SPEAKOUT

Jackson observations

Jackson School District, if you want to increase our taxes, you'd better start looking around and see how little respect we get from the students who have graduated in the last 10-12 years. The so-called jocks in your districts are just that until they go to work. When the audience is gone, so is their work ethic. How many of your dedicated teachers will work on a yearround basis to keep a family fed. Many of your staff spends the summer at the country club while the rest work at raising their family. Yes, we would like to see some dedicated people rewarded and we would also like to see some useless people move on. As parents, we would like to see more kids challenged and few more teachers motivated to do more and make the work load more evenly distributed. We'd like to see problems cleared up. Some people think our district has become wealthy after years of sacrificing by many.

Too many taxes

THE UNIVERSAL Internet increased rate is now 8.6 percent on all long distance calls thanks to Al Gore. As usual, a smoke screen has been created to distract from this outrageous Internet tax increase by suggesting the excise tax of three percent be eliminated. How very charitable? Take both these taxes off our telephone bill. It will still leave plenty of taxes left.

Athletes deserve mention

I WAS just wondering, I was reading the Wednesday paper, why the other four distinguished athletes at Cape Central wasn't mentioned in the article about being inducted into the Hall of Fame, in fact it was probably the highlight of the whole proceedings.

Companies are moving

I'M AN independent voter. Can you figure it out? The Democrats hate NAFTA but Bill Clinton signed it into law and twisted many Democrat lawmakers to vote for it. Yet Democrats praise their Messiah. What about the companies moving into other countries? Almost everything now sold in our country comes from Mexico, China, Japan, or so on. Many of my friends' factories have closed in the last few years. They have new jobs but lower wages and little benefits. You trash the Republicans saying they are for helping big business. Well, you aren't any better, maybe worse. An American product is almost a thing of the past. You say Mr. Clinton's sex scandals don't matter, the economy is good but doesn't losing our jobs to third world countries matter either? I think it will in the long run.

Cal Thomas is wrong

I THINK it's wrong of Cal Thomas to attack Hollywood and saying that they don't keep their vows. I think Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin do an excellent job of keeping their marriage vows and I'm sure there's others. You know Annette Benning and Warren Beatty haven't been married long but you have to give the guy high marks for being smart enough not to marry Madonna. He has a fighting chance of making his marriage work. And who's to say that Guiliani's wife, this is not just an attempt to embarrass him. Whose to say that she's not for Hillary herself and that this is just one more way to get back at Rudy because they were living apart anyway so it wasn't like a marriage there to preserve. I mean, they were clearly separated. If Cal Thomas is going to accuse anything, we do think of actors and actresses as very liberal. Rosie O'Donnell is trying to take away our guns. And I happen to belong to a religion that believes that as children we did ask to be born. You know it was so easy to excuse and I think that's what leads some kids to suicide, the feeling that they didn't ask to be here. You know, you can see it time and time again, people need to take responsibility for their actions.