Speak Out A 10/16/01

Old fire trucks

The Cape Girardeau fire chief recently made a statement in the paper that some of the fire trucks that protect the city are 20 years old. I had a hard time believing this, so I did some checking on my own. With a little bit of digging I found out the fire chief was wrong. Two of the fire trucks are 27 years old, and another one is 24 years old. If these were my personal vehicles, they would be considered antiques. But these are the trucks we citizens of Cape Girardeau rely on for fire protection and the firefighters rely on to fight a fire in our homes and businesses.

No. 1 complaint

I'D LIKE to speak about the parking at SEMO. I've had five members of my families who have been to college there. Their No. 1 complaint was the horrible parking.

He's a windbag

I CONSIDER Rush Limbaugh an overstuffed, know-nothing windbag. And I am a Republican.

Which is which?

SINCE PETER Kinder praises both of them, seemingly equally, I need to know whose view he most favors. Is he a cautious Colin Powell coalition builder or an unreconstructed Paul Wolfowitzian unilaterialist?

Cave-man mentality

SAYING THAT foreign aid to countries like Israel got us targeted by terrorists, a Speak Out caller has urged us to retreat into what I would call head-in-the-sand isolationism. The caller is wrong for many reasons. The terrorist attack was in large part motivated not by foreign assistance but by the terrorists hatred of modernization and globalization. Perhaps in order to appease the terrorists on this point, the caller would also advocate a return to the prehistoric past.

That's the goal

THE DEPARTMENT of Homeland Security "scares the devil out of me," said a Speak Out caller. Good. Ridding the world of evil in general and devils on Earth specifically is its goal.

Big-score maneuver

AFTER EFFUSIVELY excoriating folks with views to the left of those expressed in National Review, Peter Kinder did a brilliant, dazzling, 180-degree turn and congratulated Americans for abandoning divisiveness. This maneuver would rate a well-deserved 10 from Olympic judges.

Knee-jerk diatribe

DONN MILLER'S doltish diatribe against David Limbaugh's accurate assertion that some academics are repulsed by the American flag was devastatingly disappointing. Miller's apparent pride in the fact that he has never displayed the accouterments of American patriotism is an aberration and abomination motivated perhaps by little more than some kind of morbid attention seeking. Miller's dictums have been diverted by knee-jerk anti-nationalism when our nation needs to sustain the patriotic impulse in any and all acceptable ways, now and well into the foreseeable future.

Deflated campaign

DURING CAPE'S sizzling summer days of carping and complaining about detour signs and the roundabout, scintillating Southeast Missourian editor Joe Sullivan's approval rating was 99 percent, higher than President Bush's is now. However, in light of the decision to run a front-page photograph of an effigy burning of a cheerleader, Sullivan's approval rating has sunk to 12 percent, considerably below President Nixon's pre-resignation level. I am still in Joe's corner and think he did the right thing to educate the public to something many consider worth knowing but would have known nothing about had it not been for the Southeast Missourian. Sadly, however, one thing seems certain. Sullivan, like so many others, has fallen victim to the fickleness of public opinion and all life has gone from the "Sullivan for mayor!" boomlet.

Waste of money

I was at the airport and saw what I had already suspected: National Guard soldiers standing around with their hands in their pockets shooting the bull. I always thought the Guard was a waste of taxpayer money. Now I have seen it firsthand.