SPEAKOUT

On a school night

COULD ANYONE tell me why, for the second year, Homecomers in Jackson has been planned the first week of school? I've lived in Jackson all my life, and it's always been a week or two before school starts. Are they going to continue having it the first week of school? The kids really want to go to Homecomers when it comes to town, but it being the first week of school they can't go. I hoped it wasn't going to be the first week of school this year, so I'm kind of surprised that it is.

Get it together

I WISH the editorial staff of the Southeast Missourian could come to some kind of agreement. After all, editorials are, by definition, supposed to represent the collective agreed-upon wisdom of the editorial staff. But no. One day an editorial states that Missouri has a surplus of revenue despite tax cuts. A few days later, an editorial argues that tax cuts cause budget surpluses. Someone needs to be taken to the woodshed lest the Southeast Missourian lose its worldwide reputation as the last bastion of Reaganomics.

Loss of memory

TO THE 77-year-old who said he's been a Democrat all his life: I feel he or she has been a closet Republican since maybe the 1970s. This person probably was a hard Democrat if they came out of World War II, suffering through having a family and all. In the U.S. they found prosperity and then didn't need the social programs any more, like many of us did. Therefore they wanted to keep their investments and their savings because they felt the Democrats tax too much for the poor. They didn't need the government's help any more and may have invested their money wisely. God was good to them. So they went to the side that bashed the people who need the government's help. Thank God I have never gotten that attitude. Anyone who's been a Democrat all their life, a loyal Democrat, could never turn to the Republican Party, the party of the privileged and the rich. This person probably forgot what really helped them get where they are today: the Democratic Party.

Credibility woes

WE WERE amused to read Peter Kinder's thoughts on the state elections. In an otherwise bland and unremarkable C-graded column, Senator Kinder could not resist the urge to jab at the hundreds of scientists who have considered the evidence and concluded that global warming is a real and serious problem. The few cold days the droughts, heat waves and record temperatures provide Kinder with the evidence he needs to continue his blind denial. Rather than undermine the conclusions of the scientific community, Kinder merely undermines further his own credibility. Not that it was much to begin with.

Tower is problem

I'M CALLING in regard to the new telephone tower they've put up in the Fruitland area. Some of us don't receive cable TV and can't afford satellite TV. There ought to be some type of FCC ruling on how close they can put these things to residential areas, because it's really messing with the TV channels here. They need to change the frequency of their towers, or the TV stations need to change their frequencies. Something's got to give.

Malarky, baloney

I KEEP reading in Speak Out about the Democrats being for the working man and the poor man and the Republicans being for the rich man. This is a bunch of malarky and baloney that was fed back during the Depression. These people who still spout this stuff do not have the ability to think for themselves and see what history has shown us. The Democrats aren't for the poor. They only talk about it. They don't act on it. They tax everybody and everything they can find. There's no way that benefits the working poor. It might benefit the idle poor, but not the working poor. They pay taxes also. This idea was fed to people by their parents and grandparents, and they have never thought through it to realize it isn't true any more. Roosevelt did do great things for people during the Depression, but that's long gone.

Farm Bureau info

SENATOR KINDER'S excellent July 23 column pointed out that the presidential race and Missouri's U.S. Senate race may be quite close. Indeed they will. My only argument with the insightful senator has to do with his assertion that the Missouri Farm Bureau represents nearly 90,000 families. I think it would have been more accurate to write that the Missouri Farm Bureau purports to represent 90,000 farm families. As has been well-documented in a variety of sources, the Farm Bureau really represents but a handful of large agribusiness concerns. Sadly, it's no surprise that the small family farmers have been forgotten, even given the shaft, by the Missouri Farm Bureau itself.

Not just the rich

TO THE person who claims you have to be in a certain tax bracket before you would receive a tax break for the marriage tax: I guess you're one of those people who believed Clinton when he shook his finger at you and said he never had sex with that woman, Monica Lewinsky. No, the marriage tax is not for just the rich. When are you Democrats going to stop accusing the Republicans of being only for the rich? When are you going to understand the ignorance of that statement? Your good ol' boy Clinton is clapping himself on the back, congratulating himself on having the biggest surplus in the history of the U.S., which I don't believe for a second we truly have. Anyway, Clinton takes more out of your paycheck for all the taxes we are forced to pay and have to work until June to pay off Uncle Sam, and you want me to believe that Democrats care about the working class of Americans? Give me a break. I'd also like to remind you that being rich is not a crime. I know the Democrats want to believe it is, but it isn't. Just because you're rich doesn't mean you should have to pay taxes to help people who have their hand out, expecting everyone else to take care of them. By the way, I'm not rich. I live on a fixed income, and I believe what this president has done to our country is morally, spiritually and ethically a disgrace. Shame on Americans for supporting him, all because of the almighty dollar and the great economy. God help us all.