Speak Out A 10/19/02

Changed focus

SO WHATEVER happened to Osama bin Laden? About this time last year, wasn't President Bush telling us we wouldn't stop until he was dead? Recently Bush commented that he didn't know where bin Laden was and said he didn't care. So now that we've lost bin Laden, we have to shift focus to Iraq to keep Americans interested.

Screen employees

MY PARENTS were in a nursing home. I know there are a lot of good people with good hearts working in these places. I blame the long-term care institutions for not screening their employees more closely and underpaying their nurses and aides. It's hard to get and maintain good, caring employees for the amount they're paid in comparison to the work they do. Someday these people will be elderly, and I have always believed what comes around goes around.

Go into exile

HIS APOLOGY for saying Mohammed the prophet was a violent person notwithstanding, the Rev. Jerry Falwell should have the decency to cancel his Cape Girardeau crusade. The man has become a publicity-seeking embarrassment to the evangelical movement.

Different protection

FORGET ABOUT protection from biological and chemical agents. How do we shield ourselves from the continual bombardment of vitriol spewing forth from syndicated columns and seizure-inducing screeds published in the Southeast Missourian?

Big change

MISSOURIANS MUST vote to convene a constitutional convention for the purpose of drawing up a radical new framework of government for our state. It is time to throw in the towel on representative government.

Condemn column

THE WALL Street Journal's woefully wrongheaded criticism of the Nobel Prize committee and this year's peace prize winner, Jimmy Carter, is worthy of international condemnation. It is a sad and shameful commentary on the Southeast Missourian for reprinting such a scurrilous piece.

Just first step

FELLOW CITIZENS: Traffic-flow cameras are just the first step. Once the public gets used to the idea of seeing a camera atop an intersection, there will be more. The only difference will be that the new ones will have the ability to take your money.

Good and bad

MY MOTHER and father were in a local nursing home until they passed away. There were good nurses aides and bad ones. But there weren't enough of any of them. There were many times I went to visit my mother, and she would be sitting there crying. I would ask her what was wrong, and usually it was she needed to use the bathroom and no one was responding to her light, or her legs were aching because she had been sitting in her wheelchair all day. If a person gets a license to provide child care in her home, she has to agree to have one adult provider per so many children. Why is there not some law like this for our elderly? My daughter just went to work for a nursing home as a certified nurse's aide, and I'm very proud of her. Because she saw the way her grandparents were treated in their last years of life, she has vowed not to do the same to the people she takes care of.

Do something

THE JACKSON Police Department needs to do something about this gang activity that's going on. I live on Donald Street, and last week some youth took to shooting guns at a house on my street. I was not home at the time, but some of my neighbors were. They are too scared or don't care enough that they aren't going to testify in court. Now I've heard that the boy who shot at the houses is going to get off because no witnesses will testify. You can't tell me that this is going to be the end of it. I fear that more violence is going to come out of this shooting. The police and the city of Jackson are doing nothing about it.