Speak Out A 06/24/02

Missing stories

I REALLY enjoyed your editorial about the Internet magazine, The Onion. I read it regularly. However, I must admit that I'm disappointed because The Onion has yet to run stories about Jerry Falwell's conversion to Islam, John Ashcroft's forced conversion to Quietism, the fact that the Department of Homeland Security is going to be renamed the Department for the Defense of the Fatherland, that Antarctica is ablaze and that there is a raging debate over whether the fire was intentionally set or resulted from global warming, that the promise of an economic rebound one way or the other will lead to Alan Greenspan being replaced by Ken Lay, and that Wall Street Week host Louis Rukheyser will be ousted in favor of Martha Stewart.

Prevent the problem

I WOULD like somebody from the city to explain to me why they haven't dumped some rock right across Mount Auburn Road from Kies Eye Care Center on that bank before the road falls off into the ditch. This has been going on for several months. Now the road has washed out all the way to the point that Mount Auburn is about to drop off into the ditch. We're looking at raising taxes and looking at ways to cut expenses. Now the city is really going to have to spend some big bucks to fix a problem that would have been easy to prevent. I don't know who's running the show in this city, but I'll tell you one thing: They do not know what they're doing.

Slow, painful death

I CALLED Speak Out suggesting that the city put a 50 cents a pack on cigarettes to solve its financial problems. Someone said that I must have been drunk. No, I was not drunk. I'm too busy trying to stay alive. I am dying a slow, painful death from smoking cigarettes. I would hope that a cigarette tax would maybe help save someone's life. Cigarettes will kill you. I'm a good example of it. I can't walk four feet with an oxygen tank. So don't complain if they put tax on cigarettes. It would only go to help you in more ways than you know.

Defending drug firms

I'M GETTING tired of all the ill-informed persons trashing our drug companies. Are these people so gullible they believe everything they see or read? The public really needs to check all the facts concerning our prescription drugs in this country. Yes, drugs are expensive. But does anyone realize how many millions of dollars are spent on every drug that is going through development? And the majority of these drugs never make it to market. There are billions of dollars put into research and development of new drugs. Are these drug companies supposed to do this out of the kindness of their hearts, absorb all costs of development and sell their product at a break-even amount? Also, the next time you're using a generic drug, you better thank our big drug companies, because these generic drugs are copies of what our major drug companies research and develop. When was the last time a generic drug company developed anything new? Never, and they won't. They'll continue to duplicate and make their money from the sweat of major drug companies. Thank God I'm in a country with many major drug companies that are trying to keep us healthy and have the insight to develop new drugs.

High-priced college

I'M SO angry about SEMO that I'm almost beside myself. My daughter, who always wanted to be a nurse, got accepted to the nursing program. The university raised the tuition $17 a credit hour, then it came along and raised it $6 more a credit hour. Because the nursing and the communication programs have a smaller class, they have to pay an extra $250 more per semester. Does anybody see anything wrong with this picture? The athletes get scholarships to go to school. Taxpayers pay for their facilities. Here are people who are going to be nurses, and they just keep jacking up the prices. My daughter's got a job, and it's not going to cover the cost of getting a nursing degree. We can't afford to help her much. What in the world is going on?