Wikimedia Commons

Roanoke City Council will get a pay raise, but one in keeping with modesty, a virtue Councilman Sherman Lea now embraces.

It didn’t appear Monday afternoon that what people in Roanoke were saying about 28.5 percent pay raises for city council mattered much. Councilman Sherman Lea and Mayor David Bowers stood fast, opposing even a tactic that delayed a final, decisive vote.

Later that night, Lea had an epiphany: Such a huge pay boost was unfair to those who labor hard for the city and who are dependent on him and his colleagues for their wages.

Continue reading this editorial.

The same technological innovation that brought the world the 3D “printable” gun is making 3-D prosthetic hands for children born without fingers.

As remarkable is the story, as told Tuesday on National Public Radio, of how a carpenter in South Africa who lost two fingers in a table saw accident collaborated with a theatrical prop designer in Bellingham, Wash., to create the design. They then turned it into printable parts and posted it online as open source software, free to anyone who can make use of it.

Continue reading this editorial.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch — and unless Virginians speak out now, they’re about to get a huge bill for a “meal” that won’t satisfy the commonwealth’s hunger for health care among its low-income residents.

This week, Gov. Bob McDonnell’s very own “super committee,” the Medicaid Innovation and Reform Commission, held its first meeting to discuss expanding the joint federal-state program for the poor in Virginia, to include more participants.

Continue reading.

Schalk is the National Taxpayers Union state affairs manager.

One of the best-selling books on the shelves right now is “Bringing Up Bebe” by Pamela Druckerman. She believes the French have the market cornered on raising self-sufficient, well-behaved children, and we Americans could learn a thing or two from them.

But I don’t believe in one-size-fits-all parenting. When my son was born, my mother-in-law and I discovered we had no common ground when it came to child-rearing. I admit she had more experience — she raised her own two children and helped bring up five younger siblings. I had no contact with children until I became a mother myself. Everything I knew came from books.

Continue reading.

Biesenbach, of Roanoke, is a freelance writer, title examiner and author of “Bits O’ Betsy Biesenbach.”

Wikimedia Commons

by John Lewis

R. McNeil Foster (“When atheists pray,” June 15 commentary) seems to think that there’s a point to be made if an atheist, in a time of ultimate fear and desperation, “prays” for a miracle.

I’m sure some would do so. But desperation is not faith. Fear is not belief.

Read more.

Lewis lives in Blacksburg.

Catch-22 snags another disabled vet

First you have a total hip replacement, and everything gets worse. Disability records show it. You still have the left hip and both knees to do. You get 100 percent disability from the Veterans Administration.

You buy a house, get an electric wheelchair and a 30-foot ramp on your house.

Then the V.A. takes away your 100 percent disability and drops you to 70 percent, even though it’s been proven to be service-connected.

From then on, you struggle to make ends meet.

You can’t get food stamps because you are $80 over the threshold. You can’t refinance your house because you are $300 under the limit the V.A. says you have to have as income.

And the government wonders why veterans are going crazy. Look at the way we’re treated.

God bless all veterans and best of luck.

CPL. JAMES EDWARD QUESENBERRY
ROANOKE

What’s on your mind today?

Wikimedia Commons

She calls for Congress to conduct a “grand inquest” into the national security state as it has developed after 9/11. In particular, she wants Congress to look at the scope of surveillance activities, the legal basis for those activities, any instances of abuse and a “public weighing of the costs and benefits.”

She writes:

Our constitutional order is premised on limiting government intrusion to protect liberty. Citizens are guaranteed a sphere of privacy and the right of free speech and free association. The state can intrude on that space only if it has probable cause to believe a crime has been committed — and only when the evidence of that cause is reviewed by an independent magistrate. The state is also supposed to be transparent: its budgets made public, its expenditures and activities investigated by Congress and held publicly accountable.

She notes that Congress did respond in the 1970s to revelations of military spying with reforms that included the War Powers Act, limits on covert activities and stronger Freedom of Information laws. She also acknowledges that some of those reforms now “legitimate activities” going on now.

Virginia Tech, Wikimedia Commons

Used properly, social media can better connect police departments and their communities.

The proliferation of social media has given law enforcement additional tools to enhance community policing and solve crimes. Savvy use of social media platforms can pack a big punch in college communities like Virginia Tech, where the police department is adeptly using Facebook and Twitter (@VaTechPolice) to expand its outreach and make the most of new crime-fighting technology.

As Roanoke Times reporter Tonia Moxley wrote on Sunday, Tech’s police department ramped up its social media presence at the same time it was installing a new video security system to better monitor public places around the Blacksburg campus.

Continue reading this editorial.

Even in a growing community like Botetourt County with increasing service demands, leaders are wise to pinch their pennies. But they also must recognize when it’s time to invest in core services like public safety.

County officials have made do with what Sheriff Ronnie Sprinkle describes as an “antiquated system in dire need of repair” as long as possible. When one of the county’s four emergency radio transmitter towers went on the fritz, parts were borrowed from another tower when feasible. Sprinkle said he’s even ordered parts on eBay because the radio system is so old that new parts are no longer being manufactured.

Continue reading this editorial.