Speak out 2 11/14

A little luxury

I THINK it's a shame that there's an attempt to force veterans to do away with their motorized scooters at the Missouri Veterans Home. I'm been to the home. It seems like the residents with motorized scooters acted responsibly when I was there. If the home can only take a few at a time on outings, then have a sign-up sheet and take turns. The men and women who've gone to fight for our country deserve a little luxury.

Lip-reading suggestion

DEAR CITY council and Mayor Jay Knudtson: Read my lips. No new taxes. I don't care for what. No new taxes.

Everyone suing everyone

IS THE auto industry going to get sued for every auto that kills on the highways? Chicago is suing the gun industry for damages. Will the auto industry be next? Then the liquor industry for drunk drivers? And on and on? How insane.

Other despots too

THE SEPT. 11 hijackers were not Iraqis. They were al-Qaida members from Saudi Arabia, our friends. So maybe it's Saudi Arabia we ought to be bombing. Some say we're going to bomb Iraq because Saddam Hussein is a dictator and mean to his people. He's not the only dictator in the world who's mean to his people and kills his own people. Some say we ought to be get rid of Saddam because he has the bomb and he might use it. He's not the only one who's a dictator and kills his own people. Is it really Saddam we need to go after?

Feed the lonely

INSTEAD OF relying on charitable groups whose budgets are already stretched to the breaking point to supply the needy with holiday meals, I think each of us who profess and confess Christ as Lord and Savior should invite a family or a stranger into our homes to sit down to break bread with us in the name of Jesus. Donate too, and instead of being a glutton and a sinner on the holiday, in the name of Jesus, care for the stranger at thy door. Beware lest you entertain angels unawares. My wife and I have already invited three persons to our home who have no one to share the holiday with. To each and to all, a happy Thanksgiving and a merry Christmas.

Provide more service

I LIVE in Jackson and I was wondering why our post office can't seem to find two people to operate the windows at the busiest time of the day. The U.S. Postal Service raises the postage, but it seems the service gets worse. Nearly every time I go in there, eight to 10 people are waiting in line at one window.

Let him pay for it

YOUR COVERAGE of the veteran who was complaining that taxpayers are responsible for transporting his motorized scooter on gambling junkets made me very angry. There are disabled veterans who don't have anything. Our country has let them down by denying them the benefits they rightfully earned. Anyone wealthy enough to buy a scooter and go gambling should pay for transporting his scooter. As a taxpayer, I don't feel I should pay to transport his personal scooter on trips, especially for gambling junkets.

Beer litter in leaves

CAPE GIRARDEAU isn't the City of Roses, no. It's the Beer City. The beautiful fall leaves are littered with beer bottles, cardboard beer boxes and broken bottles.

War means freedom

I'M READING all these comments from people who are against war. If war were a bad thing, we wouldn't be where we are right now. We wouldn't have the freedoms. We wouldn't be America. The reason we are able to call Speak Out is because we went to war a long time ago to earn our freedom.

Remember to say thanks

IT SEEMS like the only time I hear from some of my relatives is when there's a wedding, baby or graduation. It would be nice if they could at least acknowledge the receipt of the gift by sending a thank-you card. Are thank-you cards a thing of the past?

Going after guns

I TOLD my wife before the election we had not heard much from the anti-gun groups because many anti-gun Democrats calculated it was not politically acceptable, even though many still favor disarming 61 million gun owners in the United States. I told her to wait until after the election. Here comes CBS with a program about gun shows, which have explosive ingredients such as gunpowder. Fertilizer is explosive too. So let's quit fertilizing. I'm in my 70s, but I can still remember the age of making gunpowder for homemade firecrackers using saltpeter, charcoal and sulfur or carbide in a Karo syrup can. Anti-gun CBS news anchor Dan Rather dispatched an intruder to his own home with a gun. He has no right to try and prevent the rest of us from our constitutional right of owning guns to protect our homes and families.

Good uses for hemp

UNTIL THE 20th century, hemp was a major cash crop for the United States and had, and still does have, literally hundreds of good reasons to make things we could use in everyday life.

Federalizing our schools

CAPE GIRARDEAU School District superintendent Mark Bowles' fawning praise of the federalizing of public education was flabbergasting. All mindless criticism and political posturing aside, local control of public education has been the engine responsible for producing the best educational system in the world. Though we still pay lip service to local control, it is all but gone. Bowles expressed confidence that all educators support the federal takeover. Not this one.

Can't please everyone

SOME SPEAK Out callers are so puritanical that school plays about the virtues of virginity, the advantages of abstaining from alcohol and drugs and the sinfulness of reading the St. Louis Post-Dispatch would be deemed blasphemous.

Blame it on Satan

I DON'T think God is the one to thank for the Democrats elected in Illinois, Michigan, Oregon and Massachusetts. I think Satan is the one who drove those victories. I don't see God in support of killing babies, gay marriages, euthanasia and the working class paying the way for those who don't want to work for a living. I think those victories can be attributed to those receiving our tax dollars who are not inclined to work for a living.

Teachers wait too long

I HAVE a child who has a problem turning in homework assignments. Teachers want to wait until mid-quarter or until the report cards come out to let you know about it. When I was in school, if I wasn't doing as I should, my parents got a phone call from the teachers way before grades came out. Why do these teachers wait? It is uncalled for. Something needs to change.

Defense from bullies

MY COMMENT is on the bullies in the Jackson schools. I agree this needs to be stopped. My daughter asked me if I would get mad if she got in a fight at school. I told her not as long as she let the other person throw the first punch. I told her she has to defend herself and not let anyone bully her around. I will stand behind her all the way. It's not right for these kids to think they can do what they want to whomever they want and nothing be done about it. I wish more kids would take up for themselves. Maybe the bullying would stop.

Let's give it a try

A PAX Americana would mean hundreds of years of world peace and prosperity led by the United States. Let's go for it.

Here, take my letters

MY NAME is not Faulkner, but I have a stack of old letters I would happily donate to SEMO. And I don't think anyone would want to steal them. I find this whole Faulkner business stranger than one of his novels. I would think that something that cost the university $1.8 million would be kept under a bit more security. And they didn't even know they were missing until after they were sold on eBay. Incredible.

YOUR ARTICLE on the guy in the Chester Mental Health Center who claims mental illness is a myth -- as well as some so-called experts who support that view -- have obviously never read Speak Out.

None had hot scores

LET'S DON'T put all the blame for low MAP scores on Jefferson Elementary School. That school's scores were relatively lower, but none of the scores at any of the elementary schools were too hot.

CONGRATULATIONS to Alan Journet again. He calls it as he sees it, and he sees it clearly. With a Republican Congress and Bush White House, voters have given industry and corporate America a stranglehold over health, humanity, social justice and our environment. Future generations might well look back at the next two years as the period when this nation took a nosedive into wholesale health and environmental deterioration. They will not thank us for it. Our only hope is for the currently spineless and diminished Democratic Party to stand for something.

Publishing the crimes

I CANNOT believe all the young people listed in the police and sheriff's reports each day. It is a shame they have taken wrong turns in their lives that will forever change their future. No one is perfect, but I do not understand why some think they won't get caught when they drink and drive, steal, do drugs and write bad checks. This is the first area I've lived in that prints the police report in a newspaper. It is good to keep the community informed. However, is it fair to the families of those arrested to cause further humiliation by embarrassing them in print?

Pithy writing

ONCE AGAIN, David Limbaugh makes a case -- for the other side. Bill Moyers' analysis of the current White House and congressional Republican delegation is more pithy and accurate than anything Limbaugh himself has ever written.