Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli

The convention produced a GOP ticket that lacks mainstream leadership.

When he dropped his bid for the Republican gubernatorial nomination late last year, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling said the GOP “has to decide what it wants to be.”

“Are we going to be a party that engages in a great ideological debate, or are we going to be a party that’s more focused on winning elections, earning the right to lead and leading responsibly?” Bolling asked.

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Virginia’s Adopt-A-Highway program is a mess. Records are shoddy. Volunteers aren’t honoring their pledge. Last year, litter was picked up as often as required along fewer than 400 of the state’s nearly 75,000 miles of highway. Even a Virginia Department of Transportation group that included the agency’s commissioner fell short.

Cleaning the shoulders of the road is a public service and one that the public isn’t too enthused about pitching in to accomplish.

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As small business owners, my family considers it a tremendous responsibility and honor that our company provides great jobs for our valued employees while giving back to the communities that have made us so successful. We take our responsibility as employers and as taxpayers very seriously.

We value the well-being of our employees just as much as we value our customers and our business. Like all Americans, we understand the value of a dollar, and when it comes to taxes, we believe nothing should go to waste. Virginia beer distributors generate more than $334 million in federal, state and local taxes, according to the National Beer Wholesalers Association.

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Archer is a long-time resident of Salem and served as the Chair of the Virginia Chamber of Commerce in 2004.

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

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Time has no divisions to mark its passing. There is never a thunderstorm to announce the beginning of a new month or year.

What’s occupying your time today?

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Two advocacy groups for individuals with mental illness and disabilities are seeking more flexible rules for state housing grants.

Virginia leaders have spent far more time talking about refocusing the state’s behavioral health system to emphasize community-based services than actually implementing those reforms.

Accessible housing is central to achieving this transformation. Mental health advocates have long sought greater flexibility for state housing grants used last year by 6,000 disabled and elderly Virginians, a majority with a physical or mental impairment.

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Angelina Jolie disclosed to the world last week in a New York Times op-ed that she had both of her breasts removed out of a very real concern that they would one day kill her. At a young age, Jolie’s mother had breast cancer and died of ovarian cancer, as did her mother before her. Family history clues that their cancer, like a small percentage of breast and ovarian cancers, was triggered by a genetic defect.

Jolie learned that she, too, had a defect on what is called the BRCA1, or breast cancer 1, gene, meaning that she had an 87 percent chance of developing breast cancer and a 50 percent chance of developing ovarian cancer. Those are terrible odds, but in knowing them, Jolie writes, she was empowered to flip them.

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“Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!” Reality mirrored fiction on May 14 at the Roanoke County Administration Center. The Roanoke County Republicans looked just as cartoonish as Bullwinkle when choosing their candidate to run in the general election for the Hollins District seat on the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors.

The May 11 firehouse primary ended in a rare 389-389 tie between Al Bedrosian and Mike Bailey.

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Kirby is a visiting instructor of public affairs at Roanoke College.

Earlier this year, the Guttmacher Institute issued a state-by-state comparison of abortion restrictions enacted since Roe v. Wade. Oklahoma leads all states with 22 restrictive laws. Oregon has the fewest with zero. Virginia now has 20 and may surpass all states within a few years.

Yet the sheer number of state-imposed hurdles in Virginia does not adequately convey the burdens confronting women in our state. That’s because one of these 20, which received final approval from Gov. Bob McDonnell late last month, does more harm than all the rest. The measure requires any medical facility providing five or more abortions per month to be regulated as a type of hospital.

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Nova is the director of strategic initiatives for Planned Parenthood Health Systems Inc.

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By Esther J. Cepeda

It’s that time. If you’re a teacher in a school with a large concentration of Hispanic students, you’re doing end-of-year reviews and preparing for final exams — and you have kids trickling up to you to let you know they won’t be around for them.

This also happens at the beginning of the school year and during the holidays as parents take their children out of classes for long family trips. But I can tell you from firsthand experience that there’s nothing worse than getting through the post-spring break blahs and pushing hard to end the year strong, only to have students drop like flies before you reach the finish line.

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Cepeda is a columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group.