Speak Out A 09/30/02

Wrong approach

I think IT IS RIDICULOUS FOR A GROWN MAN TO ACT LIKE AN IMPUDENT CHILD. TELL THAT MAN IN POPLAR BLUFF TO GET BACK ON HIS WHEELCHAIR AND OBEY THE OFFICERS. THEY ARE ONLY WORRIED ABOUT HIS PERSONAL SAFETY. AS FAR AS THE SIDEWALKS BEING IMPASSABLE TO WHEELCHAIRS, THAT'S TRUE JUST ABOUT EVERYWHERE. WHILE SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE DONE ABOUT IT, LYING DOWN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET IS NOT THE WAY TO DO IT. TELL HIM TO WHEEL HIS CHAIR INTO CITY HALL AND URGE THE COUNCIL TO PUT MORE MONEY INTO SIDEWALKS.

Homework priorities

To the SPEAK OUT CALLER WHO COMPLAINED ABOUT THE AMOUNT OF HOMEWORK: PART OF LEARNING IS SETTING PRIORITIES. MY DAUGHTER IS ALSO AN HONOR STUDENT AND HEAVILY INVOLVED IN EXTRACURRICULARS, BUT SHE HAS ENOUGH TIME FOR HOMEWORK. MOST OF THE TIME SHE WORKS LESS THAN AN HOUR BECAUSE SHE GETS IT DONE DURING STUDY PERIODS. STOP DUMBING DOWN THE WORLD BECAUSE YOUR KID HAS TO WORK LONGER.

Using tax money

Anyway you SLICE IT, TAXATION IS TAKING PRIVATE MONEY FOR PUBLIC GAIN. AS LONG AS THAT'S OK, THEN USING TIF FINANCING TO IMPROVE THE ECONOMY OF A COMMUNITY WILL BE OK. YOU STOP TAKING TAXES FROM MY BUSINESS, AND I WILL STOP SEEKING A WAY TO LOWER THOSE TAXES OR USE THEM TO BRING MORE CUSTOMERS TO MY SHOP.

War or health care

WE WANT to prepare for war when there are over 43 million people without health insurance. We have people who either have a choice of going hungry or buying their prescriptions. And there are people who are forced to work when they're in poor health because they don't have enough money to pay for their prescription drugs on the fixed income they have. If we've got all that money to worry about Saddam Hussein and want to declare war, we have enough for national health care. We have to see that these senior citizens who deserve it have enough.

Meeting special needs

I WOULD like to respond to the caller who complained that teachers need to start teaching again and also complained about all the extra personnel in schools. When the caller was in school, teachers taught what they thought was appropriate. Now their curriculum is driven by what the state mandates. When the caller was in school, there were probably very few students with special needs or students on medication. These special-education students in school 25 years ago were placed in one room and that's where they stayed. Hearing impaired students and other students with disabilities would have probably not been in a public school at all. All of these things changed with new laws. Please read this legislation and you will see why it takes so many more school personnel to provide special-needs students with a free and appropriate public education.

Heading for depression

IF PRESIDENT Bush does not get his act together soon, we will find ourselves in a depression of 1930s magnitude faster than the infantry can fight its way through the streets of Baghdad.

More nursing education

I SEE where they're hiring all these thousands of nurses from out of the United States because we have such a shortage in the United States. But I bet they don't know that thousands of women are trying to get into these nursing programs in these community colleges and cannot get in. Out of a couple of hundred who apply, they only take about 25 students. It doesn't make any difference even if you're a straight-A student. You take this aptitude test, and you have to make a certain grade. I don't think that's right. I think if you're a good student and make good grades, it should be first-come, first-serve. These women need to get into nursing school. They need to see what the problem is before they get all these thousands of people from out of the United States.

Dogs, cigarettes in yard

I DON'T smoke and I don't own a dog. To the walkers in Woodland Hills: Would you please keep your dogs and your cigarette butts out of my yard?

Level of culture

I DOUBT that if cultural things are brought into Cape people will partake of them. There's a mentality here that you might go see "XXX" but not "The Importance of Being Earnest," which was more intelligent than your average flick. Very few came to see it. Theaters here make available some of what are considered artsy or even more intelligent type of shows, and people don't come because in Cape they would rather stick to the rodeos or "XXX," which don't require a whole lot of thought or a whole lot of cultural background. But if that's what you enjoy, then that's what you enjoy.

Tax beer and soda

I HAVE beer in my refrigerator as well as soda. I don't smoke or chew. Tobacco products have been taxed enough. Put a tax of 50 cents on each 12 ounces of beer and 15 cents on each 12 ounces of soda. Most DWIs are beer drunks. Higher taxes would cut down on traffic accidents, raise money for highways, improve scenery and prevent beer bellies and red eyes.

Aquamsi Street closed

I WOULD like to know along with a lot of other people why Aquamsi Street was closed off nearly four weeks ago for the construction of the Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge. Construction isn't close to the road yet, but this street's been closed off. This is a main route to go to the city's transfer station and dump stuff.

Deterring crime

NOW LET me see if I've got this right. They passed a law making high-speed chases a felony, and this is supposed to deter people from having to be chased by police. Would you argue the death penalty should be a deterrent for murder? A lot of people argue that it isn't. I believe it is.

That's not excessive

YOU HAD a teaser headline at the top of the front page saying "excessive exercise." OK, I'm a runner, so I turn to page 15B and what is the article "Excessive exercise" about? It's about whether or not the minimum exercise per day should be a half-hour walking or one-hour walking. Get real. Excessive exercise is somebody who wants to do 500 push-ups and then run a marathon every day. Don't tell me the minimum exercise is at least a half-hour a day of walking.

Beware of icebergs

MANY OF the recently announced changes at the university are changes the university wanted to make anyway. Others are accounting gimmicks and will save almost no money. All they're doing is rearranging the chairs on the Titanic.

Pool is a necessity

THIS MESSAGE is to the university regents. I think it would be a ridiculous idea to eliminate Parker pool. Any college of this size and magnitude of Southeast Missouri State University absolutely, positively needs a swimming pool for the students, the alumni, the staff and especially for the athletes. I was at one time an assistant to the care of the athletes. The pool is very important to their maintaining their athletic abilities in recuperation from an athletic injury. A copy-machine center is the idea presented to replace the pool. That would be a ridiculous idea even if Parker pool wasn't there, because I own and run an office, and we have copy machines immediately accessible to all employees. My spouse used to work at the university. She said she had to go four flights of stairs and across the street to another building to make copies. My feeling is that every building should have a copy machine.

Just a gambit

I WOULD sure like to play poker with Peter Kinder. After Kinder leads the charge to send Southeast Missouri tax dollars to St. Louis in the form of socialism for billionaires, we now see that those of us who tried to tell him the Cardinals were only bluffing about leaving St. Louis have been proven correct. This exposes Kinder's real motives in his gambit as being nothing but a ploy to win metropolitan support and campaign contributions in his upcoming run for governor. Let's not let him off the hook with his failed leadership.

WHATEVER HAPPENED to the good old days when you had no kindergarten but students still were taught how to read and the teacher actually thought enough of you to eat lunch with her students? And they had time to get seconds and still talk to your classmates. I can't believe parents are putting up with the lunchroom situation. It is bad in the grade schools too. I have complained countless times.

AS A voting citizen of Cape Girardeau, I am embarrassed that the city is considering subsidizing, through a TIF for the Prestwick Plantation project, home-site lots costing $50,000 and $80,000 that will have homes on them in the half-million-dollar range. Have we fulfilled all the citizens' other needs? Are we operating on such a sound financial basis that we can start subsidizing wealthy developers and landowners? The TIF program can be a good one. The TIF commission needs to move quickly off the Prestwick project and on to a worthwhile project. If the TIF commission isn't sure what the voters want, then ask them to vote on the Prestwick project.

Just don't get sick

Don't lose FAITH. WE CAN GET CHEAPER PRICES FOR PRESCRIPTION DRUGS FOR SENIOR CITIZENS. THE LAW OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND DICTATES THAT THE PRICES FOR PRESCRIPTIONS WILL DROP VIRTUALLY TO ZERO IF NONE OF US GET SICK.

Tests for politicians

The reason STUDENTS AREN'T HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR MAP SCORES IS THAT THE TESTS HAVE NO RELATION TO ANYTHING EXCEPT PROVIDING POLITICIANS WITH AN ISSUE UPON WHICH TO PONTIFICATE. IT WOULD BE UNFAIR TO PUNISH STUDENTS FOR ONGOING, OFTEN PETTY DISPUTES WITHIN THE POLITICAL CLASS.