Speak Out 6/12/09

FEMA assistance

I am responding to the comment asking, "Where is FEMA after the tornado in Sedgewickville?" My son-in-law is a highway patrolman in Newton and Jasper counties. He helped pick up 17 bodies as a result of a tornado in Neosho, Mo., last year. The devastation in the area still remains as these folks were told by FEMA that the area wasn't densely populated enough to receive assistance from FEMA. So if I were a resident in Sedgewickville, I would look elsewhere for assistance.

Thanks for support

I want to say a huge thank you to all of those who came to the Scott City Lady Rams Volleyball Carwash at Advanced Auto Parts on Saturday. We truly appreciate all of your support and donations. We were able to raise more than $800 for new uniforms. Also, we can't begin to thank the guys at Advanced Auto Parts. They supplied us with everything we needed, and they were extremely nice. The girls had a great time.

Pets and paths

MY friends and I are frequent users of the walking trails in both Cape Girardeau and Jackson, usually in late afternoon. On a nearly daily basis we encounter obstacles in our paths left there by owners of pets. May we remind the owners of those pets -- the parks and walking areas are for humans and are not to be used for places to allow their pets to relieve themselves. If that should happen, then the pet owners have an obligation to pick up the mess and dispose of it properly and not leave it for others to step in and possibly spread disease. Do the right thing.

Preventing collapse

THE collapse of international capitalism in many parts of the industrialized world has led Marxism ("capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction") to make a comeback. Yet Gary Rust quotes Daniel Mitchell as saying cuts in the marginal tax rates for the rich and for corporations paved the way for international economic triumphs. Mitchell hasn't noticed what has been going on in the last year or so. The very solutions he advocates have contributed to the near apocalypse of capitalism, something President Obama is working hard to try to prevent.

Twisting effort

I'M sure the Rev. Larry Rice is considered by some to be a good person. His effort to get the old federal building in Cape Girardeau for a homeless shelter did not show this side. Had he honestly dealt with others who are working with the homeless or those in need of help, he would have been welcomed. Why did his people need to twist what was said to bolster support? Either he tells the truth or the opposition grows. Racism has been injected by Rice by using the NAACP for support. Shame on you and all those trying to make this an issue it is not.

Cultural advantage

ACCORDING to James Maguire of The Wall Street Journal, Indian-Americans consistently win the national spelling bee because they have a "natural advantage." This illustrates what is wrong with much of American journalism. If someone with the prestigious Wall Street Journal doesn't understand why Indian-Americans dominate the spelling bee, then how can we trust anything a journalist writes? Indian-Americans are disproportionate winners of the national spelling bee because they are willing to invest the time and effort to do what it takes to learn the words they may be asked to spell. Maguire got that right. But that's certainly not a natural advantage. It's a cultural advantage emanating from the fact that Indians specifically and Asians generally put a lot more emphasis on education than many other Americans. There is no inherent (natural advantage) as Maguire unfortunately writes.