Speak Out A 01/16/02

Bigger than ever

EVERYTHING FROM Tea-pot Dome through Watergate, Iran-Contra, Whitewater, Filegate and Monicagate will be erased from our collective memory as we are enveloped, then engulfed, by the enormity of the Enron scandal.

Time for reason

I HOPE Missouri's governor and all members of the General Assembly will take to heart state Sen. Peter Kinder's words of wisdom on the need for civil discourse. Name-calling, partisan posturing, innuendo, distortion of the facts and telling of falsehoods are but a few of the cynical techniques the sensible senator from Cape Girardeau realizes must go by the wayside if we Missourians are to make progress. Please contact other public officials and urge them to heed Kinder's words. When you call or contact them in some other manner, please tell them that you are requesting that they join with the senator and follow the adage: Come, let us reason together.

Paying for progress

COLLEGE AND university tuition is expensive. But one must remember that the primary purpose of institutions of higher learning is to raise enough revenue for the professors to be able to do their invaluable research so as to add to mankind's vast storehouse of accumulated knowledge and wisdom. Folks, that's not cheap. A hefty tuition, at times prohibitive for some, is a very small price to pay for progress.

Pitfalls of testing

YOUR EDITORIALS on the potential pitfalls of testing public school students at the state and federal levels were fascinating and lucid. The Missouri Assessment Program is most certainly headed in the wrong direction. In addition, the recently passed federal education bill portends a fiasco of such far-reaching proportions that the concept of local control of education will be sacrificed on a cross of false accountability.

Been there, done that

WILL WE ever learn that more money and testing are not the solutions to our education fiasco? So why is President Bush so excited about this lame and tried-before attempt?

Deficit spending

I FIND it baffling that columnist David Limbaugh is bashing Keynesianism at the same time President Bush is beckoning us to behold its truths and beseeching us to realize that now is the time to bring back Keynesian deficit spending.

Driving tip

REGARDING STOPPING for emergency vehicles such as ambulances: On a four-lane road you do not need to stop for one coming the other direction. It's the responsibility of the people in the flow of traffic the vehicle is in to pull over and let the vehicle by. I've actually seen people stop and pull over on the interstate for an oncoming ambulance. Keep that up and you will certainly need assistance as someone rear-ends you for stopping in the middle of traffic.

A piece of work

COLUMNIST WALTER Wil-liams recently asked if blacks in South Africa might have been better off under apartheid, a position in which their basic human rights were more or less comparable to chattel slavery. You're a piece of work, Walter.

A shocking reversal

SAY NO to televising the trial of terrorist suspect Zacarias Moussaoui, says columnist David Limbaugh in a shocking and stunning reversal of his long-stated but apparently no longer sacred principle of the peoples right to know.

Doesn't make sense

I CANNOT believe that finally SEMO has agreed to build a parking garage. Then I find out it is for the residents. They live on campus. They can walk to class. I drive 30 minutes to school and have to walk another 10 minutes because I can't afford to pay $134 for a parking permit. The commuters are the ones who need a place to park, not the residents. To me, it just makes no sense. But I am not surprised. Nothing SEMO ever does makes sense.