trust to help free you - Bill Clinton, Chuck Robb or North? North is now needed to help take back Capital Hill.
HERBERT T. LAWHORN ROANOKE
Coleman, Warner, stand for integrity
IT APPEARS that Pat Robertson thinks that anyone in the Republican Party who doesn't agree with him is ``a timid moderate'' who doesn't stand for anything (Sept. 18 Associated Press article, ``Robertson lambastes moderate Republicans''). With his remarks, he once again illustrated to the world his narrow-mindedness.
I suppose I fall into the category known as ``moderate Republican,'' although I find the term misleading. It implies that our support of principles isn't strident, but merely moderate in resolve. This isn't true. I staunchly support the principles that made the Republican Party great: a limited role for the federal government, strong national defense, equal opportunity, fiscal responsibility, and protection of individual liberty. An unquestioned commitment to these principles, along with personal honesty and integrity, is all I ask for in a candidate, which makes Marshall Coleman the clear choice in this year's Senate race.
Surely it wasn't an easy decision for Coleman to run for the U.S. Senate as an independent or for Sen. John Warner to encourage and support him, since both have been lifelong Republicans. Their actions disprove Robertson's contention that so-called moderates do not stand for anything. In my opinion, Coleman and Warner are standing up for intellectual honesty.
DAVID W. MIKULA ROANOKE
Scouts keep to the right path
I FOUND fault in your Sept. 7 editorial, ``The girls get together,'' in which you implicitly criticized the Boy Scouts of America for mandating the inclusion of ``duty to God'' in the Scout Oath.
One primary goal of scouting is to build character in young boys. For more than 90 years, leaders have recognized the guiding principle of the belief in a higher authority than one's self for our children's moral development. It's a concept that I believed in as a former Scout, an Eagle Scout, and still believe in now as cubmaster of a pack of more than 50 boys.
Why, then, question a group that refuses to become secularized and bend to societal pressures that encourage lawlessness in boys? The Boy Scouts of America must be doing something right if ``to be a Boy Scout'' is a current expression for being ``morally straight.''
GARY L. LONG BlACKSBURG
Do not console criminals
GLENN Naff, local millionaire and sex offender, strolled before TV news cameras as a would-be fashion model. Too bad the cameras couldn't expose this man's recent sexual crimes, the victims of which were young girls with whom he had shared an apparent family relationship. The court's light penalty for his crimes - if, at best, it can be called a penalty - will hardly be a barrier to his lifestyle. However, Naff's abuse of these young girls has left their lives with soil of body and mind from which there is no escape.
A verdict cannot cure, but it should be handed down with a sure element of penalty towards prevention of crime and its consequences, not a consolation to the criminal.
LUCILLE HUMPHRIES BETSY POTTER SALEM
His shyness was no act
AS A long-time fan of James Taylor, I feel compelled to defend him and his Sept. 20 concert appearance at the Roanoke Civic Center.
Your reviewer referred to him as low-key, easygoing, bemused and somewhat absent-minded (Sept. 21 review, ``James Taylor not quite perfect but, shucks, good''). He also said Taylor spoke as if he were embarrassed.
Give me a break! This isn't the way he was acting, this is Taylor. This is the humble, unassuming, basically shy entertainer we know and love. The quality and great voice were all there.
MRS. FRED WIEBACH ROANOKE
by CNB