FIRST ANNUAL PARENTING CONFERENCE A HUGE SUCCESS

A large crowd of around 400 turned out on a beautiful day for the first annual Parenting Conference held Saturday in the University Center. By all accounts, the speakers were truly excellent and highly informative. This was a cooperative effort between the Jackson and Cape Girardeau school districts. Hungry attendees ate a lunch provided them free, courtesy of the good citizens at Schnucks.

Lots of hard work went into putting this conference on, and we salute founders Becky Kies and Donna Boardman, who led the efforts of many volunteers to make this fine program a success.

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President Bill Clinton has boldly challenged critics of his economic program to come up with their own list of spending cuts if they don't like his. I herewith accept that challenge, and offer a list of programs and departments that is ripe for consideration, either for trimming or for outright elimination.

The following federal programs or departments might be considered:

Rural electrification, cotton promotion, the National Endowment for the Arts, Tennessee Valley Authority, International Development Cooperation Agency, Environmental Protection Agency, Small Business Administration, minority business set-asides, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Interstate Commerce Commission, Securities and Exchange Commission, Export-Import Bank, Farm Credit Administration, Peace Corps, Railroad Retirement Board, Federal Communications Commission, Federal Election Commission, National Endowment for the Humanities, Government Printing Office, General Services Administration, Office of Technology Assessment, Government Accounting Office, Federal Trade Commission, Federal Labor Relations Authority, Federal Housing Finance Board, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of Commerce, Davis-Bacon Act enforcement, Department of Energy, Department of Education, Architect of Capitol, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, Congressional Budget Office, Federal Judicial Center, Council on Environmental Quality, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Community Relations Service, Special Counsel for Immigration-related Unfair Employment Practices, Independent Counsel, U.S. Parole Commission, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, Department of Health and Human Services, National Mortgage Association, Federal Railroad Association, Urban Mass Transportation Administration, St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, bi-lingual education programs, African Development Foundation, Appalachaian Regional Commission, Bicentennial Commission, Office of Personnel Management, National Science Foundation, Commission of Fine Arts, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Inter-American Foundation, Food And Drug Administration, and the Health Care Financing Administration.

(partial listing)

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"After six months at the top of the New York Times bestseller list, Rush Limbaugh's The Way Things Ought To Be has finally gotten a review snotty, of course from the Times itself. `The satire here is not subtle,' sniffs Walter Goodman. Neither was Juvenal. You can get more common sense (not to mention rollicking fun) in an hour of Limbaugh than in a week of the Times. It's amusing how much alarm the man inspires in liberals, who now dominate the three branches of government, the mass media, and academia but still worry that the nation suffers from insufficient unanimity of opinion. In the past few weeks, Limbaugh has been attacked by Time, Newsweek, The New Yorker, and Nightline, all of whom fret that talk radio poses a threat to democracy. Actually, it may be the last stronghold of democracy. On the one hand, we're told that Limbaugh is out of the mainstream; on the other, that he's too popular. Go figure."

from the current National Review