Speak Out A 04/18/03

Not from around here

IS OUR public-access channel in Cape Girardeau so desperate to fill airtime that it needs to show such senseless programming as Tony Heckemeyer's show, especially when he is not even a member of our community or familiar with our community's issues?

Now a reconstructionist

SEPT. 11, 2001, converted President Bush from a cautious conservative in foreign policy to a radical reconstructionist Republican, and for that I salute him.

Making it popular

LIVE AND learn. The fact that the mayor of Cape Girardeau referred to Tony Heckemeyer's public-access cable-TV show as "a joke" and the city attorney found it "boring" while finessing the Sunshine Law to discuss it in private will have huge unintended consequences. Heckemeyer's show will now become the most watched public-access program in history.

Sports, not academics

I WANT to clarify that the Scott City High School players were not suspended from school, just the athletic program in which they are involved in.

Sharing the smoke

HAVE YOU ever gone into a restaurant and asked for a non-smoking table only to be seated next to the smoking area? Better yet, you begin eating and a smoker who is sitting in the smoking section takes a big puff from his cigarette, turns his head toward you and blows the smoke into your space. Thank you for placing us in the non-smoking section. Smokers, we don't want to be a part of your bad habits. We don't want to share your smoke.

But you have a job

I AM so tired of reading about the woes of Cape Girardeau city workers. So they won't get a raise this year. I am a state worker, and I haven't had a raise in three years. My health-insurance premiums have risen 32 percent this past year. The state does not have a Christmas party for its workers. We don't get a Christmas bonus, nor do we get off on Christmas Eve. I'm just glad to have a job when so many of my co-workers have lost theirs. Quit complaining and do the best with what you've got. Be glad you have a job.

The bigger problem

I THINK there is a bigger problem than the teenagers getting caught drinking at Scott City. The bigger issue should be the fact that the parents are getting alcohol for their kids to drink. They think they are keeping their children safe. What they are really doing is telling them it is OK to ignore the law because you'll never get caught. They are introducing them into a world they are not ready for. Most times it only takes one drink to get you hooked for life.

Stoplights are better

PLEASE, NOT another roundabout in Cape Girardeau. Good old stoplights may not be the prettiest thing on earth, but the roundabout is a pain in the neck. Taxes can be spent in much better ways.

Chosen by 10 percent

TO USE the word "regime" in reference to Cape Girardeau's city government is wrong. It implies that city officials are an autocracy or oligarchy of some sort and were not elected by the voters. One must keep in mind that all of them were chosen via the process of representative democracy -- which, of all those eligible to vote, meant about 10 percent.

Effects of cutting

IS ANYONE going to suggest to area legislators that the coming budget cuts in education will only slow down the progress so many of our schools have made? Gov. Bob Holden and every member of the House and Senate should remember that responsible parents and educators vote and they will remember this budget cut.