Speak Out 3/18/09

Training option

THE high school dropout rate could be cured overnight if states repealed the laws requiring mandatory attendance until age 16. The schools would be populated by those who truly want an education. The rest could receive on-the-job training.

Dangerous jogging

MY family and I were driving from Gordonville toward Jackson on Highway 25. It was during the thunderstorms, and the lines on the road were hard to see. Out of nowhere we came up on jogger who was barely off the edge of the road, not wearing any kind of reflective clothing or carrying a light of any sort. We were so startled that we swerved into the other lane. If you're going to jog in the middle of the night, please wear some kind of reflective clothing or carry a light to let motorists know you're there.

These are fixes?

HOW is it that people see President Obama as a hero trying to fix things? He has doubled our national debt, decided that the government will again fund the personal decision of killing babies, hired many of the people responsible for the financial problems we all have, authorized the release of known terrorists and promised to abandon the people in Iraq. What does that fix?

School problems

CENTRAL High School is already too small, the roof leaks and there are all sorts of problems. That building is far too new to be having such problems, and they can only stem from poor planning and upkeep on the part of administrators. As a taxpayer, I'm tired of being told there's an emergency when in fact it's just another problem caused by ineptitude. We've been lied to over and over. Schultz School was to be condemned. We were told it couldn't be renovated. Since then it's been used by the same school district that told us it couldn't use it, and now it's being renovated into senior citizen's apartments. How interesting. I will not vote for one more thing for this district, and I am not alone. Fix your problems with what you have and quit using sob stories and the kids to rob us even more than you already have.

GOP misdirection

AMONG other falsehoods, Karl Rove recently wrote in a Southeast Missourian reprint that "misdirection doesn't last long." It lasted eight years under the Bush administration when the president misdirected our efforts toward Iraq instead of dealing directly with the al-Qaida threat. In fact, the campaign against Iraq which Rove helped orchestrate has created such a quagmire that President Obama has no choice than to exercise caution in extricating U.S. troops from there. One of the many reprehensible consequences of the misdirected effort in Iraq was to strengthen the influence and power of Iran.

Causing contamination

IN response to the story "Testing completed for uranium in 66 wells in Mississippi County": Who determined that it is a good idea to mine for uranium anywhere near the New Madrid earthquake fault area? Are these Dr. Frankensteins trying to provoke a major earthquake or just expose Americans to highly poisonous radioactive contamination? The mismanagement of tons of uranium and radioactive spilled wastes are already attributable causes for the global warming that is causing the rising sea levels. Isn't this enough damage already or do they want to cause more problems for mankind and our planet? Before they ever venture forth they need to first be held accountable for the damages they already have caused and be made to clean up their messes like that of the Love Canal radioactive contamination and Three Mile Island and all of the other sites of contamination globally.