SPEAKOUT

Customer service unparalleled

THE WONDERFUL attention the Southeast Missourian gives to customer service and satisfaction is unparalleled in the history of journalism.

Look at their records

YES, FOLKS out there, forget whether you're Republican or Democrat and look at the records of Ashcroft and Peter Kinder. I think if you look at their records, you'll be ready to turn them out when they run for office again.

Wrong about place of death

THIS IS to the caller who's article said that President Roosevelt died at Hot Springs. Well, that's wrong along with everything else in his comment. President Roosevelt died at Hyde Park, his personal Shangri La.

REPLY: As it turns out FDR died April 12, 1945, of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Ga.

Take down the beer signs

I'M CALLING about the white beer signs that are still hanging on the old Buckner-Ragsdale building downtown. I imagine it's left over from Riverfest. I see it several times a week, and I think it really looks tacky and really should be taken down.

Bad neighbors? Listen to this

TO THE person who called in saying they had bad neighbors. Well, I've got one for you. There are people who can't even mow their lawn without the neighbors coming out to watch, and if the adults are too busy, they send their daughter. Just recently, these neighbors have started cutting down bushes, which took a lot of time to plant, and a half-grown tree. I'm sure that these people who have the bad neighbors who cut down tree and plants would gladly trade in barbecue smoke for destructiveness any day.

Accountability for the fans

IT SEEMS we're at that time of year where it's very hot and they're calling for fans to be donated or given to certain organizations to give out to the needy people who maybe don't have air conditioning. This is very good and very noble, but I want to know why we need so many fans every year? What happened to the fans that were given out last year? Do they sell them at a garage sale at the end of the summer and then wait for a new free fans next year? There needs to be some accountability, doesn't there?

You need a map to get there

I FOUND it very aggravating trying to drive through Cape recently with all the road construction. How about a map in the Cape paper ever once in a while showing us which roads are closed? It would save us a lot of headaches.

Another perspective of FDR

TO THE mean-spirited Republican who replied to the gentleman's answer about Dan Quayle and Bill Clinton: President Roosevelt, this person claimed, had his lover by his side when he died at Warm Springs. False. President Roosevelt was posing for a picture. A Russian artist was painting his picture. The woman alleged to be his lover was there at the house visiting. There was maids and butlers all around because President Roosevelt was confined to a wheelchair. He was at the age of 63 in a 95-year-old man's body. That's how bad a condition he was in. He deteriorated all those 12 years in office, because it made him in poor health trying to straighten out the Republican blunders. It took him that long to straighten things out. That's how he became the tired, old man in the White House. This person ought to be ashamed. That's the only way Republicans feel they can get ahead is blast the dead or the candidates' wives. They never did work very fair. That's all they do is pull dirty politics. That's a typical, Republican answer.

Pretty good wages on the river

THIS IS about the story about the pilot strike and the wages. Well, it figures out about $20 an hour. That's pretty good wages. I'm a union truck driver. I make $18.40 an hour. I don't know what his big gripe is. He doesn't work any more hours than a truck driver does. And I just think it's pretty good wages, $20 an hour.

Levee could save farmland too

PEOPLE SEEM to have been led to believe that a levee protecting Dutchtown will protect the area farmers. This is completely false. No farmer in the Dutchtown area will benefit from this. The levee will only protect the town of Dutchtown. Rather than build a levee to protect just Dutchtown, it only makes common sense to raze the existing north ditch levee. This would cost the same amount of money, save Dutchtown and protect thousands of acres of farmland at the same time.

Lots of jobs -- but with low wages

I WANT to comment about all the people calling in telling us how good the economy is and how many jobs there are. There are a lot of jobs because everybody now has to have two or three to make a go of it. The women have to work. What's causing this is the Clinton crunch. That's what's keeping the economy up. We have high taxes, and the government's got plenty of money to spend on programs, so it looks like we've got jobs. There are a lot of jobs with low wages. People aren't getting raises like they used to back in the '80s. Clinton has done more to hurt the working man than any other president by signing all these international trade treaties. He signed GATT and NAFTA. Now GM is getting ready to move almost all of its plants to Mexico and South America. Now China's getting into it. Just go to the store and look at all the places products come from. Most of them will be China. And this all has happened since Clinton took the campaign contributions from the Chinese, and he's over there thanking them now. Why didn't he go to someplace like Germany or Japan? Think of your children. The melody's going linger on because what Clinton set up, these high taxes and low wages, is going to stay with us from now on. He's the president that reversed all the stuff Reagan did.