SPEAKOUT

There's plenty to do

THIS IS to the person who doesn't have anything to do but hopes the Show Me Center gets some cool bands. What is that, a couple of evenings out of a boring life? If you want something to do, I'll give you a list. Go to the library and read a book. Or better yet, help teach someone else to read. Do your homework. Volunteer at a nursing home or a hospital. This may make you realize how lucky you are to be healthy. Mow the yard. Help around the house. Cook a meal. Take your younger siblings for a walk or to the park. Visit the neighbor who may need some help. Wash your parents' car. Get a part-time job. If you're doing drugs or alcohol, please don't volunteer, because you're too lazy and stupid to care. Alcohol and drugs are only a temporary solution to long-term problems caused not by this "lame town," but by the foreign junk you put in your body.

Sounds like extortion

THE CENSUS Bureau send these forms out and tells people that if they don't fill out the forms and send them in, their community will miss out on so many millions of dollars. To me, that's called extortion. There have been people prosecuted for that. Why are they wanting to count illegal aliens as U.S. citizens? I don't understand this.

Let's not let court rule

BILL BRADLEY, in one of his debates with Al Gore, talked about the need for Supreme Court justices and said we do not need a justice who is locked into an original interpretation of the Constitution, as if 1787 is the year 2000. What we need, Bradley said, is someone who sees the law as something that moves to adjust to the times. Al Gore said, "I agree with that statement. I think it was a very fine statement." Here we have Gore practicing what he preaches. Making the law move is the real legacy of the administration he's served for seven years. Subpoenas sent to private corporations were enforced. Those sent to the White House were not. Perjury remained a felony for Veterans Administration psychiatrists but not for high administration officials. Obstruction of justice, an impeachable offense for President Nixon, was claimed as a personal privilege for President Clinton. Yet the Gore/Bradley team's claim that the Constitution is a living and breathing document and that the law is something that moves does more than merely provide a rationale for corruption. It is an attack on the law itself. If the Supreme Court could unilaterally change the meaning of the Constitution and the law, then the Constitution and the law would be whatever the court says they are. In that case we would not really have a Constitution or a law. We would have a dictatorship ruled by an absolute court. That's what we fought a revolution to get away from, and I would hope the Republicans would be elected so that we won't have this kind of anarchy and kingly kind of rule again.

Plenty of room then and now

I GRADUATED in the Golden Conservatory class of '97, and when I attended the Jackson Junior High School, there were three grades in there. There were probably more kids in there then than now. We made it just fine. There is no reason for us to have to build another school for those rugrats.

Blame it on the gas guzzlers

AS USUAL, media are pulling one of their Chicken Little tricks in the griping about gasoline prices. From 1981 to 1985, the price of unleaded gasoline averaged $1.26 a gallon. Since 1985 the consumer price index has increased over 50 percent. If the price of gasoline had increased by that amount, it would be over $1.90 a gallon now. At that price, these manly men who need a big SUV or a big pickup truck to show their masculinity would finally get the word and start realizing we need conservation and alternative energy sources like we have been lagging behind the rest of the world in instituting.

Which rock was he under?

I'D LIKE to know what rock you got this David Limbaugh out from under. He's even more radical than Rush is. All the man can do is run down the current administration. Evidently he's been under a rock all these years if he thinks the country is in worse shape now than it was eight years ago. If the people of the United States would have wanted Clinton out of office, that would have thrown him out in the second election. If the Republicans ran this country, we would've gone right back to the stodgy, high-collar, tightfisted stuff the Republicans did before. They would starve the country to death and hide behind a church pew somewhere and talk about religion. It doesn't work that way.

Gun locks for criminals?

WHAT A political pandering joke about gun locks. Crack houses and drug criminals won't have locks on their guns. Only law-abiding citizens, which places them at a disadvantage when trying to protect their families. Clinton is going after crime bass-ackwards. Get the criminals behind bars. Don't hog-tie the citizens' rights to protect themselves. He's so quick to bomb Yugoslavia, but doesn't declare an all-out war on drugs and criminals here in the United States. That would stop the shootings. Criminals do not use gun locks.

Let's get on with it

I THINK it's time to clarify the issue that has been raised about the election on the River Campus. Despite what Jim Drury has said, both issues received a majority vote. However, the bonding issue, which involved the city and required a 57.2 percent vote, failed to achieve that percent. Community leaders were able to locate a source of bond funds which did not place the city at risk. Bottom line: The outstanding historic seminary buildings are saved. Cape Girardeau receives a cultural, historical and educational asset for future generations. Let's quit the carping, the lawyering and the grandstanding and get on with this worthwhile project.

Thanks for the jonquils

I WAS driving up Kingshighway the other day, and I saw the most beautiful sight. The jonquils are really pretty this year. Around town and at the intersections, they are just beautiful. Thank you, whoever planted them years ago, and thank you, Lord.

Turning the clock back

TO THE person who said we need another Bush in the White House: He must be kidding. He must want unemployment to go up again. He must want the Family Leave Act repealed, since George Bush vetoed it, along with vetoing an extension of unemployment insurance and an increase in the minimum wage. And the caller must want military conflict to go with the lack of prosperity. George Bush managed to beat the record on that one. In other words, the caller wants to turn the clock back and have the poor get poorer, the rich get richer, and unemployment flourishing. No, thank you. We don't need another Bush in the White House. What we need to do is get rid of this Republican Congress.

Our future depends on it

THIS IS to all parents that have children in the Cape Girardeau School District: Parents, you need to go to the schools and see how the system is being used and if it is helping your child to learn. Because the future of this town, not just the people on the north end of town, depends on it.

We need moral leaders

I DISAGREE with Mary Nall on Marble Hill. I believe that government did help legislate morals. I believe it's important that we have moral leaders. Often in Speak Out I read where people warn from the Bible what will happen to a nation if it becomes less moral. We have an obligation when we go to the polls to vote for the most moral man or woman that we can. I think this country has been in trouble for the past eight years because we haven't had a moral leader. We weren't willing to have a leader who would put restrictions on the Internet that would keep our children from seeing pornography. A leader would protect our children from this. There's no reason the Internet can't be as decent as TV was 30 or 40 years ago. I think we're suffering a great moral crisis because we don't have a moral leader in the presidency.

Finish the paperwork

ACROSS FROM the Jackson Middle School are two subdivisions, Broadridge and Rosewood. Between the school and these residential areas is Route D, or Independence Street. The speed limit is 40 mph. Already one child from our subdivisions has been hit by a car while crossing this road on her way to school. She survived but suffered a broken leg. The city of Jackson and MoDOT have completed their responsibilities up to this point for getting a pedestrian crosswalk with caution lights at this very location. The school administration and board have had MoDOT's and the city of Jackson's paperwork since August 1999. The administration and the board have yet to complete and return the required paperwork. School officials and board members, please take time to complete these forms and submit them to the proper authority. Until you do so, neither MoDOT nor the city can proceed with creating a safer passage to the middle school for our neighborhood children.