Speak Out 11/27/03

Try sponge bath

STUDENTS AT Southeast Missouri State University should get down on their knees and thank God instead of complaining about having to go across campus for a hot shower for one day on the weekend. A cold shower would not be an option for me, but did the students ever hear of a sponge bath? Talk about spoiled young people.

Crash warning

THE REPUBLICAN energy bill, crafted secretly by Vice President Cheney and corporate contributors to the Bush money trough, is a bloated pork barrel full of perks for friends of the borrow-and-spend Republicans. This reckless spending will come crashing down on us, the taxpayers.

Expecting the worst

WITH DRUG and insurance companies being the biggest contributors to President Bush's campaign coffers, you just know the new health-care attachment to Medicare will be most beneficial to them, not to those for whom it was intended. As a senior citizen, all I can say is, "God, help us."

Prison food is better

U.S. REP. Jo Ann Emerson recently wrote in her journal about her first experience with the meals-ready-to-eat provided to our fighting men and women in the field. She said she hoped she was there on a bad day. Would that that were true. I've been in the U.S. Army for nearly 17 years, and MREs have not improved much since their inception. Your only hope is to beg, borrow and steal all of those small bottles of Tobasco sauce you can get your hands on. I'm sure most of our fighting men and women in the field would give a day's pay for an occasional meal of the quality provided those in our society who are imprisoned for rape, murder and other crimes.

Questionable integrity

ISN'T HOLDING private discussions among school board members to avoid talking about issues at a school board meeting against the Sunshine Law? I'm a taxpaying citizen, and I resent that this group is trying to keep information from us. I don't question the integrity of those who served on the task force, but this whole thing is starting to look like a sham.

Sneaking around

I COULDN'T stop laughing while reading the story about the school task force and the school board members saying they didn't want to be construed as sneaking around. How else can anyone interpret the board president's comment that members should talk two at a time privately so as not to embarrass the superintendent by discussing issues publicly?

Mindful consumers

TO THE person who told the Southeast Missouri State University students to quit whining: there is no comparison. Payment for room and board is required in advance, and there is nothing stating that students will be required to forfeit heat and hot water. Soldiers have volunteered to live under such conditions. They are protecting our liberty. I'm sure if they were paying for room and board and the powers that be arbitrarily cut off the hot water and heat, they would complain, as any mindful consumer would.

Voting in the Senate

LET'S SET the record straight on the current flap over President Bush's judicial nominees: Yes, it is true that Republicans voted against a number of President Clinton's nominees. However, those were votes by the full Senate, and no super-majority was required. Many of those nominees were defeated by votes from both parties, not just Republicans. And some of those who have been approved were also approved of by some Democrats. Apparently some Democrats are afraid to debate their differing viewpoints and face a simple-majority vote.

Free to speak up

I TOO served as a member of the Cape Girardeau School District budget committee. I served in a dual capacity. I am a teacher and a parent (taxpayer). I commend superintendent Mark Bowles for his determination to make the process fair and without recourse to those who served. I felt free to acknowledge wastes where I feel them to be. I would not have felt free to express my concerns and thoughts had the press been allowed to attend. I was never told what to say or what not to say. I was highly impressed with the community representatives on our committee. They proved to be knowledgeable and concerned about our community and our schools.

Shameful secrecy

A SPEAK Out caller approved slamming the door shut on Southeast Missourian reporters attempting to cover a Cape Girardeau School District task force meeting dealing with taxpayer funds. The caller, a member of the closed-door committee, said we should trust him and that everything went according to Hoyle. I strongly dissent. Government by secrecy in a supposedly open society is shameful. Superintendent Mark Bowles should do the right thing.

More independence

OUR LOCAL school district's $2.2 million financial imbalance deserves wide-open consideration, uncorrupted by people who might yield to the temptation to protect their own interests over those of all children. The task force was 60 percent school staff and many of the rest were parents of students -- all beneficiaries of current spending. We need more independence for clear thinking. Unquestionably, public confidence in the district's secret budget deliberations is failing, leaving taxpayer pocketbooks dangerously exposed. We must re-start a new, transparent evaluation of the district's spending by selecting an unconflicted committee with a charge from the school board to operate only in full public sunshine. We have until June. That's plenty of time to fairly and wisely reconstitute the committee, raise the hood and do the job right.

Virtual school board

SINCE CAPE Girardeau School Board members can't make it to meetings and choose to communicate a lot by e-mail, maybe we can experiment with a degree of direct democracy. Make all of Cape's voting-age residents who are wired to the Internet members of the school board and drop the requirement that they physically attend meetings. We might be the first community to have a kind of virtual school board.