Speak Out 12/23/06

Enjoy your music

NOT EVERYONE who listens to classical music is a hoity-toity snob. Some people like it. Is everyone who listens to rap automatically a gang member? Does everyone who listens to country drive a beat-up pickup? Enjoy music no matter what you style like, and let others enjoy theirs without the name-calling.

Free-market ethanol

MIKE KASTEN'S critics are correct about cellulosic ethanol being a great alternative to corn ethanol. But the problem is the federal government is subsidizing the big corn producers. They have the lobbying power in Washington. When the government tries to manage the economy, we all pay the price. Let free markets work.

Curb the noise

THE LOUD stereo problem has been growing for more than two years. Calling the police is only a temporary fix. It's a daily problem in our neighborhood. Sikeston is impounding cars with excessively loud stereos. Cape Girardeau has started cracking down somewhat. Jackson is a little behind on the peace-disturbance issue. I think the stereo stores that sell loud stereos should be held at least partly responsible for hearing loss and peace disturbance. Nobody buys one of those huge stereo systems with the intent of listening to it at a reasonable level. It should be illegal to sell them and install them if it's illegal to blast people with them.

Farm economics

WHILE MIKE Kasten's argument of subsidization of the ethanol market is a good one, there's something not being told. Why else would anyone hedge-invest on livestock, if one didn't recognize that a series of subsidies were underwriting market value? It doesn't matter whether the government manipulates prices or private-sector monopolies, such as packing houses, manipulate prices. Cattlemen would admit that they aren't seeing the results of $4-to-$6-a-pound beef, yet there are no data that show that demand for beef merits that kind of cost if one uses Kasten's supply-and-demand argument. The fact is, the cattle market is subsidized through market forces that determine profit margins and manipulate financial growth through strengthening or weakening distributive outlets and, in turn, passing on "perceived loss and costs" to the consumer. To suggest that artificial supply/demand manipulation is not subsidization, and direct government influence is a game of semantics. Cattleman are having to pay more for baseline feed (corn), which was relatively cheap prior to ethanol. This cuts into profit margins. Pure supply and demand means that no manipulation can occur. We know this is not the case in either ethanol nor beef prices. Pay more for fuel, or pay more for beef.

Padded staffing

THINK ABOUT the cuts in state employees in departments like corrections and mental health. I have worked for two governmental agencies. My former husband worked for four different agencies in different states. What we found over the decades is that most governmental agencies have many more clerical staff and more upper-management staff than is necessary. An efficiency expert's advice is needed in all taxpayer-funded departments.

Not caused by smoke

I APOLOGIZE for the smoker who flipped a cigarette onto another vehicle. But please do not take this as an example of the inconsideration smokers show for nonsmokers. As in most everything, we only hear about the bad. No one ever notices the smokers who never toss their cigarettes out. Smokers with no consideration for others are not that way because they smoke, They are that way because of their own particular personalities.

Lives, souls saved

STATISTICS SHOW crime in Jackson has gone down 20 percent since the Revival Center opened five years ago. I have looked at Jackson's police reports. The records for the first four years showed 16 calls to the Revival Center. Some of those calls were unsubstantiated. Wal-Mart in Jackson had more than 16 calls to police in four years, and no one is suing Wal-Mart to stop its business. The Revival Center has a biblical mission to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and house the homeless. Many people in our area can tell you that the Revival Center saved their lives and helped them get back to work and back to contributing to society. Any legitimate community housing program is based on the strong foundation of a shelter and transitional center. Thank God, I've seen lives and souls saved by the Revival Center. Many communities cannot offer this opportunity. It's a matter of dignity and responsibility.

Pseudo-issue

STATE SEN. Matt Bartle and state Rep. Jim Lembke need to let the Amendment 2 issue go. Their whistle-stop tour trying to drum up support to overturn the will of the majority is insulting to voters who support progress and value the cures and treatments that stem-cell research can provide to millions of Missourians. It's yet another move by Republicans to motivate their base using knee-jerk pseudo-religious issues. Don't they have real work to do?

Lack of concern

THE DISABLED ex-serviceman who says the government doesn't care about veterans is correct. It goes further than that, though. If one pays into Social Security for decades but has to file for disability, it generally takes two years of being denied benefits, then hiring an attorney, before winning the benefits one has paid for. Our government only cares about taxpayers and the children who are potential taxpayers. Once an adult is disabled or retired, the government is pretty much finished with you. What it has done to veterans over the decades is something that we should all find shameful, from my father's World War II generation, when military pay was below poverty level, right up to the present.