Local soldiers deserve thanks

A thumbs-up, thumbs-down assessment of newsmakers here and beyond:

THUMBS UP: The men and women of the Virginia Army National Guard's Stonewall Brigade clambered from buses Thursday into the light of home and a moment of elation that surely will abide in their memories until the last of their days. Pressed into a tour of duty in Iraq by President Bush's surge, the Staunton-based Headquarters Company of the 116th Infantry Brigade Combat Team ultimately was aided by it. The unit spent eight months in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone then received an early ticket home from field commanders because of the surge's success. We share the joy of families over the return of their loved ones, and the pride over the valor of these citizen soldiers who marched into one of the world's most hellish places in service to their country. All of us who remain behind owe our sense of comfort and safety to men and women such as these. More important, we owe them our gratitude. To the Stonewall Brigade: Thanks, and welcome home.

THUMBS DOWN: Here's a nice slice of modern American logic. The names and addresses of sex offenders in Virginia and many other states are available in a few mouse clicks on Web sites maintained by the state police. Unless those names happen to belong to illegal immigrants. Their identities are protected under federal privacy law. One can hope that the absence of their names in online registries also means that authorities have learned of the illegals' lack of citizenship status and accordingly sent him or her on a one-way trip out of the U.S. That's happening to more than 170 immigrant sex offenders, including one from Waynesboro, rounded up recently by state and federal officials. Some of those offenders' names may remain on the state registry, but eventually all will be pulled from it, authorities say. Let's pause for understanding: Commit a sex crime in America and your identity is private, so long as you are here illegally; otherwise, your name is out there for all the worldwide Web to see. We favor the latter - criminals deserve to be known - but can only shake our heads at the former in recognition of the strange place that is modern America, where rights increasingly belong to those who venture far from the right side of the law.

THUMBS UP: Modernity, of course, does have its strong points. This just in (OK, well not quite): A Virginia loophole allows off the hook men who sexually attack girls 14 to 16, so long as they offer to marry their victims. Before expressing the appropriate level of dismay, disdain and disgust, understand that this proviso likely made perfect sense at the time of its conception, back in those halcyon days when men took their wives to dinner by seizing a fistful of the better half's hair and tugging her over to the nearest rock to crack open a nut and chat about such new-fangled inventions as fire and some darned thing called the wheel. Living in caves no longer holding quite the same appeal - unless, perhaps, you're a presidential candidate who thinks the war can be ended in 2009 - the gang in Richmond has decided that the assault loophole has lived somewhat beyond its time. Next, perhaps, they can get around to tossing out those laws about burning witches and stoning adulterers.