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Letters to the Editor

By Staff Reports
Published: January 13, 2009

Repair Treasure Before It's Too Late

Editor, Times-Dispatch:

The Science Museum of Virginia, a treasure of the commonwealth, is being steadily dismantled and destroyed. Exhibits that have educated, or had the potential to educate, Virginia citizens are being shut down, phased out, and removed almost daily. The Imax Dome Theater and Planetarium, with Virginia's largest movie screen, may soon go dark with the termination of the museum's sole video production staff person, the theater's manager, and the approximately 50 percent cut in theater staff.

Membership programs will undoubtedly suffer after the termination of the staff person responsible for them. Astronomy, until recently a keystone program, is being slashed. The staff astronomer was terminated, many of the outreach and theater programs have ended, and astronomy exhibits are being downgraded or eliminated.

All of these are worrisome signs that after 25 years as a flagship institution for science education in the commonwealth, the Science Museum of Virginia is being crippled and may well become a second-class sidelight of Virginia's education program. This would be a tremendous loss. The need for increased emphasis on science education to maintain Virginia's competitive place in commerce and manufacturing is seemingly being met by reducing opportunities.

It is hoped that the current administration and Gov. Tim Kaine will take notice of these adverse changes and take swift action to prevent further erosion. Rebuild this important resource before the loss is irreparable.

Robert Oldham. Doswell.

When Did Monroe Park Fall Into Such Disrepair?

Editor, Times-Dispatch:

It would seem the City of Richmond has yet another problem -- and this one is called Monroe Park.

I don't understand how the city has allowed this park to fall into such disrepair. On a recent Saturday, I decided to walk east on Franklin Street and as I walked through the park I asked myself: How and when did this happen?

Being a native Richmonder, I remember this park as clean and safe. It was a place where my father would take his family.

What a shame.

Abdul Ali Haymes. Richmond.

Doom and Gloom Headlines Help No One

Editor, Times-Dispatch:

Your newspaper's long history of negativity toward local business was on display again on Dec. 23 with your Man-Lands-on-Moon headline treatment about recent sales declines at Circuit City stores.

Instead of focusing on the Bankruptcy Court's fundamentally more important decision to approve Circuit City's billion-dollar-plus financing as the company moves through reorganization during these challenging times, your headline writers chose to scream the bad news.

We shouldn't be surprised, really, inasmuch as

The Times-Dispatch

has chosen over the years to focus on pessimism and gloom, all the while ignoring the positive contributions that our company and our associates have made in the community, such as our support for Richmond Boys and Girls Clubs, the Central Virginia Food Bank, and Habitat for Humanity, to name a few.

It's also interesting to note that the newspaper consistently devotes front page coverage to tough news about local businesses and buries its own bad news about declining ad revenues and falling readership deep within the Business pages. One wonders whether that kind of hypocrisy is part of the reason that so many of our fellow citizens regard mainline news organizations with such skepticism these days.

Bruce H. Besanko, Executive Vice President,

Finance and Chief Financial Officer, Circuit City Stores Inc. Richmond.

Editor's note: The Nov. 30 editorial, "Persevere," urged Central Virginians to support local companies -- "especially Circuit City."

Democrats, You're Doing A Heckuva Job

Editor, Times-Dispatch:

President-elect Barack Obama promised change and, by gosh, the Democrats have delivered! Completely unaided by Republicans, two Democrat governors find themselves neck-deep in pay-for-play scandals.

To top it off, the president-elect names Leon Panetta to head up the CIA, despite his painfully anemic résumé in that area -- and there's serious talk that Caroline Kennedy, whose professional credentials don't qualify her to make microwave popcorn, should be appointed to Hillary Clinton's Senate seat. It looks like liberals didn't learn anything from the "Brownie" situation during hurricane Katrina.

Randall D. Lofland. Midlothian.