Speak Out 01/08/03

Spectacular display

WAS IT my imagination, or were the Christmas lights display in Cape Girardeau even more spectacular than last year? I drove my family through on New Year's Eve. It was a foggy and drizzly night. I sure am thankful there were lights on the roadside along the lake. If there hadn't, it would have been easy to drive into the lake. Hats off to whoever was responsible for this awesome masterpiece.

Spending problems

WHO IS Marc Powers kidding? He says it's to the credit of past legislatures that the state has been able to "limp along through the crisis" of the state economy. He's got it backwards. The reason the state is limping is because past governors and legislators didn't address the core problems. They were more consumed with political smoke and mirrors, and spending all they could, than solving the real problems. Reporters like Powers are part of the same culture. The threat to good government isn't term limits. It's lifetime politicians who don't face up to the harsh reality of making difficult decisions for fear of losing their seats.

Awesome power

TELL THE truth. Does the Southeast Missourian enjoy playing "Gotchya!" by quoting an excitable teen who made a misstatement while caught up in the heat of the moment? Did the teen's public retraction of the comment titillate you guys as concerns the awesome power of the press?

Really big event

WHY DOESN'T the city of Cape Girardeau hold the air show, Riverfest and the opening of the new bridge at the same time?

Founding principles

I ALWAYS love it when people write in about "the principles of our Founding Fathers." What would that be? Slavery? Women without any rights at all? Slaughtering anyone who's not European? There must have been some really great Christian principles behind these behaviors.

Don't need taxes

WAKE UP, Cap Girardeau. Do you really want Cape to be like St. Louis? What is wrong with the leaders of this town? Be your own person. Don't play follow the leader. I don't think St. Louis has much to offer. As for as passing taxes to give our police officers a raise, Cape can do that without passing more taxes.

Gossip and tattling

IT ISN'T logical to categorize an entire town as gossipy because of one particular group of gossips at one particular school. Likewise, it wouldn't be realistic to categorize an entire town because of the tattling from a small number of eavesdroppers.

Be prepared

PERHAPS THERE was abuse of the tape the post office provided as a courtesy. I think the person mailing the package should have kept his roll of tape. Stop waiting for other people to take care of your problems when you're not prepared.

Unsightly dump

MY HUSBAND and I were driving around Jackson looking at the possibility of buying some land to build on. In the 2000 block of East Main Street we saw someone has turned that whole area into a big dump. Doesn't Jackson have any kind of standards on that? I certainly would like for that to be addressed. I think it's very unsightly, and it's certainly not what I want in my community.

Film reviews

IT'S GOLDEN Globes time. As usual, a fairly vulgar movie like "Gangs of New York" will be nominated for top honors. Meanwhile, quality work will be overlooked such as "Tuck Everlasting" by Disney with actors like Sissy Spacek and William Hurt, "The Four Feathers" with Heath Ledger and "Moonlight Mile" with Susan Sarandon and Dustin Hoffman. I feel Stephen Spielburg's work is marginal at best. I'm not a big fan. "Catch Me if You Can" is only an average flick. Any movie where a young man pays a girl $1,000 to have sex doesn't make quality viewing. It's too bad that some of the films I mentioned aren't given the credit that they deserve.

Psychic airheads

HOW FAR out can we get? We have TV psychics talking to dead relatives. It's a shame these charlatans are taking advantage of the airheads. What a disgrace. If any person on earth had that power, he would rule the world. P.T. Barnum had it right: A fool is born every minute.

Emergency thanks

WE WOULD like to express our gratitude to a very kind triage nurse named Dan at St. Francis Medical Center's emergency room. He went above and beyond the call of duty. Our pet hamster, Samson, got stuck in a new wooden toy. Our efforts could not loosen him, and his little stomach was turning blue. Dan took over. Afterwards, some staff members took pictures of this most unusual patient. Many thanks.

Give workers a break

REGARDING snow days: Employees deserve a break for safety's sake. They shouldn't work on snow days. I don't think anyone wants something for nothing. Working people just want a fair break. I wish I had a dime for every loyal employee in a cemetery who wanted to come to work on a snowy day. I remember someone slid into a train who was a loyal employee.

A likely shoo-in

IF DICK Gephardt and those other presidential wannabes are the best the Democrats have to offer in 2004, President Bush will be a shoo-in for sure.

I WANT to see if I can explain something about the way Democrats want to tax the wealthy. They're not really talking about taxing the wealthy. I wonder how wealthy Democrats who support taxing the wealthy manage to keep their money. I'll tell you how they do it. It's called foundations. Those foundations don't pay taxes. That's what we ought to change. If we tax the foundations the way Democrats want to tax the average working person, the government would have more money than it could ever imagine. I wish President Bush would go after these foundations.

Litter and leaves

ABOUT THE only way you'll be able to prove if somebody litters is if you videotape them throwing stuff out. Otherwise, it's your word against theirs. Unless you can find the litter and get fingerprints, you don't have much of a case. Since the city of Cape Girardeau only has so much budgeted for the streets, it's a trade-off between removing the snow or picking up leaves.

School failures

I WAS reading recently in Human Events an article by Thomas Sowell on our failed city schools. "Most if not all metropolitan school systems in this country have been controlled by the Democrats for decades. Yet the dismal failure of these schools never seem to cost urban Democrats any votes, least of all among minority voters whose children's chances in life are destroyed in those schools before they ever reach a college or an employer." I wonder if anybody is minding the store. It seems a shame that the Democrats are constantly berating the country for their own inadequacies, because they are the ones who have contributed to the downfall of schools.