SPEAK OUT

Marginalizing column

It's too bad that David Limbaugh couldn't find some respected, acknowledged authority to quote in his recent column. To quote himself is about as silly as you can get. Now is he excusing George Bush's lies during the campaign. If Al Gore had pulled the same kind of turnabouts, Limbaugh would have called him 40 kinds of liar. It's this kind of foolishness that will quickly marginalize Limbaugh.

Full meal, please

I HAVE some concerns with the school lunch program at Oak Ridge school. The whole meal isn't put on my child's tray. I'm told children can refuse to take certain foods. If I pay a dollar, I want a dollar's worth of food on my child's tray. The school lunch program is not where we should be making money.

Proof is there

DAVID LIMBAUGH recently wrote that empirical data suggest politicians vote on principle rather than being guided by the wishes of major monetary contributors. Right. And empirical evidence also indicates that the Earth is flat.

Cats and dogs

CHARLES POWERS recently referred to Paul J. Allee's views as liberal doggerel. Maybe so, but the content of Powers' letter was little more than conservative catterel.

Surefire spending

PETE DUPONT, policy chairman of the National Center for Policy Analysis, nicely summarized the case for the Bush tax cut in a column in The Wall Street Journal. "In four months, between last July and October," said DuPont, "Congress managed to add more than half a trillion dollars, $561 billion, in new spending to the budget. And the latest congressional budget office report shows the amount of the Bush tax cut, over 10 years, is $1.6 trillion, or about three times last year's spending spree." Do you suppose if there were no were tax cuts that Congress wouldn't spend that $1.6 trillion? We have to get our money back, or let us keep up instead of sending it to Congress, because they will surely spend it.

Sending a message

THE EXPULSION of those 46 Russians from Washington, D.C., after the spy exposure was exactly the right message to send to the international communist movement. The United States, led by President Bush, will not tolerate the communist movement here in the United States. Law-abiding citizens are 100 percent behind President Bush in letting Russia and others know that the U.S. will not allow communists to destroy America.

It's a speedway

SINCE MOUNT Auburn Road has been turned into four lanes, drivers think it's a freeway. They're going 45 mph and 50 mph. Where are the police?

School security

THE WAY the trend is going, they're going to have put up high fences around schools and make the students go through a checkpoint to get onto school property. What's going to be done to protect our children? It's ridiculous that children who have already graduated can get back on school property and shoot and kill kids.

Baseball or health

I UNDERSTAND that President Bush wants to build a big ball diamond on the White House lawn. He wants to spend a large amount of taxpayer's money for that, but he's too tight to help the 3 million people who are without health care.

Surfeit of beauty

WHAT IS more beautiful: the flower, or the rain which nourishes it?

Musical taste

I THINK it's a great that Bob Dylan is coming to the Show Me Center. It shows that this area has a little bit of musical taste. I hope the Show Me Center can book Bruce Hornesby sometime.

Address problems

AFTER READING the article about juvenile threats, I disagree with Cape Girardeau school superintendent Dan Steska's opinion about the trend being the result of exposure to violence in TV and movies or family problems. I know for a fact that at the Jackson schools bullying or harassment of students by their peers are not being taken seriously. I believe that's why so many threats are being made. When children report the harassment to their teachers, the teachers won't check it out. Instead, they punish the child reporting the harassment by calling them tattletales. Jackson and all other schools need to stop trying to find someone else to blame and start addressing the obvious, or these problems will only get worse.

Synchronize lights

I'D LIKE to say how very nice it is to drive on the new part of Broadway without being stopped by lights every couple of blocks. I sure hope whoever decides the operation of the stop lights will synchronize them all the rest of the way down Broadway. How progressive and sensible that would be.