SPEAK OUT

Pray for America

I READ with interest the recent survey regarding the Bush priorities. If the leading response is tax cuts at 32 percent, the second highest response is education at 21 percent and the wholesale murder of unborn children only 17 percent, I wonder about our priorities. Tax cuts will give me more spending money and increase my materialistic nature, better education (or better schools to assume my responsibility to educate my children) will allow our workforce to produce more and better goods and services, but abortion stands alone as the only issue we will have to answer to my God for. Please pray for America.

Medical prescription

AFTER READING your excellent piece on some area doctors who refuse to treat children on Medicaid, the following came to mind. Doctor to child on Medicaid: "Heal thyself!"

The deserving rich

THOUGH YOUR Feb. 5 editorial was excellent, I think you made a mistake that needs correcting. You wrote, "Let's get on with the tax cut Americans so richly deserve." I think you meant, "Let's get on with the tax cut so many rich American deserve."

Thanks, Derek McCord

THANKS FOR the great article and recognition for Derek McCord. It is a dirty job, and you can't make everyone happy and run a successful program. He requires a great deal of commitment from players, and some just can't give it. Parents are the players' biggest supporters. So if they don't make it, they blame the coach, and the parents buy right into it. Being a good coach has a lot of disappointments and heartaches. Some players can use any excuse not to play, but it's always the coach's fault and never the poor player who couldn't or wouldn't do what McCord deems necessary to succeed. You can only play five at a time, so when you are the size of Scott City, the best players have to have the majority of playing time. They are usually the same ones who stay late and shoot baskets, go to basketball camps during the off season, go watch college games, ask for help and go to acceleration programs so they will make themselves a place in the starting five. Thanks Derek, for your commitment to making our program successful.

Liberal ideas

I AM a liberal and proud of it. All you ultraconservatives take advantage and enjoy all the benefits of liberal thinking whether you know it or not. If I remember correctly, the American Revolution was a liberal idea at one time. The Social Security concept was a liberal idea at one time. The 40-hour work week was a liberal idea. I could go on and on, but neither time nor space permits.

Telling the truth

HAVE YOU noticed the subtle change in the way the national news is portrayed to us? Just as in the old days, Democrats are allowed to say whatever they want. And lots of Democrats claim John Ashcroft is a racist. But afterwards, the news reporters were saying there really wasn't any proof that he's a racist. Maybe the news media are going to start telling us the truth.

Scott City cleanup

I HOPE the mayor of Scott City is happy with the letters he sent out for what he calls abandoned vehicles. It's an eyesore to him if you have a car that you're working on and it doesn't have license plates. Want to talk about eyesores? How about all the ditches in town that are full of weeds and trash that the city never cleans up? Instead of making his priority cleaning up the city property, he chooses to harass taxpayers.