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

DATE: THURSDAY, October 19, 1995                   TAG: 9510190009
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

LET'S NOT CELEBRATE DIFFERENCES

IT APPEARS to be open season on Lamar Advertising due to its refusal to lease ``Celebrate Diversity'' ads. The latest salvo came from one who wanted us to ``respond positively to the unifying message of diversity'' (Oct. 9 letter to the editor, ``Lamar needs to reverse its decision'' by Dennis Guthrie). Did he really say that?

Do people think about their words and what they mean? What does it mean to celebrate diversity, and why should it be celebrated? There's nothing to celebrate about Irish Protestants and Irish Catholics going at it tooth and nail. Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Muslims have the same language and identical ethnic roots. Yet they've manufactured sufficient differences to slaughter one another. Is Mark Fuhrman celebrating diversity by being a racist?

I say that we should know who we are, revere our traditions and heritage, accept our differences and celebrate what we have in common.

Let's give up on empty-headed slogans that make no sense. America needs to be healed, and individuals who wish to highlight our differences do a disservice. We'll always be different. That's fine, but we don't have to shove it down one another's throat. These are the United, not the Diverse States of America.

When your message is ``We are different,'' it does nothing to bring us together. America has room for all of us as long as we're all Americans. Let's drop our hyphens and stand together.

WILLIAM T. DRENNAN

BLUE RIDGE

Why schools need computers

I WOULD like to challenge Charles F. Roberts (Oct. 7 letter to the editor, ``Virginia's education deficit isn't in computers and dollars'') to visit Burlington Elementary School in Roanoke County and to witness firsthand the implementation of technology into the school curriculum. Computer technology cannot replace expertise of the classroom teacher. However, it does enhance and supplement that expertise.

Pupils, kindergarten through fifth-grade, are excited about technology learning. We do teach reading strategies and evaluate reading comprehension (including higher thinking skills) through computer technology. Students write, edit, revise and publish on the computer. With the help of a knowledgeable computer coordinator within our building, students and teachers are educated and knowledgeable in the use of computers in today's classroom. To function succcessfully in today's society and into the 21st century, we all need to be computer literate.

I hope Roberts read the Oct. 8 articles in this newspaper by Matt Chittum (``Photographer found magic in his desktop'') and Kevin Kittredge (``Screen play''). Both articles highlighted the importance of technology in our society. It's to be hoped that we as educators are preparing our students for a functional place in our society.

JoANN M. MICHAEL

Language Arts Coordinator

Burlington Elementary School

ROANOKE

Hippocratic elitism

IT'S UNFORTUNATE, yet enlightening, that Del. ``Chip'' Woodrum, D-Roanoke, will have ``to get used to different ways of speaking'' in his campaign for re-election as evidenced by the arrogant remarks of his opponent, Newell Falkinburg, as denoted in your Oct. 10 Campaign Notes From Across Virginia (``A `bimbo' by any other name ... ''). It's apparent that Woodrum's foe is a neophyte to the art of discourse, civil and otherwise.

Falkinburg discloses his ignorance by labeling professionals ``bimbos,'' and introduces into the campaign the mud of group labeling and name-calling in the infamous tradition of Sen. Jesse Helms, the Kingfish and cigar-chomping politicos of a bygone era. Big Lick deserves much more than this type of Hippocratic elitism.

PHILIP J. MAHONEY

ROANOKE

by CNB