Speak Out 10/4/03

Likes Speak Out

YOUR SPEAK Out comments from your readers are particularly interesting. I am impressed. I'm a longtime newspaper reader, and I think Speak Out is quite telling about the city of Cape Girardeau and the people who live here. I like the straightforward comments, whether I am in agreement with the particular comment or not. Aren't we blessed to live in a country that still has a free press?

Hold up

WHY PLAN any more so-called improvements to Cape's streets until they fix the disaster on Mt. Auburn?

Good editorial

BRAVO TO the Southeast Missourian for its recent editorial on Justice Moore of Alabama. Clearly, the fundamentalists want a theocracy, and our forefathers were intelligent enough to see the problems such a form of government would bring about -- as the waning of Puritanism clearly demonstrated.

Young talent

THE MOST hard-hitting and sincere editorial to appear inside the Southeast Missourian in recent memory was written by the Cape Central Tiger's editorial staff. These young people gave a well deserved verbal pummeling to the architects of the new school's parking lot. Polite adult society would balk at such stark truth telling. More power to these future Pulitzer Prize winners!

Calling it in

IT MAY be too early to tell, but it could be that God is calling in his loan of talent to Rush.

More stars

SHOW ME Center: Bring the Foo Fighters to Cape. I think it would be a good idea to bring someone for the younger crowd, like Hillary Duff off of Disney's Lizzy Maguire or Raven.

Offensive painting

I FOUND the depiction of the Marine Corps' Iwo Jima Monument on Broadway to be the single most offensive thing a group of fraternities and sororities could do. Their rendering of the Marines raising a SEMO flag is disrespectful to those men who gave their lives taking the island and to veterans everywhere.

Good decision

I THINK hiring a judge from out of town was the best thing this city could do. At least for awhile, this judge will not know who is who around here and might actually apply the law fairly and justly. Of course, it will be only a short time before she is indoctrinated into the Cape political network and will no longer apply the law blindly.

Fat cats

THE PHARMACEUTICAL companies spend, on average, only 25 percent of profits on research. They are a bloated and exploitive industry with special deals due to their huge lobby and massive donations to Congress.

He is media

GLAD TO see Rush Limbaugh finally confronted mainstream America. His problem is not one of race, but stupidity. He spoke of "the media" as if there is some kind of electronic Mafia out there that "wants" to think a black man can be a successful quarterback. He starts with the false assumption that "the media" is conspiring to lead us somewhere we don't want to go. Well, Rush, you are the media, and the mainstream isn't dumb enough to buy what you are selling.

High crime

ACCORDING TO circulating reports of journalists, "two top White House officials" committed a high crime in the first weeks of July. They handed over the identity of an American secret agent to journalists. They blew her cover, risking the lives of colleagues and contacts and possibly erasing years of intelligence work. This was an act of spite to attack the spy's husband, who was a vocal critic of the Iraq war. This requires investigation by an independent special prosecutor, not some lame insider cover-up by the Bush Justice Department.

Explosive group

I THINK it is very risky that the Cape Girardeau City Council is going to discuss fireworks. That group is already far too explosive.

Connect dots

MANY PEOPLE have trouble connecting A to B. The problems at SEMO are caused by the state budget crisis. The state budget crisis is caused by linkages to federal taxes. The federal and state budgets are in trouble because Bush has failed to do what he should: put money in the hands of the people who will spend it. Instead, he gives tax cuts to the rich, and the economy continues to falter. None of this is Dobbins fault. Dobbins is doing courageous things in a very difficult time, things that he or no one else at the university wants to do.