Speak Out 10/26/11

Cairo comment

TO the critical caller who saw the beehive activity at the liquor store and carwashes, barbecue grills in use and the police giving tickets in Cairo, is that any different from any other town? All the liquor stores have plenty of traffic. The arsonists are busy everywhere and the police hand out tickets everywhere. And when has it become bad to keep your car clean or grill?

Bike licenses

I am in 100 percent agreement with the guy who wrote about bike licenses. They should have to take a test to get those licenses just like people who drive motorcycles have to.

Wild animals

WILD animals are exactly that, wild. I see no reason for anyone to put them in cages. Leave them in the wild.

Drug testing

MISSOURI'S decision to scapegoat and stigmatize the poor by requiring drug testing before receiving government assistance will reveal the rate of drug abuse among this group to be lower than the population as a whole. That is why if we're going to do this we must at least do it across the board and require all who receive public stipends to be drug tested, including members of Missouri's General Assembly, members of the executive branch, the Missouri Supreme Court, all who receive subsidies and tax credits, et al. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

GOP and deregulation

REPUBLICANS have conducted a campaign built on the false principle that the federal government and not Wall Street caused the Great Recession. Thus, they want to repeal all legislation designed to better regulate the very financial industry that took us down and return to, say, the good old pre-Enron days. The American people may have short memories but not that short.

Owner's profit

OUR great local economist Mike Jensen thinks that Albert Pujols making more than $250 million is a wonderful investment for the city. He correctly states that the team is a business, so the decision of how much to pay individual players is made by management within the salary cap limits. Regardless of how much we love the Cardinals, the actual fact is that any major league city's investment in a sports stadium is not a profit maker. There are many reasons to have such a franchise in your city, but profit on investment is not one of them. The only ones who make a profit on investment are the owners.

Soldiers coming home

WHAT a Merry Christmas it will be for those families with fathers coming home from Iraq. Thanks to all those people who fought to get them home and clean up Bush's mess. But I am sure Republicans will take a negative turn on this. God bless America.