Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 26, 1995 TAG: 9503250002
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: G-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The bulwark of American and global agriculture, which through much of history has supported and does now support much of the world's population, is small-to-moderate family farms. Since the '30s in the United States, an important influence on farm decision-making has been the policies and payments of the federal government. The ostensible, historical purpose of these has been to support and sustain the American family farm.
Recent farm bills (in 1985 and 1990) were structured to supposedly encourage greater economic and environmental suitabilities of farming, sometimes at the expense of policies more appropriate to such seminal family-based farms, those farms most suited to environmental and natural-resource protection.
The outcome of these legislative acts, and their spotty enforcement, has been to allow the largest farms, often owned by corporate investors and not operating, resident families, to take advantage of government support while the smaller owner-operated farms suffered reductions in those absolutely necessary supports. The effect has been continued reductions in farms and farmers' numbers, due to financial and psychological failures.
The needs for support of owner-operated farms and farm families in agricultural legislation are immediate, and if not enacted (as recent trends indicate), this country's food, fiber and materials' productions will be left only to a usurious, cutthroat few. The great wealth we have in landed, self-educated and self-reliant farm families will dissipate, and we'll all be left the much poorer for it.
RICK WILLIAMS
FERRUM
Leaders appear to support child abuse
I WAS dismayed to learn of the alleged sexual abuse of two area children (Feb. 1 article, ``Man who sodomized toddler remains free'' and Feb. 4, ``Roanoke man, 44, gets prison in statutory rape''). I was further dismayed at the message given by two of our community leaders - Roanoke's Mayor David Bowers and Judge Richard Pattisall - that the rights of our children take a back seat to those of adults.
I refer to the cases of Reiko L. Smith, who allegedly sodomized an 18-month old baby, and Ren Heard, accused of coercing a 14-year-old girl to become his sexual slave. As with any case of child abuse or neglect, I'm horrified and incensed that adults could treat children in such a manner. I'm equally incensed that this valley's leaders have taken such a lighthearted approach to these alleged offenses, all but ignoring the impact on the child victims.
Lest we forget, here are a few facts:
An estimated one in three girls and one in six boys are sexually assaulted by age 18.
Victims suffer numerous short- and long-term effects, such as poor self-esteem, emotional and psychological problems, difficulty forming intimate relationships, and substance-abuse problems.
Recovery from the effects of sexual abuse can take many years.
Many sex offenders begin assaulting others sexually in their preteen years, and most offenders develop a strong pattern of sexually predatory behavior by age 15 or 16.
It's inconceivable to me that a man like Smith would be allowed to remain free on bond, or plea to a lesser charge. But these actions have been taken and/or considered by Pattisall. I'm also outraged that Bowers would choose to be Heard's defense attorney. With our city having more abused and neglected children than any other locality in the Shenandoah Valley or Southwestern Virginia, I feel child abuse should be a major issue for him. I cannot comprehend that he, a public official, would defend Heard's acts.
Through their actions, Mayor Bowers and Judge Pattisall have sent a strong message to the community - our children aren't important. In essence, they've sanctioned the abuse of our children. It's high time our community, as well as every community in the nation, took a firm stand for our children's rights and needs.
SHANNON M. BRABHAM
Executive Director
Child Abuse Prevention Council
ROANOKE
Public TV is a model partnership
THE HONORABLE Newt Gingrich, speaker of the House of Representatives, has spoken: Zero out the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which has been eating taxpayers' money!
According to him, we've been paying taxes involuntarily to subsidize something that tells us how we should think. No one tells Americans how they should think. Public television is a model of public-private partnership using a small amount of federal dollars (about 80 cents per person per year) and many more private dollars. What we gain from public television can never be duplicated by commercial media. It's decent, noncorruptive television.
Those families who cannot afford cable hookups benefit from public television. We face a crisis of quality in public education, and a crisis of violence and exploitation from commercial media. Public television is like a public school, library and cultural institution that promises so much good that our children need! Those of us who for some reason cannot attend concerts can enjoy many of them on public television.
MARIE L. GRAY
ROANOKE
Giving lie to Roosevelt's words
IN YOUR March 5 edition, a story was headlined, ``U.S. scales back V-J ceremonies'' from The Washington Post.
I was en route to the Philippines and was literally in the middle of the Pacific Ocean when the Japanese, without warning, attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 - the day President Roosevelt said would ``live in infamy.'' It was nearly 37 months later when I was evacuated back to the United States because of injuries suffered during the fighting in New Guinea.
During my years overseas, I had the dubious privilege of participating in four assault landings, and knowing the fetid jungle of New Guinea on a very personal basis. The only satisfaction Pacific War veterans had when returning home with malaria, dysentery, hookworm, jungle rot, scrub typhus and a host of other tropical diseases, some without names, was that we had conquered the hostile jungle, and beaten the treacherous Japanese.
A few medals hanging on a wall or tucked away in a box or drawer represented the pride of these veterans in their accomplishments. Now our own government has tarnished these medals, destroyed this pride and repudiated these accomplishments.
We were told by the Smithsonian Institution's revisionist historians that we fought a racist war. Our president bows before the aggressor 50 years after we thought we had won World War II.
The war in the Pacific was little noted 50 years ago, and has been little noted during the many celebrations since Dec. 7, 1991. Now it's being written out of history, not only by the revisionist historians but by our president himself. How hollow do President Roosevelt's words ring today.
HENRY J. FORESMAN
LEXINGTON
Agency reveals its true purpose
WITH PLANNED Parenthood's announcement that it will soon be performing abortions, this should settle any question in the public's mind as to its real purpose.
Since moving here a year ago, I've observed the inactivity of the pro-life movement while Planned Parenthood is well-financed and quite visible with its television ads. I hope Planned Parenthood's action will move those who are anti-death to action to save the unborn - those who cannot defend themselves.
Perhaps area churches contributing to United Way may want to consider whether they want their monies to help fund this agency in its obvious pro-death stance.
JO BETH VIGGIANO
ROANOKE
Experts agree on conception issue
AN ECONOMIST, Carl Poindexter becomes a medical expert when he states: ``There is not scientific evidence'' that life begins at conception (March 3 commentary, ``Only women should decide abortion law''). As is usual with pro-choicers, he cites no scientific sources to support his position. What do real experts in this field say?
Dr. Bradley M. Patten's textbook ``Human Embryology'' states: ``It is the penetration of the ovum by a spermatozoa and the resultant mingling of the nuclear material each brings to the union that constitutes the process of fertilization and marks the initiation of the life of a new individual.'' Even the Encyclopedia Britannica's and the Time Atlas of the Human Body say that a new individual is created at the time of conception.
In testimony before the U.S. Senate, 11 scientists and physicians testified that human life begins at conception. Dr. Alfred M. Bongioanni of the University of Pennsylvania said, ``I submit that human life is present throughout the entire sequence from conception to adulthood, and that interruption at any point throughout this time constitutes a termination of human life.''
By the way, the word ``fetus'' comes from the Latin and means a ``small child.''
JOHN C. LeDOUX
BLACKSBURG
by CNB