Speak Out 01/08/04

Blame the loiterers

I SEE more calls urging the city to shut down the Taste, a legal business, when the problem is not the business. The problem is the loiters allowed to gather up and down the street. Blame them for the problems.

Love is a blessing

I'M SAD that so many people support the amendment to ban gay marriage. I moved to this country because I was told there was freedom of expression. Freedom to love should be included in that. Just because a person falls in love with someone of the same gender doesn't make them a bad person. Life is too short to worry about petty things like this. Anywhere love is present should be a blessing.

Paying at school

I AM a ninth-grade student. I don't like having to go to my parents asking for money to do educational things at school. At the beginning of every school year teachers give out supply lists that have basic classroom necessities (tissues, hand soap, disinfectant spray). Then during the school year in our physical education classes we pay to go to the bowling center. At my old school we even had to pay to get our report cards. It's not right. The government needs to realize it. Some kids don't have the money needed to get all their school supplies. Something needs to be done about this. It's terrible.

Neighborhood problem

THE TASTE should be closed because it creates problems for everyone who lives on that block. Have you ever tried to drive through on a Saturday night? The people in the street have no respect or courtesy for motorists. The owner should close down the Taste. He promised the community if there was trouble he would.

Leave it alone

THE CITY needs to let the Taste be. There was no talk about the Players Lounge being closed after the shooting there.

For the children

NO-FAULT divorce makes divorce easier but greatly increases the probability that there will be less acrimony. If children are involved, this is very important because it makes it more likely that the couple will act in the children's best interests.

Forecasting pipe dream

A FEW years ago, a group of monkeys picking stocks at random made a better profit than a group of stock market and economic forecasting experts. Predicting the economic future, whether by professors, politicians or pontificators, is a pipe dream Gary Rust should abandon forthwith.

Respect for marriage

BRITNEY SPEARS can get drunk and walk into a chapel and get married as a joke, and the public is enthralled. Committed gay partners ask for the legal right to marry, and the public is appalled. Gay or straight has nothing to do with respect for marriage.

Drug trafficking

CAPE GIRARDEAU police don't seem to be interested in reducing drug trafficking. Youths interested in buying drugs know exactly where to go. No matter how many times concerned citizens report the exact whereabouts of known drug dealers, the same dealers continue to sell their drugs to junior high and high school students. I have even seen young people smoking marijuana near the post office. They weren't even concerned that they would be caught. Why aren't the police interested enough to arrest some of them to get them off the streets?