Pay the police

I HAVEN'T been a friend of the Cape Girardeau Police Department, the way they play hide and seek, but I will say they need a living salary for their families. If you don't give them a cost-of-living raise, the police department will become training grounds. After they're on the force for a while, they'll go to the security departments at General Motors or Boeing, which pays up to three times as much. Or they'll go to bigger cities because they'll be getting experience from our training school. I also think the county's deputies should be making more money than they are right now.

Thanks, guardian angel

I WAS sitting in the car at Wal-Mart waiting on my daughter when a young lady walked up to the car and handed me a bouquet of yellow carnations. She said when I was in the check-out lane, she asked God to help her find someone who needed the flowers. God knew I needed her. Thank you, my guardian angel, Missy.

Courtesy for workers

I'M GOING to march across the state to get a new courtesy law passed. If you don't hold down a full-time job, stay out of the checkout lines and fast-food lines during the lunch hour. Working people only have one hour to run an errand or eat. The rest of you have all day.

Eagleton's commentary

THANK YOU for publishing Thomas Eagleton's column on Sept. 11. Eagleton accurately pointed out that Attorney General John Ashcroft is destroying the Constitution in order to save it. In addition, he concluded that we are trying to rebuild a country, Afghanistan, that can't be rebuilt, and may be on the verge of destroying a government in place in Iraq, which could unleash monumental and unpredictable forces in the Middle East and throughout the world. I would only take Eagleton's view and add to it my own that all of what he said is unavoidable. So let's roll.

The value of the arts

I COULDN'T agree more with Christine Stephens: "What passes for art and culture today isn't fit for human consumption." Our culture is based upon greed, over-consumption, pollution and the imperialistic imposition of our values over the rest of the world. Advertising is the art of our society. Our art is big pickup trucks and colorful containers that are easily disposed by throwing them out the window of our car. We can work to combat this degradation of our culture by supporting the River Campus and other arts-based institutions that see art as a way to lift and educate the human spirit rather than a way to make a buck.

American-made flag

MY NEIGHBOR asked me why I am not flying the flag. I told him I refuse to fly an American flag that was made in China. Everywhere I go I see so-called American flags made in China. I do not accept these as American flags. The Communist Chinese are not our friends. And now they have the gall to make our flags. I will go to my grave before I will buy a Commie flag. And that flag on my casket had better be made in America, or I will rise up and rip it to shreds. If you can't buy anything else made in the United States these days, we should at least be able to buy an American flag made here.

Compare the costs

THEDIRECTOR of the parks department said it would be "impossible" to repair pipes under the swimming pool at Capaha Park. We are able to repair cracks in the limestone beneath the Mississippi River and then construct a bridge across it. We were able to send a man to the moon over 30 years ago. We're able to build airplanes that can travel three to four times the speed of sound. Yet we will not be able to jackhammer the bottom of the swimming pool even though the pool is closed for nine months of the year. Give me a break. That's really underestimating the intelligence of people of Cape Girardeau. Estimate the cost of repairs to Capaha Pool and compare that to the cost of constructing the aquatic center. Then come back to us and give us those numbers.

I BELIEVE the minimum wage is a fraud. In 1969, I was working for a minimum wage of $1.35 an hour, and a hamburger cost 15 cents. Now the minimum wage is $5.15 an hour, and the burger costs around 60 cents. If you do the math, you can figure out nothing has changed. The ratio between the price of the burger and the minimum wage is the same. All minimum-wage increases do is raise prices. Employers do not pay wages. Their customers and clients do. If you want to stop all jobs from going to China, Malaysia and the like, drop the minimum wage.

Working for success

TO THE person who said we should forget about education and just be ignorant: That was the most appalling thing I've ever read. I like rodeos just as much as the next person, but successful people worked hard to get where they're at, and to those who choose to work hard, so be it.

Downtown intolerance

MY WIFE, daughter and I went downtown for a sports banquet. When we left, we were pulled over by one of Cape's finest. He said he wanted to see where we had been and that we looked suspicious. We know he just wanted to smell my breath and look at my eyes. That's the exact reason we normally don't go downtown to have dinner and share a bottle of wine with my wife. As long as the cops are only worried about DWIs, the downtown area will never be a success. That is exactly what killed Riverfest. Spend all the time and money you want to throw at this rebirth of the downtown area, but until you can control these predator cops, it will be a failure. I understand you can't get blasted and drive, but the police are going for zero tolerance. People just won't take the chance. Goodbye, downtown.