Speak Out 7/16/13

Kind people

I want to say a huge "thank you" to some amazing young strangers who I encountered recently. My car broke down at a busy intersection on my way to work. Two young men immediately stopped and offered to push my car out of the intersection. They did so, but my car was still in a bad spot. I only lived a block away, so they offered to push it to my street. They had to push it all the way through the intersection and one block up a hill and around a corner. Several other young people stopped and helped push my car in 93-degree weather. I think there were five or six pushing and one young man standing in the intersection. Also, an SUV pulled into the intersection to stop traffic when the light turned. I barely got to thank most of the kind strangers, however the two young gentlemen who stopped first also gave me a ride to work so that I would not be late. I can't tell you how amazed I was at the selfless acts of kindness these strangers bestowed on a stranded woman.

Common Core

After countless number of educational reforms have come and gone, we may have finally come across the answer with the Common Core Curriculum standards.

PC churches

As more and more churches err on [the side of] being politically correct, especially on marriage being between a man and a woman, it makes me sick what the world will be like for my grandchildren. Society/politicians are altering the Christian values that have made this country great. We are living in a world of "I want to do whatever I want and everyone needs to think what I do is normal." That mentality brought down a civilization. You might want to read a little in the Bible. This goes for the churches that are more interested in pumping up attendance numbers than preaching what the Bible says.

Gas prices

I was entertained to read the response to the person complaining about gas prices being more than $3 per gallon. Their response was something like, "We should be thankful that we only pay $3 per gallon when in some places they are paying much more." Give Obama a little more time and we will be up to that $6 per gallon.

Gas, welfare

Yes, I will keep whining about gas prices being $3-plus because I need every penny I can keep since I work for a living and am forced to hand over my hard-earned money to keep people on 99 weeks of unemployment, of which many are capable of working. It's just not the job they "want." And we pay for women to sit home and have babies as a way to boost their month's welfare income. I'm sick of it.

Replacing teachers

For the caller who is complaining about Cape schools not replacing some teachers: If you have too many teachers it is always a good idea to save the money and not replace them.

Park mess

I am a Boy Scout, and I am a kid who likes to walk in the park. The ducks at the park make such a mess. The water is sometimes full of garbage or dead animals. I wish the park would get cleaned. I know Adopt-A-Park cleans the park. It doesn't happen enough.

Textbook costs

I know the new computer policy in the Cape Girardeau school system is hard to swallow by some in the area, and one writer even stated he would no longer support the schools as a result. I guess he has the right to be misinformed. In the next several years, every school district will enact the exact same policy. If the school district had announced they were purchasing new textbooks or lab equipment, there would not be a problem; students need textbooks and schools provide them. Each student receives six textbooks every semester and, though it is true that they are used multiple times before they reach the end of their useful life, this is a significant expense. The prices for these books range from $60 to more than $100 each for the printed version with about a 30 percent deduction for the electronic copy. Over the course of four years, the savings in textbook costs will nearly pay for the computers.

County website

Why are the minutes from our Cape County commission meetings not put on the county's website for everyone to hear or read? The county's website is not being updated on a timely basis. Why not?

City workers, grass

I must defend city employees on this one. I strongly disagree with the sentiment of a Speak Out caller who seemed to say city workers don't spend enough time watching the grass grow.

Speak Out

If we are truly going to try and build a bottom-up instead of a top-down democracy in Cape then a good first step would be for the Southeast Missourian to elevate Speak Out comments to the top of the Opinion page.

Back to basics

I totally disagree that all students should have computers in school. It won't be long before we have a world full of idiots. They do not use their brains; they use a computer to think. Let's get back to the basics, please.

Strawberry search

I was wondering whatever happened to the Teen Challenge strawberry stand?

City transparency

Come on, Cape Girardeau City Council. This is the 21st century. The online transparency of Cape's city government is at best opaque and the number of available online tools allowing citizens to help craft city ordinances, attend city council meetings online and make Cape a bottom-up instead of top-down type of what might be called a type of citizenville is completely absent.

Spending priorities?

I would like to know why we're getting both a dog park and a dog walking trail? Why do we need all of this? I think we could better spend the money elsewhere.