SPEAKOUT

I WOULD LIKE to ask the person, what were you thinking when you left your dog in the car for over an hour? Didn't you think it would die? Thank you.

THE CAPE GIRARDEAU city recycling center will hold an open house at its new location at 120 N. Broadview on Saturday between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Aluminum, plastic and glass bottles, newspapers with the slick paper removed and corrugated cardboard may be brought to be recycled. The cardboard should be bundled. Newspapers may be bundled or in paper grocery bags.

I'M CALLING ABOUT Proposition B. I would encourage people out there to vote against Proposition B. I realize that it would help schools and education and the state, but I'm a 20-year-old college student. They just raised my tuition $150. The U.S. Congress made the largest tax increase in history last year. I'm a working person trying to make it on my own and build myself, and I've got enough people working against me. I for one am not going to help these colleges until the colleges start helping me. Thank you.

THANK THE LORD the Bollinger County commissioners had enough sense not to want to take farmers' land away from them for little or nothing to build a lake for the big shots and then have us ordinary people pay sales tax for the big shots' lake.

I'M CALLING IN regards to the couple that makes $17,000 dollars and has a $400 house payment. I'd like to know a little more about how they make it. I wonder if they have insurance policies to pay, kids to raise, how many vehicles they drive, if they use air conditioning. I'm just really curious how they really make it. Thank you.

FRIENDS AT THE coffee shop are betting me you'll never print this, but here goes. We should have had an election on the lake situation in Cape Girardeau County before $100,000-plus of taxpayers' money was thrown away. Then they would have found out that Cape Girardeau would have voted it down almost by as high a percentage as Bollinger County. Our Cape County Commissioners don't want any election here so they can forever blame the people in Bollinger County for not having a lake, but I'll bet the rent money any day that Cape would've voted it down just as fast. Thank you.

WELL, IT LOOKS like the station owners have been meeting again. Prices have gone up, yet I hear the wholesale prices dropped. How come that accounts for a raise? Thank you.

I THOUGHT YOU folks at the Missourian were making it a point in Speak Out not to be criticizing any people, especially individuals. Yet that's all you have been doing in the past week to city councilmen and the mayor. Is that a double policy? We can't do it but you can. Please answer that. Thank you.

There is no double policy. The conflict-of-interest issue before the city council and the subsequent reprimand of the mayor by the council was a public issue of widespread interest that prompted more calls than Speak Out has received recently on any single topic. The newspaper did not criticize anyone; some callers criticized city officials and we published those comments that we considered fair criticism.

I WAS IN the hospital recently, and smoking is strictly prohibited except in two or three places. My stay in the hospital made me bedfast. To make me more comfortable they let me smoke in my room. They also recognized my rights, and that is as it should be. I'm very anxious to see how the no-smoking ban in stores stands up in a court of law. Thank you very much.

I HEARD ON the news today that Gorbachev challenged the western world to put their money where their mouths are. I don't see how they can; they already have there feet there. Thank you.

THIS IS IN regard to the caller who said his or her religious background does not permit him or her to support gay and lesbians. Well, I just want to tell you that gay and lesbians are everywhere and it's part of this world. If you don't like it you're going to have to grow up. Your religious backgrounds may not represent it, but how do you know your religion is right? Thank you.

THE BOLLINGER COUNTY residents have registered their votes on the lake and want it to die. Let's hope it does die instead of Cape County keeping on pushing it.

I WOULD LIKE to comment on the lake vote Bollinger County had. I think that it was a good idea the way they did it, and it shows what the people really feel about the lake. I would also like to comment on Mr. Huckstep. I think it's dead, it ought to stay dead, and I hope I never hear anything else about the stupid thing again.

WOULD YOU PLEASE find out if the nominee for the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas, is married to a white woman. Thank you.

Clarence Thomas's second wife, to whom he is currently married, is a white woman and an attorney employed at the U.S. Department of Labor. Judge Thomas and his wife have custody of his son from his first marriage.

BURIED IN THE very last paragraph of a 28-paragraph, glowing article on Parents as Teachers, we finally get to hear something about what the program is costing us. If the reporting is correct, 37 school districts apply the program to 400 families. That's approximately 10 families per school district at $20,000 per year, per district. That's $2,000 per family per year spent to teach one set of parents to be interested and involved in their children's education. A home visit is about the most inefficient use of manpower I can possibly think of. Personally, in this day of hyper-government spending, I prefer that my community's paper examine a government program with a more critical eye.

Your figures are wrong. The study mentioned in the story was done on 400 families in 37 school districts. As the accompanying article stated, Missouri's Department of Education estimated that 60,000 families statewide take part in the voluntary program during a school year, representing about 30 percent of Missouri families with children under 3. The accompanying article also reported that in Cape Girardeau 283 families participated in the program last year.