SPEAKOUT

It takes a bureaucrat to spot a wetland

SO A wetland blocks new school construction. We sure are lucky to have bureaucrats who can show us a wetland when we can't see it ourselves. What idiocy. We are fools to put up with such tyranny.

Leave it like it is, please

I THINK Cape Girardeau and Jackson are trying to annex property and take our nice pretty trees away and put in roads. I would like for them to leave like it is.

Gospel groups: Go to nursing homes

WHEN BEST-loved gospel groups come to the Cape Girardeau area, why don't they visit the nursing homes in the area? All they'd have to do is take one afternoon.

Oil and sex equal Desert Blunder

I NOTICED that Bill Clinton is calling the planned bombing of Iraq Desert Thunder. Well, I've got a name for. I call it Desert Blunder. The only thing this is being done for is oil, and to get our minds off these sex scandals. Oil and sex makes for Desert Blunder.

New source of ticket revenue?

FOR SEVERAL years, it's been a law that you had to have insurance to drive in Missouri. The state fine was $200. The first of January this year the law changed that the arresting entity gets half of the fine, or $100. I've read your police report for many years and have never seen a charge for failure to show proof of insurance until the first of this year. Is it the violators we're after, or the money?

Police change shopping habits

I USED to shop Jackson, my wife and I, but the last few times we've been there, we stopped at my brother's house, had dinner and played cards. Then coming home the police always stop us, saying we crossed the line or didn't give a turn signal. This happened about three times in the last three or five months. Now we just make a practice to go out to the west side of Cape to do our shopping. It's easier.

Cancer patients, not victims

I READ in the paper about the cancer and survivors, and I appreciated the article. However, I would point out that I would prefer to use the term cancer patients as opposed to cancer victims. Many of us are not victims yet.

Fund raiser shows we need national plan

I JUST went to a fund raiser for a really nice lady, a former country-western singer. She has cancer and no insurance. I thought about how awful that is. Fortunately, all of her friends like myself were able to get together and contribute for the fund raiser. But how many aren't that fortunate? There's no such thing as being fortunate and having cancer. But she does have a lot of friends, which I thank God for, because she does not have health insurance, something the first lady and President Clinton wanted to give us: national health care, so people like her wouldn't have to worry. So when the Gramms and the Gingrichs all say hallelujah, they're glad they defeated national health care, shame on them. That's something we really need. I could see it when I went to that fund raiser. So I think this something should be No. 1 on the agenda. This is the '90s, and we need it desperately.

RV parks attract good tourists

TO THE caller who thinks that RVs are nothing more but mobile homes on wheels: They are to a certain extent, but most of those RVs cost more probably more than your house cost. I have an RV, and most of the people in those RVs at campgrounds are nice people. There's never trouble at campgrounds, and they keep up their property. They're just a whole different type of people than the people you typically think of in trailer parks, and they do not stay forever. They come, they look around, they stay a few days and then they leave. I don't know what you're complaining about. It seems the city needs some way to attract tourism. There isn't a place for RVs or trailers on wheels to park and come to this area except out of Trail of Tears, and that's kind of far out to go around and see anything in Cape. It would seem to me to be a boon for the city to have an RV park down by the river.

Let them write letters to each other

I WONDER if we couldn't get Donn Miller and Ray Umbdenstock to correspond directly with each other? It would save space in the paper for something important.

The birds are here

THIS GOES out to the caller in Scott City that said she didn't know where all the birds are. It's only snowed one time this winter. There are birds everywhere. Just look around.