Speak Out A 03/13/02

Loss of state revenue

I WAS not persuaded by state Sen. Peter Kinder's column in Sunday's paper. Economic development is in the eye of the beholder. In my eye, I see the stadium proposals as a giant giveaway to corporations. Furthermore, I am amazed that Kinder and Gov. Bob Holden have managed to find funds for these projects while bemoaning the loss of state revenue. If the state treasury is in the dire straits that Holden says it is and he pushes these projects to fruition, then he should be impeached for incompetence.

Silent majority

ST. LOUIS Cardinals baseball enthusiasts need to rally around state Sen. Peter Kinder and his courageous support for a new baseball stadium. He is the victim of vicious and vituperative verbal assaults from anti-baseball commentators who know nothing about a game that conservative George Will defines as exemplifying the quintessence of American character. I have no doubt that Kinder represents the majority view, but it is time for the silent majority to speak out.

No Bush apologist

I AM an economic nationalist and an ardent American protectionist. I strongly support President Bush's decision to subsidize the U.S. steel industry. However, David Limbaugh, an unreconstructed free trader, deserves a lot of credit for publicly criticizing the president's policy decision on this matter. If anyone had thought Limbaugh merely paid lip service to being an independent thinker while serving exclusively as a Bush apologist, then those doubts should be forever laid to rest.

Blabbing secrets

THE DECISION to go public with the Pentagon study and point out the names of countries against whom we might use nukes is enough to scare the plutonium out of Dr. Strangelove.

Help with my farm

NOT EVERYONE in Missouri goes to Cardinals ballgames or benefits from them. Fans attending the games should be asked to give a little more at the gate. Players who earn millions yearly should be asked to give to their own cause. Cardinals owners should pay the bulk of new stadium costs. St. Louis should pay a fair share, because the city benefits in many ways. But leave the Missouri taxpayers out of it. If I have to pay taxes for millionaires to have a new playground, then they should have to pay taxes to upgrade my farm.

Doesn't add up

A CALLER says Time magazine reported in 1997 that "85 percent of the people who test positive for AIDS are homosexuals ... 10 percent are bisexual... 5 percent get it from hypodermic needles." That leaves exactly zero percent for all other cases, such as accidental fluid contact, transfusions and heterosexual sex. Please explain this to me.

A little late

THE ALL-TIME Johnny Come Lately award goes to Congress for its passage of an economic stimulus package that coincided with the end of the recession.

Preserving taxes

IF WE don't help the Cardinals build a new park, they will move to Illinois. Then we get no tax money for anything. It will all go to Illinois. Taxes will be raised to pay for everything.

It's a gift horse

KINDER-MORGAN Power Co. is a rock-solid company. Its CEO, Cape native Richard Kinder, is kind, generous, environmentally conscious and committed to making the plant something of which all Cape County residents can be really proud while providing an economic shot in the arm for the surrounding area. Stop looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Ringside seats

YOU GUYS seemed surprised that folks were caught with brass knuckles in security checks at some state buildings. Have you ever seen the action on the floor of the Missouri General Assembly?

STATE SEN. Peter Kinder's eloquent rationale for constructing a new St. Louis Cardinals baseball park was the most convincing and enlightening column ever written on the subject. That the senator stands solidly behind the proposal in the face of some stinging public criticism is a profile in courage surpassed by few in the Show Me State's proud political history. Though initially skeptical, I now support the senator's sensible proposal without reservation and am confident Republican and Democrat state officeholders and virtually all of the general public will play ball.

FDR ALSO freed millions of Americans from the chains of poverty. We need another FDR now.

Review panel explained

THIS IS why it takes a 21-person panel for a child fatality review: The prosecuting attorney, by law, has to set up the panel to include a prosecutor, a coroner, law enforcement personnel who responded to the call, Division of Family Services, public health care services, juvenile officers and emergency medical service personnel. These panels usually have several people due to the fact that several people respond to the initial fatality.