Speak Out 12/15/11

Park lights

AFTER a night of Christmas parties, it just wouldn't be complete without a drive through the Cape County Park Christmas lights display. Awesome.

Spending priorities

ARE you kidding me? The city of Cape Girardeau is going to spend $1.6 million on expanding the trail at the river walk, but you can't fill the potholes on Lexington and William. My car is going to bottom out one of these days, and I am going to sue the city for it.

More parking

SINCE we are needing parking along Broadway, why don't we just go ahead and continue and start at Main Street and go west to Kingshighway and remove all buildings and make it a parking lot? That will give us ample parking.

Smoking stink

YOU know what smokers really just don't get is the fact that their hair and their clothes -- no matter how new, no matter how beautiful they are -- stink. If they come in your house, they bring the stink right along with them. If you have a date and he smokes, he is going to stink and you are going to stink when you go home, too.

U.S. drone

THE U.S. drone that was captured by Iran was not damaged because whoever was controlling it landed it there.

Feeding deer

IF everyone would stop feeding the deer, the deer problem would go away. Half of the problem is that everyone has to feed the deer. The hunters want to feed the deer. All the people in town want to see the pretty deer. All the hunters want to keep the deer in their area so they can harvest the deer. The Department of Conservation is 10 years behind this problem. And as far as these expert bow hunters, all they want to do is kill deer. They can't be objective in any way.

Great story

I just completed reading the recent TBY insert. The article about a miracle, "We say yes" -- that was just precious, and it was so appropriate whenever we are thinking about the precious life of Jesus, who was born during this season. Thank you, Kim, for doing such a great job.

Business ethics

THE individual makes society, and society makes the individual. Do you see why we need ethical businessmen?

Liberal label

I think Rush Limbaugh has made a mistake calling people liberals. There are people in our culture who just exhibit bad behavior. Liberals are people who think and help develop society. They are trained at state universities, and a liberal Democrat is a good person. He believes in social justice, economic justice and so on in society.

Performance funding

I just read the front page story about the new initiatives for performance funding. They are supposed to be going forth in Missouri in which universities will be compensated depending on their performance. One of these things they are supposed to be trying to accomplish is improving student graduation rates. The problem with that is we are already graduating in this country lots of college graduates who can't write, who can't figure out how to read an article, who don't have the skills needed to succeed and compete with the rest of the world. This sort of thing is going to make it worse. I don't see this as progress. What we need to do is reward accomplishment, not just pass them through like the high schools have done for years.

Use the mail

HELP save a post office. Mail cards and letters.

Landlord association

CAPE Area Landlord Association, thank you for checking things and helping with the situation. Hopefully we can avoid a rental inspection program that costs us all more each year. Some of the houses that are being rented now are ones we lived in just a year ago. Nothing is wrong with them.

School uniforms

THIS is in reference to the Cape Girardeau School District possibly going to uniforms. Scott City did it. I was totally against it. But, after a few weeks or less, everybody was fine, everything was going along the way it needed to go, and you didn't see people dressed like tramps and thugs.

Dress code

IF the Memphis, Tenn., inner city public schools can establish a dress code and have it work to eliminate bullying and some of the other problems in the school, any school in the United States could achieve this same situation. Money is not necessarily an object. If Memphis can do it, anybody can do it.

USPS meeting

I'VE been reading and hearing that there is a public meeting on Dec. 29 at the Osage Centre. It's like a meeting to shut down the postal facilities. I urge everybody to be there: business people, people who do mailings, trucking companies and all other consumers. Everybody who mails letters and depends on the mail should attend because things are about to get real bad for the mail service. And that affects everyone in some way. It will also have a big impact on the local economy.