Speak Out A 11/18/02

Leave things alone

I'M CALLING about the resegregation in the Cape Girardeau School District. I think we need to leave everything alone for awhile. It's very hard on these elementary students, both black and white, to switch schools, make new friends and, in most cases, change homes too. If we just leave them alone, they can learn. But when they are facing new challenges other than their education, then they don't learn as well. I think they have only had just a short while to get used to their new surroundings. I think that things will iron out in the end if we just give them some time. You can change the school and you can change the teachers, but if the kids don't want to learn, they're not going to learn, no matter where you put them.

Didn't fall for it

GOD BLESS Illinois, Arkansas, Oregon, Massachusetts and Michigan, the states that didn't fall for this Republican hogwash about home security and this Iraq war. They really wanted to know about the economy, jobs and health care we need. They did not buy Bush's bullying. We'll find him out for what he's worth. We're going to pay him off in two years from now in the presidential election.

Qualifying for Medicaid

AS A single working mother at the university making under $20,000 a year and with no child-support assistance, I find it ludicrous that a university employee who makes $42,000 a year qualifies for Medicaid when I don't qualify.

Inappropriate play

THE NOTRE Dame Regional High School play, "Lend Me a Tenor," was in very poor taste for a Catholic school. The play's many sexual innuendoes and occasional inappropriate language at a Christian-based high school was a great disappointment to the Cath-olic community.

Discerning God's will

I THINK it takes gall to profess to know what God wills. The fact that Roe v. Wade came about is God's will, much like the civil rights movement that gave blacks the right to vote, the freedom to work and be successful in today's society. Maybe it's not God's will that women die in back-alley abortion places or that they harm themselves.

Reasons for fighting

I AM a woman. I've never been in the military, nor have I been in combat. I do know something, though, about the military and veterans. I know from talking to them. When they go to war, whether by their own choice or because they were drafted, they are not fighting for our country, for their wives, for their children or for our freedom. They begin fighting when they see their comrades' brains blown over the battlefields. That is the only important thing at the time. They realize then that it is worth the effort to fight and kill the enemy. As I'm reading all these articles in your paper of the protesters and even those who did serve in a war, I am convinced that the protesters' beliefs against the war are based on their inaction in a combat zone or their ignorance of the military.

Late-night dining

CAPE GIRARDEAU needs more late-night restaurants. One night, I drove downtown to a downtown restaurant and was disappointed that it closed at 10 p.m.

Stop the bullies

JACKSON BOARD of Education, when do the bullies in school finally get stopped? When the ones being bullied finally defend themselves by fighting back and make it well-known they won't take it anymore? Mothers say, "Don't fight back." Well, mothers, it's time to let our children defend themselves. You don't get very far with the school system. Jackson has beautiful parks, churches and schools -- schools which are so full of bullies that even the teachers are even being bullied. When do these bullies get made examples of? It needs to stop now.

Huge jump in taxes

I NOTICED the headline on your Opinion page, "No big jump in county tax bills this year." Our tax bill was almost $100 more this year. To us, this is a huge jump in taxes.

Paying your own way

ACCORDING TO the Southeast Missourian, a professor at SEMO is complaining about insurance costs. Insurance on himself is free. His four kids are on Medicaid, and insurance on his wife is $79 a month. He says if his wife's insurance is raised to $300 a month, there's no way they can afford it. I don't understand this. I'd be embarrassed to admit I couldn't live on his kind of salary. I raised five kids as a single parent and put them all through college with no help whatsoever. It never occurred to me to ask for Medicaid. At my age, 68, I'm working two part-time jobs to pay for Medicare supplements. I was taught to pay my own way and not expect government handouts.

Gun control doesn't work

WHILE MANY members of the public are swept along by the emotional rhetoric of the gun-control advocates, we need to also look at the dishonest arguments and bogus statistics used by those advocates to try to promote their agenda. There are a number of widely publicized statistics on how many children die from guns each year. To get those numbers, gun-control advocates include young people whose ages reach above the legal age of 18 for adulthood. That way the killings between teenage criminal gangs get counted as children killed by firearms. There are other misleading statistics used by gun-control advocates that include statistics on lower murder rates in selected countries with strong gun-control laws as compared to murder rates in the United States. What these advocates studiously avoid mentioning are higher murder rates than ours in other countries that also have strong gun-control laws. Guns are not the problem, people are the problem. Weapons matter primarily when the wrong people have them and the right people don't. It is the imbalance in the weapons that creates the danger. Killings seldom start where someone else is known in advance to be carrying a gun. This is not rocket science. We should not even have needed the studies which have shown that gun-control laws don't work. What we really need to do is stop and think.

Thanks for fabric

A GREAT big thank you to the person who left the box of fabric for the Bethany Baptist Church sewing ladies. We appreciate it so much.

Don't think about it

I WOULD like to know why the city council is even considering the idea of approving a TIF for the people who want to build houses around a golf course. If these people don't have the money, why should taxpayers want to do that? These people are doing this to make money, and they're asking taxpayers to help them make money. I think that our city council is remiss for even thinking about it.

They have opinions

THIS IS a replay to those Speak Out callers who don't think band members have political opinions. Some of these high school band members are 18 years old and can vote. Most of these band members are almost 18 years old, and I guarantee you they have opinions. If you don't think they have opinions, ask their parents.

Giving some credit

YOUR ARTICLE on the Republican revolution in Southeast Missouri was very interesting. However, I think you left out the names of two key players who, beginning in the late 1970s, helped bring it about. I am referring to Dr. Edwin Masters and Blair Moran. Please give them their due.

All about hypocrisy

THE MAIN plot of the university production of "Don't Dress for Dinner" isn't "taking your clothes off" but rather the comedy inherent in the increasingly convoluted lies that people tell to cover up their hypocritical lapses in morality. I find it hard to believe that the caller actually saw the show before complaining about it.

Let the buyer beware

YOU EDITORIALIZED that the stock market needs trustworthy regulation. Come on, guys. Caveat emptor.