SPEAKOUT

Story with a happy ending

I READ the article about the lady who was divorced seven years and attending a divorce seminar for the second time. It seems to me that this lady is living in the past and the seminar didn't do very much good for her the first time around. Perhaps she needs professional help or she could take a lesson from my mom and get a life. My mom remarried after three years. She and her new husband travel, and I have never seen her happier than she's been right now. Incidentally, I didn't lose my father. He and I are very close. I just got a second one in the deal.

Need more multilevel garages at SEMO

GOOD AND double-good for SEMO University. They have come alive just a little bit. They plan on building a three-deck parking garage. Why not four or five three-deck parking garages? This improvement is about 35 or 40 years behind the times, but one high-rise garage is not nearly enough.

Support for Clinton in Leopold

IN RESPONSE to Sen. Peter Kinder's visit to Leopold High School and his comments. I was one of those students who was there. His comments were strictly the Republican view. My family is Democratic, and so will I be. Everyone feels it's time to put this alleged scandal behind us. The only way Kinder and his Republican friends will let this happen is if President Clinton is removed from office. Thank you, Sen. Kinder, for visiting our school, but everyone doesn't agree with your views. President Clinton is doing a good job, and I would recommend that he keep his position as president of the United States.

Response on anesthesia

I AM calling in response to Dr. Steiger's letter to the editor regarding anesthesia. Dr. Steiger's letter was misleading and insulting to nurse anesthesia. Anesthesiology is the study of anesthesia. It is a nursing issue as well as a medical issue. Nurse anesthetists are highly trained and extremely knowledgeable in the practice of anesthesia. I think Dr. Steiger is not as concerned about patient care as he is about losing control over anesthesia dollars.

Where two or three are gathered ...

CONCERNING THE complaint about the scheduling of the Christian group singing on the same night as Maundy Thursday. In the Bible it says: Where two or three are gathered together, there am I.

St. Louis medical care is less expensive

I'VE BEEN reading all the letters concerning the excessive cost of health care in the Cape Girardeau area. They by no means exaggerate the situation. I'm insured by one of the largest health insurance companies in Missouri, if not the largest, but my insurance coverage is not accepted in Cape Girardeau. I finally had enough of the Cape Girardeau medical establishment. I began going to a St. Louis medical group for treatment. My first visit to the St. Louis group including new-patient cost was $25 less than a regular office visit in Cape Girardeau. Subsequent office visits were even more reasonable. I've had numerous tests done through the St. Louis group, all of which were at least 33 percent less expensive than the same test when conducted in Cape Girardeau.

Concern about even higher costs

I HAVE a medical procedure done every five years. Within the last five years the cost of the doctor has more than doubled, the cost of the hospital has more than doubled, and I don't think any of our wages have doubled in the last five years. But if the hospitals do merge, I just imagine the cost of this same procedure will triple overnight.

Let city employees pay golf fees

JUST A little information for Speak Out. I noticed that the city is wanting to raise the golf fees in all the city. If you'll check, you see that any employee for the city which includes police department, garbage drivers or anybody that's on any kind of advisory board gets to play golf free at the Jaycees course. I have a solution. If they would just pay $1 a day, then you wouldn't have to raise the fee every year. Sometimes when you go out to the Jaycees, the list for free playing golf with all city employees and advisory people is a lot more just the regular ones. So, if you just charge a minimum fee of $1 per day, you would answer that problem. I don't think anybody's aware that there's probably several hundred people who play free.

Hooray for nurse anesthetists

BRAVO TO the nurse anesthetists. I applaud them for standing up to the doctors who think they are Godlike, and there are many of them.

Parent should be held responsible

I THINK it's a shame that so many people have been injured with guns. Why don't the parents have to go to jail for not having the guns locked up? I think it's about time the parents get punished for what their children are doing.

How about the SEMO Baggies?

I AM a Southeast alumnus, and I think we ought to keep the mascot as Indian. But they want to get politically correct. They could change the name to the Baggies. Southeast wants to be known as a business school, and around the area agriculture has been a big business for a long, long time. So you take the B from business and the aggie from agriculture, you get the Baggies.

Idiocy doesn't depend on party

I'M CALLING to say that I'm angry over a caller who would make a remark that Democrats want to keep kids dumb just for votes. I am a Democrat. I have a son in college who is going after a double degree. I do not think anybody with any kind of intelligence could make such a remark. So my only hope is that Republicans would do the same as everybody else and say that idiocy doesn't depend upon political parties, it depends on the individual. And this person happens to show that he lacks everything including character.

Violence is all around us

IT'S HAPPENED in Mississippi and in Kentucky, and now it's happened in Arkansas. Why, as Missourians, we would ever think that we would be exempt from rampaging children on violent gun sprees, I have no idea. We're not any different from these people. These are small towns. They're in the Midwest just like we are. It's time to wake up, smell the coffee, get your head out of the sand and all those other cliches. But it boils down to one thing: If we do not do something really quick, it's going to happen here too. You cannot predict violence. Violence isn't geographical. It doesn't just happen in the inner cities and the urban areas. There are some parents at Scott City trying to get up a petition for metal detectors in their schools. I applaud that. If I lived there, I'd vote for it. I say that's not enough. Security cameras, security guards and police officers are also necessary. It might make the schools look like an occupied military state, but would you rather have them uncomfortable and alive or free-roaming and dead? What in the world are we going to do now when children as young as 11 and 13 can think of something so diabolical as to stage a fire drill so that they can pick off children like shooting ducks in a barrel when they get outside. Let's not forget a teacher was killed too. This is a dangerous, violent world we live in, and it knows no geographical boundaries. We need gun control and parental responsibility like life sentences along with their children for being so irresponsible.