ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, May 19, 1996 TAG: 9605170007
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: LETTERS
I WOULD appreciate it if someone could tell me why it's legal for teen-agers to smoke in public without any regard for anyone else. I'm not happy with adults smoking, but they're old enough, according to our laws, to have tobacco. Teen-agers are not!
I'd like to see vending machines removed completely. Enough business establishments are open 24 hours to allow those adults who want to buy tobacco products to get them at their leisure. If those machines can't be removed, then by all means let's hold those people liable who have them in their restaurants, etc. If legal suits can be brought against tobacco companies, then why not the ``pushers''?
The amazing part of this is the aura teen-agers try to generate. A young boy will start smoking to ``prove'' he's a man, and 20 years later try to quit for the same reason. And let me tell you, there isn't anything uglier than an old woman who has smoked all her life, unless it's her corpse. I won't even mention the thousands of dollars a smoker invests in his or her lifetime, or the awful odor smokers produce around them, an odor that gets in my clothes.
I don't mean any disrespect to anyone. I'd share my letter to the editor with my mother and father, assorted aunts and uncles, but I can't. They're dead. Cause of death: cancer and heart disease as a result of having been teen-age smokers.
|MANDY HODGE |VINTON
Citizens can impose|
term limits now|
IN REFERENCE to all the talk about term limits (April 24 article, ``Senators debate term-limit proposal,'' and April 22 commentary, ``Term limits a good issue for the GOP''), there's something many people must not realize.
The United States is a free country with free elections. Our forefathers planned on all citizens being interested enough in our country that we would follow political issues closely so that whenever politicians in office aren't living up to expectations, we'd vote someone else in. Unfortunately, many of us are reactors instead of actors, not getting involved until ``fed up.'' In this case, there's been a roar in this country over the past few years that our country's problems are the politicians' fault, and that we need to get them out of office via term limits. In reality, any problems are the fault of citizens for not casting enough votes.
Requiring all U.S. citizens to vote won't work partly because we'd then have some doing so without a clue. An uneducated vote may be just as bad as no vote at all. The solution is for more people to get more involved, and to make a difference in lieu of being dead weight for society. At the least, they can read the newspaper, watch the news, write to politicians and vote. Then, term limits would be a nonissue.
|CHARLES E. MARCUM |WALNUT COVE, N.C.
School uniforms|
have advantages|
UNLIKE MOST students, I think school uniforms are a good idea. I'm a sixth-grade student at William Byrd Middle School, and there are lots of reasons why I favor school uniforms.
Some children cannot afford the "in" brand of clothing. Also, some styles only last a week or two, so you spend lots of money and wear the clothes for a couple of days. Then they'll stay in your closet like a pair of old bell-bottoms. Uniforms may also eliminate some fighting and the labeling of kids.
Although I think school uniforms are a good idea, there should be some choices as to what they are like. After all, not everyone has the same personality.
But school uniforms can be a great advantage because they may help out less-fortunate students and, in some cases, even save a student's life!
|ALLISON WALTHALL |VINTON
Can Roanokers|
catch a train?|
HERE ARE a few alternatives to the recently discontinued Amtrak bus service between the Sheraton Inn near Roanoke Regional Airport and the Amtrak station at Clifton Forge, connecting with the eastbound and westbound Cardinal that operates three days a week between Chicago and Washington, D.C. (April 27 and 29 articles, ``Amtrak shuttle will make last run to Clifton Forge Sunday'' and ``Amtrak bus route hits end of the road''):
nGreyhound operates bus service to Staunton. Unfortunately, the Staunton Greyhound station is more than a mile from the Amtrak station.
nA municipal parking garage is about two blocks from the Staunton Amtrak station ($14 a month) for Amtrak passengers who prefer to drive and leave their cars in Staunton.
nAmtrak's Crescent, which operates between New York and New Orleans, passes through Lynchburg at about 5:30 a.m. northbound and about 10:30 p.m. southbound. Parking is free at the Amtrak Kemper Street station at the periphery of the Lynchburg downtown area. This train serves Atlanta, Charlotte, Greensboro, Lynchburg, Washington, Philadelphia and New York daily, and Birmingham and New Orleans four days a week.
If someone at Valley Metro reads my letter to the editor, I think a bus from Roanoke to train-side in Lynchburg could provide a valuable service and perhaps even make money. It would certainly be a boon to Amtrak patrons from the Roanoke area.
|RANDOLPH GREGG |ROANOKE
The truth about|
fossils, etc.|
HERE ARE corrections to some errors made by recent contributors to these pages:
nThere are thousands of fossils that show transitions of form between one kind of organism and another. More are being found every year.
nThe age of the Earth doesn't rest on one sample of uranium-lead dating. Instead, many rocks from many places have been studied and dates are cross-checked, using a variety of dating methods. When rocks are correctly collected and analyzed, all the different methods of dating indicate the older rocks on the Earth are billions of years old.
nUsing human population's growth rate to estimate the age of the Earth assumes that populations always grow and that the rate is constant. Both assumptions are false.
The study of evolution is a science. Evolutionary hypotheses are subjected to rigorous testing and debate by the scientific community. Evolutionary hypotheses have to be supported by observable evidence, not just accepted on faith.
My compliments to the editors of The Roanoke Times for writing an accurate editorial (``Teach kids real science'').
|CHARLES KUGLER |RADFORD
Vets center had|
state, local support|
REGARDING YOUR two articles on April 28, ``On the mend'' and ``Goals in place at Care Center'':
In your article about the Virginia Veterans Care Center, you stated that it ``was built by the Department of Veterans Affairs [VA] and given to the state to operate.'' That is incorrect. It was designed by the local firm of Motley and Associates and constructed by a Virginia firm, Kenbridge Construction Co. The design process and construction were managed by the Virginia Department of Veterans' Affairs.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs provided approximately two-thirds of the funds needed for the center's construction, furnishing and equipping. The remainder came from the commonwealth's general fund. In short, the center wasn't a gift by the VA to the state, as you implied. It came into being because of tax contributions of the state's citizens, and the hard work of many of them who desired to see such a project become a reality.
In a feat almost unprecedented for government-construction projects, the Virginia Veterans Care Center was completed on time and under budget. Its subsequent management problems can reasonably be attributed to the creation and appointment of a political board to oversee its operators.
|RICHARD E. O'DELL |ROANOKE
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