SPEAKOUT

Bloomfield Road improvements needed

I CAN'T believe that the city doesn't fix Bloomfield Road wider. I have been on it recently and we have practically been bumper to bumper. It is such a busy street and such a bad street. I do wish they would widen it.

REPLY: Improvements to Bloomfield Road are part of the scheduled projects included in the sales tax approved by Cape Girardeau voters. You're right. These improvements are needed.

Looking for Osage Park improvements

NOW THAT the Osage Park community center is finished out there on the highway, have they forgotten about the park? I don't see anything being done about the park. When will we see any progress?

REPLY: There are still plans to make park improvements in that area. Part of the holdup relates to flood-control work that also involves that area.

GOP wants to help all who work and earn

IN RESPONSE to the caller who wants to know who it is the Republicans wants to see keep most of their paychecks, the answer is everybody, every single person who goes to work and does a job and earns that paycheck. That includes the minimum-wage earner to the wealthiest person. It is their money. They should be entitled to keep as much of it as is possible, and you don't have any right demand that someone else pay for your health care. And did you ever notice that many times when Canadians have serious health problems, they cross that border and come to the good old U.S.A. for help? Did you ever consider why that is? Because socialized medicine doesn't encourage and fund research and advancement. President Clinton's national health care proposal is just like his $500-per-child tax credit that "gives" people who don't work and pay taxes another form of welfare, stealing from the people who go to work every day and work hard trying to make a nice life for themselves and giving to those without ambition, without gumption and without pride.

Road repairs are taking too long

SPEED BUMPS. For the past several months, the eastbound highway between Jackson and Cape near Memorial Park Cemetery and the Cape County parks has had several bone-jarring bumps which for some reason never seem to get repaired. What gives? Why can't these very obvious highway defects be repaired within a reasonable time?

Competition in gasoline prices

I WOULD like to thank the two Jackson gas stations that are selling gas for a reasonable price, which is 15 cents less than all of the Cape Girardeau gas stations and most of the other Jackson gas stations. I live in Cape Girardeau, and I drive to one of those two gas stations each and every time I fill up one of my cars. The rest of the gas stations in town should follow suit.

Mad about lack of hearing coverage

AMERICA IS mad. There is a TV blackout on the Fred Thompson Senate hearings on the illegal campaign fund raising. C-SPAN is covering it but not showing it until the U.S. House shuts down. Last night was around midnight. They will be rerunning the hearings over this weekend so that you can see them. We have seen the hearings in full only because we got a satellite dish last week and get NET Network, which was covering the hearings live. The callers into C-SPAN are mad. They do not want "Nightline" to tell them they are not interested in the selling of our country's souls to the communist Chinese. Also, Chris Matthews on CNBC's "Hardball" has been great. He comes on at 7:30 p.m. weeknights.

Why do adults need X-rated shows?

AS FOR TV ratings, what are we saying to the youth who are becoming adults? Why do adults seem to need X-rated shows? Is that what being adult is about? How about self-control and doing constructive work with our lives as being adult?

Proof that 'dinner' is at noon

GOD BLESS you, Joe Sullivan. I too was raised on a farm, and to this day I still say dinner and supper. My children were raised in the city and they say "No, mom. It's lunch and dinner." Now I can throw your column in their faces and have them read that. It's always good to get one on your kids and say, "I told you so." I love your column.

Postal carriers don't raise the rates

I WOULD like to say something about the person who called in about our postal solution. Well, that got to my heart a little bit and ticked me off. But anyway, I have a son who's postman. I know how many hours he works a day, and I also know how many holidays he gets off. All I want to say is the postman has no regulation of how the stamps goes up regardless if you're low income or whatever.

Both sides have reached under the table

EVERYONE WHO has more brains than a goose on a hillside knows that both the Republicans and Democrats have taken fund-raising money under table, but since the Democrats have taken money from the Chinese, supposedly, maybe they should change their mascot to a panda and call Clinton "Chairman Clinton."

Keep youngsters off the street at night

I UNDERSTAND they didn't pass that curfew in Jackson. I really wish they would have. It's going on 1 a.m., and our whole family's awake because there are teen-agers walking around the neighborhood for the past hour to hour and a half getting every dog in the neighborhood barking their heads off. I don't know where their parents are, but the parents need to be taken and locked up. Why are you kids up walking the streets at 1 a.m.? Parents, let's get these kids in off the street so the rest of us can get a good night's sleep.

Show your outrage; write your congressman

IF ANYONE is as outraged as I am over the article on the Opinion page by Kathleen Parker concerning Col. Dave Roehecker, I have suggestion. To the left of the article is a list of our federal legislators. Make copies of the article and send them to Emerson, Bond and Ashcroft. I have, and I feel better already.

Change policy on attendance regulations

I HAVE a suggestion for Cape public school officials. Require residency, not simply property ownership, as district attendance criteria. Presently at Clippard we have at least two families who do not reside in Clippard School District. One family had a kindergartener last year and the other family had a kindergartener the year before that. Both of these children attended Clippard while other students living in our district were bussed elsewhere. I've questioned this policy to the board office and was told ownership of property and the amount of property tax paid was the criterion, not residency. Basically, you can buy your way into the school district of your choice but still enjoy your country living in another district. The board needs to change this policy, and parents need to complain until they do. Perhaps this is considered discrimination.

We've known about tobacco for a long time

YOU KNOW, it's funny. When I was a little girl -- I'm almost 80 years old -- I remember my aunt telling my father, "Every time you light up, you're putting a nail in your coffin." And now they're coming up with it that some people think it's not true, that cigarettes are dangerous. I've heard it all my life, and I was born in 1920. So, think it over and see how far wrong I was and how far wrong my aunt was. My father died with lung cancer.