ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, August 3, 1996 TAG: 9608050027
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: LETTERS
IN RESPONSE to the July 28 Commentary page article, ``Kerri Strug: Olympic Heroine or Abuse Victim?'':
Women's gymnastics does not rob young girls of their femininity. Does the author, Leora Tanenbaum, think that girls who have the will to train their bodies and minds to perfection are stunted, stupid asexual children?
She refers to Kerri Strug as unhealthy, breastless and boyish. All of our women OIympians were gorgeous in their gymnastic routines. How the crowd admired them!
Tanenbaum also states that fans enjoyed seeing Kerri's pain. Poppycock! Fans' hearts almost burst with pride in this gutsy little American.
In this day of lowered standards, give us more like Kerri, more families willing to release their children to the pursuit of excellence, more strong coaches like Bela Karolyi. Give us fewer negative sob sisters like Tanenbaum. JOE ANN BREAUX ROANOKE
Bedford County needs a cleanup
YOUR COMMENDATION of the city of Bedford's efforts to preserve and expand public parks (July 30 editorial, ``Bedford goes for the green'') was well-spoken and properly placed.
Would that Bedford County could become as farsighted! I suggested to the county last year, by letter, that their eyesore business and perpetual yard-sale area at the intersection of Virginia 24 and 651 needed drastic clean-up measures. Residing within 300 yards of the Blue Ridge Parkway, bordering wetland, an intermittent stream and otherwise well-maintained Roanoke County-National Park Service property, is a containment area for dozens of junked gasoline pumps, the shell of a large hockey-team bus, various other abandoned vehicles, an oil-pumping operation and a steel-fabricating plant. My efforts last year succeeded only in removal of a junked hearse and a wrecked house trailer.
Tucked into an obscure corner of Roanoke County, we on Mountain View Road, and those on both sides of Virginia 24 (Chestnut Mountain/Falling Creek) work to maintain neat homes and grounds while buffeted by this conspicuous Bedford County site, and the threat of taxation without representation (annexation) by Vinton, which has an abundance of environmental eyesores within its town limits.
Please continue to applaud efforts like those of Bedford city, and help ensure that elected and appointed officials feel as encouraged and rewarded to faithfully protect the environment as commercial concerns. WILLIAM HEWITT VINTON
A quick fix for Social Security
SOCIAL SECURITY isn't an ``entitlement.'' No generation is ever entitled to the product of another generation's involuntary labor. Gerontocracy isn't the American dream.
The system's pay-out years have passed; the pay-up years are here. Baby boomers and the X generation are stuck with the bill.
Millions of senior citizens spend their checks on plush cars and cruises, but millions of others rely on their benefits to buy food. Few in either group appreciate the psychological and financial burdens put upon working people by this oppressive system, which transfers wealth from workers to nonworkers. Even fewer see through ``matching employer payments,'' a fiction disguising the fact that $1,000 out of every $7,000 earned by working people is taken away from them to fund this system.
How can the damage this system does to society be reduced without introducing financial catastrophe into the lives of many elderly?
Call the system what it is - old-age welfare.
Recognize there's no need to provide larger checks to some than to others.
Establish 10 percent as the absolute maximum tax anyone should pay to support the system. Although burdensome, a 10 percent tax would be a decrease from the current 14.2 percent.
Operate this system so it doesn't pile up astronomical deficits. Fortunately, this is the easy part.
Social Security administrators can calculate the number of credit-years each retiree paid into the system, and how much is available each month for payments. Divide the amount available by the total number of credit-years credited. This determines the amount of the check for that month to be sent to each recipient. Rich, poor and middle class - all who paid the same number of years would receive the same monthly payment.
With payments unrelated to contributions, is there justice in this reform? Of course not. There never was any justice in this or any other system based on coercive transfers of wealth. My concern is to recognize reality, limit taxation and terminate the possibility of deficit-spending for this program. My proposals would achieve these results. MIKE MARLOWE BLACKSBURG
LENGTH: Medium: 87 linesby CNB