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Today's Opinions

  • Letters to the Editor for 4/20/09

    No excuse for rude behavior

    How can a school teacher be so rude to parents and get away with it?

    I talked to the principal on many occasions. And all he said was that he would have a little talk with her. But she is being so rude again.

    How many times is it going to take for them to do something about it? They have no right to tell you how to punish your child

    Like for instance to break a child from pulling his shoes and socks off, to take them outside barefoot and it’s a cold and rainy day. Or to hit his rump a little bit harder.

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  • Take care with the public's records

    Grayson County Commonwealth's Attorney Douglas Vaught appears to be a decent and caring person and — to his substantial credit — he does respond to his mail. Others in Grayson County governance, including Vaught's predecessor, refuse to put pencil to paper. I want to share an issue on which he and I disagree, as it forms an introduction to a much larger contemporary issue.

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  • Letters to the Editor for 4/6/09

    Boucher voting record 'pro-abortion'

    At a town hall meeting in March, Rep. Rick Boucher responded to questions about the inappropriately named Freedom of Choice Act.

    He stated opposition to radical proee'abortion provisions in question and denied that such a bill existed.

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  • Letters to the Editor for 4/13/09

    Dog bear hunting is cruel

    I would like to reply to the March 18 article “Bear License About Control, Not Revenue.”

    I find the article offensive to Virginia hunters by indicating they were out to kill anything they found just because the species was a legal kill. The hunters I know don’t just blow something away because they came across it.

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  • Reinventing the Economy

    As our ongoing series, "Adapting to the Economy" has shown, local businesses are reshaping the way they do business in order to survive. We've been impressed by their ingenuity.

    They're doing it on their own, with their own initiative and creativity, not relying on government handouts or taxpayer dollars.

    As the national economy falters, it's encouraging to see our hometown entrepreneurs try new things, scrap what doesn't work and, in some cases, reinvent themselves for today's world.

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  • Amnesty, anyone?

    A Laurel Elementary fifth-grader whose family could symbolize the whole immigration debate provided a fresh — and eye-opening — perspective to the President of the United States in just a few hundred words.

    Desiree Nguyen was much closer to the point than a pundit’s fist-pounding rage, broad exaggerations and elaborate scapegoating, as she shared her personal experience as it relates to the conundrum of undocumented workers in the United States.

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  • Economic Milestone

    It seems small business development rather than large industry recruitment is the way to go, especially here in Galax and the Twin Counties, after the Small Business Development Center recently announced that it helped gain funding for 100 businesses in the past three years, with 96 of those still operating.

    Though a large manufacturing company willing to put hundreds back to work would be nice, when the economy turns bad, it seems large industries leave the threat of hundreds being stranded without jobs all at once.

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  • Let's Hope It Works

    Carroll County educators remain hopeful that federal stimulus funds will work as advertised.

    That's a good thing to hope for. The long-stated purpose of the stimulus funds, after all, involves saving or creating jobs.

    Educators have pointed out that using money coming directly from the federal government, along with the funds going through the state, could save around 20 positions in Carroll County Public Schools alone.

    In a region that continues to fight job losses, every position spared seems like the silver lining in the dark economic cloud.

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