Speak Out 2/2/05

They're his words

I HOPE David Limbaugh absorbs and acts upon these words that appeared at the end of a column on the Opinion page: "Foreign policy is for adults." He wrote them.

Violence on violence

DO YOU really believe that allowing a violent person to play a violent game is going to be his release and help him to be a non-violent person once he is released? Perhaps you would also be willing to take them in once they are released. That sounds logical to me.

Perfect food

CONSIDER THE pizza and the hamburger. They are the perfect foods. You have grain, bread, meat, a little fat for muscle and brain, a vegetable and cheese. All four food groups. Perfect food.

Weigh the benefits

I KEEP seeing ads on TV about a certain pain reliever. The ads talk about other pain relievers and about how good this product is, but the ads don't say the pain reliever can cause irreversible liver damage. There's hardly in drug in the world that doesn't have some side effects and some risk. You have to weigh the benefits against the risks. That's what doctors do every day.

Thanks for new lines

THE NEW lines on Mount Auburn Road look fantastic. Thank you so much. What a great job.

Help with litter

IF ALL the people griping about litter would pick it up, you wouldn't have to call the newspaper to complain. I'm a member of one of the organizations that picks up litter, but we can only do so much.

Sure cure

SINCE THE November election, people seem to find so many things to belly-ache about in Speak Out: schools, clean-up, snow, dogs, war, mail delivery. Why not try my remedy? Two teaspoons of apple cider vinegar with two teaspoons of honey in a glass of water before breakfast.

Something's lacking

I'M A teacher also. Thank you, Evelyn Sewing, for your common sense. It's something our legislators seem to be lacking.

A great day

WHAT A great day for Iraq. What a great day for democracy. Anyone who knows American history knows democracy comes with a price. I'm thrilled to know that the lives that have been lost have brought us to this day. I'm thrilled for the Iraqi people and hope this means positive things for our military. We need to continue praying for them.

Serving customers

CUSTOMERS SPEND our money and give employers business so they can provide jobs. That's all we're guilty of. I was taught to give the customer every benefit of the doubt. You're there to serve the customer. Let's get back to being in business strictly to serve the customer.

Save for the future

ALMOST EVERYONE, regardless of what they think of their financial situation, can save money if they really want to. They need to do this for their retirement years so they won't be always crying about needing more government help and more taxpayers to bail them out for their personal needs.

Undermining cuts

IF OUR new governor wants to help education, he'll need to re-think his Medicaid cuts. As a longtime educator, I've found that the most difficult children to teach successfully are those from families under stress. A child whose mother can't get health care if she makes more than $4,700 a year is a child under stress. Yet that would happen under Blunt's new guidelines. A child raised by a poverty-level grandparent is already from a stressed family, and if the grandparent can't get vision, dental and medical care, the family may fall apart altogether. Under Blunt's proposal, each family would have to live at less than one-third of poverty level to qualify for assistance. Our schools already suffer along with children from poverty whose families move frequently, have no way to come to parent conferences and don't have the financial or emotional resources to support their children's education. Cutting Medicaid will spread and intensify the hopelessness of what we're trying to accomplish. Drastic Medicaid cuts are no way to support education, much less family values.

Medicaid abuses

MEDICAID HAS been abused for years. Individuals would rather Medicaid pay the higher expenses of an emergency room than visiting a doctor's office. There are also individuals on Medicaid who shouldn't be. Those being the ones that just won't make an effort to get off their LAZY rumps and try to work. There are also individuals sent to nursing homes who, with the right help, could be kept at home. Again, a higher expense is paid for convenience's sake. I guarantee that if it were your budget and you were wanting to cut fat from it, you'd find the waste and get rid of it too. I want the programs to run as efficiently as possible without all the pork barrels.

Worth bragging about

IF I were the governor of Missouri, I would brag about the fact that our state is No. 2 in the country for the amount of money we spend on health care for our less fortunate residents. It baffles me how one can label themselves as a conservative Christian and, in the same sentence, protest that we spend too much money on programs that help the poor. These are the same people who drive fancy cars, live in fancy houses and complain about their taxes being too high.

Pick up the trash

IF EVERYBODY would spend the same amount of energy picking up the trash instead of complaining about it, there would be very little trash. If you see it, pick it up. Don't expect anybody else to do it.

Scientific soundness

THE PROBLEM with teaching both evolution and creationism as theories is that creationism isn't sound enough to be called a theory. Theories aren't wild ideas. They must be scientifically sound, based on observable facts and must gain wide acceptance through rigorous testing. A single 2000-year-old book is far from a reliable scientific source. Science is not religion. Its basis is not in faith, because its goals are truth.

Confusing lines

WHEN YOU are merging onto Route K from I-55, there is a mass confusion of old and new lines dividing the lanes.

Prison hellholes

THE NORTH had prison camps as bad as Andersonville and, unlike the South, had unlimited resources to change conditions and did not. The prisoners in the South ate almost as well as the guards. Read the book "Fighting Men of the Civil War" by William C. Davis to find out why the Union prison camp in Elmira, N.Y. was called the "Andersonville of the North." Over one-quarter of all Confederate prisoners died. The author refers to both Elmira and Fort Delaware as "hellholes." History is written by the winners, so of course the Union did not want to acknowledge its inhumane treatment of Confederates. I am proud of my Southern heritage and won't stand for a one-sided view to be voiced without response.