Speak out 4/30

ACTUALLY, I'M appalled at the front-page news daily, daily, daily about the Catholic priests sexually molesting small children. Now I can tell them how to get rid of 99 percent of that without fail. Just encourage the priests to get married and that will take care of practically all of it.

Short sentence

I THINK it's terrible that a child molester will get off with only 15 days in jail and one year of probation. What kind of message are we trying to other child molesters? That Cape County is the place for them to practice child molesting?

Cardinals or cardinals?

I KNEW the St. Louis Cardinals were doing bad but I didn't think they'd be doing that bad since they just lost five a row. I see in the Missourian that they're going to the Vatican to speak to the pope.

Wake up, Scott City

I'M CALLING in to complain about Scott City City Hall and the police department. If you are a deputy, you can ignore lawn ordinances. Everyone in the neighborhood complained about this person and was politely told because he was a deputy "they were being lenient." Everyone in the neighborhood is tired of looking at his trash, his cars and his yard that is totally ignored. Hey, Scott City, wake up and do something about it.

IT'S A rainy, overcast day. Nice day to watch a little TV. So we settle in to watch "Oprah," showing miracle stories. A guy parachutes out of the sky and hark, his chute doesn't open. He's falling fast toward the ground, and he's almost at ground zero and just at the part where we know the miracle rescue is happening, what do we see? Not a miracle rescue but Bob Reeves rambling about a storm outside, as if we didn't know. On and on he rambles. Do we really need all these technical details? OK, we start over, next miracle story. We settle in. This is a lost child adoption story, one of those freakish things when an unbelievable coincidence happens. We finally get to see the surprise reunion. But what happens again? Bob Reeves butts in again, just at the pivotal part. The whole program was a loss because they think we are too stupid to know there's a storm going on outside.

Tasty sandwiches

I ENJOYED that article about the old Woolworth's' store downtown so much. I was wondering if anyone remembered the ice cream sandwiches they had down there. It was worth going down there just to get one of those. They were really good.

Pack a lunch

I, TOO, agree with the three callers in Wednesday's paper regarding the commuter tax. Should this be brought into force, I am not above packing my lunch daily and running my errands on Saturday mornings, either in Jackson or Sikeston.

JUST AS the Catholic Church is rocked and struggling with the sex crimes of priests, would you believe Bill Clinton and Michael Jackson are the two headliners at a Democratic fund raiser? What timing. A pervert and a pedophile on the same bill. But what else can you expect from the morals of this party?

Longtime tradition

SO WE see that Gary Rust is continuing the Missourian tradition of attacking Jean Carnahan and running thinly veiled campaign commercials for Jim Talent. I hope that Southeast Missourian readers keep in mind that the newspaper has zero credibility in this race as it is clearly biased and completely partisan toward one candidate. How ironic that the state Republican party accuses Carnahan of benefiting from unpaid campaign benefits through special interest money but the Talent campaign is enjoying the unpaid free campaign commercials of our local newspaper.

Stay in St. Louis

I SECOND that opinion called in Speak Out about people ought to stay in St. Louis or the metropolitan areas if they like conveniences of that city. These people that do move here want all the modern conveniences that they left. They leave the big city because they don't like the crowds and they don't like all the turmoil but they want to bring it here when they move. Cape Girardeau used to a beautiful city. It was strictly a country town. Big land developers have ruined it. Let's face it, it has become an asphalt jungle.

Support for tax

I FEEL like the commuter tax would be a good thing for Cape. There's far too many of our city employees who are living out of town and working for the fire department, police department, street department. So I think it's time for these people, if they want to live in Jackson, let them pay taxes to work in Cape. It will not hurt Cape's economy one bit if this tax is put in. Everything else is taxed, so that might as well be too. I'm 100 percent behind a commuter tax for the city of Cape.

No social value

"CHANGINGLANES" was a grade B movie that was mildly entertaining and escapist, with neither a particularly good nor bad message, no redeeming social value and certainly unworthy of orations on the Opinion page of the Southeast Missourian.

Dumb and dumber

I WOULD like to comment on two idiotic statements that were made in Speak Out last week. The first was the one about how all the rich people get wealthy off of the poor. How can the rich get so much money from the poor if they don't have any? That's what being poor means. And the second comment about how we shouldn't drill in Alaska because it will take seven years to get the oil. If you were in a village and out of water and the only source was to drill for it and some educated fool came up to you and said don't drill because it will take two days to get the water, would you listen to him and give up or go ahead and drill?

Please explain

AS A patron of the Perryville School District, I'd like for the school board to explain what happens to the kid who needs the alternative school if they close it. Most of them will be suspended and out on the streets during the day. We already have the highest drop-out rate in the state and should be doing everything possible to change that statistic.

Not for people

AN ARTICLE stating the Democratic party has always been and will always be the people's party is a joke. The Democratic party is a long way from what it used to be in the '40s, '50s and part of the '60s. Now they are just the opposite in party platform and moral values. And I'm an old ex-Democrat. They are the party of the protesters on any issue, marchers, civil riots, they're the home of the abortion rights, homosexual agenda, welfare, government programs and higher taxes to pay for this mess.

Many good people

As a teacher, I can tell you there are many, many good young people out there. Having a Bible in their hand doesn't necessarily mean they are good.