ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, January 21, 1997 TAG: 9701210059
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
Clinton's famous blasts from the past
AS I READ your Jan. 19 newspaper, I had a hard time holding back a mere chuckle from a great belly laugh caused by the Associated Press news article (``Clinton seeks theme for return'') regarding President Clinton's sweating over his inauguration speech.
Clinton, it said, wanted the speech to be memorable. He was said to be so ``preoccupied'' with polishing his speech and recalling famous lines from former presidents such as Lincoln, Roosevelt and Kennedy that he planned to skip some of the inaugural festivities.
Clinton was striving for a line that would ``resonate,'' the article stated.
I do not believe the president should have wasted his time polishing or that he needed to cancel opportunities to attend inaugural festivities.
I can recall two famous ``resonant'' quotes he has already made - quotes that will go down in the history books.
One is ``I feel your pain.'' But the most famous is ``I didn't inhale''!
MONICA KEYES
SALEM
Businesses can help to fight drugs
IN RESPONSE to a great two-part news series (Jan. 11 and 12), ``Crime and punishment,'' by staff writer Jan Vertefeuille:
I am not a drug user or dealer. However, I can feel for Everette Law, the individual serving a life term in federal prison for dealing crack cocaine. Why work for $5 an hour for some do-nothing, moneybag business owner when you can earn $10,000 a month dealing crack?
I believe business owners must take much of the responsibility for drug problems in the area. I am sick of those in the business community bickering about drug dealers and addicts loitering in their neighborhood.
A simple solution: Loosen the purse strings and pay your employees an honest wage with some benefits. I am sure a move of this nature would clean up some of the local drug trade.
Roanoke police have done a fine job eliminating what they can of the drug trade. Now it's up to business owners to clean it up even more. Quit complaining about the problem and being a me-me person, and try to help the rest of us in the community eliminate drugs completely.
DAVID MAY
ROANOKE
Give our teachers a better break
I KNOW a teacher who must be at school at 8:15 a.m. and cannot leave until 3:45 p.m. When she has bus duty, lesson plans to complete, conferences with parents or faculty meetings, she doesn't leave until after 5 p.m.
Jeffrey T. Morris' Jan. 8 letter to the editor (``Be thankful for any salary raise'') infuriated me. If he had any notion of the long hours teachers put in, he would have written differently. Doesn't he know teachers must grade tests and homework nightly, do report cards and three-week reports on their own time?
His friends who worked at ITT, Singer and Yokohama surely need a money manager. Teaching is a notoriously low-paid profession. Industrial firms' pay is more attractive.
I wonder how he or his friends would like a job in which they get a 30-minute break daily, if that, and get to spend their 20-minute lunch break eating and maintaining discipline of 20 to 25 active children.
Morris needs to visit a local elementary school and see how few teachers are sitting in the lounge drinking coffee. If he or his friends are not happy with their occupations, maybe they should put some time and effort into becoming more professional, and spend less effort trying to demean hard-working, underpaid teachers who do not have time to smell the coffee - much less drink it!
DORIS BLEVINS
CHILHOWIE
The year is off to a bad start
WE START off the new year with a liar and a cheat for House speaker and big trucks taking over our highways. We need the Lord's help to get the United States back in the hands of the people.
CLEVELAND J. ST.JOHN JR.
VINTON
Too much ado over Ebonics
IN MY opinion, Ebonics is just lazy English. I guess you could say I speak it most of the time. I don't think it's another language. I don't have a problem with it, except that Ebonics is the improper use of the English language.
Why would you want to teach someone to use double and triple negatives when it's easier to use one? I was taught in school that two negatives make a positive, so ``I ain't got no money'' should mean that you have money.
The language of the United States isn't Spanish, Ebonics, German, Jamaican or Irish. So, if you live in the United States, you should learn the primary language. And if you choose to speak in some other form, that is your choice. We shouldn't have to pay for any exceptions. Maybe we can help everyone learn the primary language.
I learned Ebonics from people who were either uneducated or just talked slang because they chose to. Don't judge a person's character by the way a person speaks. However, trying to make it a political issue or saying it's an injustice to a certain group of people is trivial.
This is a perfect example of why this world can't make any progress. Instead of figuring out what the main problem is, we spend so much precious time fighting little fires, dealing with self-centered personal agendas!
TERENCE A. CAMPBELL
ROANOKE
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