
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, October 24, 1994                   TAG: 9410250002
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

A FARM FAMILY IN HARM'S WAY

ECOLOGISTS insist that destroying one species' habitat threatens all humans. The Virginia Department of Transportation and the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors seem willing to skip the subhuman species and get on with wiping out one variety of homo sapiens - the American dairy farmer. In your Sept. 4 newspaper, a staff writer wrote (```An onion in a petunia patch''') that only two dairy farms still operate in Roanoke County. The proposed VDOT plan to widen U.S. 221 would destroy one of those dairies and the livelihood of two families, and wipe out a big chunk of U.S. and Virginia history.

That land is no ordinary piece of property, but a family home built around the nucleus of the original ancestor's log cabin and cherished by seven generations of Poages. For 240 years, a Poage has tended that land and handed down knowledge, skills and love of the land to the next generation. Their farming combines science, hard work and heart. One has to really want to farm, and they do. What do you do when VDOT takes your house, barn and silos? Where does a farmer transfer his knowledge and skills when the land is gone?

Outsiders, with no roots in this heritage, sell a vision of country living as it never was. Their clients expect country life deodorized, sanitized, homogenized and delivered to their doorstep. The citizen who paid taxes and gave his life to his community gets squeezed out in the name of progress.

If it were snail darters or spotted owls, there'd be public outcry and national attention. Instead, we're playing with real people's lives.

There is ample room to reconstruct U.S. 221 on the southeast side of Back Creek. Let the Board of Supervisors and VDOT know you don't support a road that ends livelihoods or turns 240 years of loving and living into a patch of asphalt. If we ignore this issue, we'll be poorer for the loss; if we turn our backs, our homes may be next.

MARY JUSTICE

SALEM

Voters can see the real North

WHY HAVE the media and the liberal left banded together to defeat Oliver North?

Could it be the strong conservative Christian values he represents? Could it be that he is the voice of change? Do they fear that his election will end the entrenched one-party dominance in the Senate?

The liberal left and the media have attempted to veil North in a completely false caricature, but Virginia's voters are beginning to see the real North and will prove on Nov. 8 that they, like him, can't be controlled by the power of the liberal press.

JO BOLLING

POUND

Abortion isn't equal to murder

THE OCT. 3 news article ``Game-watching trims anti-abortion rally'' blamed a televised football game for the ``slim turnout of abortion-rights opponents'' at their protest rally. These protests have always been scheduled during NFL football games. My guess is that the real reason has to do more with abortion than football.

For years, anti-abortion protesters have characterized doctors as ``mass murderers'' and ``serial killers.'' Such extreme rhetoric has prompted some to firebomb clinics and shoot physicians. It has also made many pro-lifers uncomfortable about participating in public protests. Holding up signs stating that ``Abortion Kills Children'' is also extreme rhetoric only believed by the most fanatical people in the pro-life movement.

Abortion isn't equivalent to murder. Saying so is irresponsible and thoughtless. Also, it isn't the mere removal of lifeless tissue. Saying so leads to a cavalier attitude about the important responsibility of pregnancy. Either position is extreme, and shouldn't be given lip service by the media. Every woman who chooses abortion knows it is more than mere tissue. She also knows she isn't an accessory to murder.

SUELLEN STRACKE

CLOVERDALE

Uncivilized, unsporting hunts

THE HUMANE Society of the United States has investigated a shocking horror that's spreading across the country: canned hunts, in which confined animals, unable to distinguish from friend and foe, are heartlessly gunned down even as they may timidly approach the killer.

Zoos across the nation sell surplus animals either directly to canned-hunting facilities or to dealers who sell them to auctions patronized by canned-hunt organizers. Zoos make money from the sales - literally blood money. Wisconsin and California are the only states that have laws governing canned hunts; Virginia does not.

Has Mill Mountain Zoo adopted a lifetime commitment to all the animals in its custody, whether purchased or bred by the zoo?

Canned hunts must be banned. A society that considers hunting of penned animals a legitimate commercial activity cannot call itself civilized.

VIRGINIA A. ZAHN

UNION HALL

by CNB