Speak Out A 1/07/02

Aroma or stench?

IT SEEMS like only yesterday that the pages of Speak Out were full of complaints about local citizens burning leaves. Complaints of acrid smoke, pollution and nausea abounded. Now, although the air is filled with the smoke of firewood from the stoves and fireplaces around town, no one seems to be complaining. Isn't it amazing that smoke from burning leaves is a stench, but smoke from firewood is an aroma?

Union voting

THAT'S WEIRD. A Speak Out caller claimed all union members are yellow-dog Democrats and vote accordingly. I always thought a lot of so-called hard-hat members of the Teamsters and other unions voted for Ronald Reagan. You learn something every day. Wait. Maybe Ronald Reagan was a Democrat.

That's our money

I WOULD like to know with all the property taxes we pay why our schools aren't able to make it without raising property taxes. Don't get me wrong. I don't blame the teachers. I blame the government. What are they doing with all that money? President Bush says he wants to make schools accountable. Then I say keep government out of our schools so the money will go directly to the school and not cross through the government's hands. We know they already can't account for where millions of dollars went. That is our money. I don't appreciate it. You can bet they know where it is. I wouldn't lose millions of dollars.

Those credentials

SAM BLACKWELL and Joe Sullivan are excellent writers, as a Speak out caller claimed. The caller was expressing concern and dismay that they have come under fire. In praising their writing, the caller accurately compared their works to those of Thoreau and Twain, respectively. Keep it up, caller. We desperately need your assistance in deflecting these dastardly attacks on Joe and Sam. However, the reason they are being criticized is the same as the reason you praise them. You see, neither Throreau nor Twain would by any stretch of the imagination fit the profile many consider necessary to be published in the Southeast Missourian, that being as a sometimes sanctimonious, sometimes self-righteous, sometimes smug, sometimes snide, always self-confident and always an extremist, radical, right-wing Republican.

Mindless body

THE SOUTHEAST Missourian without Speak Out would be like the body without a mind.

Real aberrations

PLEASE QUIT debasing the Speak Out forum by extolling the virtues of roundabouts. These aberrations make ancient Rome's Appian Way seem progressive in comparison and a sign of the abject failure of post-modern road and street architecture and design.

Fighting crime

I AGREE that the police need an adjustment. I was pulled over last week on the interstate because my license plate was dirty and hard to read. So here I am on the side of the interstate, and the officer asks me to get out of my car and look at it. Now, help me understand the logic here. Where was the real public-safety issue? I think it was more dangerous for me to be standing on the shoulder of a highway with traffic running by at 70-plus mph than for my license plate to be dirty. I say we eliminate Highway Patrol, rename them the State Police and actually have them fight crimes. Enough is enough.

Need state police

HERE'S AN idea that might benefit us all. Let's rename the Highway Patrol the State Police and actually have them police the state. I see a great benefit in having a police force that actually goes after sex offenders, murderers, abusers and drug dealers than having a police force that is nothing more than a moneymaking arm of Missouri's state government. A speeding motorist getting ticketed does not ensure the safety of young kids when at school who get offered drugs, and that list can go on.