Speak Out 02/17/03

Wallet is returned

THANKS TO employees at Burger King in Jackson. My daughter left her wallet there and didn't realize it for a few hours. They kept it in a safe place until we went back to get it. Nothing was missing. We really appreciate their honesty.

Not enough proof

ANY LAWYER worthy of his profession could easily make mincemeat of Colin Powell's case for war. His facts just don't stand up to cross-examination. It turns out that most of Powell's so-called shocking new facts were culled directly from a British report that plagiarized a graduate student's paper written 10 years ago. Unfortunately, our country has a pattern of lying about secret intelligence in order to justify going to war. Ninety minutes of innuendo and unsubstantiated conjecturing are not going to be accepted as substantive proof by the majority of the world that feels that the country posing the biggest threat to world peace is the United States.

Thanks for the help

THIS IS to the wonderful woman who helped my husband up when he fell in last week's rainstorm on Food Giant's parking lot. He is 70 years old and suffers from bone cancer, so his fall could have been a disaster. This kind woman ran through the pouring rain to help him. It just goes to show you what a great town we live in. Thank you, and God bless you.

Great concert

I JUST wanted to say the Styx concert was great. I have to admit that it is was one of the best concerts I have ever been to, and I have been to several. I took my 13-year-old daughter, and she really enjoyed it even though she is not familiar with these groups. The Show Me Center needs to get more groups like them and more often. The building needs to be used more for events like this. Here's an idea: Bring in Sting or someone else from those days.

Blame the litterers

TO THE person who was upset about the amount of trash outside the Show Me Center. You shouldn't be upset with those who clean up the trash. You should be disgusted by those who deposit it there. Only uncaring pigs and those who couldn't care less for the environment and their fellow citizens would do this. It's all over the area. Only meaningful fines and punishment will curb this trashing problem we have.

A good concert

THIS IS a positive thing to be putting in the Speak Out column for a change. My partner and I and our friends would like to thank the Show Me Center staff for bringing the wonderful concert with Styx, Kansas and John Waite to Cape Girardeau. We all enjoyed ourselves thoroughly and had a really good time.

Two-hour delay

NOW THAT the schools have been out for more snow days than allotted, it's time for officials to start going to a 2-hour snow delay instead of canceling school for the entire day.

Background noise

PLEASE, TV producers, tone down the background music on a lot of these shows. You can't hear what the people are saying for the loud music, especially if you have a hearing problem. If you can't hear, there's no point in watching them.

Code not enforced

DOES THE Jackson School District enforce its dress code? I see students with clothes on too tight and students with clothes that are way too big. I think their parents should look at the way they dress.

Use up all options

COLIN POWELL'S call to war doesn't hold up to the six-point Powell Doctrine created by the general himself in the 1990s to examine whether the use of our military is wise in any given situation, especially point No. 6: Have we exhausted our other options?

Out of step

I AM so fed up with the claims that either the United Nations or NATO is in danger of becoming irrelevant just because member nations choose to apply more common sense and reason to the Iraq issue than our White House seems capable of mustering. In a global sense, it's clear the United States is the nation that is out of step and in danger of making itself morally irrelevant.