Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 12, 1994 TAG: 9411150049
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
It's time to limit school bureaucracy, and do away with top bureaucrats who have larger salaries than educators who put policies into action.
Outcome-based education is against rote, which is as necessary as reading. Rote can be boring, but how else do kids learn that everything isn't exciting, and learn patience for some of the boring tedium that real life deals out?
Kindergarten through fifth grade, minimum, should be spent on the basics. By not getting those, students have no foundation for anything else.
Virginia's Council of Higher Education issued a report that says 25 percent of last year's freshmen entering our colleges and universities were unable to read, write or count adequately, without remedial assistance.
This is definitely a waste of taxpayer dollars. It means we're paying twice for education our kids aren't getting. So much for liberals taking over education at all levels!
It seems we have to do away with bureaucrats by imposing a hiring freeze on any new people and allowing attrition to take its course. The closest thing to perpetual motion is a government position because, even if the duties are passe, the positions go on forever.
JUNE ROSE FLOWERS
NEWPORT
Conservatives needed in Congress
AN APPEAL to conservatives who are supporting independent U.S. Senate candidate Marshall Coleman:
Your cause has been a noble one, and your message has been heard loud and clear. It's known that you doubt Oliver North's integrity and sincerity. But just how far are you willing to take this? Do you hate North enough to help re-elect Chuck Liberal?
It's clear that we'll elect one of the two party nominees. In all polls, Coleman is trailing the other two by sizeable amounts. So, why waste your vote? Or far worse, why help re-elect Virginia's own Clinton Jr. (Robb)? You should consider what each means for the country.
Our objective should be to get a conservative Congress. Denounce North all the way to the polls if you must, but give him your vote. He deserves a chance to help influence Congress with the conservative views held by most Virginians. With Robb, we know what we'll get: basically whatever Clinton wants.
WALTER L. KING
BEDFORD
Write-ups always down superstars
I THINK the review by your staff writer (Sept. 24, ``Alan Jackson scores big with Salem audience'') about Alan Jackson left a lot to be desired. Why is it that whenever a big country singer comes to the Roanoke or Salem area, there's a big write-up in the newspaper putting the superstar down? I think the reviewer should consider opinions of his readership.
SUSAN WALDRON THOMAS
ROANOKE
Let's not celebrate perversity
``CELEBRATE Diversity''? What in truth that billboard was saying and trying to convince us of was ``Celebrate Perversity.''
The homosexual lifestyle is perverse. Today it is is being cloaked in phrases that sound good - ``alternative lifestyle,'' ``it's genetic,'' ``they're born that way,'' ``love in any form is normal and Christian.'' These are all lies.
God instructs us that homosexuality is against nature. Therefore, it isn't genetic or natural. It is wrong behavior. To become homosexual, you must be recruited with lies. This recruitment is being aimed at our youth to confuse them as to what is right so that they'll consider and believe the lies, and maybe even practice this behavior.
Homosexuality is so perverted that when a society starts to accept it as normal it ushers in all unrighteousness. You don't have to look far for these things manifest in our country.
It isn't a day to celebrate a billboard on diversity, but a sad day to see how far our country is sinking in evil. It's time we sane people stand up and fight for our country and children by boldly speaking up against such perverse insanity.
CYNTHIA MORITZ
ROANOKE
North won't support the middle class
IN ADDITION to having considerably more money to spend on his campaign than his opponent, Oliver North is now a wealthy man. He owns a $1 million estate in Northern Virginia, has other investments valued at more than $3 million, and his yearly income is reportedly more than $1 million.
Rich people like North because he espouses low income taxes for the rich, less government regulation of business, anti-labor union legislation and regressive taxes. And like Ronald Reagan, he feels that if government will get off the back of business, good things will happen to all who work for a living.
Unfortunately, 75 percent of income growth during the Reagan years went to the top 5 percent of income receivers. At the present time, a full-time, minimum-wage worker grosses $8,840 a year, which is $2,300 under the poverty line for a family of three. In 1979, the same worker earned $459 above the poverty line. Also, between 1979 and 1992, the number of working poor increased 44 percent.
If North is elected, he'll probably follow the philosophical leadership of the Senate's Republican minority leader, Robert Dole, who has voted against most legislation that would benefit middle-class Americans. Dole voted against Medicare and the family-leave bill, and against legislation that increased the income tax of the wealthy and lowered the tax on low-income families.
Ask North and Dole if they'll vote for an increase in the minimum wage to offset the loss in buying power caused by inflation. Both will say ``no!'' If there is to be any compassion in government, our best bet lies with the Democrats and Chuck Robb.
OTIS L. HURT
BRISTOL
Where press and presidents meet
HOW SICK of you. Richard Nixon in hell (Oliphant cartoon on the Sept. 22 Opinion page)? He was there only to interview newspaper editors.
RICHARD ALPHIN
BEDFORD
Payne votes for his district
REGARDING Andrea H. Sloop's Sept. 26 letter to the editor (``5th District's views aren't heeded'') concerning the ``evils'' of Congressman L.F. Payne:
I'm not a member of a political party, nor do I regularly vote for any one party's candidates. I'm a conservative, business-minded voter, concerned about government regulations and mandates. I'm particularly concerned about rural areas, such as Patrick County, having less and less influence in Washington. That's why I support Payne for re-election.
Many are trying to link him to the liberal agenda, President Clinton and Sen. Robb. This just won't wash.
Sloop asked if Payne had voted for the 5th District when supporting Clinton's budget plan. Payne has been committed since his election in 1988 to reducing the federal deficit. By voting for Clinton's plan, he saw a way to do that. His vote also lowered taxes for 43,000 people in the 5th District and raised taxes for 5,000. Not a bad ratio.
Payne sides with Clinton when it's good for the district. When it isn't, he doesn't. He didn't vote for Clinton's $30 billion crime bill because it was too expensive, and because very little money, if any, was going to find its way to the 5th District. Also, he didn't agree with the ban on assault rifles.
I believe Payne is good for my home county of Patrick. In 1991, he helped pass a bill to protect the textile industry in this country. He voted against the health-care bill because he opposed employer mandates, and he reduced a proposed tobacco tax tied to health care, from $1.50 down to 45 cents.
Other examples of Payne's conservative voting record: He voted for banning immigrants to the United States who have the HIV/AIDS virus, against lifting the ban on gays in the military, for a balanced-budget amendment, against government-sanctioned homosexual marriages, against taxpayer-funded abortions, for the right to pray in public schools, and for abstinence-based sex education in schools.
RALPH D. HOWELL JR.
STUART
by CNB