| Building begins soon on 'treatment campus' in Northeast Roanoke
Construction will soon begin on a 40-bed residential facility to treat the growing number of Roanoke Valley residents who suffer from alcoholism, drug addiction and mental illness. The facility, planned for a wooded slope off Hollins Road in Northeast Roanoke, will be the first of three buildings in a "treatment campus" on the 9-acre site, mental health officials said this week. Blue Ridge Behavioral Healthcare, an agency that offers public assistance in the areas of mental health, mental retardation and substance abuse, will operate the facility. The project's first phase, at 3003 Hollins Road, will replace the Shenandoah Recovery Center, which for 34 years has offered short-term inpatient care for up to 30 people with mental health or substance abuse needs.
Ex-county worker sentenced for stealing more than $130,000
A former supervisor in the St. Clair County circuit clerk's office was ordered Friday to pay $25,000 in restitution and serve eight weekends in jail after pleading guilty to stealing more than $130,000 from the county. Randolph County Circuit Judge Richard Brown sentenced Sandra Middendorf, 40, of Red Bud, to five years of probation, ordered her to pay $25,000 in restitution and serve eight weekends in the county jail -- as well as undergo any recommended drug and alcohol treatment. The judge found she wouldn't have stolen the money if she had not been addicted to cocaine and abusing alcohol. "I was addicted to drugs and alcohol," Middendorf told the judge at Friday's sentencing. "I was powerless." Assistant State's Attorney Rachel Rouse asked Brown to sentence Middendorf to five years in prison, telling the judge the former clerk held a job a lot of people would like to have -- with good benefits and job security -- but she took advantage of it and the trust that came with it and "threw it out the window." Middendorf participated in drug and alcohol treatment and regularly attends Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, said Gail Meyers, Middendorf's case manager, testifying that Middendorf "has done everything (we) have asked her to do." Rouse noted Middendorf didn't seek drug counseling until her arrest after a November 2004 audit uncovered the theft.
China tops India again
The debate seem to lack concrete facts and are personal in a childish way if not anything else. Two societies with histories to back them have been progressing in the new global order. In fact they are progressing from the status of being third world countries to come up in the highest order- quite fast given their breadth.Historically the societies have had so many weird norms that if we dig up we would find hundreds of such norms which would be considered ills today. And that is true for each and every country. Nothing happens overnight and that is why it is wrong to expect that things would change like that. How can one measure and compare two countries with completely different set-up and progress path? And how can one judge the progress and compare them if we are unaware of the history.
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