ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, February 12, 1997 TAG: 9702120040
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-12 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: LETTERS
Amanda for president, providing ...
I AM an 84-year-old Grayson County hillbilly, born just across Elk Creek from Buck Mountain. My father's ancestors were farmers, interspersed with a Methodist minister now and then, who settled in Spring Valley. My mother's parents were third-generation immigrants from Scotland, and most of the men were tanners by trade.
I said all that to say that I was raised with old-fashioned religious and moral values.
Referring to your Feb. 4 Extra section article, ``Ladies and gentleman, the president of the United States ... ,'' I commend Amanda Ackley, the young lady from Cave Spring High School, and think she should be our first woman president - provided she is a Democrat. We need more young people of her caliber.
I think C.S. McKinstry [featured in the same article] has the best understanding of our country that I've seen since the days of presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy.
If you think I am a nut, you may be right. I continue to like Ben Beagle.
DON BYRD
FRIES
Treasure the gift of the mountain
A FEW months ago, I was inspired by your account of J.B. Fishburn and his generosity and vision in donating Mill Mountain and other land resources such as Fairystone State Park for public enjoyment.
More recent articles, especially Liza Field's masterpiece (Jan. 27 commentary, ``A view of the mountain as a living thing''), prompt me to question the motivation of some of the committee members who have recently met to decide our mountain's future.
Please listen to J.B. Fishburn's grandson, Scott Shackleford, to Mill Mountain advocates Betty Field and Roanoke City Councilman Jim Trout, and to all who recognize what an unspoiled gem this mountain is. Roanoke is blessed with wonderful restaurants and commercial recreation spots. We don't need to carve up this nearby wilderness with development.
GENEVIEVE GOSS
FINCASTLE
Adjustments could protect benefits
CONGRESS passed and the president signed into law a bill to protect older Americans from financial disaster in the event of a catastrophic illness. The bill involved raising Medicare premiums a little. The outcry from wounded senior citizens forced Congress to repeal it.
At the time, I suggested Congress could maintain the existing premium rate but lift the ceiling on taxable income that, for Medicare as for Social Security, was (and remains) relatively modest.
Once again, there is talk of ``political risk'' involved in raising the Medicare premium and the Social Security payroll tax rates. Before doing that, it would be advisable to see what could be raised by eliminating the existing ceiling on earnings. It might even be conceivable to make the premium and tax progressive, like the income tax.
Another aspect is the consumer price index that measures the rate of inflation. If only we shave it by a mere 1 percent, it's said, billions of dollars would be saved in annual cost-of-living increases for old-age pensions. But the CPI isn't the same for me and for Lizzie Smith.
I am an affluent professional, albeit retired. My expenditures for food are very small. I own my own home, and my taxes have gone up very little while schools and teachers are starved by inadequate funding. And my federal income tax actually goes down as the CPI goes up. So, my real CPI actually goes up a lot less than the official figure. But Smith, an employee in a retail store, makes a little above minimum wage. A very large part of her income goes to food and rent. Her real CPI is quite a bit higher than the official index.
The solution would be to have a CPI that was income-adjusted, starting higher than now for the working poor and dropping rapidly with income - a sort of anti-progressive CPI. And, along with raising the ceiling on taxable earnings for Medicare and Social Security and adjusting the CPI to reflect social reality, I suggest maintaining the federal income tax on pensions above a certain income and progressively raising the rate, with additional proceeds going to Medicare and Social Security trust funds.
Let's examine what these modest proposals would bring in before raising premiums and tax rates and cutting benefits!
MORTON NADLER
BLACKSBURG
Clinton should go by the book
AS I watched the inauguration festivities (prayer service, hand-on-Bible oaths of office, etc.), the words of the great Hebrew prophet Isaiah kept coming to mind:
``These people come near me with their mouths and honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made only of rules taught by men.''
I understand the president had the Bible open to Isaiah as he took the oath of office. A pity he and the others in the White House pay so little attention to what is written in this book.
DANIEL C. ESAU
ROANOKE
Making outrageous, untrue assumptions
IT IS time to educate Douglas Chandler Graham concerning the discrepancies in his Jan. 25 letter to the editor (``Teachers: quit griping or just quit''). If he had done his homework, he wouldn't have wasted ink on his outrageous assumptions. He's about to be taught a lesson in the difference between fact and fiction, so he needs to grab a pencil and take notes.
I am a high-school teacher in a nearby county. The classrooms aren't air-conditioned; teachers don't get a discount in the cafeterias; I park in the same parking lot where our principal's car was vandalized; more than $300 is taken out of my paycheck each month for health insurance; and I've never met a teacher who has had the luxury of the mythical three-month break.
Every teacher has a right to ``gripe,'' especially if the situation calls for it. I didn't become a teacher for the money. I love teaching and enjoy the students, even if the conditions are sometimes stressful.
Graham should check his facts and write 100 times, ``This is 1997, not 1950.'' It's time he went back to school. He obviously missed a few lessons in manners, humility and nonfiction.
PHIL BOYD
ROANOKE
A famous singer from Arkansas
INTERESTING that your Jan. 26 Associated Press Extra section article on African-American male singers (``Black male singers are the `invisible men' of opera'') made no mention of the first black man to sing at the Metropolitan Opera.
Everybody who cares about opera knows that Marian Anderson was the first African-American to sing there. But last year, running an on-line music quiz, I stumped everybody on the name of the first man.
For the record, he is a native of my (and President Clinton's) home state of Arkansas. He sang, among other roles, Amonasro in ``Aida'' (with Leontyne Price as his daughter). He was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame last year (along with William Grant Still, composer of operas and other things).
His name is Robert McFerrin. He shares it with his much better-known son who goes by the nickname of Bobby.
KAY KOEHLER
ROANOKE
Lee, Jackson are genuine heroes
JAN. 20 was Lee-Jackson-King Day, and I wasn't able to find any news articles in your newspaper that day praising Gens. Robert E. Lee and Thomas ``Stonewall'' Jackson.
Lee and Jackson were graduates of the United States Military Academy. Both fought in the Mexican ``War Between the States.'' Both were educators, one serving as superintendent at West Point and later president of Washington College (not Washington and Lee University). Jackson taught at Virginia Military Institute and was a very religious man. A minister said that Jackson ``came nearer putting God in God's place than any human soul I have ever met.''
Lee and Jackson are buried in Lexington, but the statue of Lee stands with George Washington in the National Statuary Hall in Washington, D.C.
Years later, President Harry Truman scolded Burk Davis' reference to Gen. Robert E. Lee simply as Robert Lee. Truman said that our genuine heroes are so rare that their reputation should be guarded.
LEONARD C. ANGLE JR.
ABINGDON
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