Speak Out A 11/05/01

Time for promotion

OVER TIME, "the country will find out that the strictest security is most needed at those places terrorists are most likely to hit, and that is where large numbers of people are concentrated," claimed a confident Southeast Missourian editorialist and one who must be privy to information not yet available to those at the top who are in charge of our nation's security. Whoever wrote that piece should immediately be elevated to the position of executive assistant to Tom Ridge, secretary of homeland security.

No gradual escalation

IT UNNERVES me something awful to read David Limbaugh, one of the best and brightest, try to justify gradual escalation. To the thousands of others who read or hear Limbaugh's words, it likely gives them flashbacks and precipitates an episode of post-traumatic stress disorder. When it comes to the war in Afghanistan, I beg Limbaugh to please never again try to justify the most historically haunting strategy we could adopt: gradual escalation.

Where's our relief?

WOULD SOMEONE please explain to me why the Missouri Public Service Commission has reduced the rate on natural-gas customers in 20 counties but not Cape Girardeau County?

A little tolerance

THIS IS directed to the person who made the comment, "No heaven for them," and all the other like-minded comments I have read in Speak Out. I am not gay, and I don't agree with the lifestyle, but I believe it is not right to judge another person. Jesus said "He who is without sin cast the first stone." Not a stone was cast. This must mean that no one is without sin and no one has the right to judge another. This includes telling people they are not going to heaven. No one has the right to tell someone he is not going to heaven. There is a higher power that will do the judging. Incidentally, this same power will judge all of us: Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Jewish and all the many religions of the world. Will only straight Christians be deemed worthy? I think not.

Too quick to judge

ON THE day of death we'll all be stripped of the many masks we wear, that is when the judging will start. For those of you still worried about other people's beliefs and lifestyles, you need to concentrate on the higher power and get to know it better, if you were close to God, you would not be so quick to judge other people.

Poor example

I AM responding to the person who believes gays and lesbians will be excluded from heaven. I assume that person purports to be a Christian, but he is a poor example of Christianity in my opinion. I don't know what God he believes in, but my Christ teaches love, compassion and mercy. He also teaches us not to judge one another. The person making the comment seems to have missed these biblical lessons. Perhaps he should spend a little more time studying the New Testament. He might realize that judgment is better left to God, not him or any other human. I will pray for him.

No new championships

TO THE caller claiming to have been on a Central High School state championship team and bragging about never lifting weights: Whom do you think you're kidding? Central hasn't won a state championship in anything, with the exception of a baseball championship several years ago, in decades.

CBS takes low road

I DID not vote for George W. Bush. I don't like the way he got his job, but I also am very disappointed. I get up every morning and hear CBS saying what it can to tear down everything the government is doing just like it did during the Vietnam War. I hope people start writing CBS letting them know we back the president. We got into this thing knowing it would be a long drawn-out affair, and CBS is trying to divide the people already. It is time for them to stop.