Speak Out 10/10

ONCE AGAIN, George Bush has gotten onto to television and tried to convince us all that the world will come to an end and Saddam will nuke all of the Arab coutries over there and then move on to us. I think Bush really believes that we can't see through this charade Yes, Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, but so do we, do does China, so does India, so does Pakistan, so does Russia, the list can go on and on. But we are trying to attack their leaders of their countries. No, this is a revenge thing, but the people in America are being lured into a belief that we are at risk so we must attack.

Happens every year

CARS ON the 1400 block of West End were egged again this year. (It happens every year at this time.) There is more litter on the road than cars. At 3:30 a.m. Monday night, there were cars doing doughnuts for 45 minutes at Kingshighway and Broadway. That's three crimes I've seen in one day. Why don't the police see it?

Excellent clinic

MY HAT'S off to Missouri Department of Conservation and their youth waterfowl clinic that was held Saturday at Duck Creek! The staff was great and the classes were educational and fun. My hats off to the MDC and their concern for the youth of the future.

Leave the hole

I SAW the photo of the hole in the ceiling of Cape Central Junior High. I think it should be left there in case students can't take the classroom any more and are looking for a means of escape.

Supporting criticism

I SUPPORT your criticism of the Humane Society for attempting to decide how to teach children. Everyone knows that is best left to the politicians, Southeast Missourian editorialists, John Q. Public, and virtually everyone except the educators themselves.

Let students set pace

PUNISHING STUDENTS for taking longer than four years to graduate from college? Ridiculous. Unless you're just a bad student, college should take however long you want it to. More and more college-age kids are working during school, and classes haven't gotten any easier. It's not like high school. If you're paying for it, why let the school dictate how long you have to get that degree? I'm glad SEMO is not going that route -- yet.

It's just more money

THE PROPONENTS of Proposition A are fantasizing if they think that taxing cigarettes and other tobacco products will cause a mass cessation of smoking and tobacco consumption. No doubt some people will quit because of the increased expense. However, not one person will quit smoking unless he wants to quit smoking. I smoked for 50 years and finally quit because I wanted to quit, not because of the expense. Like a drug addict, the dedicated smoker will find a way to fund his habit. It is disingenuous of Proposition A proponents to suggest otherwise. This is just one more tax increase to provide more revenue for feel-good projects that were supposed to be funded from the Big Tobacco lawsuit. What happened to that revenue?

Taxing promises

SEVERAL YEARS ago Missouri joined with other states and successfully sued Big Tobacco. The revenue from those lawsuits was supposed to go to offset the increased health-care costs associated with smoking and to fund smoking-cessation programs. However, it seems this revenue stream is being used for everything but health and wellness programs. Now some well-meaning individuals have come up with Proposition A, which is also intended to provide revenue for health-related programs. And, they maintain that this time the legislature and governor will not be able to raid this money for other projects. How many times have we heard this propaganda? Remember the fuel-tax increase? Remember the assurances that gambling revenue would be used for education? I rest my case.

ACCORDING TO the article about increased tax revenue from tobacco, people in the legislature are already talking about diverting some of the funds to "plug holes in the budget." Good grief. Proposition A has not yet been voted on, and the politicians are already trying to figure out how to spend the revenue on items unrelated to health. The proponents of Proposition A maintain there are safeguards to prevent the legislature from taking the money and running. That's what they said about the fuel tax increase 10 years ago.

Psychological defense

DESCRIBING HORRENDOUS human acts as evil only allows us to dismiss those who engage in such acts as somehow non-human and makes more difficult much needed discussion and debate as to why human beings engage in terrible behavior. Categorizing Hitler, Osama bin Laden or the Nebraska bank robbers as evil serves no purpose other than as a psychological defense mechanism that these people are not of our species. It's counterproductive. Please stop it.

Put a pro in charge

FRED PARRY, publisher of the Columbia Business Times, offered a piece expressing opposition to appointing a politician as the president of Missouri University. Why? Like all universities, MU is permeated with politics, primarily petty in nature. Why not put a professional pol in charge? Surely Parry knows this and was just putting us on.

Trash out window

WHY DO people find it necessary to throw trash out their car windows? They should consider what they're doing to our world.