Speak Out 7/2/05

Community pride

MY HEART is filled with pride as I drive around Cape Girardeau. The efforts of many caring people have changed Cape from a city with much potential to a shining star, starting with the magnificent bridge, the renovations and development of downtown Cape and the awesome river wall done by the talented artists. Our parks are unbelievable, especially the county parks as you enter off I-55 on holidays when caring people place our country's flags up and down the roads. It's breathtaking. Thank you to everyone who invested love and time in this town, a town to be proud of.

Jackson litter

THE LITTER ON East Monroe Street by the bowling alley and across the tracks in Jackson is horrible. Why would Jackson allow that? Old truck beds are there. Look at the old wooden fencing just lying there, and the weeds. Jackson is the home of beautiful homes, churches and junk. Go take a look. I feel sorry for the people who live nearby.

Blacktop our road

WE HAVE tried for 35 years to get County Road 436 blacktopped. We have had a petition signed by all the neighbors except one giving land to the county. The county finally came around to our thinking, and one end of the road was blacktopped. We were told the county could only blacktop so much a year, and the county asked the only neighbor who didn't sign the petition which end of the road to do first. We call the road "Dust Bowl Alley." I suppose when someone is killed, the road will be blacktopped. Family members would make fewer trips to doctors for stopped-up heads if our road was blacktopped.

Road is hazard

AS A resident on County Road 436 for 48 years, we believe it is past time for finishing the blacktopping of this road. They have been numerous near accidents from the heavy dust. We fear for our lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren who travel this road, as well as all other residents and their families and others who travel this road. Let's don't wait until we have body bags. What price is a life?

Dealing with problems

POOR CAIRO. The town was not able to sustain itself or pay its bills. Cairo is a model we should look closely at. The rise in people on public aid grew faster than those being employed. When you have more people taking money out of the system than putting in the system, the system goes broke. Kudos to Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt to try to control this trend now with relatively small changes compared to facing larger problems in the future.

Blame the court

REGARDING THE suggestion that we should develop the White House into a hotel: I understand the frustration on the eminent domain ruling, but don't blame President Bush. It's the Supreme Court that is creating policies like these from the bench. If Congress would vote yes or no on Bush's judicial nominees instead of blocking the vote, we might not have these kind of rulings in the future. Liberals are playing games with our rights.

Have it both ways

THE U.S. Supreme Court did not uphold the right of government to take private property and put it to public use. It essentially approved the right to take private property and put it to private corporate development use with alleged public benefits. That's why virtually all politicians in both parties who are tools of corporate concerns are in low profile mode. These politicians may tell you they abhor the decision while reassuring their corporate fat-cat donors that the court decision was a correct one.

Communal property

AT ONE time private property was not sacred in this country. That was prior to the European invasion and destruction of the American Indian communal view of property.

Doing unto others

I HAVE been reading all the letters from people crying about all the rulings by the Supreme Court from flag burning to property seizure. It wasn't that long ago that the American Indians were forced from their land without any compensation. It's time people stop all the whining and start doing something about it. Write, e-mail or call your legislators -- and often.

Business history

THE WALL Street Journal's John Fund recently wrote that our country is not doing a good job of teaching history. Considering what I know about John Fund's philosophy, teachers could easily satisfy Fund's questionable opinion by telling all students history teaches us that the business of America and that of the rest of the world is or should be business with government assistance.

Hunkering down

THE RECENT comments about the eminent domain decision are hilarious. I'm glad everyone has hunkered down in their basement with a shotgun waiting for the bulldozers to arrive. Read the decision. Understand the situation that produced the suit. Then decide the odds of this actually happening to you.