SPEAKOUT

Find happiness in Costa Rica?

IF DR. Alan Journet is so impressed with how many light years ahead of us Costa Rica is, I would suggest he get a teaching position down there so he can live somewhere he would be happy. I am so sick of reading his garbage in the paper I could barf.

Suggested cartoon for current events

I HAVE an idea for an editorial cartoon on current affairs. Picture a Secret Service agent tiptoeing into President Clinton's bedroom at night. He raises the cover to determine if it is Hillary or someone else. Ken Starr is outside waiting for the information. That's it.

One more vote for the right side

WHEN I was a young man at home many years ago, I milked four to six cows by hand each morning and night. I can tell you if you sat down on the left side of any one of those cows you would have been kicked out of your chair. Melvin needs to change sides.

Dogs leave mess at ballparks

I AM calling about the dogs being brought out to Arena Park with all the baseball and softball games. I was at a softball game the other night, and I am very upset. And it's not just one family. It's several of them who bring dogs. Here I am cleaning dog poop off my shoe. You can sit out there in places and smell the odor of the dog poop. I just can't understand why if they are going to bring them they aren't forced to bring a scoop to clean up after them. If our kids did that we'd clean up after them. What is the problem?

Gentle reprimand from an old friend

I'M FROM the same community Melvin Gately grew up in, and I know him and his family from long ago. In my opinion he is probably one of the most valuable citizens Cape has had in many years. However, he has obviously forgotten his milk cow etiquette. Melvin, you are on the wrong side of that cow, old boy.

Justice prevailed in the end

I WOULD just like to say that I am glad to see Randy Curl was found innocent of the charges against him. I don't believe he is guilty, and I think they were just pointing the finger at him and trying to get him to take the rap for something that I believe more than just he knew was going on. And I would just like to say that I think justice did prevail.

Common sense and the speed limit

I'M CALLING in regard to the gentleman who had something to say about the ignorant, slow drivers in Missouri. I think he has a grudge against life. I am one of those ignorant, slow drivers, and I am still alive. I haven't seen very many ignorant, slow drivers dead along the side of the road. I've seen a lot of people who were in a hurry dead on the side of the road. I wish these people who are in such a big hurry and have all day to get there and no place to go would slow down just 5 mph. If you are doing 55 mph on a 55 mph road, you are going to get there on time if you get up in time to get there. It's not ignorance. It's common sense. People who have common sense drive the speed limit.

Clinton better than Reagan or Bush

AS FAR as I'm concerned, I would just as soon Bill Clinton have sex with every woman in the White House. That would not be as bad as what Ronald Reagan and George Bush and what they did to the national debt. What they did was criminal. The country is now a stronger, better nation. These two phonies where running around giving the idea that this country was so great and that America was standing proud. They were pushing us down to our knees.

Gossip is hurting both parties

KEN STARR is actually harming the Republicans and the Democrats. All of this is just ridiculous. Our president is a human being, and we should respect him. I read about many presidents, and they have done far worse things than this. Among the media, people in this country and the people in a small town like Cape Girardeau, gossip breeds.

Warning for negligent parents

MOTHERS WHO are raising children alone, why do you put yourself first? Perhaps your childhood wasn't the greatest, but does that make it right to punish them? You don't have anyone fooled about being perfect. In fact, some of you are going to make a wrong move and be without your children. Sometimes I think that's what would make you happier. You tell your children not to drink but come home late intoxicated. You tell them not to smoke but do it in front of them. You yell at them in front of their friends. These children will leave you as soon as possible, and you will say, "I did everything for them." Yes, you did. You taught them to turn out just like you.

Anyone who disagrees is a liberal

SENATOR KINDER, you are one big crybaby. You whimper about the liberal media. You work for one of the most biased newspapers in the country. You live in a heavily Republican area. The problem with McCarthyism was that honest loyal Americans who disagreed were dirty Communists. Now Republicans have replaced "Communist" with "liberal," a beautiful word also meaning generous, as a dirty, un-American person for loyal Americans who disagree with you. People have a right to their own opinions and to disagree with you, your editor and your owner. That doesn't make them bad people. You are one weird senator if you demand that your constituents must all agree with you and the Missourian. Grow up, Senator.

Milking the cash cow is the problem

I JOIN with many Speak Out callers in condemning Cape Councilman Melvin Gateley for allegedly milking a cow on the wrong side. As it has been said, there is no wrong side on which to milk a cow. The only cow I worry about politicians milking is the cash one.

Gas prices soar over holidays

MY COMMENT is about money-hungry gas stations. A few days before the Fourth of July weekend, Cape stations raised prices to $1.05 a gallon. The next day they lowered the prices to $1.04. Now they have lowered their prices to 99 cents a gallon. You can't tell me that the gas prices from their distributors have gone up and down so fast. It just looks to me like they are money hungry for holiday weekend business when they know people are out traveling. I think it is a terrible thing for a merchant in business to gauge their customers that way.

Show patriotism through recycling

AMERICA IS the most wonderful country on Earth. Here is a simple way to show our patriotism. Take your church bulletins, used envelopes, junk mail and light paper and place them in a bag beside your trash can. Have another bag for glass, aluminum foil, soda cans and tin cans. Place the bags at the curb when the recycling truck comes to your neighborhood. It's so easy. Keep America beautiful and be a good steward of our valuable resources.

It's a matter of interpretation

A SPEAK Out caller recently seemed to say that Linda Tripp's audio tape would serve as unchallengeable proof in the Monica Lewinsky case. Sorry, caller, it's not that simple. Things rarely speak for themselves. There's something called interpretation, context and so forth. Surely you haven't forgotten the hubbub over the meaning of the Rodney King videotape.

Where's the Bloomfield Road project

I SEE the university and the city are at it again. If there is to be a fund-raising campaign, I think corporations and foundations should make donations to the new trade school to be built. Not all residents of Cape are college material or even want to go to college. Many would prefer to learn a good trade. So let's work together to complete that project. As far as an extension on the city road tax, I say no. Bloomfield Road was to be started a year ago. Nothing has been done to date, and it is not mentioned in the Southeast Missourian story. Bloomfield is one of the busiest lane-and-a-half -- not two lanes -- roads in Cape. When is it now to be started?

REPLY: As reported in the Southeast Missourian's story, The preliminary design has been completed for upgrading Bloomfield Road from Kingshighway to I-55. The final design is being completed by the city's contracted engineering firm, and right-of-way descriptions are being written.

Here's where to send those tea bags

I APPRECIATED the comment about sending tea bags to Al Gore. My basic phone bill is $6.20. You take the taxes and other add-ons, and they total $7.11 -- or nearly a dollar more than the basic phone bill. That does not include Al Gore's added tax for Internet connections to all the schools. One thing left out was how to get to the vice president. I had trouble getting the address:

Vice President Al Gore Jr

Old Executive Office Building

Washington, D.C. 20501

I will supply tea bags if anyone needs spares. We should all send him one.

Solve SEMO parking problem first

I WAS reading in the paper about the fund drive for SEMO. The last thing I would do is participate in a fund drive for them so they could get more students, because there is no parking for the ones they have. It is very frustrating to get to class. I am a nontraditional student. There are a lot of us. We have families and jobs. It takes an awful lot of time, plus some of us aren't in the best of shape, to go running up the hills anymore. Until they get decent parking for the students they have, I can't see encouraging more to come. I have been in classes where the teachers are late because there is no place for them to park either.

Complaints about job discrimination

I HAVE a comment on affirmative action and discrimination. I am a white male, 42 years old. Since 1974, I have tried to get government and civil jobs, and I was always the person put out because I was a white male. They had to hire the minority with an ethnic background. Now after 42 years, I got out of my field and wanted to go into something I enjoyed. I tried to get a job as a travel agent. I went through a five-week course in St. Louis, and I find out it is just a discriminatory thing. If you are a white male you won't get a job. I am really mad because there is nothing you can do about it. I didn't know the travel business was a woman-oriented field. This is what I wanted to do. Nine out of 10 travel agents are women. It really bugged me.

Why put burden on one family and its customers?

NO MORE extended tax or added tax. Ninety-five percent of Cape's motels are owned by one family. This family keeps a big party of Cape's working class employed. It gives senior citizen's discounts and discounted rates to families of hospital patients. It has given graciously to Cape Girardeau's needs. Why penalize them and their customers with another tax? This tax increase for the college and extended tax increase for roads has to be stopped now. I am not from the family mentioned above, just someone who can see the good they have done.

Senator's spin won't fly

PETER KINDER recently spilled a lot of ink trying to convince readers that the failed effort to get Gene Copeland was not an effort to get Gene Copeland. I'll be darned, I guess the extensive FBI interrogation was just a friendly little get-together and chat. In addition, Kinder referred to Copeland as "my friend Gene." I started to call Copeland and get his view on that, but I didn't because I thought it might precipitate a stroke. These two spins on the story from Kinder illustrate what in political-ese is known as distancing. It seems to me that the astute senator recognizes that the largely failed effort to prove widespread election fraud in Mississippi County has resulted in a severe backlash against Republicans. I don't blame Kinder for the spin he is giving the story. The question is, will it fly with the public? I doubt it.

Debris left from razed house

ANOTHER GOOD example of the city not enforcing their ordinances: I am speaking of the house that was torn down on South Ellis Street just off William Street. I was of the understanding that this was to done and cleaned up in 45 days. This junk has been there for at least five to six weeks with no activity to clean it up. I simply can't understand why the city has all these ordinances and then doesn't enforce them.

Democrats like to spend your money

I READ in Speak Out about people talking about liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans. As I see it, a better description is a conservative would rather keep the money he makes, and a liberal would rather the government take someone else's money and give some of it to them. It's always using someone else's money to help other's through taxes. You don't hear many of the rich people like Ted Kennedy giving hundreds of million dollars to charity. It's always tax and give somebody else's money away.

Now we see where the priorities are

I READ that the Gingrich majority in Congress voted to eliminate home heating aid for the poor and summer employment for the young. Home heating aid helps 4.4 million households with the cost of heating their households in winter. The $1.1 billion program helps people, many elderly, avoid a choice between food and heat. Conservatives don't like subsidies and argue with the price of oil declining the help isn't needed. Summer job programs help finance jobs for 530,000 teen-agers, and the cost is $871 million a year. It helps get kids off the street and gives them job experience. Summer job programs were eliminated in one House panel. Another House panel favored giving the Navy $400 million for transport planes they didn't ask for. The planes were to be built in Gingrich's district.

Columnist should know aliens are here

SOMETIMES I am baffled by columnist Jack Stapleton. At times I think he is the smartest man on the planet. At other times -- well, judge for yourself. Stapleton recently began an otherwise brilliant column with the following: "If an alien from other space were to land on earth... ." Jack, hello, Jack. Don't you read the Southeast Missourian? We've been here since 1941.

A replacement for Ken Starr?

MOVE OVER Ken Starr. Here comes David Barklage.

Democrats understand value of a vote

AREA REPUBLICANS should be ashamed of themselves. They are supposed to be the party of business. Many of their constituents are in the business of buying and selling. And yet if the stories of buying and selling votes in the Bootheel are true, Democrats are a lot better at it than Republicans.

I WANT to comment to the person who said that doctors are mostly Republicans. Maybe this is true because doctors, after all, are feeling they have to care what is best for their patients. On the other hand, most of these lawyers are Democrats. Trial lawyers are giving all this money to Clinton. They back him because they want to the right to sue and run up medical bills over frivolous lawsuits. They don't want caps on how much they can collect. Look at what they are doing with the Clinton defense team. That is a bunch of lawyers who are twisting the law to keep Clinton out of jail and to keep the public from finding out the truth about what all he's done. It's not working all that well. The truth will come out. These lawyers are perverting the Constitution, and they just make the law say whatever they want. Doctors can't do that. There is an absolute in medicine, because you have to give a person the right medicine. Lawyers make the law say whatever a good lawyer can say. We all know what happened in the O.J. Simpson case. That's why I think this person calling in is a Democrat. Evidently he doesn't care about his country or the fact that the Democrats may be giving his grandchildren a 95 percent tax rate. All these Democrats want is what they can get, and they don't care about anyone else. Democrats have brought the country to the point that it is today.

REPLY: Just for the sake of argument, consider the frequent Speak Out comments that say Democrats are in favor of higher taxes. This call suggests the rate could become as high as 95 percent. Wouldn't Democrats have to pay the same high tax rate?

Bridge access should be same on both sides

THIS IS in regard to the new bridge over the Mississippi River. I understand Illinois Highway 146 is going to be just a two-lane road to Highway 3. This just doesn't make sense after all the work that has been done on the bridge and with the Missouri side all four lanes. You are going to have a four-lane bridge and traffic going back into a two lane to Highway 3. It was just my thought that this was kind of asinine on Illinois's part.