Speak Out A 07/15/02

Passing kindness along

I'D LIKE to say something about an act of kindness. I had something that happened to me the other day at Food Giant grocery store in Cape Girardeau. I had a woman pay for some of my groceries. Needless to say, the offer blew my mind. She said she had an act of kindness done to her once, and she was passing it on. I say to her once again, thank you. And thank God there is people out there who still believe in acts of kindness. I'll pass it on to somebody. We need more people like this in Cape. We need more people like this in the world.

Need highway money

FOR EVERYONE who is complaining about the vote on the new gas tax, I would like all of you to consider something. In the early days of the automobile the roads were made of dirt . The only way people were able to get around was if it was dry outside and they could find a smooth rut to drive in. Taxes were levied to build paved, safer roads. Roads had to evolve to four lanes and finally to the modern interstate. We've seen an explosion in the volume of traffic that travels on our roads, but these highways, some built in the 1950s, are outdated, inadequate and dangerous at best. You can't deny the fact that without this tax we may find ourselves driving down the same dirt paths we had in the early years.

Voucher reaction

CAN'T YOU just imagine what would happen if Missouri's legislature tried to pass a meaningful public, private and parochial school-choice bill? Such a bill would really make it possible for inner-city school kids to cross public school district boundaries and attend suburban public, private or parochial schools. Just as in Philadelphia, suburban Republicans would have a hissy fit and burn in effigy any member of the GOP who had the gall to support it.

University leadership

A FOUR-MONTH hiring freeze at Southeast Missouri State University affects staff but not faculty. The employment ads in the Missourian are either for grant-funded positions, meaning an outside agency or department provides money for the salary, or the position has been vacant for four months and can finally be filled. Faculty can be hired at any time. The energy improvements will pay for themselves in the long run, just as it does in your own personal home when you upgrade to energy-savings appliances. The upgrades to the stadium are paid through separate funds for capital improvement and donations. Finally, I totally disagree with the caller's comments about the university administration. They are faced with some very difficult challenges right now and are doing a phenomenal job in some very trying times.

Cleanup credibility

DOES IT really make sense that someone who cashed in $850,000 in stock while sitting on the Harkin board of directors in 1989 (just two months before Harkin stock crashed) can be expected to clean up the big corporate mess with its inside trading and so forth? Does someone like that really have credibility in this area?

Go after the money

GO, JEAN Carnahan. Let's tell the truth about the wealthy and how they manipulate all of us through their expensive political advertisements. Let's start taxing the lazy, self-righteous rich for once. The estate tax is really a small thing when you consider how much money the rich hide from taxes in offshore accounts and how they hire expensive lawyers and accountants to find the tax loopholes that the rest of us have to live with. I'm not even mentioning their manipulation of the financial markets, the filching of pensions or the manipulation of the electric industry in California.

Liberals made it happen

I JUST wonder how many of the people who call in blasting liberals are drawing Social Security or have Medicare. If it weren't for the Democrats, they wouldn't be drawing unemployment insurance. They wouldn't be drawing Social Security.

Wrongheaded view

IF WASHINGTON Update's woefully wrongheaded view that we should throw in the towel on taking preventive measure to try to stop the spread of AIDS mirrors that of the Bush administration, then it is no wonder that the secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson, was booed off the stage at the international AIDS conference.

Worldwide terrorism

"ISLAMIC GROUPS don't have a multi-ethnic group of supporters." That from the publisher of the Sikeston Standard Democrat, Michael Jensen, and reprinted in the Southeast Missourian. At best, one can assume Jensen wrongly used the word race (based exclusively on physical characteristics) and ethnicity (based on national origin, religion, language, norms, and values). Unfortunately, events have already demonstrated that the support for terrorism is worldwide and by no means confined to one ethnic group or that only one ethnic group will engage in acts of terror. If Jensen still stands by his statement, one must conclude that this once top-notch newspaperman no longer pays attention to the news.

Watching the watchdog

THANK GOD for Judicial Watch. The same watchdog group that funded Paula Jones and helped the Ken Starr investigation is ignoring party lines and now going after corruption in the Bush administration. I encourage their efforts.

Taxing issues

IN REGARD to the Speak Out comment on the university's financial emergency, the university's budget is an open record. Southeast is a public institution. Anyone who wants to see the university's budget or the annual report which shows how the university's money was spent can request a copy. The financial emergency exists not only for the state's colleges and universities, but also for every state agency, department and service. It's just that the Missourian seems to cover the university's financial situation more than it does any other state agency or department in our community because it's the largest state employer in Cape Girardeau. I agree that higher taxes are not the answer. The shortage of state money has been caused by loss of sales-tax revenue. Our federal representatives should be looking at ways to tax Internet sales so Missourians will face the same sales taxes by purchasing on the Internet as they will by purchasing items within the state.

Sharing the blame

THIS IS in regard to police violence. To me, the officers standing around and letting one officer abuse a suspect are just as guilty. The same thing applies to one parent who abuses a child and the other one watches and does nothing.

Throwing money

WHY DIDN'T anyone think of this before? If we build a bigger federal courthouse, it will solve the meth problem in Southeast Missouri. Just throw money at the problem, and the drug war will be won. Hallelujah!