ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, May 23, 1996 TAG: 9605230005
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-16 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: LETTERS
REGARDING THE May 16 news article (``Board: We are busing'') on busing more children to other schools:
Why would you want your kids to come to our school (Grandin Court Elementary)?
We don't have aerospace science, microvillages or computer labs. All money for extras is raised by the PTA.
We don't have reduced lunch rates, free field-trips and class-size reductions.
We're considered a ``middle income'' neighborhood. The city doesn't think we deserve special consideration. All attention and money are for ``low income'' neighborhoods. We're made to feel guilty for hard work, sacrifice for education and struggling day to day.
I'm proud of what we've accomplished for ourselves and our kids. Not even the almighty City Council can take that away from us.
|PAULA C. HODGES |ROANOKE
`Trail of Tears'|
was also barbaric|
REGARDING Charles F. Roberts' May 6 letter, "Stop aiding Israel's barbaric tactics":
When the United States was in its infancy, the Cherokee people had their "state" just as the other 13 colonies had theirs. Cherokee leaders approached President George Washington and asked what they should do to become a peaceful part of the nation of colonies. He said they should adopt the ways of the new colonists. As a result, they adopted the clothing, established schools, printed books, had a bicameral legislature and a Supreme Court. They were as civilized as the colonies.
However, as has happened so many times in history, powerful people coveted their land. The powerful won President Andrew Jackson's support, and the Cherokees were offered a pittance - as little as 50 cents an acre - to leave. Those refusing to sell were rounded up - men, women and children - by the U.S. Army. They were marched more than 1,000 miles to a reservation in Oklahoma known as The Cherokee Strip. More than half died on the way. The famous Oklahoma land rush later occurred as oil had been discovered, and that caused the Cherokee Strip to be incorporated into what is now Oklahoma. That sordid piece of behavior, the march, is known as "The Trail of Tears."
Also, to my way of thinking, "barbaric tactics" should be attributed to those who use innocent civilians as shields in bombarding an enemy with rockets aimed at Israeli civilian populations.
|JACK E. BYRD |HARDY
Allen retraces|
Baliles' footsteps|
SO, GOV. George Allen took a trip at taxpayers' expense to peddle chicken feet. Somebody needs to refresh his memory. We paid for former Gov. Gerald Baliles to make that same trip about a decade ago.
|MARY ARNOLD |CHRISTIANSBURG
Creationism is|
another myth|
I READ two letters to the editor from well-meaning folks recently concerning a letter published on April 20 by Charlene Lutes: ``Creationism isn't science, so don't teach it as such.'' The responding letters opposed Lutes' letter, although she was correct.
The assertion that creationism is a viable alternative to evolution in scholastic education is flawed. Those who suggest that creationism is just as scientific as evolution are mistaken. Evolution is based on well-documented evidence in biological systems, fossil records and genetic research. Those creationists who clamor that there are gaps in the fossil history of the planet don't realize that these gaps are almost inconsequential, given the 4 billion-year history of the Earth.
Fossil evidence includes many transitional species and shows a clear advancement in body structures over the aeons. The studies of genetics in humans and other primates show there's only an approximate 1 percent deviation in the genetic sequences of the vastly different species. Charles Darwin, in the first half of the 19th century, was able to recognize speciation in the populations of finches on different islands of the Galapagos.
Creationism is mythology. It's no different from the creation stories of the ancient Norse who believed the Earth was created by Odin and his brothers from the body of a giant named Ymir. Greeks believed that Chaos existed at first, followed by Mother Earth. The only difference is that people still believe in the stories told by the Bible.
To teach creationism as an alternative to evolution in the science curriculum of public schools would be to say that the two are similar when, in fact, only one belongs in a science textbook. If creationism must be introduced into the schools, it must be in literature classes, which offer brief forays into other mythologies as well as Christianity.
|THADDEUS BISSETT |LEXINGTON
LENGTH: Medium: 96 linesby CNB