SPEAK OUT

Business failure

IT AMAZES me that Southeast Missouri State University has enormous plans for a River Campus costing millions and cannot meet the daily maintenance needs and salary upkeep for employees. University salaries are not competitive with the community or region. Year after year, employees struggle to get a 1 percent to 2 percent increase and sit by to watch administrators get significant increases. The university has an extensive list of deferred maintenance but has spent millions of dollars for the River Campus development that should have never been spent without a firm agreement as to where the money was coming from. If the university were a corporation without state funding, it would have been out of business a long time ago.

Getting some back

READ MY lips: No, I am not going to give my small tax refund to charity. I plan to keep it with the knowledge that George W. Bush is giving me a small part of what his daddy took.

Rousseau's solution

18TH CENTURY French thinker Jean Jacques Rousseau remains very influential. His ideas can help us resolve the flap over the River Campus. Rousseau didn't think students should be placed in classrooms. He thought of classrooms as artificial, unnatural and confining. He believed students would learn much more in a natural environment with no formal instruction. He urged that students be out and about interacting with the natural environment. The solution to the River Campus squabble is simple: Spend no money, build or rehabilitate no buildings, allow SEMO students to interact while hanging out by the river, give them academic credit and call the area surrounding the river the River Campus.

No-cost care

THIS IS not intended to precipitate heart palpitations or a full-blown heart attack, but the vice president's out-of-pocket expense for the $25,000 pacemaker was zero.

Master of universe

THE PIECE on Brandon Stricker and the LAN computer games was excellent. Stricker and his gaming friends are now masters of the universe in the world of computers. After reading the article, I sense that some day Stricker may also become the political master of the real universe.

Accessible arts center

WHY DOESN'T the university step back, rethink this whole thing and build a performing arts center on campus where it can take care of students. Students could walk back and forth to classes and avoid the security problems of the south part of town?

No need to whine

ARE THE Republicans getting a fair shake in Speak Out? Looks like we are not, but maybe we are so satisfied with President Bush and are not as whiny as the Democrats and have no need to vent our hateful comments. Like it or not, President Bush is doing a great job. Admit it.

Limited refunds

IT JUST amazes me that everyone who knows there are going to be refunds didn't finish reading the article. If you made less then $30,000, you won't get any money back. The only people getting any money back are the ones who are living more comfortably.

Wasting money

REGARDING THE article about billboards promoting pride in Cape Girardeau education: The only thing this promotes is the fact that our schools waste money. What a good reason to vote against any tax increase.

Giving, not taking

IT'S NOT going to take more than a small check for me to like George Bush. I'm grateful that he's putting money back in my pocket at a time that our family needs it. I can't help but think that if the Democrats were in office they would want more money out of my pocket. Thank you, President Bush.

Normal gas prices

Gas prices are going back to normal again, Thank you, President Bush.

Explain, please

I WOULD like to hear an explanation from the university, the board of regents and regents president Don Dickerson how they can justify paying Dale Nitzschke who lives in Ohio almost $200,000 a year for the past two years. No wonder the fees have to be increase again. It's terrible.

Where's other plate?

TO THE best of my knowledge, Missouri requires two license plates to be displayed on a vehicle. Why is it so many people in Cape are driving around with no license plates on the front of their cars? Could it be some are using the front plates on another vehicle?

Give officers tickets

I'VE SEEN how police officers change lanes without using turn signals. I've seen how, instead of waiting for a stoplight to change, they'll pull into a parking lot and go that way to get where they're going. But if regular citizens did that, we would be pulled over and given a ticket. Why are the police officers getting away with things ordinary citizens can't do? Who's stopping them and giving them a ticket?

Step backward

THANKS, JIM Drury, for keeping Cape Girardeau in the dark ages.

A trough of slop

OUR NEW Democrat-controlled Senate has given America its first piece of legislation. This is the so-called patients bill of rights. This bill will result in higher insurance costs and force many employers to cancel coverage. The centerpiece of the bill, however, is the right to sue the insurance companies. This is just one more trough where the Democrats can slop the trial lawyers of America. Lawyers control the Democratic Party, and this bill proves it.

Need a little culture

HIP, HIP, hooray for Jim Drury's water park. Let's continue to keep the local folk pacified and uncultured rather than investing in the future of all Southeast Missourians with a visual and performing arts campus. I'm sure Drury is content with his efforts to maintain a one-horse mind-set here in Cape and control the destiny of us poor hicks. However, many of us country folk just don't agree with his notion that basking in the sun at a Drury water park is preferable to a little culture in Green Acres.

Saw the light

Democrats talk about how the Democratic Party is for the working man, but when Bill Clinton was president, I couldn't find a job because there was no job to be found. It had fallen victim to affirmative action. Democrats talk about how they are for freedom, but when I lived in Kentucky, you either registered as a Democrat or you couldn't vote in any of the local elections. When I moved to Missouri, I switched from Democrat to Republican, and I will never support the Democratic Party again. They have turned out to be a bunch of liars, whiner's, sore losers, and tax-and-spend hypocrites. I have seen the light.

Not baby's fault

A SELF-PROCLAIMED women's rights activist stated she drives by the crosses on I-55 and ignores them. Therein lies a large part of the problem. It's not the unborn babies' fault that a woman is raped, abused by her man or is not wanted by its mother. The majority of abortions occur because some people don't want to be responsible for their actions.