Sunday, June 29, 2008
Rasoul will help get health care for children
Letters to the Editor
Recent letters to the editor
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- Pick of the day: Home-schoolers reject public schools
- Pick of the day: Passing the buck won't stop abuse
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From the RoundTable blog
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Rasoul will help get health care for children
Health care for children is one reason I'm supporting Sam Rasoul for Congress. Rasoul supports funding the Child Health Investment Partnership at the national level so that all children can receive the health care they need ("20 years of kids, kindness" June 23 front page story).
As a pediatric nurse, I've worked closely with CHIP for many years and know that without programs like CHIP many children will not succeed in school because they lack basic health care.
In addition to serving children birth to age 5, CHIP provides an outreach worker who assists older children in obtaining health insurance. Unfortunately, there is not enough money available to hire more outreach workers. Even with adequate funding, many children don't meet all the eligibility requirements.
Rasoul proposes FutureCare for these children who do not have health care but don't qualify for CHIP. This is a fleet of mobile clinics that will travel around the district and provide basic health to children. While Rasoul doesn't promise to have all the answers to our children's health care crisis, he is open to input from nurses, doctors and others, regardless of party affiliation. Please learn more about his plan and voice your concerns at SAM2008.com
A shameful sort of shame
Re: "Democrats are the party of hypocrisy," June 25 letter:
There are many opinions in this letter for a Democrat to argue but the final paragraph makes that unnecessary.
Here Phillip Unger says, "If a Democrat is elected in November, for the first time in my life I will be ashamed of my country." One can conclude that he does not approve of our system of government, a democratic republic.
How sad it is if a basic concept of that form of government, the elections of public officials, makes him ashamed of his country. That attitude pretty much invalidates his previous commentary.
Remember survivors of personal wars
With the ongoing war in Iraq, much has been written on post-traumatic stress disorder. There is, however, an increasingly large part of the population who have lived, and suffered, in silence with post-traumatic stress: women who have survived the brutality of rape and incest.
These survivors of such personal wars have been violated in ways that are unthinkable. They may be women who are your neighbors, friends and even family. They too suffer the reactions of our veterans to loud noises and other memory triggers.
One in four women in this country are these survivors. Give them a break; be aware of your own actions, whether it be the slamming of your car door outside a bedroom window or the yelling you think appropriate as merely venting. The woman you are hurting may be closer than you think.
Horse racing is a cruel sport
I feel compelled to write about the Kentucky Derby's tragedy where a young horse lost her life after being pushed beyond physical endurance. Horses like Eight Belles are the victims of a multibillion-dollar industry motivated by money and rife with animal and drug abuse and profit mongering.
Like the 2006 Kentucky Derby winner, Barbaro, Eight Belles was destroyed because of her racing injuries, results of the greed that motivates this dirty sport. Race horses start their training at age 2, when their skeletons are too soft to endure the pounding on the hard-surfaced race track.
Breeding of horses with long, spindly legs for speed makes them highly susceptible to injury. It is estimated that about 800 horses die this way every year, most at lesser-known U.S. tracks.
As reported by the media, most horses that survive this cruel race-track life go straight to the slaughter house. How disgustingly cruel some people have become through greed.
Tell about senators' sweetheart loans
A little more than a week ago, The New York Times reported Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota got sweetheart loans from Countrywide Financial Corp. When is The Roanoke Times going to investigate and write an article on Dodd and Conrad?
JAMES McNAMARA JR.
Editor's note: A news brief, "Senator donates money to atone for special favors," ran June 15 in a Political Notebook column.
Darfur genocide demands action
While the administration of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney possibly plans military action against Iran, disaster is still taking place in Darfur. The U.N. and the U.S. have both acknowledged that genocide is and has been under way against the indigenous people of the region.
"The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur," by Daoud Hari, reveals the horror and the scope of the genocide, backed and carried out by Sudan's government, certain rebel groups and the gangs known as the Janjaweed against the traditional tribal herdsmen. Hari writes, "The only way that the world can say no to genocide is to make sure that the people of Darfur are returned to their homes and given protection."
Hari warns that genocide will occur more often in the future unless world leaders intervene. Please read this book. He is amazingly calm, even as he describes horrific conditions that continue today. The world cannot afford to ignore the genocide in Darfur.
Toward a kinder, more decent warfare
Attend the wonderful proposal for the moral improvement of warfare with regard to decency and moral behavior. This relates to the Bush administration having come out in support of legislation that would make sexual assault a war crime.
That repugnant cry associable with barbaric invasions, "rape, burn and pillage," should be heard no more. Henceforth, this should be amended to "just burn and pillage" or perhaps "pillage then burn" (especially on those occasions when oil is being pillaged).
The interrogation of prisoners should scrupulously avoid any unfortunate associations with bondage or sado-masochistic practices. Blindfolds, handcuffs, as well as other paraphernalia, should be redesigned to reinforce the nonrecreational aspects of these proceedings. Questioning, likewise, should be circumspect, limited to military matters, avoiding allusions to sexual "diversity." Stripping prisoners in mixed company or abuse while in a state of nakedness should cease.
Never again shall the "fate worse than death" be countenanced as part of warfare. Hence, death shall be the worst, with imprisonment, desolation, wounding, starvation and dismemberment sufficient, but without "indecency."
For this moral proposal, let there be given praise to the administration of George W. Bush, who envisions this reform. I say, "Hear him, sir, hear him!"
Housing authority buys high, sells low
I recently read in The Roanoke Times that the Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority intends to pay $125,000 for a scrap yard and then sell the property to Carilion for the same price next year, after contamination cleanup work. Also, the authority is scheduled to sell the mill to Carilion on Aug. 1. Carilion will pay only for the land -- $500,000 -- and apply its payment to demolition and land clearance costs, which are expected to exceed $1 million.
The authority won't recoup much of the $8 million it paid for the mill while it was still in operation in 2004. What kind of business deal is this? Who made out on this deal, Carilion, the housing authority or the poor ol' taxpayer?
