Daily Press from Newport News, Virginia • Page 11

MO 1 ii i hi i ii nnin iiiirt Daila Press Middle PeiniiiisiLiila cratiny Day care law nMer new E-mail doesn't make letter writing easier Tips for finding a safe day care center. C2. Stricter licensing requirements among areas to be studied hen was the last time you wrote a letter? Me too. Does the annual Christmas Photocopy Letter count? By Mark Dl Vincenzo Daily Press Del. Alan A.

Diamonstein, D-Newport News, said the existing law is fine. Del. Phillip Hamilton, R-New-port News, said he plans to bring the Hampton case to the attention of the House committee that oversees day care centers. "I don't know whether this will prompt legislation, but a lot of times legislation originates because of a local situation," said Hamilton, a member of that committee, Health, Welfare and Institutions. "I do think this is one of those types of situations." sometimes was left alone with children at the house, according to a complaint filed in Hampton Circuit Court by the state Department of Social Services.

In a hearing today, Social Services staffers will ask a Hampton Circuit Court judge to approve an injunction to stop Robinson-Ellison from "operating any family day home for which a license is required by Virginia law." She has said she stopped weeks ago. No children entered her house Please see Day careC2 have a license. Del. Shirley F. Cooper, D-York, said she plans to study the existing law with the intention of finding ways to strengthen it, and she said she supports a change that would require all day care operators not just those who care for six or more children, as the existing law states to obtain a license.

Although state law requires those who care for six or more children to receive a license, Chantel Robinson-Ellison, who was convicted of assault and battery against her son in 1989, cared for a dozen or more children at a time and didn't have a license, state inspectors found. And her son, who was convicted of child molestation in 1995, Local state lawmakers Thursday expressed mixed reactions to the state's day care law in the wake of news that a Hampton woman was charged with illegally operating a day care center in her house because she is a convicted child abuser and didn't an cuts End of the line girtMendj himself Attacker and victims in stable condition 1 fit i j. -W By Pattl Rosenberg Daily Press JAMES CITY A 65-year-old Toano man cut his 29j year-old girlfriend's throat and mout when she told him she wanted to end thejjr relationship, James City County police said. 3 Then he turned the knife on himseifj stabbing himself in the chest several times and trying to cut his own throat, police said. "She didn't want to date him any She was trying to break off the involve ment," said Maj.

Ken Middlebrook. Alphonzo Hawkins, of the 2700 of Little Creek Dam Road, and the victinj were taken to Williamsburg Community Hospital, Middlebrook said. The incident happened at the victim! home late Tuesday, and police arrived just before midnight. The weapon was a 5-inch buck knife, Middlebrook said. He said other people at the residence witnessed the incident, although he didn't know their relationship to the victim Hawkins and the victim remained in the hospital Thursday, both in stable condition, according to a hospital spokeswoman.

Middlebrook said Hawkins will be charged with maiming when he's released from the hospital. I used to write letters. In my freshman year in college, I even set a goal of writing a letter a day because I was so desperate to get word back from familiar addresses. That plan obviously didn't survive midterms, but I kept up a pretty good pace for a few years. Then I got married, and my wife had a child.

Now I buy stamps just to stick on bills. I'm not happy about this: I like to write letters and to get letters back. But modern life and modern 4-year-olds don't leave much time for thoughtful composition. None of us at the turn of this century will ever match Thomas Jefferson's postal pace: He supposedly wrote about 80,000 letters in his lifetime, which averages to about three letters a day if you spread it across 75 years. But what if we counted e-mail? Three e-mail messages a day to friends and family seems a much easier mission than three personal, hand-scripted, news-carrying, photo-including letters in envelopes of matching stationery.

Could e-mail save the Art of Writing? E-mail has some of the advantages of old-fashioned letters: You can take the time to think and save your ideas as you shape them. And even though we're typing instead of thoughtfully holding a quill, as Mr. Jefferson must have done the act of writing seems classier than a phone call. Writing leads to bigger ideas than you can express in a chit-chat conversation over the phone. And, of course, you save yourself the hunt for the stamp.

I had these high hopes for e-mail when my wife and I hooked up to America Online last year. I gleefully gathered all the e-mail addresses I could find. I promised myself to rebuild friendships that hadn't been quite worth ballooning our phone bill. And I sent out my e-mail. So where are my replies? Where's my communication revolution? So far, e-mail has been no solution.

It's just a digital magnification of the problems of snail mail. Instead of reviving the Art of The Written Word, it has perfected the annoying Art of the Chain Letter. A lot of people attach files to their e-mail that go on and on about "Ways A Wife Is Like A Car" or 10 Things A Man Will Never Say," and these stale jokes get passed around like a flu bug. I've gotten joke files with a string of forwarding commands 26 people long. But after a while, I'm glad to get those non-personal communications, because at least they're replies.

Judging by the responses I've received, for many of my acquaintances, e-mail is no easier to send than snail mail. To be honest, sometimes I'm no better. When I'm not in the mood to think, e-mail is just as much a drag as postal mail. E-mail may save me the stamp, but it doesn't prevent the I'm-so-sorry-I-haven't-written guilt. In fact, it increases it.

Since everyone knows how fast you can reply to e-mail, a day that goes by without a response is like a month in snail mail expectations. My electronic address book dares me to keep up with this modern tool's ability to put me in touch with dozens of people instantly. I've found, like my friends have, that the human capacity to write thoughtful letters week in and week out doesn't change with e-mail. So we all start to treat e-mail less like writing a letter and more like talking to an answering machine or sending someone a greeting card. No great thoughts, just a hey-how-are-you-have-you-heard-the-new-song-by-Cracker? It's a cute way to deliver well wishes and trivia.

I'm waiting for my Grandma Hite to get online. When she does, Hallmark is history. Bentley Boyd is an editorial cartoonist for the Daily Press. Jim Spencer's column will return. "Mi --My Busch Gardens' 195-foot-high lift for its newest and tallest roller coaster, the Alpengeist, is seen from near Route 60.

On schedule to open in the spring of 1997, the Alpengeist is an inverted coaster it will suspend riders from cars hanging down from its track. It will be made of 106 pieces seven pieces for the lift, 10 for the station house and 89 for the remainder of the track. The theme park is closed for the winter and will reopen on March 22. Buddy NorriDaiiy Press N.C. man convicted in rape, theft By Beverly N.

Williams Daily Press NEWPORT NEWS A man who denied attacking a 75-year-old woman in her East End home was convicted of rape Thursday after his cousin and DNA evidence linked him to the crime. Vernon Harris, 19, of Rocky also was convicted of abduction, burglary with intent to commit rape and grand larceny in the May 17 attack. The larceny charge stemmed from the theft of a Ford Bronco belonging to the woman's son. I Harris showed no reaction when Judge Randolph T. West announced the verdict.

He will be sentenced Feb. 4 and could receive up to life in prison. During the four-hour trial Harris sat with his head bowed. He never once looked up, not even when the woman testified about the assault. The woman said Harris broke into her house after knocking on the door and pretending to be in search of someone named Williams.

She said that when she turned on the porch light to see who he was he turned away so she couldn't see his face. The next thing she knew, she said, he was in the house. He told her if she did not cooperate he would "break my neck" she said. "This young man threw a towel over rqy head and said he didn't want me screaming or nothing because there was going to be a rape," the woman said. "I was very quiet.

I didn't say nothingj" she said. "He asked my age and I told him I was 75, then he carried me into the hall and threw me on the floor on my stomach. Harris' cousin, Joseph Harris, testified he was with his cousin when he broke into the house. The two had gone there, Joseph Harris said, to steal the Bronco but wheh he came back from searching for the key, he saw Vernon Harris having sex with the woman on the floor. "There was nothing I could do.

I was just stunned," he said. "I didn't know this was going to happen." I An emergency room doctor from Riverside Regional Medical Center testified the Jail escapee caught after bank robbery By David Chernlcky Daily Press 1 At 12:41 p.m., a man approached a teller and asked for coin wrappers, Walden said. As the teller started to HAMPTON A convicted robber's freedom ended Thursday the way it began 1 1 days ago when he scaled a 20-foot brick wall at the Newport LANDMARK MONUMENT. Portsmouth's Confederate Monument has been added to the Virginia Landmarks Register and nominated for the National Register of Historic Places. The first Confederate monument individually listed as a Virginia Landmark monument consists of an obelisk surrounded by four life-sized bronze statues representing all four branches of the Confederate military: infantry, artillery, cavalry and naval.

Local men posed for the statue. Story, C3. ap News jail. The Christmas Fund campaign is onnnnnraW kulk n.ll.. BROWN toys and food to the needy.

Please send or bring your contributions to the Daily Press office at 7505 Warwick Blvd. in Newport News or mail them to: Christmas Fund P.O. Box 746 Newport News, Va. 23607 Fund coupon on Page 2 Two Hampton police officers caught Nelson J. Brown, 34, as he tried to scale a fence behind Riverdale Apartments about 12:45 p.m.

Officers Ken Desoffy and Barry Archie had been chasing a man who was seen running away from a branch of Bank at 2160 Cunningham Drive after a robbery, Cpl. Jeff Walden, a police spokesman, said. reach for some wrappers, the man "jumped over the counter, opened a cash drawer and removed an undisclosed sum of money," Walden said. The robber then vaulted back over the counter and ran out the main door. Witnesses told police the man Please see EscapeeC2 Mm Please see RaryC2.