Monsanto, the Virginia Museum of Transportation and embassy attacks in today’s letters to the editor.

A garden fairy, too soon gone

Every gardener believes in garden fairies, but it is quite unusual to find one flitting about your garden in a pink tutu and tiara, with long, flowing blond hair and clog sandals. But this is the very sight I first witnessed four summers ago, not knowing then that she was just 4, going on 5 in December.

We didn’t speak often, as she would just laugh and tip-toe about, hiding among large trees. When I did approach and ask her name, each time she would identify herself as a fairy princess, a dancer, and once she said she was Snow White and was looking for her dwarfs, and she asked if she could go into my pine tree woods to look for them.

One day, last summer, she did pause long enough to tell me her dog, Charlie Brown, had cancer and was sick.

I became accustomed to visits from my garden fairy each spring and throughout summer, and I witnessed her rapid, spurting growth over these years, but the tutus and costumes only changed in color. Purple seemed to be favored.

My little garden fairy, Jaden Paige Baker, died suddenly at the age of just 8 May 10, 2013, the result of a tragic accident. I will dearly miss the presence of this lovely garden visitor, and I will mourn her absence.

JUDITH W. WYCOFF
LEXINGTON

Downtown Roanoke, delinquent taxes and Franklin County supervisors in today’s letters to the editor.

Local government’s failure

On May 14, the same three Roanoke County supervisors (Richard Flora, Charlotte Moore and Mike Altizer) voted in lockstep once again (“Supervisor proposes resolution aimed to protect property rights,” May 15 news story).

This time, it was an effort to put down a property rights resolution proposed by Supervisor Ed Elswick, despite previous comments by the trio that they are all “pro-property rights.”

The ridiculous and inane arguments they made against this resolution can be viewed on the Roanoke County website, as they are too numerous to cite here, but the full text of the property rights resolution should be read first on the county website, under Agenda With Reports.

The issue here is local government protecting you and your property from that same government.

There is nothing anti-business in this resolution, but the fact that a chamber of commerce member was at the meeting to speak against it is extremely telling.

Who or what interests do Flora, Moore and Altizer represent? It obviously isn’t us, the private citizens, or our fundamental right of property ownership.

ROXANNE LANE CHRISTLEY

ROANOKE

Wikimedia Commons

President Obama’s true colors, middle school sports in Franklin County and fracking  in the George Washington National Forest in today’s letters to the editor.

Artists share their gifts freely

Re: Al Shumate’s letter, “What is art’s real bottom-line value?” May 16:

I am sure he offended many, if not all, artists with his comment, “all artists have their hands out for money.” He certainly offended me.

I’ve been in the art gallery and picture framing business for 38 years. For 10 of those years, I owned The Cormany and Turner Galley, carrying more than 75 different artists.

When a charitable event comes up, artists are among the first asked to donate a piece of work. And they do so willingly, absorbing the cost of time and materials and framing. Most of them have full- or part-time jobs, and paint whenever they can.

I don’t know if Shumate reads the entertainment section of the paper, but he would find many musicians who donate their time and talent to charitable events, raising money for victims of cancer, displaced families, funeral costs, etc. I’m sure Shumate has offended them, also.

Our art community, as many others, gives back much more than he realizes. He may see us as just entertainers with our hands out for money, but I can assure him we are so much more.

DENISE CORMANY

ROANOKE

Emergency workers, the Science Museum and solar energy in today’s letters to the editor.

Va. is for roadside trash

Virginia’s Adopt-A-Highway program only treats symptoms of a larger disease (“Adopt-A-Highway: Left on the roadside,” May 19 news story).

Even if successful, it covers only a fraction of roadsides, most now lined with nondegradable materials just piling up. Glass, metal and plastic containers comprise a huge chunk of trash, so people need strong incentives not to toss such to begin with.

Michigan adopted bottle deposits years ago, and that trash is a much rarer sight on roadsides and in public parks. Someone collects it, or groups gather containers for fund drives. Machines often placed at grocery stores count and store items, then print vouchers good for cash or credit inside the store.

All lobbying against such is false economy. Recycling draws people in the store.

Add just the tons of aluminum wasted yearly, numerous alcohol-related containers, ongoing watershed damage and growing population — it generates massive uncounted costs.

Tourists don’t notice? Virginia trash management fails miserably with no viable long-term plan. Pick up trash? More appears within hours. No wonder volunteers get discouraged. Many places are too dangerous to work, and trash is potentially toxic. Hefty fines? Rarely enforced.

Virginia must start somewhere but, for now, Virginia just gets filthier each year.

E.A. PAULL

AMHERST

Immigrants, Roanoke City School Board and the words “I don’t know” in today’s letters to the editor.

Don’t let the peer-pressure lesson get lost

OMG! Front page news: “Parents upset over students’ drinking” (May 15 news story). I truly think that is a daily occurrence with way too many parents.

Attention parents: This is a teachable moment. Teens will have numerous situations when they need to stand up for what they believe or think they should or shouldn’t do.

The parent takes issue with the fact that Patrick Henry students traveled with another group of teens who were allowed to drink. He should be taking issue with his son who caved to peer pressure. Thank goodness it was just alcohol and not cocaine or meth.

It sounds to me like the parents should have expected possible drinking based on the organization’s policy: “Parents may give permission to travelers who are of legal drinking age in the destination country.”

I hope the students had a wonderful trip. I hope they appreciate what their parents have given them.

Now, the parents need to make sure their students learn from what they did wrong. Help them develop a backbone.

SANDY SCHLAUDECKER

BLACKSBURG

The food police and jobs are jobs in Sunday’s letters to the editor.

A letter of appreciation for the resident of Blacksburg in The Burgs letters.

Pick of the day: Bottom line, coal is filthy

In “Coal is more than yesterday’s fuel” (May 16 commentary), David Banks deflates his own argument for coal as a viable continuing energy source for generating electricity.

He acknowledges that carbon capture and sequestration is needed to eliminate the carbon that burning coal generates, but admits it is too expensive and so has not been deployed (and will not be anytime soon).

He wants to spend government funds to develop carbon capture and storage so that we can blow up more mountains, dump more dirty coal waste in stream beds, and have more dangerous coal ash to poison the water of the surrounding homes.

The truth is that coal is not and never will be clean if you look at the process from beginning to end.

Why spend huge amounts of government money to try to clean up a small part of what is filthy about coal when you can have energy efficiency and renewable sources like wind and solar that are inherently clean from the start and that will create a new clean-energy economy in Virginia if we choose?

SUSAN STILLMAN

Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club

Vice Chair for Renewable Energy

VIENNA

The Elm Avenue bottleneck and the weeds along Virginia 419 in today’s letters to the editor.

Franklin County supervisors got it right

As a Franklin County resident who has to pay the “small price” in higher taxes that the editors seem so concerned about (“Shame on Franklin County supervisors,” April 28):

Forthwith, print a chart of school salaries plus benefits and real estate taxes with contributions from counties to school boards (with state contributions) from all contiguous counties. This is urgent! The schools will perish and the counties will fail without an immediate cash infusion.

Predominately farm areas, the counties have many acres taxed. Even at a lower rate, citing the extra $20 increase for a $100,000 home is disingenuous.

Among the other shaming insults directed at our stellar board of supervisors, which cut the school board an extra $1 million this year, is a suggestion kids will be promoted unable to read from grade school (without sports and governor’s school cash). The latter two are very important, but aren’t the main objectives of education any more than schools are the main objective of a county.

Kids are guaranteed a free basic education, so parents who want extra for their children should step up and pay extra. Cash-strapped? Consider the rest of us.

C.E. TOWNSEND III

PENHOOK

Roanoke City Council pay, Bedford County Supervisor Annie Pollard and Amtrak to Roanoke in today’s letters to the editor.

On becoming ‘Mom’

It was so much fun to read the respectful yet hilarious tribute to Mom in The Roanoke Times for Mother’s Day (“They became their mom when . . . ,” May 11); I could relate to every word.

I chuckled as I was taken down memory lane and could hear Mom calling the roll to get to the right child’s name. My name came first, then on down to my brother, the youngest. He said many times that he hated being called “Mary Doug.”

And those bread bags — I laughed as I recalled this picture of bread bags neatly arranged minus their ugly, unnecessary tails. Felix Unger would have been proud of us.

When we were impatient, we often heard, “You’re like a worm in hot ashes!” How many times have I used that one?

The heavyweight pocketbook was where Mom kept her whole filing system. Now it works for me.

Thank you for giving us a time to laugh and lovingly reflect on days past. I’d like to think that when I’m gone, some of my words of wisdom will resound in the hearts of my children. Of course, most of them will come from my generation past. And that’s OK.

DEE WEEKS

CHRISTIANSBURG

Chris OBrion, The Roanoke Times

Art and money, and Roanoke City Council’s proposed raise in today’s letters to the editor.

The unkindest bump of all

I would like to register my dismay at your editorial cartoon for Saturday, May 11. Your artist uses the image of a speeding hipster cyclist blithely bumping what appears to be a pedestrian in order to make the point about the inequity of city council pay increases.

It’s bad enough that we cyclists have to put up with careless, distracted and aggressive motorists; clueless, music-player-cocooned runners and walkers; roads in poor condition; barking, snapping dogs, tethered and untethered; and the general media perception of cyclists as elitist, spandex-wearing, red-light running, road-blocking ego maniacs without your paper’s bump.

NICK PEDICINI

ROANOKE

The weather and God in today’s letters to the editor.

Virtual school’s students got the raw deal

I was highly disappointed in the one-sided May 3 editorial on closing the virtual school in Carroll County (“A raw deal on virtual schools”). The real raw deal here is the more than 400 children (including my son) who just found out they have no school to attend next year. How would your children feel if their school was closed with no warning or good explanation?

The virtual public school program is an excellent alternative for children who do not excel in the brick-and-mortar setting. Many of the students in the program have special needs, are gifted and talented, or are from military families. This program best fits them, while still ensuring their achievement through standardized testing.

Educators and legislators in the commonwealth need to come to grips with the reality that parent-led education is growing across the country, and Virginia is no exception. They need to work with children, not against them.

The one part of the editorial I agree with is that legislators should examine the virtual school program. However, it should be in the context of fixing the broken system and creating a statewide virtual school district so what happened in Carroll won’t happen again.

CATHERINE T. SIZER

NEW CASTLE