SPEAKOUT

Life up to what we pray for

I'M A Southeast Missourian reader, and I would like to say that I enjoy your prayers each day that you have in the paper. I think the one for July 14 was especially good: "Give us the graciousness, O God, to admit our failures and make us humble enough to seek forgiveness from those we have harmed." That is such a good prayer. If we would all live by that, it would truly be such a very, wonderful world we would have.

No health plan is a disgrace

I'D LIKE one little perspective straight about the president's health care plan back in 1992. They say it flopped. No, it didn't flop. We flopped, the Congress flopped by not approving it. I heard a newscaster say if the Clintons had sold it like Roosevelt did the New Deal and Social Security or like Kennedy did Medicare, it would have gone through. That's a bunch of bunk. If he had the same people, this big conservative swing, FDR would never have sold it. Neither would President Kennedy. We've got this big train of anti-government, too much government, government haters. FDR had people starving to death. Kennedy had people who were dying because they did not have health insurance. Now it's coming home to roost. We need a health-care plan. We have 42 million people without health insurance, and that is a big disgrace.

Put it all on the debt

WE HAVE a surplus. Why do the Republicans keep saying tax cut? Why do the Democrats keep insisting on keeping and financing some more government programs? Why not put it all on our national debt? Let's first get our children out of debt. How about thinking of them instead of trying to get elected or trying to satisfy and appease the selfish in our country?

Too many trees dying in Jackson

I WALK down in Jackson City Park and have become very concerned about so many trees dying. We counted 12 trees the Fourth of July that were dying and noticed where several had already died and had been taken down. I contacted city hall about this, but they didn't seem very concerned about it. I really hate to see so many of our beautiful trees dying when it could be prevented. I'm afraid if this is not taken care of soon, many more of our trees are going to become infested. I would appreciate anyone who could help out to get this remedied as soon as possible.

Artificial turf is old-fashioned

1999 SEMO football, my prediction: 0-11 or maybe 1-10. So let's go ahead and let's get some synthetic turf in there and get some more seating for our fans so we can improve our football team. That's what we need to improve our football team, synthetic turf. That makes no sense whatsoever. All across the United States, you have stadiums like Busch Stadium tearing our Astroturf. Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City tearing out Astroturf. Kaufman Stadium in Kansas City tearing out Astroturf. They all put in natural grass. Doesn't that make a lot more sense than spending more than $1 million to put synthetic turf in? That's out in the olden days of Model Ts.

Streets are worst since 1941

I HAVE lived in Cape Girardeau since 1941, and I have never seen streets in such a bad condition as they are now. I'm not talking about where they're putting in the new sewers and separating the sewers. I'm talking about streets that have been neglected all summer long. Are these people going to sit on their cans and wait until it gets cold weather? This is the street repair time of the year. And I would appreciate it if they would fix streets, these chugholes and seams across the street that almost bounce you out of your car when you go past them. It's time the taxpayers get something back for their money that they're paying. But it appears to me that the more taxes we pay for better streets, the worse the streets are. I don't know who it is supposed to oversee this, but whoever it is, they're not doing their job. They need to go to Perryville and look at the city of Perryville, what they're doing, replacing all their blacktop streets with good, concrete wide streets. It's a pleasure to drive on the streets in Perryville.

VOTING FOR a third-party presidential candidate is a waste of time. What is the candidate going to do without support of a Congress which is Democrat and Republican? A president without a party is helpless. No party candidate can appease everyone in their party, yet every year we have these people wanting something and wasting votes. Why not change the party you're in if you're dissatisfied with it? We don't need a system like Europe with many, many parties that have to make deals with one another to select a leader.