Speak Out 02/18/04

Blackmail tactics

I AM getting sick and tired of our city government using blackmail tactics. I'd rather see spring cleanup than leaf collecting. Leaves are a natural fertilizer. I know where at least four police officers live. They use their city vehicles for personal use. I don't feel any safer knowing that a police officer lives in my neighborhood.

Heritage concerns

I SAW the headline about Native Americans being outraged over the Outkast performance during the Grammys. They are trying to get enough signatures together to get NBC and anyone involved with the Grammy ceremony (especially Andre himself) to publicly apologize for the "dehumanization and humiliation" that the Native American community felt after watching Andre's ceremony closing performance. People need to lighten up. I am not of Native American heritage, but I am of a certain heritage that is often used for entertainment purposes. I never feel any humiliation whatsoever. If anything, Native Americans should be thankful anyone cares enough about their heritage to correctly utilize their spiritual symbols

Abuse of men

VIOLENCE AGAINST women is wrong. However, it is just one more example of the politically correct police telling one side of the story. Would they feel sorry for a man who was physically abused? No. Would they feel sorry for a man who has been financially raped by a woman? No. Would they understand the plight of the man who wants his children to have a good home but cannot receive child support from his spouse because if he requests child support she will demand child custody? Anti-men reporting is omnipresent in the media. Will you ever comment on women abusing men?

Dangerous prank

REGARDING THE article "Laxative-laced cupcakes send students home sick": You mention that parents were concerned that the cupcakes might be laced with something other than laxatives. Pranksters need to realize that someone could have overdosed or had an allergic reaction to the laxative. This is a prank that has been done for years, and people still do not realize the danger.

Potentially deadly

MY SON had many friends who ate some of the laxative cupcakes. I think that the girls who made them should have a received a harsher punishment. Someone could have died.

Scientific lunacy

IT'S ENTERTAINING to see that some Republican legislators would like to take Missouri's school system back to the Dark Ages and include creationism under the totally unveiled guise of "intelligent design" in the curriculum. Next these clowns will be trying to repeal the law of gravity and the laws of thermodynamics, sending physics and engineering back to the Dark Ages as well. When legislators have the audacity to think being elected to the state legislature means they know all there is to know about everything, we are all in big trouble. By promoting idiocy in the science classroom, these legislators are trying to ensure that in terms of scientific literacy every Missouri child will be left behind.

New neighbors

FOR THOSE of you complaining about a quarter-cent sales tax increase in Cape Girardeau: I read where Sikeston got a 1-cent tax increase for public safety. Sikeston DPS will be obtaining 17 new employees and plan to start cracking down on crime and drug trafficking. This will in effect move the dealers and general criminals to Cape Girardeau where the officers are already understaffed, overworked and underequipped. Prepare to welcome your new neighbors.

Election objective

I CAN remember Feb. 15, 2003, standing on Broadway with some 100 other Southeast Missourians protesting the Bush administration's push to unnecessary war. We now know that moment was a small but very significant part of the largest antiwar protest in the history of the world. I'm sorry that we couldn't stop the war, but we can still put the Bush administration out of office next November.