ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, March 1, 1996 TAG: 9603010006
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: LETTERS
I WISH to make three points regarding the recent removal of the ``Diversity Enriches'' billboard (Jan. 25 article, ``Ad manager: Threats killed `Diversity' billboard'') after threats of property damage were made by an organized, lawless element among us.
If the billboard had stated ``Stop Drug Abuse'' or ``Please Stop Smoking'' or even ``Jesus Is Lord,'' and had carried the sponsoring tag line, ``Gay and Straight Citizens of Southwest Virginia,'' would the narrow-minded among us still have threatened property destruction unless the sign was removed?
Most likely so, because the opposition wasn't to the billboard's message but its sponsors. However, opposition in such a context would have left naked the hate that fills their hearts.
As a Montgomery County resident, I'm dismayed that our local law-enforcement officials haven't begun a formal investigation to identify those responsible for threatening to destroy private property.
Threats to destroy property and harm individuals should be pursued, whether the lawless elements are the Mafia, Ku Klux Klan or, in this case, so-called Christians.
If these threats of violence are allowed to succeed, who in the business community or general public will be next? An unrepulsed threat to private property, regardless of the reason, puts others' property at risk in the future.
Freedom of speech is a fundamental right in our democratic society, as is the right to privately own property. As the former is eroded by the lawless elements' threats to private property, so, too, are the underpinnings of our democratic society.
Does anyone remember Nazi Germany?
KEVIN D. EVERETT
CHRISTIANSBURG
Forbes would need on-the-job training
IT WILL be interesting to see if the voters are willing to sell the office of president to the highest bidder.
Steve Forbes, for one, seems to be attempting to buy election results in his favor. When he leaves his pet topic - the flat tax - he seems to falter and become less knowledgeable. Since he hasn't previously held any political office, I believe it would be a mistake to trust him with the highest office in the land.
My choice for president would be either Jack Kemp or Sen. Dick Lugar.
MURRAY P. CARVER SR.
SALEM
Make up lost learning time
AS A parent of a student attending high school in Montgomery County, I'm concerned about the amount of time lost due to inclement weather. Various articles in your newspaper indicated that our School Board intends to use ``banked'' time to make up the time lost. That would be a serious mistake since two of our high schools use four-by-four block scheduling. Those schools have class periods 1 1/2 hours long, twice the length of regular periods, so time lost is double for them. So far, our students have missed 10 days. For students on the four-by-four schedule, that's equivalent to 20 days or a month of school.
All students need in-class time because so much material is covered in each class. However, those students taking advanced placement courses especially need class time because they'll take a comprehensive three-hour exam in May. For them, lost class time is lost knowledge that won't be covered prior to the May exams.
Since Montgomery County includes six makeup days in its school calendar, adding four extra days shouldn't impose a hardship on anyone. We as a community need to ask what's more important - inconvenience or our students' education. Let's make up the lost learning time, and hope and pray we don't have any more inclement weather disrupting students' education.
CATHERINE D. deROSSET
CHRISTIANSBURG
Build it - and it will be outdated
THE CONCEPT of a ``smart'' highway is unrealistic. By the time required to advance from concept to highway opening, the computer hardware and software built into the smart highway would be obsolete. The life of an automobile and computer hardware are about the same. Forget the highway. Concentrate on the automobile.
JAMES P. WEBB
ROANOKE
Few get it right on the first try
REGARDING the Feb. 18 news article, ``First-graders can suffer writer's block'':
As a business-writing trainer who spends hours helping people overcome bad teaching about writing, I applaud Linda LeFever's efforts. Her first-grade students write first, getting their ideas down on paper, then clean up the spelling and so forth. Of course!
As well as training, I also write. My first drafts bulge with mistakes: redundancy, misspelling, awkwardness and so on. That's why they're called first drafts. I hone them. But without those rough first drafts to get my ideas on paper, I'd be lost. After 14 years of writing every day, I still need multiple drafts. I'm not alone in this - most writers do.
So if experienced writers can't, young children surely can't write perfectly the first time around. Teaching them they ought to teaches them they'll never be able to write. Result, years later: A frustrated employer calls me in to train bright employees who can't write.
PRISCILLA RICHARDSON
CLOVERDALE
LENGTH: Long : 107 linesby CNB