Friday, June 18, 2010
Tell council to conserve Mill Mountain
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Tell council to conserve Mill Mountain
On Monday at 7 p.m., a public hearing is planned for citizens to share their opinion on the proposed conservation easement on Mill Mountain.
As council members deliberate the placement of an easement on the mountain and discuss the proposed boundaries of what land to include and exclude, they need to hear from us.
They need to know we are tired of the building plans that come decade after decade, pitched by developers who are sure theirs is the real best idea. They need to know we're tired of the tax dollars and time spent on the studies and debates that follow each new scheme. They need to know we're tired of the attitude that the mountain is wasted real estate.
The time to protect the environment and atmosphere of our greatest natural resource is now. The mountain, our city and its citizens deserve nothing less. Let city council know you support placing a conservation easement on Mill Mountain Park.
Obama-bashing was the sole point
I was quite surprised that The Roanoke Times saw fit to publish Dave Cox's diatribe in the June 14 edition ("Obama and BP are too cozy," commentary). It was a blatant example of president-bashing, pure and simple.
Full of unsubstantiated accusations, suppositions about future ramifications and offering not one suggestion that might be helpful to anyone, the piece had no redeeming social value.
Apparently anything can qualify as fodder for the opinion page, so I would like to offer the following personal observation to Cox and his ilk: Political opinions are like a well-known part of the human anatomy: Most people have one of their own and have no interest in yours. That works for me.
SOL failures aren't the teacher's fault
This past school year, I had the privilege of volunteering with a third-grade class in a public school. I helped students with math five mornings a week from 8 to 9 a.m.
I am pleased to report all of the students who attended regularly and were not tardy for math class passed the math SOL.
When the school system reports to the media the math SOL results for the third grade, will it reflect on the teacher or the home that some of the students did not pass the math SOL? The 8-year-old students could not get themselves to school on time, so surely we must agree that it reflects on the home.
When our governor writes his proposal for merit pay for teachers, will he take into consideration the attendance record of the students who fail to meet the requirements of the SOLs or will that be ignored? Let us hope he will report the attendance record of all SOL failures.
To leave out Stalin is to deny history
Re: "Anti-Stalin picket forms at D-Day memorial" July 15 news story:
The Soviet Union was notorious for rewriting history and air-brushing from photos Soviet leaders no longer in favor, as if they never existed. I thought of this when I read of the efforts in Bedford to exclude Josef Stalin from the National D-Day Memorial.
No doubt about it: As we now know, Stalin did many terrible things. However, the fact remains that he and his Soviet troops were our extremely important partners in the defeat of Nazi Germany -- whether we like it or not. I shudder to think how even more terrible D-Day would have been for British and American troops if vast numbers of German troops had not been needed at that time to oppose Stalin's forces advancing from the east.
Let's not rewrite, undo or air-brush history. Let's leave that to the discredited Soviets (or for that matter, let's leave that to the educators in Texas who want to air-brush Thomas Jefferson from American history).
Israel is imposing punishment
Poor Israel. Its moderates are in political obscurity, while a right-wing nuclear-armed party controls the fate of the country and leads it to ruin. Israel (enabled by foolish U.S. Zionists) perpetrated Operation Cast Lead in 2008-09 that killed 1,400 Palestinians in Gaza. Cast Lead was roundly criticized for human rights violations by the head of the U.N. investigative commission, eminent South African jurist Richard Goldstone, a professed lover of Israel.
Israel's right-wingers recently inflicted a self-defeating attack on a flotilla whose mission was to heighten international awareness of Israel's brutal blockade of Gaza (no chocolate, no coriander, no notebooks, etc.).
A recently leaked Israeli document proves that the purpose of the blockade is not, as it claims, to prevent weapons shipments to Gaza's Palestinian rulers, the legitimately elected Islamist political group Hamas, but to discredit Hamas by collectively punishing the Gazan population in violation of Geneva Conventions for occupying powers.
New York Sen. Chuck Schumer parrots Israeli apologists who are selling the Big Lie that Gazans deserve the blockade because they elected Hamas. Hamas was elected throughout the occupied Palestinian territories. But don't tell Schumer and friends -- they might encourage Israel to blockade Palestine's West Bank.
The flag shouldn't be worshiped
Re: "A show of flag-waving is just that: a show," June 12 commentary:
I wish I had the nerve to say what Jerome Schleifer said about his thoughts on honoring the flag. Was he ever right. There is not a Christian flag, and Christ never owned a flag of any kind.
If we go into a place for Christian worship and it has a flag displayed for allegiance, the advice for Christians should be to act like Christ and either throw it out or leave. Scripture tells us we can't have two masters demanding our allegiance. Christians must choose Jesus, and let others choose from what is left.
I have saluted more than most, but it wasn't toward anything I thought was in the realm with Christ.
Choose you, this day. If you want to honor those who have served, don't build them an earthly monument. Give that money to help those we have hurt -- the widowed, orphaned, abused, the forgotten. Honoring God with a flag sure brings God down a few notches.
