Speak Out 6/10/07

Using resources

I WONDER how "Mr. Green" (Al Gore) feels about the United States adding millions to our population? Even with the strictest conservation, our resource consumption will continue to grow.

From bad to worse

NO AIR service until September? Come on, Cape Girardeau. I think it might be time to look into a new management at the airport. This has gone from bad to worse.

Front-line view

SOMEONE SAID he's old enough to remember Vietnam. Exactly what does he remember? That we never lost a single engagement with the enemy? That we took objective after objective and then walked away for political reasons, leaving the South Vietnamese people, whom we had promised to help remain free, at the hands of brutal communists? That we refused to use the tactics that were winning the war because they were politically unpopular? That we turned against our fighting men and women, much as some are now, to the point many could not get jobs, because we were politically opposed to what they were doing? The killing fields of Cambodia and Laos after we left the region and the Khmer Rouge and Viet Cong had free rein? I remember also. We obviously remember a different war. Maybe it's because I saw it from the front lines.

Pay, then pump

REGARDING PEOPLE driving off before they pay for gasoline: Here's an easy solution. Pay before you pump.

A comparison

THE EVER-INCREASING shrillness of the voices of opposition to President Bush's pragmatic yet principled proposal to deal with the immigration problem, as well as the things many of them say or write, are starting to remind me of Afrikaner leaders trying to preserve segregation in the latter days of South Africa's apartheid. Sad. Very sad.

Unprepared

GOP PRESIDENTIAL candidates Sam Brownback and John McCain both admitted to not reading the National Intelligence Estimate before voting to authorize the war in Iraq. Yet we spend more time criticizing our children for not being well-prepared for the MAP.

Paying teachers

I AM confused in the thinking behind the new salary schedule for the Jackson School District. The district is rewarding the teachers with the least experience with the biggest raises. Does this seem logical to anyone else?

Nondrinkers targeted?

IF THE minors in attendance at the Sikeston beerfest were not in physical possession of alcohol and received no tests from the police (many apparently requested one) to show they had been consuming booze, the Sikeston cops may have bungled this case big time. It may well turn out to be that they knew the minors ticketed probably hadn't been drinking and targeted them anyway, making the police guilty of false prosecution and failure to uphold the sworn duties of their office.

Minor offenses

CAPE GIRARDEAU County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle is being blasted on blogs for telling the public what the law states in relation to minors and alcohol. The reasoning is that minors would be better served if they were kept in the dark as to what the laws say on this subject and what they don't. This kind of tortured logic leaves one at a loss to explain the mindset of those who take such a position. I guess they are so anti-youth they want minors convicted of offenses they didn't commit.