THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 17, 1995 TAG: 9509150213
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: John Pruitt
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
An assortment of comments and observations from the Peanut Gallery . . . Gee, really?
A fax that arrived the other day from the Jerry Flowers for State Senate campaign ``revealed'' that Richard J. Holland, the Democratic incumbent from Windsor, has voted with Gov. George Allen only 33 percent of the time.
Mind you, the Flowers camp said, Holland's district - the 15th - gave Allen 64 percent of its vote in 1993. And that, the dispatch said, means district residents want Allen's ``agenda for Honest Change'' given ``a fair chance.''
OK, so we're going for quotas now, and whoever wins the election must vote with Allen 64 percent of the time? Somehow, that just doesn't seem very Republican.
Holland, they said, sided with fellow Democrats two of three times, and if that continues, Allen's agenda is dead.
That, it seems to me is politics. If Democrats are to side with the governor to meet the quota of his election margin in their districts, the two-party system is meaningless.
By the way, does this mean that if a Democrat prevails in a gubernatorial election, the Republicans are prepared to offer the same support? When donkeys skydive!
The ``Allen Index'' - touted by the campaign as based on a ``detailed analysis'' of key votes on Allen's agenda, is a bit of silliness in a campaign that has generated about as much excitement as watching the traffic in front of Holland's bank.
``Democrat supports Democrats'' is hardly astounding, even to people who wish he'd vote Republican. Just Optimism?
While listening to a radio program the other day, my ears perked up when I heard an interviewer talking to a farmer from the Northern Neck.
The conversation centered on the impact of this year's dry, dry growing season.
Well, the farmer said, growers in his area had found, somewhat to their surprise, that some vegetable crops were amazingly drought-resistant, while other, more traditional crops had dried up.
And that, the interviewer surmised, would lead the farmer to devote more land next year to the sturdy vegetables and less to traditional crops such as corn.
The man's response startled me. You just have to be an optimist, he said, hoping (against hope, I suppose) that things will be better next season.
Gee, I thought, he sounds just like the stubborn watermen I grew up around and still admire greatly. They lament the awful condition of the Chesapeake Bay yet gripe when ``those scientists'' - words they utter with chilling disdain - suggest that the watermen's way of life may be hopeless unless they change.
But then came a call from Clifton Slade, the Extension Service agent in Suffolk, about a meeting he's hosting Tuesday.
The first portion will help farmers decide when to dig what's left of their drought-devastated crop. And the second will be on alternative, high-profit crops: elephant garlic, ginseng, shiitake mushrooms; and crop-saving methods such as drip irrigation under plastic, which practically guarantee early, rewarding crops.
Despite the Northern Neck's farmer's reaction to possible change, it seems to me that the second session should be jammed by people who care about their future.
In farming, just as in crabbing and other seafood-harvesting jobs, the innovators will thrive.
What Mr. Slade and ``those scientists'' are offering are routes to survival. As this very trying growing season illustrates, they're the only ones worth taking. MEMO: Your comments are welcome. Call 934-7553.
by CNB