THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, June 10, 1996 TAG: 9606070025
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: 76 lines
Brain researchers now say a possibly addictive charge goes off in the heads of dominant monkeys when they appear before a noisy audience of their followers. A rush of complex chemicals causes a feeling of elation, confidence and sensory arousal.
One need look no further than the Virginia campaign trail to find human proof of this phenomenon. Why else the stories of how an adoring audience can rouse a George Allen, a Mary Sue Terry, a John Warner, or a Jim Miller from an exhausted stupor to soaring heights?
As for the addictive qualities, just ask Marshall Coleman who has run for attorney general, lieutenant governor, governor (twice) and U.S. Senate over the past two decades.
Now we know he couldn't help it. It's the call of the wild. Proceed with caution
The modern world is a dangerous place. We teach children not to talk with strangers, never to go off alone with people they don't know. Too often, when they grow older they forget to heed the advice.
A college student in Virginia Beach went for a ride with men she met in a bar. It was her last. A Culpeper woman stopped to help a motorist in distress. She is a dead Samaritan. Two hikers thought they could handle the Appalachian Trail, but were unprepared for the human predators lurking there.
Some victims could have done nothing to save themselves. But many put themselves in harm's way by being too trusting, by lowering their guard, by failing to remember that the world is populated with dangerous animals in human guise.
Children, teenagers, women and older people are particularly at risk. It may not be fun to be always careful, wary and on guard. But it increases the chances of survival. The king city
Virginia Beach must be doing something right. Earlier this month it demonstrated that it was a city which didn't take itself too seriously by staging the upbeat, tongue-in-cheek ``Viva Elvis'' week.
A few days later it walked off with a top national award for innovation in local government.
The National Innovation Recognition Award was bestowed on the resort city - not because there were more Elvis impersonators wandering the Boardwalk in early June than anywhere else on Earth but because the city employs a management structure which delivers services to the public in an efficient manner and skillfully balances the needs of schools, public safety and parks.
It all goes to show that Virginia Beach is a city with a whole lot of shakin' going on. Seeing red in Roanoke
Every community in America struggles with how to put an end to drunken driving. Roanoke may have an answer.
After every alcohol- or drug-related traffic death in the area, the famed white star on Mill Mountain will change to red for three nights.
A blood-red beacon shining above the Star City of the South should remind drivers to take a taxi if they're intoxicated.
Lengthy jail sentences help, too. No tolls for Interstate 95
A little-noticed part of the bill repealing the national speed limit was a provision allowing states to impose tolls on interstate highways, according to Arnold Goodstein, a member of the South Carolina Transportation Department's governing board.
South Carolina is considering charging a big enough toll on Interstate 95 to raise $250 million a year to take care of state's transportation needs.
If one state imposes a toll, will other states follow suit? Seems likely. North Carolina would be next. Then Virginia. And so forth until our great national highway system broke down into 48 greedy fiefs.
Whenever one state raised its toll, neighboring states would raise theirs further. Tourism would suffer.
Imposing tolls on existing interstates is a idea whose time should never come. No one wants toll booths at every state line. We're still celebrating the end of tolls on the Virginia Beach-Norfolk Expressway. by CNB