Speak Out 7/15/08

Fix the streets

CITY COUNCIL, I bought a scooter a couple of months ago. Since then, I've seen more and more scooters on the road, as well as more and more people on bicycles and motorcycles. I don't know if you've noticed, but the streets of Cape Girardeau are full of potholes. It's bad on everybody's cars, and it's dangerous for us. So how about taking the money for that water park and using it to fix the streets instead?

Board cooperation

IT'S NO wonder the Cape Girardeau School Board can't come up with long-term facilities and finance plans when the members battle for an hour over the name for an alternative school. It's time for board members to put on the big-kid pants. Cape Girardeau needs you to put aside your petty differences and get something done.

Gordonville safety

I ALSO drive through Gordonville every morning and afternoon, and I must respectfully disagree with the longtime Gordonville resident who claims there is no speeding problem there. That comment raised a troubling point, though. I've always heard Gordonville is a safe, quiet community. Yet this comment says the town needs two officers at night to keep the residents safe. That's an awful lot for that small area. What in the world is going on out there at night?!

Teaching dilemma

THOSE OF you who are complaining about the kids in your neighborhood now know what teachers in public schools are up against. By the time a kindergarten teacher gets a class of kids, they are about 5 years old, the age at which experts agree their personalities are fully formed. After that point, they can still change, but it takes time and, most of all, consistence. Teachers cannot teach 25-plus kids and at the same time fix the behavioral, ethical and social problems kids are coming to school with these days. There are solutions, but when they're brought up there's a hue and cry from groups such as the ACLU. I used to love teaching, but now I merely like it. It's not the kids. It's our society, which doesn't hold people accountable, and parents who don't want to do the work that real parenting demands.

Childhood innocence

LET'S BE realistic. I bet everyone who thinks that the 1950s were a wonderful, idyllic time of innocence was a child during those years. The world has always been the same. When you are a child, you are innocent, so the rest of the world seems that way from your perspective. As you get older you come to realize that the world is full of liars and cheaters, and you become cynical and long for those sweet, innocent days. My grandma spoke of the innocent days of the teens. My parents remembered the 1940s. To me the 1960s were pure and ideal relative to my childhood. My kids will undoubtedly look back on the 1990s in the same way. Instead of wishing for days gone by, let's stop complaining about today and make tomorrow better.

Nation of whiners

I BELIEVE U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm is correct. We have become a nation of whiners. People seem to expect the government to take care of them from cradle to grave. Whatever happened to pride, honor and trust? They seem to be the real endangered species.

A good deed

I WANT to thank the young man from Marble Hill who changed my tire in the Saint Francis Medical Center parking lot. You were a lifesaver. My son was sick. We had been to the doctor, and then had a flat. Thank you for coming to our rescue. I will return the nice deed to someone else who needs my help.

Sunshine Law

I WAS appalled to read that the Cape Girardeau County Board of Park Commissioners and the Enhanced 911 Advisory Board both held meetings that violated the Sunshine Law. I will fully expect to see Morley Swingle holding a press conference to ask for the attorney general's office to investigate these wrongdoings. I suspect this will not happen, though, unless the park board or 911 board try to have Swingle's books taken off of the county Web site as 2nd District Cape Girardeau County Commissioner Jay Purcell tried to do.

Low gas average

SNAP OUT of your mental recession. Missouri has the lowest average gas price in the nation. Quit whining.

Personal responsibility

BILLIONAIRE OILMAN T. Boone Pickens is leading the charge in weaning us off dependency on foreign oil by developing wind and solar power. That should be a clear signal to you that the whole oil dependency problem is our fault and that each of us should publicly accept personal responsibility.

Hall of fame

DR. JIM Welker is a great guy and will be a great Cape Girardeau School District superintendent. I am 100 percent confident that he will see to it that there is immediate restoration of Cape's athletic hall of fame.