SPEAKOUT

A cheer for an inspiring example

THANK YOU, Dustin McKinnis, for your inspirational and uplifting perspective on life as reported by Marty Mishow in Friday's Missourian. Pitched several curve balls in life, you have proven yourself a Mark McGwire outside of the stadium, hitting mammoth home runs of faith and courage. When challenges arise, whether large or small, you help show us the way to finding strength through God. Thank you, also, Mr. Mishow and the Southeast Missourian, as well as Jack Buck and the St. Louis Cardinals, for drawing Dustin's story to our attention. Godspeed to you all.

Weeds are still growing

I HAVE called five times in the past month about weeds, and nothing has been done -- the same as last year.

Stop speeding and no tickets

To the person in Speak Out who is wondering about all the traffic tickets written in this town, did the person ever think that if people wasn't speeding, there wouldn't be so many traffic tickets, if people would drive the speed limit, there wouldn't be any tickets or speed traps?

They kept bridge open before

THE MISSOURI Department of Transportation says it has to close the Mississippi River bridge. In the 1960s they put a new floor on the bridge and kept one lane open to traffic. Why not now?

Payoffs to politicians continue

YOU WILL have to admit that we have the best politicians that money can buy. First it was payola from the tobacco industry, then the National Rifle Association. The latest scandal is they were bought off by the casino people. Disgusting, isn't it?

A lesson on drug consequences

I'M CALLING about all the ruckus and the controversy about Good Hope Street. I'm a white lady married to a black man. I used to do drugs. Things aren't anywhere close to what they were in our neighborhood. What I want people to understand is the police aren't against you for your skin color. It's the activity that you're involved that's wrong. Drugs are illegal. They ruin your life. It doesn't matter if you're using of dealing. It's wrong. The consequences of being involved in drugs are ugly. You can't do something wrong and not expect problems. Do you know that God sees what you're doing? I promise you the drugs you are using or dealing will never bring peace to you, and you can't have peace about you if you don't have peace within you.

Yearbook for Father's Day

I'M REALLY pleased about the Central yearbooks being sold by the school, my husband apparently missed his chance back in 1972 to buy a copy. My daughter found out, and Father's Day is made for him this year. Thank you.

Police department is wonderful

I'M CALLING about the Cape Girardeau Police Department. I think we have a wonderful police department. I live in Zone 4. It is a high-crime district. I like seeing their presence, and I appreciate what has come of our police department since our new police chief has taken over.

Don't give control to criminals

MY WIFE and I live in Zone 4, and there is a fair amount of crime and drug activity. We do appreciate the police presence for trying to keep the peace, and we would not mind even more police presence to keep things under control. In fact, why someone living here would not want a police presence must mean they are doing illegal things. I feel we cannot allow criminals to control the streets. We, the law abiding citizens and the police force, must control the streets.

Petty and bullying leaders

NO WONDER Clinton and his war cohorts were yelling "We won! We won!" so loudly. They knew they had Russia and China to deal with, and they wanted to crow while they could. Such a petty, bullying outfit America has leading our nation. They should all be prosecuted as war criminals.

Schools are dirty

I HAVE one thing to say about our Cape Girardeau schools. They're not clean anymore. I have a son at junior high. I have a son at senior high. The bathrooms where they have to go are terribly dirty. This has been going on now for a while. I don't know if they're under new management in their janitorial department or if they've changed services or changed materials. But I know one thing, the bathrooms are not clean, and they'd better get them cleaned up before school starts this year. I don't want my children going to a dirty school. The floors don't shine anymore like they used to. It's overall a dirty school, both junior high and senior high.

Police go where the crime is

I WOULD like to give my support to the police in their efforts to keep Cape safe. Black or white. I read what some people were saying in the paper that the police cars shouldn't be down around Good Hope all the time, that it was racial profiling. I really don't think that's what it is. One of the people on the front page of your paper said there's drugs going on in Capaha Park too, so why are the cars always on Good Hope? I don't know. If there are drug dealings in Capaha Park, when you read in the paper about stabbings, shootings, assaults and so on, things where the police would have to get called, that's what the police are out there trying to fight things in one neighborhood versus another, you'll find there's a whole lot more in that part of town then there is in Capaha Park. People need to be responsible for their own neighborhoods and try to keep crime down, not blaming the police when there's crime going on in certain neighborhoods.

Needs a place to sit and eat

RIVERFEST HAD some great food stands, but there was no central tent where people could take their food and eat it. Who wants to walk and eat?

Making bobbin lace

REGARDING THE picture on Page 2A of the June 14 paper: This is not tatting. It was a picture of making bobbin lace, which is very different from tatting.

Citizens are called to action

WHAT A piece of work is man. I'm flabbergasted that the people of this city become enraged toward the very members of the community that defend them. Our police need no policing. If our citizens are filled with disgust, I call them to act, not to speak with whining voices and pointing fingers. Revitalize the Morgan Oak-Good Hope region until its beauty surpasses the likes of Capaha or Cherokee Park or the lovely campus of Southeast. Let us make our police have to squint to find a reason to come down to the river, rather than to be blinded by the poverty and crime that radiate from that area.

Publicity for national cemetery

I AM a Mound City, Ill., resident and am so glad that the Southeast Missourian is giving the national cemetery the publicity that it really needs. I certainly want to thank you.

Look at his family values

I WOULD like to comment on Al Gore admitting that he's going to run for president. One of the first things he said out of that speech was, "I'm going to stick up for family values." Now what Fox News Network and other networks need to do is show Bill Clinton in the 1991 election where Clinton is up there saying, "I'm sick and tired of Washington talking about family values." The only values Gore believes in are homosexuals in the military, handing out condoms in school and teaching your children that it's OK to have two mommies and two daddies. That's real family values.

THE STREETS and coffee shops of Cape are absolutely abuzz with talk about whether or not Dr. Ken Dobbins will do a good job as SEMO president. The following four-line poem summarizes the gist of the conversations.

Bean Futures

Yes, Dr. Dobbins does count beans.

But who on Earth cares what that means?

He'll be a real good SEMO prez

as his much-discussed cat, Socks, says.

Time for some self-policing

THIS IS for the people complaining about the police satellite station on Good Hope. Firemen go where the fires are. Warriors go where the wars are. Policemen go where the crime is. If you don't want the police on Good Hope, clean up the streets. All you have to do is police yourselves. There is a curfew law in this town. Why are 12-year-olds out so late? Get the kids off the streets and stop the drug sales.

The bard wouldn't sink this low

I'VE RECENTLY heard a lot of discussion concerning the quality of Speak Out poetry. My opinion is best summed up in a four-line ditty:

Low Brew

Speak Out poems are like cheap beer.

But that's the way it should be.

I cannot imagine Will Shakespeare

Writing Speak Out poetry.

He wouldn't have offended anyone

I WOULD like one of the individuals who keeps calling Speak Out telling us how we should be like Christ and not judge anyone and forgive everyone to explain to me just why the politicians, the intellectuals and the masses demanded that Jesus be crucified. If Christ were such a liberal who did not judge anyone, accepted all lifestyles and forgave everyone everything, as these people seem to suggest, I doubt that he would have angered and antagonized enough people to cause his being crucified.

Change the name of the street

NATURALLY I hope and pray there are no more disturbances on Good Hope street. However, in light of what has happened, and in fairness to visitors who may have never traveled to that part of Cape Girardeau, I think it is incumbent on the city council to formally change the first word of the street's name to "Abandon."

Why is fighting crime called racism?

I DON'T have a degree in criminal justice, so maybe I don't understand this whole concept, but how is it racism when police increase patrols in the highest crime areas of the city? Could somebody who objects to this please explain clearly to me why we should not have increased patrols in the high-crime areas?

Add cameras to monitor crime

I'VE LIVED and worked in urban areas and in plants, sometimes around the clock. The areas had extra street lighting and usually a police car with two officers on every block. Every few months policemen would stop by and check the house about our security and to make suggestions. He said that they wanted to make sure that the good people in the area and that they didn't care if the people who were causing the trouble felt that they were being watched closely. As far as I'm concerned, we should increase the street lights in the Good Hope area and add video cameras with monitors in the police department to record any action in the high-crime areas. Anybody who pushes or resists a police officer or throw stones at an officer should be arrested immediately, and any resistance should add considerable time to the person's sentence. The use of amphetamines and methamphetamines makes most users quarrelsome and agitated and makes the police's work extra dangerous. We need to get these people off the street and their addiction treated. A film of the stone-throwing would quiet a lot of the people who are yelling "police brutality."