SPEAKOUT

Advice for yearbook staff

I HAVE a suggestion for the yearbook staff at Jackson High School. Maybe if some of you would feature yourselves a few less times than did last year's staff, then whoever does the layout for the band this year won't have to tell the band members that there simply wasn't room to list their names even once.

Picture of Illinois queen was too small

I'M CALLING about a picture that was run in the paper. I realize that for some people Illinois news is not important in a Missouri paper, but I have a friend who just became Mrs. Alexander County. When I looked for her picture in the paper, I overlooked it because it had been squeezed into a garage-sale-ad-sized picture. Of the people that I've talked to in Illinois, there is no one who saw it because it was so small. I was under the impression that the Southeast Missourian was sold quite a bit in Illinois. I thought that the news was more important than being put on Page 7 in a little-bitty spot. I thought Illinois was a little more important than that.

Charter schools force competition

GOOD MORNING. In your newspaper you have a story about charter schools in Kansas City. The new charter schools are pulling students out of the regular public schools. The charter schools are really just a different form of public schools. What it does is force all the schools to compete for students. All the schools are going to have to get better and do a better job of educating, and the students are going to win. I think it's great that we're going to have public schools that will want to take care of and educate our children.

All respect for flag has been lost

I WANT to comment about the person who talked about how to show reverence and respect for the flag. I will no longer salute the flag, and I'll tell you why -- because of the Waco massacre. Any country that would allow its government to act like that, I will not salute that country's flag any more than I would the Nazi swastika. After all, they did the same thing the Nazis did, and until I see those people who both did it, such as Clinton and Reno, and their Democratic supporters brought to justice and a lot of them executed like was done in Germany, I will never salute the flag, and I will never teach my children or grandchildren to salute it. The American people deserve no respect.

Avoid all evil in the marketplace

WE HAVE a subversive socialist movement loose in our country determined to subvert American values. The Brooklyn Museum has promoted this irreligious, vulgar pornography in the name of art. You have the same blasphemy in every phase of American life. Violence, profanity in movies, games, music and TV. Wake up America and boycott all this evil and save America from socialist communism. Save your children from these destructive methods. Let all these evil promoters know that you will not support their subversive products that will ruin your children. Refuse to buy their vulgar, destructive products.

Double standard in baseball

DARRYL STRAWBERRY of the Yankees has been caught with cocaine and prostitutes and everything else twice, and here he's still playing baseball. I'd just like to know how he got by with that when a lot of other people don't. Why can he still play baseball when Pete Rose was kicked out for gambling?

Hate speech at gay events

I'D LIKE to comment on this National Homosexual Coming Day. The reason I use the word "homosexual" is because that it goes to show how far the news media goes to accommodate this group because the word "gay" sounds much nicer than the word homosexual. If they want to claim that the Ku Klux Klan is speaking out about wanting to kill Jews or blacks or gays, the gays consider that hate speech. But if you go to some of these gay-rights marches, like I have, and tape recorded what they're saying, is also hate speech. They say things like "It's time to send the Christians to the lions."

Lobbyists live off people's fear

AFTER BEING a member of Handgun Control for four years and donating money to a cause I thought was worthwhile, I see now that it may not be so. I read in The Wall Street Journal that two UPS employees had stolen over 156 handguns. One had received only a 30-day jail sentence. The other has never been brought to trial. I also found most were sold in a housing project in Atlanta. I called Handgun Control in Washington and their response was, "Our judicial system makes some difficult decisions." This is not a difficult decision. A thief is a thief. Handgun Control stated that the 156 handguns that were stolen probably had a street value of $78,000. That would be a felony. Where are the federal agencies that control these weapons and prosecute these thieves? I know now that I have given my money to a bunch of high-paid lobbyists living off people's fear. We have no judicial system.

We need to be able to laugh at ourselves

I WAS sort of displeased with the lady who thought that the Missourian's Swampeast contest jokes were not funny. I thought it was so hilarious that I sent it to my son in St. Louis. We need to have the ability to laugh at ourselves. I thought the responses were really good.

President is using the Senate

I HAVE been watching and reading with amusement the way Clinton is playing the Republican Senate. He nominates a person only because of his race, knowing he will not be confirmed. The Senate rejects him. Clinton calls it racism. He makes his points with the minorities, and the Senate is the fall guy.

An ode to stinging criticism

THE FOLLOWING Speak Out poem was inspired by the worst and most severe tongue-lashing given the Southeast Missourian by one Mark Carver. Mr. Carver is the vice president of the Cape Girardeau Board of Education. Carver took the newspaper to task for allegedly not recognizing the superiority of Central High School's marching band when compared with other area bands. The title of the four-line poem is "Grrrrrrr."

Cape Central High School's marching band

Is no doubt the greatest in the land.

Missourian, get thine head out of the sand

Or suffer the back of Mark Carver's hand.

Stranded motorist looks like a scam

I'M CALLING to let everyone know about a scam that's going on in Cape Girardeau. On Sept. 14 or 15 I was in the Sears parking lot and was approached by a gentleman who first asked if I was a church-going person. I replied yes, and he said good, he was too. He said he was stuck and needed to get to Olive Branch, and needed money or a used battery. I gave him $5. Today I was approached by the same gentleman who said the same thing. I think he's just trying to get money. So if you see him and are approached by him, unless he's been stranded in Cape for the past month, I believe that this is a scam. Don't give him your money.