SPEAKOUT

~Correction: SPEAKOUT

Don't worry about a license

ANYONE WHO keeps poisonous snakes in their house doesn't need a license. They need a psychiatrist. Or a padded cell.

Tax-and-spend mentality

I'M AMAZED that the school board once again is ready to tax and spend the citizens of Cape Girardeau's money. They want $26 million to replace a school that's really not even old by standards of most communities. This is just part of the tax-and-spend mentality that comes from Washington and our leader, President Clinton, and our governor, Mel Carnahan, who think all they have to do is take our money and do whatever they want to with it. I guess it's come down to the local level now. It's so disappointing that we can't seem to get fiscal responsibility in any of our government units, whether it be federal, state or local.

The losing team

HERE IT is again. A sports report in the newspaper, and what picture do they show? A huge photo of the losing team. I don't understand it. Why isn't there a picture of one on the winning team in the paper? Another thing I don't understand is how game officials can win or lose the game for the team that they prefer. Watch a game and watch the officials and see how many bad calls you see that could have led to that losing team winning that game.

Reason for bad service

THIS IS about the flunky mail man. Employees treat their customers the way they are treated. Maybe if the post office didn't treat that mail man like a flunky, he wouldn't treat his route like it was a flunky route. Flunky is as flunky does.

It's the doctor's call

THIS IS to address the overbooked doctor mentioned in Speak Out. I work at a doctor's office, and everything we do has to be okayed through the doctor. So to the caller who said, "Tell your ladies to quit overbooking," it's not us. Everything is OK'd and the schedules are made by the doctors and their nurses. We, the ladies, just take the calls and put the people on where we have openings. We're sorry for any inconvenience, but it's as hard for us to work here and see you all wait as it is for you patients to wait.

Don't build big school

A WORD to the school board: Please, please don't make the new high school great big. So many of us think the schools are too big now, making it hard to maintain discipline and know the children's habits. Don't make it so big. It's better to have more smaller schools than just one big one.

Going bomb crazy

REGARDING THIS hysteria of fear that Clinton is spreading over our holidays: Does he have plans on bombing Afghanistan and setting the stage of his next power display? He'll claim he has to bomb the terrorists out of Afghanistan. This man has gone bomb crazy. Congress had better get him stopped.

Need better mail service

AS A small businessman in Cape Girardeau, I want to commend Anthony Cobb for expressing his views about the Cape Post Office. The Cape Post Office is the worst I've ever seen in losing you mail, not picking up your mail and mail not arriving at a destination in a timely manner. Mr. Cobb was also right when he said the postmaster never did answer his complaint. Several businesses along with the private sector are highly upset with the Cape Girardeau Post Office. I wish someone would start up a privately owned mail service and give the Postal Service some competition. Then maybe the post office would straighten up and hire competent people so we, the citizens, could get our mail on time. Everybody remember this next time the Postal Service wants another price hike.

No apartment projects

I'D LIKE To comment about something that's happening here in Cape. I see in the paper that they're advertising to get the city council to pass zoning so they can put in 60 units of apartments here in Cape and 40 at another location. This is the worst thing that can happen, if we get housing projects here in Cape. It'll be just like what's happened in Cairo and in Hayti Heights. We need to keep these housing projects out of Cape. If we want to provide for low-income people, let's build houses for them. Rehab houses or whatever. But not these housing projects. They lead to nothing but gunfights and drugs. I hope the city council turns down these permits for a large concentration of houses in one area or the other area.

They'll remember Monica

I'D LIKE to comment on people trying to get Bill Clinton his legacy. Forget about it. Fifty years from now people won't even remember the economy in the 1990s, but they will remember Monica Lewinsky.

Media treats it like truth

I'M CALLING to comment about President Clinton's character and the news media. President Clinton is a known liar and a confessed liar. Yet the news media, especially TV, puts every word he says on the air with his picture. Why does anybody care or even pay attention to that? I switch channels. I don't listen to his crap, because I know he can't tell the truth. The media is out of step with the public.

Blame it on Bush

IN ITS usual manner, the Southeast Missourian jumps all over Bill Clinton for problems in Iraq, when anybody with a memory remembers that George Bush refused to go to Baghdad when our troops could have been there and left in a week at the end of the Gulf War. Bush went against the recommendations of his military advisors and a great majority of the American people and did not go to Baghdad. Saddam Hussein is in power only because George Bush didn't finish the job he had started. And they say Dan Quayle was dumb. He was as smart as any Bush I have seen. When you fail to remove a thorn from your side when you can, you are stupid. Ask Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf. You right-wing rebel rednecks have more guts than a rendering works when it comes to twisting the truth. Next you'll be trying to say that Newt Gingrich was a person of high morals and honesty.