Speak Out 7/21/07

Learning from history

BECAUSE OF Bush administration policies, there will be a bloodbath in Iraq after we depart. The dilemma is that in order to prevent a full-scale bloodbath, we'd probably have to maintain a significant presence there for years. We've created one by invading and will create another by leaving. That's the sad truth. We naively thought the democratic process was the answer to everything. I'd like to think we've learned a terrible lesson from this but fear that there is truth in the maxim that the only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.

No special treatment

BUSINESSMEN WHO defy the law several times don't deserve better treatment than those who commit misdemeanors for the first time.

Pie in the sky

ELECTED POLITICIANS often learn that their promises of pie in the sky if elected have to be modified. The way they do this is to redefine the pie. That's why Hillary Clinton is now the second-leading recipient of campaign contributions from those who opposed her so vigorously when she proposed universal health care. She has backed away from her proposal. As many folk singers have sung, "We'll get pie in the sky when we die."

Items returned

I WOULD like to thank the Cape Girardeau residents who were kind enough to turn in items they found that had been in my stolen purse. You could have just as easily pitched them in the trash, but instead you took precious time out of your day to return those items. Thank you.

Ticket pricing

IT SEEMS to me that if the city council is going to raise the fee for parking tickets near the university, the fee should be raised across the entire town. I have never heard of tickets having different price ranges because of the section of town the ticket is given in. It seems like that wouldn't hold up in court too well.

Teaching longer

I DID not notice that the Cape Girardeau School District plans to pay teachers anything extra for the extra 180 hours they will be expected to donate to the public is the district adopts the high school principal's recommendation to make class periods longer. Figure it out: 180 hours extra is working four and a half weeks longer. An extra hour for college prep and study skills? The money would be better spent reducing class size.

Timing of suggestion

CENTRAL HIGH School principal Mike Cowan deserves a profile in courage. For him to suggest lengthening the school day is one thing, but to do so when students are in the middle of enjoying their summer vacations is quite another and suggests Cowan has a backbone of steel.

Bridge the gap

I AM a 26-year-old black man who has been raised in Cape Girardeau. I feel it is time for the city to make more of an effort to bridge the gap between the city and black people. It's almost like there is a subconscious voice telling the heads of the city to further push blacks away from employment. We are smarter than we look. Meet us halfway and engage in a conversation. We won't bite. I'm not trying to sound like Cape Girardeau has an issue with its black residents, but it's evident that there is a lot of racial tension in this town. I'm a father and soldier of five years. I know intelligent African Americans here who often get harassed by police and basically mistreated because of color. I could only imagine how it could get if African Americans here start getting better opportunities.

Trash along road

FOR THOSE of you who think it's acceptable to litter on the small portion of gravel road on Old Cape Road in Jackson, think again. I am tired of seeing all kinds of trash, debris and even old small appliances dumped on the side of the road and by the creek that runs alongside it. I recently spent an afternoon cleaning up the area only to find it trashed again not long after. You should be ashamed of yourselves for doing this to the environment, especially when it's one easy way to protect it.

Finish the job

THE TIME to get out of Iraq is when the job is done, whether that takes one year or 10. Let our soldiers finish the job they were sent there to do.

Wages pushed sales up

I QUESTION the article regarding the health of Cape Girardeau's economy in the first quarter. While retail sales in total dollars were up due to price increases relating to the minimum wage increase, I don't believe profitability went up as well. The income increase that was reported was probably a domino effect from the minimum-wage increase.

Needs a vacation

THE CAPE Girardeau City Council has squandered our tax money on interstate landscaping that doesn't make much of an impression. It hired outside consultants to give us a slogan that no one knows or uses. It hurt small businesses with the sign ordinance. Now it wants to hurt college students by imposing outrageous parking fines. The council spends far too much time trying to figure out ways of increasing our taxes. Please take a vacation and do nothing for a while. We will all be better off.

Chaffee police

I HOPE the Chaffee City Council changes things and gets some good people who care about Chaffee in the police department. Please make better decisions when you accept applications for the new police chief and police officers.

Defense raises

ON JULY 10 the Bush administration sent a letter to Congress saying it opposed the amount of raise and benefits which appears in the Defense Authorization Act. This should give a clear indication of what President Bush and his cronies think of the men and women in uniform.

Disastrous road

NEOCONSERVATIVES are Marxists in the sense that they predicted the inevitable triumph of democracy world wide. Marx, of course, predicted the inevitable triumph of communism. There is nothing inevitable about the course history will take. Things aren't predetermined. Neoconservatives like William Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Frances Fukuyama, the brothers Limbaugh, Dick Cheney and others have taken us down this disastrous road by distracting us from the war on terror in Iraq. We're now in a position that we must (as U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson and many others have pointed out) maintain a presence in the region although continued and direct participation in the civil war in Iraq is counterproductive.